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.