chapter 4._

"The religious bodies, instead of uniting in their common defence, seem to have awaited singly their fate with the apathy of despair. A few houses only, through the agency of their friends, sought to purchase the royal favour with offers of money and lands; but the rapacity of the king refused to accept a part when the whole was at his mercy."

_J. Lingard, History of England, volume 6, chapter 4._

Some of the social results of the suppression "may be summed up in a few words. The creation of a large class of poor to whose poverty was attached the stigma of crime; the division of class from class, the rich mounting up to place and power, the poor sinking to lower depths; destruction of custom as a check upon the exactions of landlords; the loss by the poor of those foundations at schools and universities intended for their children, and the passing away of ecclesiastical tithes into the hands of lay owners."

_F. A. Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, volume 2, page 523._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1536-1543. Trial and execution of Anne Boleyn. Her successors, the later wives of Henry VIII.

Anne Boleyn had been secretly married to the king in January, 1533, and had been crowned on Whitsunday of that year. "The princess Elizabeth, the only surviving child, was born on the 7th of September following. ... The death of Catherine, which happened at Kimbolton on the 29th of January, 1536, seemed to leave queen Anne in undisturbed possession of her splendid seat." But the fickle king had now "cast his affections on Jane Seymour, the daughter of Sir John Seymour, a young lady then of the Queen's bed-chamber, as Anne herself had been in that of Catherine." Having lost her charms in the eyes of the lustful despot who had wedded her, her influence was gone-- and her safety. Charges were soon brought against the unfortunate woman, a commission (her own father included in it) appointed to inquire into her alleged misdeeds, and "on the 10th of May an indictment for high treason was found by the grand jury of Westminster against the Lady Anne, Queen of England; Henry Norris, groom of the stole; Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton, gentlemen of the privy chamber; and Mark Smeaton, a performer on musical instruments, and a person 'of low degree,' promoted to be a groom of the chamber for his skill in the fine art which he professed. It charges the queen with having, by all sorts of bribes, gifts, caresses, and impure blandishments, which are described with unblushing coarseness in the barbarous Latinity of the indictment, allured these members of the royal household into a course of criminal connection with her, which had been carried on for three years. It included also George Boleyn viscount Rochford, the brother of Anne, as enticed by the same lures and snares with the rest of the accused, so as to have become the accomplice of his sister, by sharing her treachery and infidelity to the king. It is hard to believe that Anne could have dared to lead a life so unnaturally dissolute, without such vices being more early and very generally known in a watchful and adverse court. {832} It is still more improbable that she should in every instance be the seducer. ... Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeaton were tried before a commission of oyer and terminer at Westminster, on the 12th of May, two days after the bill against them was found. They all, except Smeaton, firmly denied their guilt to the last moment. On Smeaton's confession it must be observed that we know not how it was obtained, how far it extended, or what were the conditions of it. ... On the 12th of May, the four commoners were condemned to die. Their sentence was carried into effect amidst the plaints of the bystanders. ... On the 15th of May, queen Anne and her brother Rochford were tried." The place of trial was in the Tower, "which concealed from the public eye whatever might be wanting in justice." Condemnation duly followed, and the unhappy queen was executed May 19, 1536. The king lost little time in wedding Jane Seymour. "She died in childbed of Edward VI. on the 13th of October, 1537. The next choice made by or for Henry, who remained a widower for the period of more than two years," was the "princess Anne, sister of the duke of Cleves, a considerable prince on the lower Rhine. ... The pencil of Holbein was employed to paint this lady for the king, who, pleased by the execution, gave the flattering artist credit for a faithful likeness. He met her at Dover, and almost immediately betrayed his disappointment. Without descending into disgusting particulars, it is necessary to state that, though the marriage was solemnised, the king treated the princess of Cleves as a friend." At length, by common action of an obsequious parliament and a more obsequious convocation of the church, the marriage was declared to be annulled, for reasons not specified. The consent of the repudiated wife was "insured by a liberal income of £3,000 a year, and she lived for 16 years in England with the title of princess Anne of Cleves. ... This annulment once more displayed the triumph of an English lady over a foreign princess." The lady who now captivated the brutally amorous monarch was lady Catherine Howard, niece to the duke of Norfolk, who became queen on the 8th of August, 1540. In the following November, the king received such information of lady Catherine's dissolute life before marriage "as immediately caused a rigid inquiry into her behaviour. ... The confessions of Catherine and of lady Rochford, upon which they were attainted in parliament, and executed in the Tower on the 14th of February, are not said to have been at any time questioned. ... On the 10th of July, 1543, Henry wedded Catherine Parr, the widow of Lord Latimer, a lady of mature age," who survived him.

