[Sidenote: The Parliamentary sanction]
But when Wolsey fell, Henry was embarking on a policy in which he knew that he must keep the nation on his side; the support of the body representing the nation must be secured. Whether that support was granted spontaneously, or was encouraged by manipulation, or spurred by the menace of coercion, was comparatively unimportant. The powers which the King was resolved to exercise must ostensibly at least have the sanction of national approval. The thing was managed with such thoroughness that long before the close of the reign the royal absolutism was confirmed by the Act which gave the force of law to the King's proclamations, and by the authorisation for him to devise the crown by will; and with such skill that Henry's and Cromwell's critics are obliged to fall back on the alleged subserviency of the parliaments to account for it, although these same subservient parliaments were quite capable of offering an obstinate resistance whenever their own pockets were threatened. Henry was one of those born rulers who impress their own views on masses of men by force of will. He made the country believe that it was with him. But behind the dominant force of will, he possessed the instinctive sense of its limits, besides being endowed with that final remorseless selfishness which made him ready to make scape-goats of the most loyal servants, to deny responsibility himself and to fling the odium upon them, as soon as he found that those limits had been transgressed.
[Sidenote: Depression of the Nobles]
Alike, then, by his disuse and his use of parliaments, Henry strengthened the royal power, the initiative of all legislation remaining in his hands. To the same end he continued to depress the great nobles and to create a new nobility dependent on royal favour. All who threatened to display a dangerous ambition, from Buckingham on, were struck down; the House of Norfolk survived till the end of the reign, when the Duke was attainted and his son was sent to the block. No ancient House was represented in the Council of Regency nominated under Henry's will. The men who served the King were those whom he had himself raised, and could himself cast down with a word. The edifice of his absolutism was complete, though it was modified by the conditions under which his son and his two daughters succeeded to the throne.
[Sidenote: Parliament and the purse]
The theory of absolutism from Richard II. to Wolsey had been that the King should make it his aim to rule without parliaments; whereas we are confronted with the apparent paradox that Henry was never more absolute than when his parliaments were in almost continual session. The explanation lies in this, that he did not usually call them to ask them for money out of their own pockets; for the most part he invited them to approve of his taxing some one else, by confiscations or the conversion of loans received into free gifts—a much more congenial task. The King had found other methods of raising revenues than by appealing to the generosity of his faithful Commons—methods which in effect relieved them of demands which they would otherwise have been obliged to face. The vast sums wrung from Convocation or from the Monasteries went to relieve the Commons from taxes. The parliament of 1523, summoned to grant subsidies, faced Wolsey with an independence which fully justified the minister in avoiding the risk of similar rebuffs: the Reformation parliament itself offered a stubborn resistance to the Bill of Wards, which touched its own pocket. Independence and resistance vanished when the incentive was withdrawn, and the diversion of the stream of ecclesiastical wealth into the abysses of the royal treasury was acquiesced in with a certain enthusiasm. The King got the credit of the ends secured, his minister the odium for the methods of obtaining them: and so year by year the crown became more potent.
[Sidenote: The Land]
The economic troubles brought about mainly by the new agricultural conditions in the reign of the first Tudor were exaggerated in that of the second, and were further intensified by the dissolution of the Monasteries. The evils at which More pointed in hisUtopia, when Henry VIII. had been but seven years on the throne, showed no diminution when another thirty years had passed. The new landowners who came into possession of forfeited estates or of confiscated monastic lands continued to substitute pasture for tillage, and to dispossess the agricultural population as well by the reduced demand for labour as by rack-renting and evictions. The country swarmed with sturdy beggars; and the riotous behaviour encouraged when religious houses were dismantled or even "visited" must have tended greatly to increase the spirit of disorder, evidenced by the frequent popular brawling over the public reading of the Bible. The usual remedies of punishing vagabondage, and of attempting to force industry into unsuitable fields and to drive capital into less lucrative investment in order to provide employment, failed—also as usual. The landowners did not emulate the monastic practice of dispensing charity, so that distress went unrelieved. Charity often encourages un-thrift; but its absence sometimes leads not to industry but to thieving; and in this reign, crimes of violence were notably abundant. The economic conditions were therefore in fact unfavourable to thrift. But apart from economic conditions, the practice of that virtue is apt to be largely influenced by social standards. An ultra-extravagant court, and the calculated magnificence of such a minister as Wolsey, went far to induce a reckless habit of expenditure in the upper classes; and the inordinate display of the Field of the Cloth of Gold was merely an extreme instance of the prevalent passion for costly pageantries.
[Sidenote: Finance]
The resulting distress was not compensated in other directions. During the earlier half of the reign, Commerce did no doubt continue to prosper; but the King's financial methods were hardly more conducive to public industry and thrift than his personal example. Wolsey indeed was an able finance minister. In spite of the enormous expenditure on display, his mastery of detail prevented mere waste; and until the pressing necessities of a war-budget arose in 1523, enough money was found by tapping the sources to which Henry VII. had applied, supplemented by the ample hoards which that monarch had left behind. In 1523, the Cardinal's scheme of graduated taxation was sound and scientific in principle, so far as existing methods of assessment permitted. But for the remaining years of his life, the process of raising money to meet the King's requirements was exceedingly difficult and unpopular. After his death, the King discovered an additional and productive source of revenue in the property of the Church; but even this did not suffice for his needs.
[Sidenote: The Currency]
Henry therefore resorted to an expedient as disastrous as it was dishonest—a wholesale debasement of the coinage, which was continued into the following reign and was remedied only under Elizabeth. The first experiment was made as early as 1526; but it was the financial embarrassments of Henry's last years which brought about a debasement that was almost catastrophic. From 1543 to 1551 matters went from bad to worse till the currency was in a state of chaos: and the silver coin issued in the last year contained only one-seventh of the pure metal that went to that of twenty-five years before.
It followed that the purchasing power of the debased coinage sank—in other words, prices went up. On the other hand, the new coin remaining legal tender in England up to any amount, creditors who were paid in it lost heavily, the Royal debtor—and others—discharging their obligations by what was practically a payment of a few shillings in the pound. Also as a matter of course, the better coins, with each fresh debasement, passed out of the country or at any rate out of circulation, the base coins becoming the medium of exchange. Thus the foundations of commercial stability were sapped, while foreign trading operations were thrown into desperate and ruinous confusion.
Nor did the evil end here. For the influx of silver and gold from the Spanish possessions in America, though its effects were felt only very gradually, tended to depreciate the exchange value of the metals themselves. This depreciation, added to the debasement, further increased the rise of prices. But while prices went up, money-wages did not rise in anything like the same proportion; labour being cheapened by the continuous displacement of the agricultural population, which was not attended by an equivalent increase of employment in the towns, and by the dissolution of the monasteries, which at the same time wiped out the sole existing system of poor-relief. The natural Economic transition that began in the previous reign, while producing wealth, was also attended by distress: now, for a vast proportion of the population, Henry's artifical expedients for filling his own coffers converted distress into grinding want, destitution, and desperation.
[Sidenote: Learning and Letters]
The earlier half of the reign promised well for Education; but the promise was not duly fulfilled in the latter portion. The funds which Wolsey would have devoted to that object were wanted for other purposes. The Universities discarded the study of the schoolmen, but their attention was absorbed rather by loud-voiced wrangling than by the pursuit of learning. Nevertheless, in great families at least, the education of the younger members was carried to a high pitch. The King, a man of accomplishments which would have made him remarkable in any station, himself set the example, and in this respect at least his children were not lacking; the literary impulse was at work.
