Lutheran movement in england during the reigns of henry VIII. And edward VI

CHAPTER XIV. CLOSING EVENTS OF HENRY’s REIGN.

The Paradoxes of Smithfield. Tracts of Melanchthon circulated in England. Imprisonment of Publishers, and Arrest of Readers. Enforcement of the Six Articles. Popular Opinion neutralizes them. Two irresistible forces. The young men of the Universities. The Diffusion of the Bible. Gardiner’s Obstructionist Policy overcome. Spasmodic Efforts at Persecution. Plots against Cranmer and the Queen. Negotiations again proposed. The Augsburg Confession once more. The English Embassy of 1544. Henry’s Argument concerning the Variata. Bucer intercedes for Henry. The Elector of Saxony immovable. Henry’s Advances repulsed by the Frankfort Convention of 1546. His Efforts with the Elector Palatinate. Proposition of “The League Christian.” His Death.

When Dr. Barnes was burned at Smithfield, there was another circumstance, beyond the culmination of Henry’s wickedness in endeavoring to get rid of a troublesome witness of the true faith, that might well attract attention. Three Protestants, including Dr. Barnes, were burned; three Papists were hanged. “This was caused,” says the English Church historian of the next century, Fuller, “by the difference of religions in the king’s privy council, wherein the Popish party called for the execution of the Protestants, whilst the Protestant lords in council (out of policy to repress the others eagerness, or, if that failed, out of desire to revenge it) cried as fast that the laws might take effect on the Papists. And whilst neither side was able to save those of his own opinions, both had power to destroy those of the opposite party. They were dragged on hurdles, two and two, a Papist and a Protestant. A stranger standing by did wonder (as well he might) what religion the king was of, his sword cutting on [[@Page:191]]both sides.”²¹⁵ Thus the fact is illustrated, which is often forgotten, that doctrinal indifferentism when it gains the power, is just as relentless and cruel in its persecutions, as is the narrowest adherence to traditional principles.

Lutheranism, however, was not completely crushed, and new witnesses were being prepared to replace those who who were martyred. Though the stream had to force its way under ground, it is destined soon to reappear. Thomas Walpole was brave enough to translate into English Melanchthon’s long letter to the king noticed before, where the reader may remember that Melanchthon arraigns the bishops with a severity that he rarely used. Its thorough discussion of “The Six Articles,” which were now to be again enforced, made it especially timely; and an evangelical publisher, Richard Grafton, the intimate friend of Coverdale, was ready to assume the risk of its publication, although in 1540 he had spent six weeks in the Tower of London for publishing Matthews Bible. About the same time, an English translation of one of Melanchthon’s arguments sent Henry “On Marriage of Priests,” made by Louis Beauchame, was published by Hoffe at Leipzig, doubtless for circulation in England. The circulation of the former is at last discovered by detectives. Translator and publisher are both arrested and imprisoned. Besides these, a Mrs. Blage, a grocer’s wife in Chepe, who had given a copy to Cottiswood, a priest; Cottiswood who had given a copy to a fellow-priest, Derrick, and Derrick himself, all are summoned before the Privy Council, and receive a warning concerning their offence.²¹⁶

It was determined again to rigidly enforce “The Six Articles.” The Bishop of London, Bonner, who, until he rose to position, had seemed to be on the Lutheran side, now began that career of persecution, which, under Queen Mary, rendered him so odious as the murderer of hundreds, and, under Queen Elizabeth, justly sent him to the Tower to spend the last ten years of his [[@Page:192]]life in imprisonment. Two hundred arrests were made in London alone. Among the first brought to trial, was a boy of fifteen, Richard Mekins, whose conviction Bonner is said to have secured by threatening the jury, and who was either burned or hanged at Smithfield for “participating in the heresies of Barnes.” But except in this case, the juries were intractable. The leaven had spread so far, that they would not convict for offences against the Six Articles. Three of those arraigned were imprisoned. Outside of London, there were five executions.

Nothing, however, could check the Reformation. Two elements, working silently, were far mightier than the throne and the hierarchical bishops combined. The young men of the Universities for some years already had been preponderatingly on the Evangelical side; the English Bible was making its influence felt thoughout the entire kingdom. In 1536, the very year in which he had Taverner translate the Augsburg Confession, and endeavored to have it approved in England, Crumwell had secured the issuing of the following injunction from the king: “That every parson or proprietary of any parish church within the realm, before August 1st, should provide a book of the whole Bible, both in Latin and English, and lay it in the chair for every man that would look and read therein; and discourage no man from reading any part of the Bible, either in Latin or English, but rather comfort, exhort and admonish each man to read it as the very Word of God, and the spiritual food of every man’s soul.” Day after day, the churches were crowded, while the few better educated ones among the people, continued to read to the attentive multitudes of illiterate men and women about them.