_Sir J. Mackintosh, History of England (L. L. C.), volume 2, chapters 7-8._

ALSO IN: _P. Friedmann, Ann Boleyn._

_H. W. Herbert, Memoirs of Henry VIII. and his Six Wives._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1539. The Reformation checked. The Six Articles.

"Yielding to the pressure of circumstances, he [Henry VIII.] had allowed the Reformers to go further than he really approved. The separation from the Church of Rome, the absorption by the Crown of the powers of the Papacy, the unity of authority over both Church and State centred in himself, had been his objects. In doctrinal matters he clung to the Church of which he had once been the champion. He had gained his objects because he had the feeling of the nation with him. In his eagerness he had even countenanced some steps of doctrinal reform. But circumstances had changed. ... Without detriment to his position he could follow his natural inclinations. He listened, therefore, to the advice of the reactionary party, of which Norfolk was the head. They were full of bitterness against the upstart Cromwell, and longed to overthrow him as they had overthrown Wolsey. The first step in their triumph was the bill of the Six Articles, carried in the Parliament of 1539. These laid down and fenced round with extraordinary severity the chief points of the Catholic religion at that time questioned by the Protestants. The bill enacted, first, 'that the natural body and blood of Jesus Christ were present in the Blessed Sacrament,' and that 'after consecration there remained no substance of bread and wine, nor any other but the substance of Christ'; whoever, by word or writing, denied this article was a heretic, and to be burned. Secondly, the Communion in both kinds was not necessary, both body and blood being present in each element; thirdly, priests might not marry; fourthly, vows of chastity by man or woman ought to be observed; fifthly, private masses ought to be continued; sixthly, auricular confession must be retained. Whoever wrote or spoke against these ... Articles, on the first offence his property was forfeited; on the second offence he was a felon, and was put to death. Under this 'whip with six strings' the kingdom continued for the rest of the reign. The Bishops at first made wild work with it. Five hundred persons are said to have been arrested in a fortnight; the king had twice to interfere and grant pardons. It is believed that only twenty-eight persons actually suffered death under it."

_J. F. Bright, History of England, volume 2, page 411._

ALSO IN: _J. H. Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England, volume 1, chapter 8-9._

_S. H. Burke, Men and Women of the English Reformation, volume 2, pages 17-24._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1542-1547. Alliance with Charles V. against Francis I. Capture and restoration of Boulogne. Treaty of Guines.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1544-1548. The wooing of Mary Queen of Scots.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1544-1548.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1547. Accession of King Edward VI.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1547-1553. The completing of the Reformation.