[Sidenote 1: TheUtopia][Sidenote 2: Prose and Verse][Sidenote 3: Surrey and Wyatt]
Yet the literary achievements of Henry's time can hardly be called great. One work by an Englishman, More'sUtopia, alone stands out as a classic on its own merits: and that was written in Latin, and remained untranslated till a later reign. In its characteristic undercurrent of humour, and its audacious idealism, it betrays the student of Plato; standing almost alone as a product of the dawning culture. Partly by direct statement, partly by implication, we may gather from it much information as to the state of England in Henry's early years, much as to the political philosophy of the finer minds of the day. But that philosophy was choked by revolution; More himself so far departed from its tenets of toleration as to become a religious persecutor. Most of the English writing of the reign took the form of controversial or personal pamphlets in prose or verse; such as the extravagantSupplicacyon for the Beggers, a rabid tirade against the clergy, or Skelton's rhymeWhy come ye nal to Court, an attack chiefly on the Cardinal. The splendid raciness of Hugh Latimer's sermons belongs to oratory rather than to letters. The exquisite prose of Cranmer found its perfection in the solemn music of the Prayer-book of Edward VI. The translations of the Bible made no great advance on Wiclif. In the realm of verse, John Skelton was a powerful satirist with a unique manipulation of doggerel which has permanently associated a particular type of rhyme with his name; an original and versatile writer was Skelton, but without that new critical sense of style which was to become so marked a feature of the great literary outburst under Elizabeth. Herein, two minor poets alone, Surrey and Wyatt, appear as harbingers of the coming day. A hundred anonymous writers of Gloriana's time produced verses as good as the best of either Wyatt or Surrey; but these two at least discovered the way which, once found, became comparatively easy to tread. They introduced the sonnet, learnt from Petrarch; Surrey (the same who was executed on the eve of Henry's death) wrote the first English blank verse. The moribund tradition of the successors of Chaucer continued to find better exponents in Scotland than in England, in the persons first of bishop Gawain Douglas—who perhaps should rather be connected with the previous reign—and later of Sir David Lyndsay. But doctrinal controversy does not provide the best atmosphere for artistic expression. The whole literature of the reign, while showing emphatic signs of reviving intellectual activity, is remarkable not for its own excellence, for profundity of thought, intensity of passion, or mastery of form, but as exhibiting the first random and tentative workings of the new spirit.
[Sidenote: Estimate of Henry VII.]
The most arresting figure of the period is that of Henry himself. No English King has been presented by historians in more contradictory colours than he. One has painted him as the Warrior of God who purged the land of the Unclean Thing: to another he is merely a libidinous tyrant. One contrasts his honesty and honour with the habitual falsehood of his contemporaries: to another he appears supreme in treachery. In fact, there is an element of truth in both estimates, however exaggerated.
[Sidenote: His Morals]
In the matter of personal morality, in the restricted sense, it does not appear—in spite of his list of wives—that he compares unfavourably with contemporary princes. He had only one child certainly born out of wedlock—which cannot be said even of Charles V., [Footnote: It should perhaps be remarked that whenever Charles had a wife living he appears to have been faithful to her. His divagations took place in the intervals.] and contrasts with the unbridled profligacy of Francis, the frequent amours of his Stewart brother-in-law and nephew. The stories of his relations with both Anne and Mary Boleyn before the marriage, even if untrue (which is not probable), would never have been told of a man whose life was clean; but it is what may be called the accident of his numerous marriages which has given a misleading prominence to licentious tendencies not perhaps abnormally developed. With the exception of his passion for Anne Boleyn, there is no trace of his amours influencing his general conduct: and it is at least probable that after the death of Jane Seymour he would have remained a widower, but for the desire to make the succession more secure. Yet the story of his reign hinges upon the Divorce; and in the divorce, however much other considerations may have influenced him, the controlling consideration was the determination to make Anne Boleyn his wife since she would have him on no other terms. That fact, with the disastrous termination of the marriage with her, the fiasco of Anne of Cleves, and the catastrophe of Katharine Howard, is responsible for the somewhat mythical monster of popular imagination. The man who divorced two wives and beheaded two more is too suggestive of Bluebeard to be readily regarded as after all to some extent the victim of circumstance.
[Sidenote: His general character]
While Anne Boleyn was the object of his pursuit, Henry was dominated by his passion for her: but that passion cooled quickly enough after possession. Jane Seymour was not his wife long enough to put him to the test: but it would certainly seem that his affections were short-lived and easily transferred. This was manifestly the case with men: at least it never appeared to cause him a moment's compunction to hand over an intimate to the executioner. While a man was rendering him efficient service the King was lavish of praises and rewards; when the need for him was past the services were forgotten. His sentiments were always of the loftiest; it habitually "consorted not with his honour or his conscience" to do otherwise than he did; but the correspondence between his honour and conscience on one side and his personal advantage on the other presents a unique phenomenon. His conscience permitted him to connive at schemes for kidnapping the King of Scots or assassinating his ministers, and his honour permitted him to encourage his own servants in a course of action for which he had subsequently no hesitation in sending them to the block. He could give, prodigally; but what he gave had generally been taken from some one else. He could protest against the cruel burden of the annates, and then absorb them himself. And with all this, it is not difficult to suppose that he constantly persuaded himself that he was an honest man beset with dishonest rogues, since he rarely broke the letter of an engagement except on the pretext of bad faith made manifest in the other party.
[Sidenote 1: His peculiar abilities][Sidenote 2: Intention and achievement]
Henry's ethical standards were thus in no way calculated to hamper his actions, owing to his happy capacity for colouring his actions in conformity with them. When he set an end before himself, no influence could make him waver a hair's-breadth in his pursuit of it, and he spared neither friend nor foe in the attainment of it. As a statesman he did not lay down far-seeing designs. But he had the art of maintaining popularity, and a shrewd eye for a good servant. Thus as a rule he gave Wolsey a free hand and very vigorous support. But when he elected to order a change of policy, the Cardinal proved to have been right and the King wrong. His candidature for the Empire, and his dreams of the French and Scottish thrones show him capable of indulging in entirely impracticable visions. The vital achievement of his reign was the severance from Rome; and that was merely—as far as he was concerned—the accidental outcome of the Pope's opposition to the Divorce. In the destruction of the ecclesiasticalimperium in imperio, the subordination of the Church to the State, it is difficult to tell how far the policy was his own and how far it was Cromwell's; but the King never recognised as Cromwell did that the logical corollary of the whole ecclesiastical policy was a Protestant League. The defiance of Rome, and the subjection and spoliation of the Church, were accompanied by a measure in which Cranmer was the moving spirit, and to which Henry gave full support—the open admission of the Scriptures in the vernacular—which made it no longer possible for the individual to disclaim responsibility on the score that the priesthood alone held the key to the mysteries of religion. This was in truth the keystone of the Reformation, since it entailed upon every man thedutyof private judgment even though therightcontinued to be denied; yet this was not the effect which Henry contemplated. Hence, out of the four points in the ecclesiastical revolution of the reign: the subordination of the Church to the State was a constitutional change absolutely Henry's or Cromwell's own; the spoliation was the same, but reflects no credit on either; the severance from Rome was an accident; and the creation of the duty, to be ultimately recognised as the right, of private judgment was unintentional. And on the kindred subject, the persecution of innovators labelled as heretics, Henry's policy represented nothing but the commonplace attitude of Authority in his times.