Cranmer, in 1542, endeavored in the Convocation to have a thorough revision of existing versions made. When this work was obstructed by Gardiner, he determined to put it in charge of a commission from the two Universities; and when the Convocation showed an unwillingness to submit to this, because the young men of the Universities were nearly all advocates of the New Learning, the Primate threatened to prorogue the Convocation. [[@Page:193]]Even the year before, viz., in 1541, it was determined to remove images from the churches, and to reform the Liturgy. Several attempts were made to revive the execution of the Six Articles. Each time a few martyrs fell, and once Cranmer himself was summoned before the Council, and his enemies were triumphing in anticipation of their victory; but his hold upon the king was still too strong. The famous scene of Cranmer’s producing the king’s ring, which Shakespeare places during the life of Anne Boleyn, is generally accepted as properly belonging here. The king’s last queen, Catharine Parr, was an adherent of the evangelical faith, and the story runs that she herself narrowly escaped being carried by the plots of the Romanizing element to the fate of Anne Boleyn; but that, when the critical moment arrived, she had regained the graces of her vacillating husband. Those who had plotted against her, and who had come to Henry, at his appointment, to carry out their schemes, were glad to leave precipitately.

Near the close of the reign, we again find external political complications causing a re-opening of negotiations with the continental Lutherans, and the Lutheran princes and states, at that very dark hour when perils were impending on all sides, insisting once more on the complete acceptance of the Augsburg Confession as an indispensable condition for even the consideration of an alliance.

ANOTHER ENGLISH EMBASSY.

The Peace of Crespy, between Francis I. and Charles V., September 18th, 1544, had left the King of England in an embarrassing predicament. As an ally of the Emperor, he had an army on French soil, which had recently taken Boulogne, and with elation was pressing its advantages, when Charles V. undertook to make a separate peace, leaving Henry either single-handed to conduct the war, or to find his way out of it as best he could. At the same time, the Lutheran princes and States, by whose co-operation Charles V. had been able to undertake the French war, were threatened by the new alliance of the two [[@Page:194]]monarchs, until then at war with one another, but who were now ready to listen to the urgent appeals of the Pope to turn their arms against the Lutheran heresy. Under these circumstances the negotiations that had so often failed before, were once again attempted. Walter Bucler and Christopher Mount were sent to Germany with instructions undated, but believed to have been written about November 14th, 1544, five days before the summons to the Council of Trent was issued by Paul III., directing them to confer with Duke Maurice of Saxony, and Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, suggesting that overtures for some marriage connection with England be made with some German prince. The Elector John Frederick was not to be overlooked, but Henry’s experience in the past doubtless satisfied him that from that source he had least to hope, and, hence, though the very head of the Smalcald League, his name appears only in a subordinate position.

But it was impossible to make any progress without the consideration of the question of religion. Accordingly, in February, 1545, Henry himself writes, authorizing them to offer either of his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, in marriage to the Duke of Holstein, and then gives more specific instructions concerning any doctrinal tests:

“In case the sayd Landgrave shall make any mocion touching the matiers of religion, desyring that there might be some accord and agreement upon the same, mencioning peraventure the return again from hens of their last ambassadie in vain; to that our sayd servaunts shall answer, that ther is no Prince nor man in the woorlde that desyreth more the glorye of God, and meaneth more the true setting furth of His Woord than we do. And to thintent the same may appere unto them, albeit it be true in dede that certayn of the Commissioners, beyng here to commyn uppon maters of religion, the same entring conference furst with certayn of our learned men, and after beyng admitted to commun with Ourself, stoode more ernestly and vehemently uppon theyr Confession, then to Us was thought reasonable, or [[@Page:195]]that the trowth could beare, like as sythens that time it doth well appere, for that there be diverse of the same thinges wherein they stack them fast, moved onely as said thereto, bycause theyr preachers had set fourth and tawght the same by theyr said Confession, and now have somewhat more moderately, as theyr books do testifie, set furth the same.”

