Events Preceding the Suppression

     
     
      Many causes and incidents contributed to the progress of the reformation in England, and to the demolition of the monasteries. Only a few of them can be given here, and they must be stated with a brevity that conveys no adequate conception of their profound significance.
      Henry VIII. ascended the throne, in the year 1509, when eighteen years of age. In 1517, Luther took his stand against Rome. Four years later Henry wrote a treatise in defence of the Seven Sacraments and in opposition to the German reformer. For this princely service to the church the king received the title “Defender of the Faith” from Pope Leo X.
      About 1527 it became known that Henry was questioning the validity of his marriage with Catharine of Aragon, whom he had married when he was twelve years old. She was the widow of his brother Arthur. The king professed conscientious scruples about his marriage, but undoubtedly his desire for male offspring, and later, his passion for Anne Boleyn, prompted him to seek release from his queen. In 1529, Henry and Catharine stood before a papal tribunal, presided over by Cardinal Wolsey, the king's prime minister, and Cardinal Campeggio, from Rome, for the purpose of determining the validity of the royal marriage. The trial was a farce. The enraged king laid the blame upon Wolsey, and retired him from office. The great cardinal was afterwards charged with treason, but died broken-hearted, on his way to the Tower, November 29, 1530.
      The breach between Henry and Rome, complicated by numerous international intrigues, widened rapidly. Henry began to assume an attitude of bold defiance toward the pope, which aroused the animosity of the Catholic princes of Europe.
      Notwithstanding the desire of a large body of the English people to remain faithful to Rome, the dangers which menaced their country from abroad and the ecclesiastical abuses at home, which had been a fruitful cause for complaint for many years, tended to lessen the ancient horror of heresy and schism, and inclined them to support their king. Another factor that assisted in preparing the English people for the destruction of the monasteries was Lollardism. As an organized sect, the Lollards had ceased to exist, but the spirit and the doctrines of Wyclif did not die. A real and a vital connection existed between the Lollards of the fourteenth, and the reformers of the sixteenth, centuries. In Henry's time, many Englishmen held practically the same views of Rome and of the monks that had been taught by Wyclif[I].
      [Footnote I: Appendix, Note I.]
      A considerable number of Henry's subjects, however, while ostensibly loyal to him, were inwardly full of hot rebellion. The king was surrounded with perils. The princes of the Continent were eagerly awaiting the bull for his excommunication. Henry's throne and his kingdom might at any moment be given over by the pope to invasion by the continental sovereigns.
      Reginald Pole, afterwards cardinal, a cousin of the king, and a strong Catholic, stood ready to betray the interests of his country to Rome. Writing to the king, he said: “Man is against you; God is against you; the universe is against you; what can you look for but destruction?” “Dream not, Caesar,” he encouragingly declared to Emperor Charles V., “that all generous hearts are quenched in England; that faith and piety are dead. In you is their trust, in your noble nature, and in your zeal for God—they hold their land till you shall come.” Thus, on the testimony of a Roman Catholic, there were traitors in England waiting only for the call of Charles V., “To arms!” Pole was in full sympathy with all the factions opposed to the king, and stood ready to aid them in their resistance. He publicly denounced the king in several continental countries.
      The monks were especially enraged against Henry. They did all they could to inflame the people by preaching against him and the reformers. Friar Peyto, preaching before the king, had the assurance to say to him: “Many lying prophets have deceived you, but I, as a true Micah, warn you that the dogs will lick your blood as they did Ahab's.” While the courage of this friar is unquestioned, his defiant attitude illustrates the position occupied by the monks toward those who favored separation from Rome. The whole country was at white heat. The friends of Rome looked upon Henry as an incarnate fiend, a servant of the devil and an enemy of all religion. Many of them opposed him with the purest and best motives, believing that the king was really undermining the church of God and throwing society into chaos.
      In 1531, the English clergy were coerced into declaring that Henry was “the protector and the supreme head of the church and of the clergy of England,” which absurd claim was slightly modified by the words, “in so far as is permitted by the law of Christ.” Chapuys, in one of his despatches informing Charles V. of this action of convocation, said that it practically declared Henry the Pope of England. “It is true,” he wrote, “that the clergy have added to the declaration that they did so only so far as permitted by the law of God. But that is all the same, as far as the king is concerned, as if they had made no reservation, for no one will now be so bold as to contest with his lord the importance of the reservation.” Later on, Chapuys says that the king told the pope's nuncio that “if the pope would not show him more consideration, he would show the world that the pope had no greater authority than Moses, and that every claim not grounded on Scripture was mere usurpation; that the great concourse of people present had come solely and exclusively to request him to bastinado the clergy, who were hated by both nobles and the people.” (“Spanish Despatches,” number 460.)
      Parliament, in 1534, conferred on Henry the title “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” and empowered him “to visit, and repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, or amend all errors, heresies, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, which fell under any spiritual authority or jurisdiction.” The “Act of Succession” was also passed by Parliament, cutting off Princess Mary and requiring all subjects to take an oath of allegiance to Elizabeth.
      It was now an act of treason to deny the king's supremacy. All persons suspected of disloyalty were required to sign an oath of allegiance to Henry, and to Elizabeth as his successor, and to acknowledge the supremacy of the king in church and state. This resulted in the death of some prominent men in the realm, among them Sir Thomas More. In the preamble of the oath prescribed by law, the legality of the king's marriage with Anne was asserted, thus implying that his former marriage with Catharine was unlawful. More was willing to declare his allegiance to the infant Elizabeth, as the king's successor, but his conscience would not permit him to affirm that Catharine's marriage was unlawful.
      The life of the brilliant and lovable More is another illustration of the mental confusions and inconsistencies of that age. As an apostle of culture he favored the new learning, and yet he viewed the gathering momentum of reformatory principles with alarm, and cast in his lot with the ultra-conservatives. Four years of his young manhood were spent in a monastery. He devoted his splendid talents to a criticism of English society, and recommended freedom of conscience, yet he became an ardent foe of reform and even a persecutor of heretics, of whom he said: “I do so detest that class of men that, unless they repent, I am the worst enemy they have.” When a man, whom even Protestant historians hasten to pronounce “the glory of his age,” so magnificent were his talents and so blameless his character, was tainted with superstition, and sanctioned the persecution of liberal thinkers, is it remarkable that inferior intellects should have been swayed by the brutality and tyranny of the times?
      The unparalleled claims of Henry and his attitude toward the pope made the breach between England and Rome complete, but many years of painful internal strife and bloodshed were to elapse before the whole nation submitted to the new order of things, and before that subjective freedom from fear and superstition without which formal freedom has little value, was secured.
      The breach with Rome was essential to the attainment of that religious and political freedom that England now enjoys. But the first step toward making that separation an accomplished fact, acquiesced in by the people as a whole, was to break the power of the monastic orders. It may possibly be true that the same ends would have been eventually attained by trusting to the slower processes of social evolution, but the history of the Latin nations of Europe would seem to prove the contrary. As the facts stand it would appear that peace and progress were impossible with thousands of monks sowing seeds of discord, and employing every measure, fair or foul, to win the country back to Rome. Gairdner and others argue that Henry was far too powerful a king to have been successfully resisted by the pope, unless the pope was backed by a union of the Christian princes, which was then impracticable. That fact may make the execution of More, Fisher and the Charterhouse monks inexcusable, but it by no means proves that Henry would have been strong enough to maintain his position if the monasteries had been permitted to exist as centers of organized opposition to his will. Many of the monks, when pressed by the king's agents, took the oath of allegiance. Threats, bribes and violence were used to overcome the opposition of the unwilling.