[Sidenote: A Dominant personality]
We cannot, in short, find in Henry a statesman remarkable for far-sighted perceptions or ennobling idealism: but he gauged the sentiment of his subjects and the abilities of his servants acutely and was shrewd enough as a rule to identify himself with the schemes of those whom he trusted. Nevertheless he stands out, with all his faults, as a very tyrannical King yet a very kingly tyrant. If his personal ambitions and desires over-ruled other considerations, he never forgot the greatness of the country he ruled, and his personal ambitions at least involved England's magnification. For good or for evil, his actions were on a great scale. He knew his own mind, and he never shrank from the risks involved in giving his will effect. He defied successfully the Power which had brought the mightiest monarchs to their knees. He had the kingly quality, shared by his great daughter, of inspiring in his servants a devotion which made them ready to sacrifice everything for his glorification. Two of the most powerful ministers known in English history recognised the domination of his personality whenever he chose to exercise it.
[Sidenote: Summary]
Even when he was most feared he maintained his place in the popular affection. His parliaments carried out his will, but his will and theirs were in conformity: while Wolsey ruled, he rarely consulted them, but after Wolsey's fall they were called upon to ratify all the King's measures, and were in frequent session. He promoted a revolution, but while he lived he controlled it; through all the accompanying shocks and upheavals his mastery remained unshaken. The proof of the man's essential force, the greatness we may not deny him, is made manifest by the chaos which followed his death. He was gross; he was cruel; he was a robber; he suborned traitors and was prepared to suborn assassins; but his selfishness, flagrant as it was, did not wholly absorb him; behind it there was a sense of the greatness of his office, a desire to make England great; and therewith he had the indomitable resolution and the untiring energy for lack of which statesmen have failed who intellectually and morally stand far above him, while no monarch has left on the history of England a stamp more indelible than Henry VIII.
EDWARD VI (i), 1547-49—THE PROTECTOR SOMERSET
[Sidenote: 1547 Jan.-Feb. The New Government]
In accordance with the extraordinary powers granted to him, Henry VIII. laid down in his will both the order of succession to the throne and the method of government to be followed during his son's minority. Under this instrument he nominated sixteen "executors," forming virtually a Council of Regency, giving precedence to none. Superficially, the list represented both the progressive and the reactionary parties. Cranmer was balanced by Tunstal of Durham; Wriothesly the Lord Chancellor was a strong Catholic. But as a matter of fact, the influential men belonged for the most part to the advanced section. Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, was their leader: but Paget, Dudley (Lord Lisle), Russell, and Herbert, were all of the same way of thinking. None of the rest were of the same weight as these; while Norfolk, the natural head of the conservative nobility was a prisoner in the Tower, and Gardiner, the ablest of the ecclesiastics, was omitted from the list.
Henry died in the early morning on January 28th; the fact was not made public till the 31st; and in the meantime, Hertford had carried the Council, which forthwith nominated him Lord Protector. The next step was a distribution of honours: Hertford was made Duke of Somerset; his brother, the Lord Admiral, (not an executor), Lord Seymour of Sudeley; Dudley became Earl of Warwick, Wriothesly Earl of Southampton, and Parr, brother of the late King's widow, Earl of Northampton. A couple of months later, that lady—who had succeeded in surviving two husbands including Henry—herself wedded Seymour of Sudeley,
Southampton was the one man whose opposition on the Council was to be feared; and he gave himself into his enemies' hands by an act of indiscretion. He issued a commission appointing four judges to act in the Court of Chancery, under the Great Seal, on his own responsibility: and was promptly declared to have forfeited his office which was bestowed upon Rich. This was immediately followed by the granting of new powers to the Protector, enabling him to act virtually without consulting the Executors: while he was already guardian of the King's person. In effect, Somerset meant himself, as representing Edward, to exercise all those powers which had been surrendered to the formidable Henry. In the meantime, the trend of the ecclesiastical policy to be anticipated was shown by the treatment of the bishops; who—with the approval of Cranmer—were required to receive their commissions anew from the new King as though they had been Civil servants. Cranmer, in the Coronation sermon, made pointed references to Josiah, which could only be regarded as precursors of a war against "images," and the more advanced among the clergy began to express themselves with a freedom which would have been very promptly and unpleasantly dealt with by the late King. Ecclesiastical conventions received a startling shock when it was made known that the Primate himself was openly eating meat in Lent.
To carry the Reformation beyond the stage at which it had been left by Henry in a tolerably peaceful manner was a sufficient task in itself; but the situation which the new Government found that it had to face, by the time Somerset had secured his position, towards the end of March, was complicated by many additional problems—not least among these being the lack of funds.
[Sidenote: Relations with France]
The recent peace with France had given the English Boulogne for eight years as security for the payment of a substantial annual sum. But while this might be looked upon as a valuable diplomatic asset—a means to graceful concession in return for adequate benefits—it remained an incitement to French hostility; the more so when Francis I. followed his great contemporary to the grave after less than two months, and was succeeded by Henry II.; with whom the retention of Boulogne was a particularly sore point, as he had failed in an attempt to recapture it. If England found herself in difficulties it was tolerably certain that France would try to recover Boulogne without waiting the eight years for its restitution.
[Sidenote: with Scotland]
France was not unlikely to find her opportunity in Scotland. There the group who had murdered Cardinal Beton in the previous summer retained the castle of St. Andrews in defiance of the weak government, at whose head were the regent Arran and the queen-mother Mary of Guise, whose family was now the most influential in France. The one means by which an English party could be maintained in Scotland was the giving active support to the "Castilians" as the St. Andrews faction was called; whereas French interference on behalf of the Government would immensely strengthen the anti-English party.
[Sidenote: with Charles V.]
The German situation was more complicated. The Emperor, supported by Maurice of Saxony, was at war with the Lutheran League. As yet the issue of that contest was doubtful; the League had at least a chance of success, but had appealed to England for aid. Charles on the other hand, not wishing for war with England, had declined the Pope's suggestion that he should enforce the substitution of Mary for Edward on the English throne: the Pope was annoyed, because the Schmalkaldic war was being fought on a political and not a theological issue; and he was alienating Charles by withdrawing the Council of Trent from that city, which was within Imperial territory, to Bologna where Italian influences would be predominant. If then England intervened on behalf of the League, she would reconcile the Pope and the Emperor, and possibly unite them with France against herself. If she stood aside, she would lose the chance of creating a powerful Protestant League, while experience had shown that any gratitude Charles might feel would count for less than nothing in determining his future policy. The Government hesitated; and while they temporised, the Emperor by a sudden blow became master of the situation. At the end of April, crossing a river by night, he fell upon the unexpectant army of the League at Mühlberg, crushed it, and secured its chiefs. The League of Schmalkald was irrevocably shattered. No effective counterpoise to his power was apparent within the Empire. Now however the task before Charles was to organise the supremacy which had at last become convincingly actual. This, and his quarrel with the Pope over Trent and Bologna, was likely to keep his hands full for some time. Thus the important thing for the Protector was more emphatically than before to conciliate France and gain over a strong party in Scotland to support the policy of friendly relations with England; whereof the chief corner stone was still the marriage of Edward who was about ten years old to the four-year-old Queen of Scots.