The king, by these last words, evidently was endeavoring to turn to his account the Variata editions of the Augsburg Confession of 1540 and 1542. His argument is, that if Melanchthon himself had found it advisable to make changes in the Confession, this proved only that Henry was right in insisting at the Conference of 1538 that there be some modifications, and that the course of the Lutheran commissioners at London, had been repudiated. It shows Henry’s shrewdness, and would have been unanswerable where the Variata had actually been adopted.

He continues: “And upon this manner of proceeding they departed, without any such conclusion as with sum indifferent” [viz., unprejudiced] “handling might have succeeded to the assured conjunction of Us and our dominions on both partes, and thuniversall weall and quiet of all Christendome; yet forasmuch as we having oon commun and certain enemie, the Bishop of Rome, unto whose faccion no smale Princes be addicted, being both of us a like zele and meaning for the right and sincere setting furth of Godes glorie and his holy woord, … there be no nations in christendome so like to agree as we be, if the forsayed amitie beyng agreed uppon, for that must necessarily be passed out of hand, and not be delayd for the disputations of the matters of religion which will require a tract of time.”²¹⁷ The king is a true type of a modern unionist. He pleads for union first, and wants to postpone to the remote future any understanding as to the doctrinal relations of the parties concerned, forgetting that it is only on doctrinal grounds, that the Lutherans are in dissent from Pope and Emperor, and for such reasons are in jeopardy. [[@Page:196]]

There were some who regarded this proposal on the part of the English King with favor. “Great hope,” says Seckendorf “seemed to spring afresh. Christopher Mount had much to say concerning the extraordinary kindness which Henry showed Anne of Cleves since the divorce, the magnificent style in which he supported her, the frequent presents he sent, his constant solicitude for her health, etc. The execution of Crumwell was charged against the nobles, that of Barnes to his abusive attack upon Bishop Gardiner, the failure of the negotiations of 1538 to the fact that the Lutherans were represented by stiff and obstinate disputants like Burkhard and Myconius, instead of by Melanchthon and Bucer. Bucer also interposed, with the plea that while all things were not right in England, yet that Henry was nearer the Lutheran princes than any other king. Seckendorf well notes that he forgets Denmark and Sweden. But the Elector of Saxony was again immovable. “He regarded the King of England an enemy of the Gospel, who had no other aim in Reformation than himself to become Head of the Church, to which he had not been called of God, and who meanwhile raged tyrannically against godly Christians and lived shamefully, seeking in all things only his own advantage.”²¹⁸ At the convention of Frankfort in January, 1546, where there were present not only the members of the Smalcald League, but also the deputies of Lutheran princes and representatives of States not included in the League, as of the Elector of Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Cologne, the Duke of Prussia, Nürnberg and Ratisbon, Henry’s propositions met with no favor.

A few months later, (May, 1546,) Henry sent John Masone to Heidelberg to confer with the Elector Frederick II. of the Palatinate, who had lately become a convert to Lutheranism, and arrange a marriage between his daughter Mary and the Elector’s nephew, Duke Philip. The answer of the Elector shows the same spirit as throughout inspired the Elector of Saxony. Masone reports: [[@Page:197]]

“Concerning religion he hath framed his conscience thoroughly to Confessionem Augustanam, and hath so accepted the same as he trusteth not to varrye from it during life, which determination he hath not rashly entered into, but with long tyme and great deliberation. And to say the trewthe, if he were determined to sende any man, unto your Majestic in those matters, he wotheth not where to fynde any such indifferent man, as your Majestic seemeth to require, his hole provynce as well the Nobles as the clergye and others being so thoroughly bent in one trade. … The Emperour, at his late being at Spire, was in hande with them for the lyke, and hadd for answer that their doctryne hadd often inoughe ben disputed upon, and was wel knowen throughe the worlde, and they intended to bring that mattier no more in questyon, wherein by soamuch tyme and great deliberation they were thoroughlye persuaded.”²¹⁹

The King is persistent. A league must be formed. Froude has asserted that he assured Cranmer, that he was ready to make further concessions, and to take measures for a more radical reform. At any rate, his next proposition was for the formation of “The League Christian.” The Lutheran commissioners were to select the names of ten or twelve learned men; from this number, Henry would select one half; and then, they, with a similar commission of English theologians, would come to a final settlement of a doctrinal basis. The King himself was to participate in the deliberations. It was too late. The breaking out of the Smalcald war early in the summer interrupted all negotiations; and a few months later, January 28th, 1547, the reign of Henry VIII. was at an end. [[@Page:198]]