Henry VIII., dying on the 28th of January, 1547, was succeeded by his son Edward,--child of Jane Seymour,--then only nine years old. By the will of his father, the young king (Edward VI.) was to attain his majority at eighteen, and the government of his kingdom, in the meantime, was entrusted to a body of sixteen executors, with a second body of twelve councillors to assist with their advice. "But the first act of the executors and counsellors was to depart from the destination of the late king in a material article. No sooner were they met, than it was suggested that the government would lose its dignity for want of some head who might represent the royal majesty." The suggestion was opposed by none except the chancellor, Wriothesley,--soon afterwards raised to the peerage as Earl of Southampton. "It being therefore agreed to name a protector, the choice fell of course on the Earl of Hertford [afterwards Duke of Somerset], who, as he was the king's maternal uncle, was strongly interested in his safety." {833} The protector soon manifested an ambition to exercise his almost royal authority without any constraint, and, having found means to remove his principal opponent, Southampton, from the chancellorship, and to send him into disgrace, he procured a patent from the infant king which gave him unbounded power. With this power in his hand he speedily undertook to carry the work of church reform far beyond the intentions of Henry VIII. "The extensive authority and imperious character of Henry had retained the partisans of both religions in subjection; but upon his demise, the hopes of the Protestants, and the fears of the Catholics began to revive, and the zeal of these parties produced every where disputes and animosities, the usual preludes to more fatal divisions. The protector had long been regarded as a secret partisan of the reformers; and being now freed from restraint, he scrupled not to discover his intention of correcting all abuses in the ancient religion, and of adopting still more of the Protestant innovations. He took care that all persons intrusted with the king's education should be attached to the same principles; and as the young prince discovered a zeal for every kind of literature, especially the theological, far beyond his tender years, all men foresaw, in the course of his reign, the total abolition of the Catholic faith in England; and they early began to declare themselves in favour of those tenets which were likely to become in the end entirely prevalent. After Southhampton's fall, few members of the council seemed to retain any attachment to the Romish communion; and most of the counsellors appeared even sanguine in forwarding the progress of the reformation. The riches which most of them had acquired from the spoils of the clergy, induced them to widen the breach between England and Rome; and by establishing a contrariety of speculative tenets, as well as of discipline and worship, to render a coalition with the mother church altogether impracticable. Their rapacity, also, the chief source of their reforming spirit, was excited by the prospect of pillaging the secular, as they had already done the regular clergy; and they knew, that while any share of the old principles remained, or any regard to the ecclesiastics, they could never hope to succeed in that enterprise. The numerous and burdensome superstitions with which the Romish church was loaded had thrown many of the reformers, by the spirit of opposition, into an enthusiastic strain of devotion; and all rites, ceremonies, pomp, order, and extreme observances were zealously proscribed by them, as hindrances to their spiritual contemplations, and obstructions to their immediate converse with heaven."

_D. Hume, History of England, volume 3, chapter 34._

"'This year' [1547] says a contemporary, 'the Archbishop of Canterbury [Cranmer] did eat meat openly in Lent in the hall of Lambeth, the like of which was never seen since England was a Christian country.' This significant act was followed by a rapid succession of sweeping changes. The legal prohibitions of Lollardry were removed; the Six Articles were repealed; a royal injunction removed all pictures and images from the churches; priests were permitted to marry; the new communion which had taken the place of the mass was ordered to be administered in both kinds, and in the English tongue; an English Book of Common Prayer, the Liturgy, which with slight alterations is still used in the Church of England, replaced the missal and breviary, from which its contents are mainly drawn; a new catechism embodied the doctrines of Cranmer and his friends; and a Book of Homilies compiled in the same sense was appointed to be read in churches. ... The power of preaching was restricted by the issue of licenses only to the friends of the Primate. ... The assent of the nobles about the Court was won by the suppression of chantries and religious guilds, and by glutting their greed with the last spoils of the Church. German and Italian mercenaries were introduced to stamp out the wider popular discontent which broke out in the East, in the West, and in the Midland counties. ... The rule of the upstart nobles who formed the Council of Regency became simply a rule of terror. 'The greater part of the people,' one of their creatures, Cecil, avowed, 'is not in favour of defending this cause, but of aiding its adversaries, the greater part of the nobles who absent themselves from court, all the bishops save three or four, almost all the judges and lawyers, almost all the justices of the peace, the priests who can move their flocks any way; for the whole of the commonalty is in such a state of irritation that it will easily follow any stir towards change.' But with their triumph over the revolt, Cranmer and his colleagues advanced yet more boldly in the career of innovation. ... The Forty-two Articles of Religion, which were now [1552] introduced, though since reduced by omissions to thirty-nine, have remained to this day the formal standard of doctrine in the English Church."

_J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, chapter 7, section 1._

ALSO IN: _J. Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, book 2._

_G. Burnet, History of the Reformation of Church of England, volume 2, book 1._

_L. Von Ranke, History of England, book 2, chapter 6._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1548. First Act for encouragement of Newfoundland fisheries.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1553. The right of succession to the throne, on the death of Edward VI.