[Sidenote: Somerset's Scottish policy]
But Somerset did not conciliate France, which had recently been further irritated by the construction of so-called harbour works at Boulogne which were evidently intended to be fortified, contrary to the treaty; while in Scotland he was meditating a step which could only drive that country into the arms of France.
Somerset in fact was one of those visionaries who are the despair of more clear-sighted persons who are in sympathy with their objects. He suffered from a permanent incapacity for realising the immense difficulties in his way, and the infinite tact necessary to the accomplishment of his aims. Hence the methods he adopted were invariably calculated to bring into full play every conceivable force that could act in opposition. Sincerely anxious to alleviate the lot of the rural population, he went out of his way to irritate the landlord class into more effective combination. Almost alone in a desire for the widest religious toleration, the moderation of his ecclesiastical laws was discounted by the licence of speech and action allowed to the progressives. In like manner, his theory of Scottish policy was admirable, his practice absurd. The Union of England and Scotland was his ideal, as it was to be the ideal in later years of that most acute of Scottish politicians, Lethington. But he could not appreciate the absolute necessity that the Union should be by consent; and even while endeavouring to procure it by consent, for which he appealed in noble language whereof the sincerity is apparent, he adopted methods which aroused the hostility even of those Scots who were most favourably disposed to Union in the abstract. By making common cause with the Reformers, he might have check-mated France; yet he neglected his opportunity. His own solution of the problem was the marriage of Edward and Mary, which he might have brought about by diplomatic persuasion, or by carrying the Reformers with him. Yet he could see nothing for it but to dictate his terms at the sword's point, the one quite certain way of making sure that they would be rejected, by setting even the Reformers against him. To make matters worse, it was in his mind to re-assert the English sovereignty; to which Henry had indeed audaciously affirmed his claim, though only as a right held in reserve. This intention he had already conveyed not to the Scots but to the French who warned him that they would stand by their old allies: while the mere suspicion of such an insult in Scotland was enough to rouse the fiercest hostility of the whole nation.
[Sidenote: Pinkie (Sept.)]
The natural result was that while Somerset was contenting himself with border raids, instead of espousing the cause of the Castilians, Prance was acting. About the beginning of July a French fleet appeared off St. Andrews; at the end of the month the castle surrendered. English ships might have prevented this, but the Protector elected instead to prepare a great invasion. In September he was over the border, in command of a considerable army, supported by a large fleet. The Scots of all parties mustered in force and were lying between the advancing English and Edinburgh in a strong defensive position not far from the spot made memorable two hundred years later by the rout of Prestonpans. The English ships were in the Forth hard by. The Scots in essence repeated the blunder of Flodden before and of Dunbar later. A successful attack by Somerset, who had the smaller army, was almost impossible; they thought that he was delivered into their hand, and mistook a tactical movement for a retreat to the ships. Abandoning their position and racing to cut him off, their leading troops received and broke a charge of horse; but the mass of the English, who were greatly superior in cavalry and artillery, and whose advance had been concealed by the formation of the ground, were already at hand and fell upon them. The Scottish army was completely shattered; ten thousand dead or dying men were left on the field of Pinkie Cleugh. The English loss was small.
[Sidenote: Effect of Pinkie]
Somerset however merely did very much what he had done before when he sacked Edinburgh in the last reign, ravaging and retiring. Pillage and destruction were arguments which invariably stiffened Scottish defiance, and it was now absolutely certain that the Scots would not consent on any terms to the English marriage. Dictation from England by force of arms was the one method of minimising the internal warring of factions in the Northern Country. Had Somerset been prepared to follow up his campaign by an effective military occupation, his plans might have been dignified with the name of a policy. In practice, they amounted almost to a negation of policy. A month after the battle the only effective result for Scotland was a renewed and intensified bitterness of hatred to England, and a corresponding inclination to amity with France. The practical reply to the invasion was the proposal to France of a marriage between the Queen of Scots and the Dauphin.
For the Protector himself however, the victory of Pinkie was a personal triumph. He returned to England in a halo of military glory and popularity, to receive new compliments and honours, and to assume the rôle of beneficent dictator with self-complacent confidence when Parliament met for the first time in the beginning of November.
[Sidenote: The Progressive Reformers]
In the meantime the progressive Reformers, increasingly guided by Swiss rather than Lutheran ideas, were already hurrying forward with their schemes, acting upon Royal proclamations under the authority of the Council. Injunctions were issued for the destruction of "abused" images which term was liberally interpreted so as to cover stained glass, paintings, and carvings which might conceivably be regarded as objects of idolatry—that is to say, become in themselves objects of worship instead of being recognised as mere symbols: a process which unless conducted with the most studied moderation and caution was absolutely certain to give the rein not only to passionate zealotry but to wanton irreverence. Cranmer obtained an order for the reading in churches of the "Book of Homilies," for the most part in lieu of all other preaching. TheParaphraseof Erasmus, done into English, was ordered to be set up in the churches. A commission was issued for a Royal Visitation, superseding the authority of the bishops, though some months elapsed before this was fairly at work. Paget, having the instincts of statesmanship, endeavoured to warn Somerset against keeping too many irons in the fire; but Paget was guided solely by political expediency, not by principle. The one man who did boldly take up his stand on principle was Gardiner. His remonstrances were open. He urged that the intentions of the dead King should be carried out; that no revolutionary changes should be introduced during Edward's minority; that arbitrary proclamations by the Council had no sanction of law; that the personal powers bestowed upon Henry remained in abeyance until the young King should be of age; that aggressive measures in Scotland ought to be similarly deferred. The introduction of the Homilies, he argued, to which authorisation had been refused in the last reign, was in itself unjustifiable in the circumstances; the more so as—mainly by their omissions—they were inconsistent with the doctrinal attitude affirmed by Henry's legislation. Gardiner's remonstrances, supported by Bonner, bishop of London, were of no effect. Matters came to a head when the two bishops refused to submit without qualification to the injunctions. Both were imprisoned in the Fleet, while Somerset was in Scotland.
[Sidenote: Nov. Repeal of more stringent laws; Social legislation]
In November, Parliament met, and began its career of benign legislation. Since Cromwell's day, the land had lain under the grip of ruthless laws. Of these the sternest were repealed as no longer necessary. The Treasons Act disappeared; so did the old Acts against the Lollards; so did the Act of the Six Articles. A curious attempt was made to deal with the problem of vagrancy, the outcome of prevalent economic conditions, which the penalties of flogging and hanging had failed to repress. The vagrant was to be brought before the magistrates, branded, and handed over to some honest person as a "slave" for two years. If he attempted to escape from servitude, he was to be branded again and made a slave for life; if still refractory he could be sentenced as a felon. The intention of the Act was merciful, its effect probably more degrading than that of the superseded statutes. At any rate, it failed entirely of its purpose and was repealed after two years.
[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical legislation]
In matters ecclesiastical, Parliament on its own account abolished the form of thecongé d'élire, giving the appointments directly into the King's hands. Also the chantries and other foundations which had been conferred on Henry, but had not been suppressed by him, were now—despite the strong opposition of Cranmer, Tunstal, and a few of the bishops— formally subjected to the Council and for the most part abolished. It is to be noted however that of the Church property acquired by the crown in this reign a comparatively respectable though still niggardly proportion was re-appropriated to educational purposes. [Footnote: In most cases, only in the way of restoring pre-existing endowments.]
[Sidenote: 1548]
Convocation, sitting concurrently with Parliament, presented petitions for representation of the clergy in parliament, for the administration of the Communion in both kinds to the laity, for the suppression of irreverent language about the Sacrament, and for sanctioning the marriage of the clergy. The first was ignored; the two next were embodied in Acts of Parliament; the last was deferred for a year. The session was rounded off in January by a general pardon, except for the graver offences; with the result that the imprisoned bishops were for a time released.
[Sidenote: Progress of Reformation]
Between this and the next session of Parliament, in November, the arbitrary method of proceeding by proclamations was in full force. The Reformers did not as yet press advanced doctrinal views. There was a proclamation for the observance of the Lenten Fast—expressly for the sake of the fisheries. Another enforced a new Communion Office, pending the completion of a new Prayer-book; but in this the service of the Mass remained unaltered and in Latin: no doctrinal change was implied, though the Communion in both kinds was ordered to be administered to the laity, in accordance with the recent Act and the recommendation of Convocation. More significant was a further proclamation for the destruction of "images," in which the distinction between "abused" images and others, previously laid down, was cancelled. In the meantime no unauthorised innovations were to be permitted. Cranmer was still striving vainly after his ideal of a conference between leading continental and English reformers, who should come to an agreement upon a common body of doctrine. It wasprima faciereasonable that while awaiting the new authoritative formularies, now avowedly in course of preparation by a commission on which the Catholic party was not unrepresented, partisan preaching should be discouraged, and all but licensed preachers be confined to the Homilies; it was however unfortunate that the licences for preaching should have been systematically granted both by Somerset and Cranmer—to whom the power was restricted—only to keen and sometimes extravagant partisans of the "New Learning"; a term at that time appropriated to the advocates of Protestantism at large. It is not surprising that Gardiner so far placed himself in opposition as to be called upon to express publicly his approval of these proceedings, nor that he should have found himself unable to do so in terms satisfactory to the Council. Before the summer was over the Bishop of Winchester was relegated to the Tower. More unfortunate still was the encouragement to sacrilegious irreverence given by the personal conduct of the Protector, who pulled down one chapel and began to lay hands on another in order to build himself a new palace.
[Sidenote: Somerset's ideas]
Nor were Somerset's activities confined to the campaign against "idolatry," a term conveniently used to include any observances which, in the eyes of the Swiss school, savoured of superstition. With no sense of the limitations of his own intelligence, no suspicion of the subtle skill in adjustment needed at all times to impose ideals on a materially minded community, unable to realise that though his object might be excellent the methods adopted in achieving it might be fruitful of unexpected evils, he conceived in his arrogant self-confidence that he had but to say the word and difficulties would vanish. He resolved to appear as the Poor Man's Friend, establishing a Court of Requests in his own house so that appeal might be made personally to him from the normal processes of the Law; also, he appointed a commission to investigate and deal with that evasion of the agricultural statutes which he imagined to be the actual cause of the prevailing distress. The end in view was admirable, the method high-handed and unconstitutional: the policy won him popularity for the time among the depressed classes, but roused the enmity of nobility and gentry without achieving useful results.
[Sidenote: The French in Scotland]
Meanwhile, affairs in Scotland were aggravating the tension with France, where the proposal to marry the Scots Queen to the French Dauphin was approved. English troops harried the borders, and in the course of the spring captured and garrisoned Haddington. French troops were landed in Scotland, and the marriage proposal was formally ratified; in spite of a belated offer from the Protector to leave Scotland alone and postpone his own marriage scheme till Edward and Mary were old enough to have views of their own, provided that Scotland would hold aloof from France. French ships, evading the English by sailing round the Orkneys, took Mary on board on the west coast and carried her off in safety to France. A diplomatist would have seized the chance of reviving an English party, when it was found that a violent animosity was growing up between the Scots and the French troops; but the opportunity was allowed to pass, and the animosities were reconciled by some minor successes of Scots and French together against the English: while privateering operations—in other words, authorised piracy—were going on in and near the Channel, which amounted to something not far removed from a state of war between France and England.
[Sidenote: The Augsburg Interim]
It was fortunate that affairs in Germany continued to preclude that union of the Catholic Powers against England which the Pope desired; since neither Charles nor Paul would bend to the other. Charles, with no one to fear since Mühlberg had witnessed the destruction of the League of Schmalkald, was preparing future disaster by his high-handed attitude within the Empire. Deeming his position absolutely secure, his tone to the Pope was peremptory and dictatorial. The French King encouraged Paul to be equally peremptory. In May 1548, Charles, repudiating the authority of the Council, or section of the Council, sitting at Bologna, took the law in his own hands and imposed the "Interim of Augsburg" on the Germans. It was one of those compromises which satisfies no one; schismatical in the eyes of the Catholics, in the eyes of the Protestants an insignificant concession. Many of the latter, including the moderate and conciliatory Bucer, withdrew to England rather than accept it. The Protector however was secured against any present danger of a coalition between Henry II. and Charles; while the incursion of foreign Protestants of extreme views, especially those of the Swiss school, had a marked influence on the ecclesiastical movement in England.
[Sidenote: Nov. Parliament]
At the end of November, Parliament again met—to reject a first, a second, and a third Enclosures Bill, based on the report of the Agricultural Commission; for the labouring classes were unrepresented in the House. Making the rough places smooth proved not so simple a process as the Protector had imagined. The petition of the clergy for the legalisation of their marriages, deferred from the last session, was given effect, and fasting was again enjoined on economic grounds. The real business of the session, however, was the discussion of the new Prayer-book and the first Act of Uniformity.
[Sidenote: 1549 A New Liturgy]
Hitherto, there had been no uniform Order of Service: a variety of "Uses" being sanctioned. The idea however was by no means new, and had in fact long been theoretically approved, though never pressed with sufficient fervour to pass the stage of theoretical approbation. Cranmer had expended an infinity of learning and labour on the work now to be issued, and to him we owe chiefly the solemn harmonies, the gracious tenderness, of its language. To him too in chief, but partly also to the composite character of the "Windsor Commission" under whose auspices [Footnote:Cf.Moore, 183.] it was prepared, is due that conscious ambiguity of phraseology which enables persons of opinions so diverse on points so numerous to find in it a sufficiently satisfactory expression or recognition of their own views. It was possible alike for Day and for Ridley, even for Tunstal and for Hooper, to conform to it. Whether it was actually submitted to Convocation is a moot question, [Footnote: Moore, 186,187.] as to which the evidence is inconclusive, but informally, if not formally, it is clear that it received theimprimaturof general clerical opinion. In the discussions, the Archbishop—generally regarded by the Swiss school as sadly backward—won from that section unexpected approval; but his other utterances continued to be so difficult to reconcile with their attitude that it is at least doubtful whether he went so far with them as they supposed. At any rate the book known as the Prayer-book of 1549 was accepted, and in January the Act of Uniformity was passed, compelling the clergy throughout the kingdom to adopt it uniformly under severe pains and penalties for recalcitrance. The Act was to come into force at Whitsuntide. Eight of the bishops however opposed the Bill, including some who had been on the Commission. It may be inferred that while they gave the book itself their sanction, they resisted its imposition on the clergy by lay authority.