"If Henry VII. be considered as the stock of a new dynasty, it is clear that on mere principles of hereditary right, the crown would descend, first, to the issue of Henry VIII.; secondly, to those of [his elder sister] Margaret Tudor, queen of Scots; thirdly, to those of [his younger sister] Mary Tudor, queen of France. The title of Edward was on all principles equally undisputed; but Mary and Elizabeth might be considered as excluded by the sentence of nullity, which had been pronounced in the case of Catharine and in that of Anne Boleyn, both which sentences had been confirmed in parliament. They had been expressly pronounced to be illegitimate children. Their hereditary right of succession seemed thus to be taken away, and their pretensions rested solely on the conditional settlement of the crown on them, made by their father's will, in pursuance of authority granted to him by act of parliament. After Elizabeth Henry had placed the descendants of Mary, queen of France, passing by the progeny of his eldest sister Margaret. Mary of France, by her second marriage with Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, had two daughters,--lady Frances, who wedded Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset, created duke of Suffolk; and lady Elinor, who espoused Henry Clifford, earl of Cumberland. {834} Henry afterwards settled the crown by his will on the heirs of these two ladies successively, passing over his nieces themselves in silence. Northumberland obtained the hand of lady Jane Grey, the eldest daughter of Grey duke of Suffolk, by lady Frances Brandon, for lord Guilford Dudley, the admiral's son. The marriage was solemnised in May, 1553, and the fatal right of succession claimed by the house of Suffolk devolved on the excellent and unfortunate lady Jane."

_Sir J. Mackintosh, History of England, volume 2, chapter 9._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1553. Accession of Queen Mary.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1553. The doubtful conflict of religions.

"Great as was the number of those whom conviction or self interest enlisted under the Protestant banner, it appears plain that the Reformation moved on with too precipitate a step for the majority. The new doctrines prevailed in London, in many large towns, and in the eastern counties. But in the north and west of England, the body of the people were strictly Catholics. The clergy, though not very scrupulous about conforming to the innovations, were generally averse to most of them. And, in spite of the church lands, I imagine that most of the nobility, if not the gentry, inclined to the same persuasion. ... An historian, whose bias was certainly not unfavourable to Protestantism [Burnet, iii. 190, 196] confesses that all endeavours were too weak to overcome the aversion of the people towards reformation, and even intimates that German troops were sent for from Calais on account of the bigotry with which the bulk of the nation adhered to the old superstition. This is somewhat an humiliating admission, that the protestant faith was imposed upon our ancestors by a foreign army. ... It is certain that the re-establishment of popery on Mary's accession must have been acceptable to a large part, or perhaps to the majority, of the nation."

_H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, volume 1, chapter 2._

"Eight weeks and upwards passed between the proclaiming of Mary queen and the Parliament by her assembled; during which time two religions were together set on foot, Protestantism and Popery; the former hoping to be continued, the latter labouring to be restored. ... No small justling was there betwixt the zealous promoters of these contrary religions. The Protestants had possession on their side, and the protection of the laws lately made by King Edward, and still standing in free and full force unrepealed. ... The Papists put their ceremonies in execution, presuming on the queen's private practice and public countenance. ... Many which were neuters before, conceiving to which side the queen inclined, would not expect, but prevent her authority in alteration: so that superstition generally got ground in the kingdom. Thus it is in the evening twilight, wherein light and darkness at first may seem very equally matched, but the latter within little time doth solely prevail."

_T. Fuller, Church History of Britain, book 8, section 1, ¶ 5._

ALSO IN: J. II. Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England, volume 1; chapters 8-9.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1554. Wyat's Insurrection.

Queen Mary's marriage with Philip of Spain was opposed with great bitterness of popular feeling, especially in London and its neighborhood. Risings were undertaken in Kent, Devonshire, and the Midland counties, intended for the frustration of the marriage scheme; but they were ill-planned and soon suppressed. That in Kent, led by Sir Thomas Wyat, threatened to be formidable at first, and the Queen's troops retreated before it. Wyat, however, lost his opportunity for securing London, by delays, and his followers dispersed. He was taken prisoner and executed. "Four hundred persons are said to have suffered for this rebellion."

_D. Hume, History of England,