[Sidenote 1: 1547-49 The treason of the Lord Admiral][Sidenote 2: 1549 Fall of the Lord Admiral]
One other matter was to occupy the attention of Parliament before the close of the session, namely the treason of the Protector's brother, the Admiral, Lord Seymour of Sudeley. He was the King's uncle; he had taken to wife the late King's widow on being refused the hand of the Princess Elizabeth; he was violently jealous of his brother and angry at not having the guardianship of the King entrusted to him—an office which in his opinion ought to be separated from that of Protector of the realm. After marrying Katharine Parr he did obtain from the Council the guardianship of Elizabeth, and from Lord Dorset that of his daughter Lady Jane Grey, who, under Henry's will, stood next in succession to the throne after his own offspring. As Admiral, he had refused to take command of the fleet which accompanied the march to Pinkie; and had entered into secret relations with the pirates who infested the Channel. It had long been palpable that he was intriguing for power, but no one was disposed to take part with him, and Somerset was lenient to him. His principal ally was one Sharington, master of the mint at Bristol, who abused his office by debasing the coinage and pocketing or sharing his nefarious profits: Dorset and probably his brother-in-law Northampton (Parr) favoured him. Thus supported, he had money enough in hand to maintain a considerable armed following should occasion arise, and had established a private cannon foundry. When his wife died, he renewed his pretensions to the hand of Elizabeth, and was not unnaturally suspected of having hastened Katharine's end with that intention. Trusting to the soreness of Southampton (Wriothesly) at his deprivation of the Chancellorship, he tried to win him over, and also Rutland. The attempt failed, and was reported to the Protector; who summoned him to give an account of himself before the Council. Seymour refused to attend, using defiant language; and on January 17th he was arrested. Practically there is no doubt of his treason, and had he then been fairly brought to trial, Somerset would have been free from reproach. But the question was debated in parliament whether the Admiral should be so tried, or attainted, and attainder was decided on after he had refused to answer to the Council; as he was entitled to do. He was allowed to plead before a committee of both Houses in his own defence, but did not take advantage of the permission: virtually he was denied the right of an open trial, and was condemned without such defence as he had to make being heard. Cranmer signed the death-sentence: Latimer defended it. The fact is significant of the chaos into which English ideas of justice and fair play had fallen. The Protector's brother was executed at the end of March.
[Sidenote: Troubles in the Provinces]
From April to September, Somerset's troubles thickened. Formidable insurrections took place both in the western and eastern counties, and the hostilities with France, not yet openly at war, were assuming an aggravated form. The one piece of good fortune for England was that the antagonism between Charles and the French King in other fields still prevented any rapprochement between them.
[Sidenote: The Western Rising]
In the country districts there were two exciting causes of disturbance —one, the general agricultural distress due to the selfish policy of the landowners, the extension of sheep-farming and consequent displacement of labour, the enclosure of common lands and evictions from small holdings; the other, the innovations in religion and interference with immemorial practices to which the people were attached with the persistent conservatism of rural folk. The two types of grievance were associated by the recent abolition of the monasteries, and the transfer of their lands to the most obnoxious class of landlord—a class in the nature of the circumstances popularly identified with the enemies of the old ecclesiastical system, since it was they who conspicuously profited by the change. The North and the West, then and for more than a century to come, were the strongholds of traditional faiths and traditional ideals, as Yorkshire had shown by the Pilgrimage of Grace. Now the main trouble arose in the West. The introduction of the new Service Book at Whitsuntide was met with violent opposition; the men of Cornwall and Devon rose, and demanded the redress of grievances. They would have the religious houses reinstated, and at least half their lands restored. They would have the old services, not the new one which was "like a Christmas play". They would not have it in English which the Cornishmen "did not understand". Elsewhere there had already been disturbances, the peasants anticipating Somerset's efforts to remedy the agricultural grievances by a commission to enforce what was actually the law, and assembling in mobs to level fences and enclosures; whereat the Council was wrath, but the Protector as Friend of the People was disposed to applaud them. A religious revolt however was an attack on the Protector's own policy, and must be put down. Foreign mercenaries were called in, to embitter the quarrel. The insurgents besieged Exeter, and had been for some months in arms before they were at last crushed by the Government forces, in August, after desperate fighting.
[Sidenote: Ket's insurrection]
In the meantime a separate rising came to a head in the Eastern counties, where however the religious question was not involved. In that part of the country, destined to be the head-quarters of puritanism, the new ideas had made early way with the population; and Ket, the leader of the rising, conducted it on the hypothesis that his followers were merely enforcing legal rights because the agents of the Government neglected to do so. A great camp was formed at Mousehold Hill near Norwich; order was strictly maintained; morning and evening the new services were read. There was so much to be said in favour of the insurgents that they were offered a free pardon if they would disperse; but unfortunately Ket cavilled at the word "Pardon" on the ground that no offence had been committed, whereupon the herald called him a traitor. The indignant insurgents, ready enough to disperse before, thereupon changed their tone, assaulted and captured Norwich, and carried off the guns and ammunition. Northampton was sent down in command of the Government forces, but the rebels attacked him with such determination that he had to fly—the insurgents maintaining their policy of abstaining from robbery and violence generally. At last however, at the end of August, Warwick, who replaced Northampton, succeeded by the aid of German and Italian mercenaries in inflicting a crushing defeat on them; Ket himself being taken and hanged soon after.
[Sidenote: Somerset's attitude]
Another rising was also attempted in Yorkshire, but this was easily quelled by the local authorities. It is however of interest to note that the nobility regarded Somerset as the real cause of these troubles, on account of the open sympathy he expressed for the grievances of the rural population, and his public admonitions to the landowners urging them to amend their ways. He was driving the country faster than it was prepared to go in the direction of religious innovations; he was attacking the privileges which the new landowners had usurped; his Scottish policy had been upset, in spite of Pinkie, by the young Queen's escape to France; he was further alienating all but a few of the nobility by his increasing arrogance of demeanour and disregard of advice, as well as by an assumption of powers which had no precedent; he was giving a handle to his enemies by the profusion of his own household, his appropriations of clerical lands and even of the fabric of consecrated buildings to his own use; and finally his conduct of foreign affairs had been so incompetent that while the Emperor declined an English alliance, the position of Boulogne—which remained quite inefficiently garrisoned—was becoming critical, and a French squadron, ostensibly in pursuit of English pirates, attacked the island of Jersey. By the end of September war was declared with France.
[Sidenote 1: The Council attacks the Protector][Sidenote 2: Fall of Somerset (Sept.)]
The lords of the Council, headed by Warwick, made up their minds that it was time the protectorate should end, and that one vain-glorious nobleman should not absorb so undue a share of power and profit. Somerset, discovering that there was a cabal on foot, attempted to stir up popular feeling against the Council, and retired hurriedly to Windsor with the King, accompanied by Cranmer and Paget; a journey which is said to have materially shaken the health of Edward, who was in a very delicate condition. But the people did not rise in Somerset's favour; the Council had so far taken no improper action, whereas the Protector had evidently incited to violence by the steps into which panic had led him; Herbert and Russell, returning from the West with the troops employed there to put down the insurrection, declared in favour of the Council; who were of course forced—very much to their own satisfaction—to stand on their right to control the Government, and call the Protector to account, at the same time promising him life and declaring that they had never sought his personal injury. By mid-October, Somerset had fully realised that he was without effective support; he surrendered to the Council, and was sent to the Tower. His deposition from the Protectorate was confirmed by Parliament three months later, and a substantial portion of his estates was forfeited, after which he was again set at liberty. But his control in politics was at an end.
[Sidenote 1: Ireland, 1547-49][Sidenote 2: Bellingham Deputy]
Before proceeding to the second division of Edward's reign, it remains to deal with affairs in Ireland, where Sir Anthony St. Leger held sway, with general approval, during the closing years of Henry's life. St. Leger embodied the policy of conciliation by the method of converting Irish chiefs into responsible supporters of the government in return for honours gilded with spoils of the Church. The method worked well, but the condoning—almost, it might be said, the rewarding—of treason, initiated by Henry VII., carried risks which are obvious. Whether it was that the extension to Ireland of the energetic iconoclasm of the English Reformation in 1547 excited new hostility; or that a repressive policy was anticipated from the new Government; or that death withdrew the loyal influence of the old Earl of Ormonde, whose young heir was in England; or that the chiefs were tired of behaving peaceably after six years; or that all these causes combined: signs of disturbance and rumours of French intrigues arose. St. Leger was recalled, and replaced by Sir Edward Bellingham, a stern and rigorous soldier, who ruled autocratically with a strong hand. Fortresses and garrisons were established up and down the country outside the Pale, among the tribes which had been in the habit of raiding or levying blackmail—very much after the fashion of various Highland clansmen in Scotland; while O'Connor and O'More, two chiefs whose lands lay between the English Pale and the Shannon, were attached for treason. In short, Bellingham asserted the authority of the English government, not, it would seem, unjustly, but certainly with severity, and in a dictatorial fashion which thoroughly re-awakened the normal rebellious instincts of a population never really subjugated. While he was present, his power was feared and respected; but if St. Leger's policy had been taking real effect, that effect was thoroughly cancelled. Bellingham died in 1549, and Desmond told Allen the Chancellor, that the Deputy's methods had reduced all Ireland to despair. [Footnote: A phrase expanded by Mr. Froude, v., 421 (Ed. 1864)—perhaps legitimately—into "despair of being able to continue their old habits".] In any case, no long time elapsed after Bellingham's death before the country was again in a ferment. The fall of Somerset left the new Government, controlled by Warwick, with a normally distracted Ireland on its hands as well as an abnormally distracted England. So long, however, as ferment did not mean active rebellion, the English rulers were not greatly troubled.
EDWARD VI (ii), 1549-53—THE DUDLEY ASCENDANCY
When Somerset fell, the state of affairs which his successors had to face was singularly threatening, calling for the most skilful statesmanship both at home and abroad.
[Sidenote: 1549 (Winter) The Situation]
Externally, the chance of maintaining the hold on Boulogne was disappearing: but while it was maintained, the hostility of France was assured. Scotland, defiant, allied with France and helped by French troops, might become actively embarrassing. Within two months of the Protector's fall Pope Paul died. He was succeeded by Julius III. who promptly made friends with the Emperor; to whom there was now hardly any open resistance save at Magdeburg which stubbornly refused to accept the Interim. With the Protestants apparently under his heel, and on good terms with the Papacy, he might assume a hostile attitude to England. The one hope for her lay in buying from France the friendship of the party in that country which, ever mindful of the Italian provinces, might make common cause against the Emperor if the immediate source of friction with England were removed.
[Sidenote: State of the Country]
At home there were the rural discontents and the swelling ardours of religious partisanship to deal with, while the financial position was growing worse from day to day. The natural fall in the value of silver everywhere, owing to the quantities of the metal now beginning to pour into Spain from America, depreciated the purchasing power of wages; and this was made infinitely worse in England by the persistent debasement of the coinage. The rulers of the country rewarded their own very inconspicuous merits with the forfeited spoils of the Church, instead of applying them to the public needs. The Treasury was nearly empty, and was maintained even at its alarmingly low level only by borrowing from foreign bankers at usurious interest. For the time being, the country had lost its moral balance; landowners, merchants, and manufacturers were absorbed in rapid money-making at the expense of their traditional integrity. Religion had fallen into a controversial wrangle between contradictory dogmas; the most earnest of the Reformers have given us the blackest pictures of the prevailing irreligion and moral anarchy, rampant products of theological acrimony. It is true that the Moralists of all ages have usually been engaged in expressing a vehement conviction that the decadence of their own age exceeds that of any other known to history; and within the next decade, the denunciations of Latimer were to be lost in the paean of the martyrs. Had the corruption he depicts been vital, those sublime tragedies would never have taken place. But for the time, chaos prevailed. It is true that some of the subjects of controversy were logically vital ultimately; but it is true also that, absorbed in them, the controversialists lost sight of other matters more spiritually vital immediately. If the Christian is taught that his duty to God is comprised in the acceptance or non-acceptance of dogmas and ceremonial observances, while his duty towards his neighbour comprises the whole of his moral conduct; if then his spiritual guides omit to preach the latter in their devotion to the former subject; his morality is in danger of being entirely neglected. "This ought they to have done, but not to leave the other undone."
[Sidenote: 1550 Terms with France]
In one respect, the new Government recognised the force of facts. It made up its mind that France must be reconciled by the evacuation of Boulogne, if any colourable concession could be obtained in return. France however so obviously held the whip-hand that even Paget's diplomacy could do little to qualify the completeness of the surrender. There was a brave display of preparation for a determined defence, but the negotiators on both sides were fully aware of its emptiness. There was nothing that Henry II. desired more than the termination of strife with his excellent neighbours, provided that they would hand over Boulogne, cancel most of the money claim under the treaty of 1546 for which they held it as security, and withdraw their troops from the forts they still retained in Scotland. The reconciliation might then be sealed by the betrothal of Edward to a French princess, the young Queen of Scots being bespoken by the Dauphin—only nothing considerable in the way of a dowry could be expected. France however would pay within a few months what might pass as a ransom for Boulogne. Such were the terms which Paget, the cleverest statesman in England, was obliged to advise the Council to accept: though the suggested marriage project was dropped. The treaty of peace was signed on March 24th (1550).
[Sidenote: Warwick's Protestant zeal]
On the religious question, Warwick lost little time in showing that he was on the same side as Somerset. For a moment, the Protector's fall raised vain hopes in the breasts of those who supported the Old Learning. Gardiner appealed from his prison: so did Bonner who not long before had not only been incarcerated for the second time, but even, in October, deprived of his see. It was useless. Warwick saw that he must either pose as an enthusiastic reformer, or bring the reactionaries into power. In the former case, he could lead; in the latter, he would have to throw himself on the support of the old nobility. Not only Gardiner but Norfolk also would have to be released from the Tower, and he himself would inevitably drop to the second rank. Warwick, with a fine consistency, never permitted any other motive to influence him when his own aggrandisement was involved in the issues. The first step of the parliament which re-assembled in November (1549) was to pass an Act for the removal of Images. Gardiner, and Bonner, remained in prison. Even an attempt of the whole body of Bishops to have something of their disciplinary jurisdiction restored, in the interests of public morality, was quietly suppressed. Three more bishops of the Old learning were at intervals sent to prison and deprived—Heath, Day, and Tunstal. Every vacancy was filled from the ranks of the advanced reformers.
[Sidenote: A new treasons and felonies Act]
Norfolk, like the bishops, continued a prisoner. Somerset on the other hand, no longer regarded as dangerous, was released in February, the major part of the fine imposed on him was remitted, and after a brief interval he was even re-instated in the Privy Council, and his official reconciliation with Warwick sealed by a family marriage. But while his anti-clerical policy was carried to much greater lengths, his social policy and his relaxation of the treason laws were entirely reversed. Parliament made felony or treason out of assemblages presumed to intend disturbance of the peace, to some extent legalised enclosures, made acts against Privy Councillors treasonable as if they were against the King, and included in the ban assemblies for the purpose of altering the laws.
[Sidenote: Activity of the extreme Reformers]
The peace with France still left opportunities for friction; but Warwick's reforming enthusiasm drove him into the course—manifestly irritating to the Emperor—of interfering with the private devotions of the Princess Mary, who was ordered to give up the Mass: to which she replied that she was bound by the law as left by her father, and would not recognise orders in contravention thereof, as long as her brother was a minor. Charles himself was at this very time reverting to an intolerant policy in the Low Countries, and Protestants were hastening to England from Flanders. The risk that the Emperor might adopt Mary's cause in arms was obvious, and it was known that the Guise party at the French court would miss no opportunity of reviving the war with England in the hope of capturing Calais. In the meantime, the extreme reformers of the Swiss school were steadily gaining weight, in comparison with that section which, like Cranmer, continued to favour less drastic changes. One of their chiefs, Hooper, being nominated to a bishopric, for a long time declined to accept it on account of the vestments ordered to be worn at consecration—an attitude however for which he was condemned by all the cooler heads, including some of the most advanced. Hooper ultimately gave way—a narrow-minded but sincere man, who at the last won the crown of martyrdom. An unsuccessful effort was made to obtain Gardiner's release—the failure being the more pointed because Somerset interested himself on the bishop's part. Gardiner, with thorough consistency, declared himself ready to accept the Prayer-book since it did not preclude his view of the Sacrament; but he would not profess opinions in contradiction of the doctrines formally affirmed in the last reign. In the end, he was not only kept in prison, but deprived of his see of Winchester.
[Sidenote 1: 1551 The Council and the Emperor][Sidenote 2: Charles's difficulties]
In the early months of 1551 the friction with the Emperor on the subject of the Princess Mary's Mass was becoming alarming; Charles was refusing to let the English Ambassador in his dominions use the English Communion Service; and the Council went so far as to propose making the Princess personally and alone exempt from Conformity: fortunately, however, for them, affairs in Italy took a turn which gave fresh impulse to the anti-Imperialists in France. The Protestant city of Magdeburg was still holding out against the Imperial troops which were under the command of Maurice of Saxony, and the French King was becoming inclined to give active support to the resistance. The Pope had devoted himself to Charles's interests, and assented to the return of the Council to Trent; and there were hints that Henry might call a Gallican synod, instead of allowing the French ecclesiastics to attend, unless the Lutherans were also represented. The Emperor could no longer imagine himself to be completely master of the situation. In April, the Council felt that he was so far hampered that they could venture to assume a bold front. They informed him that the Act of Uniformity was the Law; that it applied to all subjects, including the Princess; and that they claimed the same freedom for their own ambassador which they were willing to concede reciprocally to his. About the same time the German Diet foiled a pet scheme of Charles, who wished his son Philip (afterwards Philip II. of Spain) to be nominated as his successor to the Imperial crown in place of his brother Ferdinand [Footnote: Charles had ceded the Austrian dominions of the house of Habsburg to Ferdinand in 1522.] who was already King of the Romans. The Germans however preferred the Austrian to the Spanish succession, and rejected the proposal. In June he found that the English and French had come to terms, and had agreed to a French marriage for Edward, on exceedingly easy conditions for France. He still continued to threaten war unless England gave way on the disputed points; but the Council answered only by temporising, and he was soon in no position to threaten. The unrest of the German Protestants and later in the year the assembling of the Council at Trent demanded all his attention. In fact, though he did not suspect it, Maurice of Saxony was even now laying his plans for snapping the bonds which the Emperor was seeking to rivet upon his German subjects. The incompetent hand-to-mouth conduct of foreign affairs in England did not bring disaster on the country, mainly because Charles had not rightly taken the measure of his own strength and of the forces in the Empire adverse to his policy.
[Sidenote: Groups among the Reformers]
The domestic history of England during 1551 is not marked by events of magnitude, but the general trend of affairs is not without significance. No serious attempt was made to deal with any of the existing causes of disorder and uneasiness. Warwick, a man whose entire career presents no evidence of his having possessed any religious convictions whatever, had fixed upon the ultra-protestants as the party whose support would be most valuable to him. Honest enough themselves, these men, typified by Bishop Hooper, were ready to credit with a like honesty any one who talked their particular jargon with sufficient fervour, and to stigmatise as Laodiceans any one who did not go to every length along with them. Cranmer and more positively his right-hand man Ridley—recently made bishop of London in Bonner's room—were now leaning more towards them than when the Prayer-book of 1549 was promulgated; and a considerable personal animus cannot but have entered into their feeling towards Gardiner, whose present unimpeachable attitude of legality was discounted by his participation in the intrigues against Cranmer during the last reign.
[Sidenote: Attitude of Somerset]
It is less really surprising than it seems at first sight to find in Somerset the one man who really interested himself on the side of toleration towards individuals, in the cases both of Mary and of Gardiner. As a matter of fact, although when Protector he had been particularly zealous in the war against images, had carried desecration to abnormal lengths in his private appropriation of spoils, and had grossly transgressed his constitutional powers for the repression of the bishop of Winchester as the ablest of the opponents of his policy: yet he was not generally vindictive, was probably quite satisfied with the compromise of the first prayer-book which did not actually contravene theKing's Book, and—except when he was commanding troops in Scotland—liked at least the posture of magnanimity. Entirely devoid of statesmanlike qualities, but afflicted with inordinate vanity, he had been an intolerably incompetent ruler: yet his intentions were usually quite commendable; while the government which succeeded the Protectorate had failed in every particular to establish a claim to respect, nor could he be, like the zealots, hoodwinked into a belief in its honesty. Apart therefore from personal considerations he did not favour its extreme policy, and personal considerations suggested that he might once more oust his rival from power. Lacking the capacity to organise an opposition, he still lent himself to intrigues. He was a possible danger to the Government for one reason and only one—that popularity with the commonalty which had been gained by his well-meant but ill-directed efforts to espouse their cause against the oppression of the wealthier classes.
[Sidenote 1: Fresh attack on Somerset][Sidenote 2: 1552 Execution of Somerset]
Warwick therefore, endowed with plentiful cunning and no scruples, decided to be rid of him once for all, and put in the mouth of an accomplice a story, with enough truth in it to be plausible, which sufficed for his purpose. In October Warwick, having procured his own elevation to the Dukedom of Northumberland, that of Dorset to the Dukedom of Suffolk, and that of Herbert to the Earldom of Pembroke, arrested Somerset at the Council. The Duke was accused of compassing the deaths of several Lords of the Council, and of preparations for an armed revolt and for appealing to the populace. On the greater part of the specific charges, the evidence was quite inadequate—but finding that Somerset might be held to have gone far enough to incur the death-sentence for felony under the law passed by the parliament of 1549-50, Northumberland (as Warwick must now be called) made a show of magnanimously withdrawing the accusations so far as he was personally affected. Somerset was duly condemned; but it was not till the end of January (1552) that he was actually executed, in spite of the somewhat pathetic demonstrations in his favour of the populace, who refused to the last to believe that the sentence would really be carried out, and lamented his doom with tears.