The History of England, Volume III Henry VIII King's final breach with Rome
by David Hume
When intelligence was conveyed to Rome of these transactions, so injurious to the authority and reputation of the holy see, the conclave was in a rage, and all the cardinals of the Imperial faction urged the pope to proceed to a definitive sentence, and to dart his spiritual thunders against Henry. But Clement proceeded no farther than to declare the nullity of Cranmer’s sentence, as well as that of Henry’s second marriage; threatening him with excommunicaton, if, before the first of November ensuing, he did not replace every thing in the condition in which it formerly stood.t An event had happened, from which the pontiff expected a more amicable conclusion of the difference, and which hindered him from carrying matters to extremity against the king.
The pope had claims upon the dutchy of Ferrara for the sovereignty of Reggio and Modena;u and having submitted his pretensions to the arbitration of the emperor, he was surprized to find a sentence pronounced against him. Enraged at this disappointment, he hearkened to proposals of amity from Francis; and when that monarch made overtures of marrying the duke of Orleans, his second son, to Catherine of Medicis, niece of the pope, Clement gladly embraced an alliance, by which his family was so much honoured. An interview was even appointed between the pope and French king at Marseilles; and Francis, as a common friend, there employed his good offices in mediating an accommodation between his new ally and the king of England.
Had this connexion of France with the court of Rome taken place a few years sooner, there had been little difficulty in adjusting the quarrel with Henry. The king’s request was an ordinary one; and the same plenary power of the pope, which had granted a dispensation for his espousing of Catherine, could easily have annulled the marriage. But, in the progress of the quarrel, the state of affairs was much changed on both sides. Henry had shaken off much of that reverence, which he had early imbibed for the apostolic see; and finding, that his subjects of all ranks had taken part with him, and willingly complied with his measures for breaking off foreign dependance, he had begun to relish his spiritual authority, and would scarcely, it was apprehended, be induced to renew his submissions to the Roman pontiff. The pope, on the other hand, now ran a manifest risque of infringing his authority by a compliance with the king; and as a sentence of divorce could no longer be rested on nullities in Julius’s bull, but would be construed as an acknowledgment of papal usurpations, it was foreseen, that the Lutherans would thence take occasion of triumph, and would perservere more obstinately in their present principles. But notwithstanding these obstacles, Francis did not despair of mediating an agreement. He observed that the king had still some remains of prejudice in favour of the catholic church, and was apprehensive of the consequences, which might ensue from too violent innovations. He saw the interest that Clement had in preserving the obedience of England, which was one of the richest jewels in the papal crown. And he hoped, that these motives on both sides would facilitate a mutual agreement, and would forward the effects of his good offices.
[1534.] Francis first prevailed on the pope to promise, that, if the king would send a proxy to Rome, and thereby submit his cause to the holy see, he should appoint commissioners to meet at Cambray, and form the process; and he should immediately afterwards pronounce the sentence of divorce, required of him. Bellay, bishop of Paris, was next dispatched to London, and obtained a promise from the king, that he would submit his cause to the Roman consistory, provided the cardinals of the Imperial faction were excluded from it. The prelate carried this verbal promise to Rome; and the pope agreed, that, if the king would sign a written agreement to the same purpose, his demands should be fully complied with. A day was appointed for the return of the messengers; and all Europe regarded this affair, which had threatened a violent rupture between England and the Romish church, as drawing towards an amicable conclusion.w But the greatest affairs often depend on the most frivolous incidents. The courier, who carried the king’s written promise, was detained beyond the day appointed: News was brought to Rome that a libel had been published in England against the court of Rome, and a farce acted before the king in derision of the pope and cardinals.x [23d March.] The pope and cardinals entered into the consistory enflamed with anger; and by a precipitate sentence, the marriage of Henry and Catherine was pronounced valid, and Henry declared to be excommunicated, if he refused to adhere to it. Two days after, the courier arrived; and Clement, who had been hurried from his usual prudence, found, that, though he heartily repented of this hasty measure, it would be difficult for him to retract it, or replace affairs on the same footing as before.
It is not probable, that the pope, had he conducted himself with ever so great moderation and temper, could hope, during the life-time of Henry, to have regained much authority or influence in England. That monarch was of a temper both impetuous and obstinate;[15th Jan.] and having proceeded so far in throwing off the papal yoke, he never could again have been brought tamely to bend his neck to it. Even at the time, when he was negociating a reconciliation with Rome, he either entertained so little hopes of success, or was so indifferent about the event, that he had assembled a Parliament, and continued to enact laws totally destructive of the papal authority. The people had been prepared by degrees for this great innovation. Each preceding session had retrenched somewhat from the power and profits of the pontiff. Care had been taken, during some years, to teach the nation, that a general council was much superior to a pope. But now a bishop preached every Sunday at Paul’s cross, in order to inculcate the doctrine, that the pope was entitled to no authority at all beyond the bounds of his own diocese.y The proceedings of the parliament showed that they had entirely adopted this opinion; and there is reason to believe, that the king, after having procured a favourable sentence from Rome, which would have removed all doubts with regard to his second marriage and the succession, might indeed have lived on terms of civility with the Roman pontiff, but never would have surrendered to him any considerable share of his assumed prerogative. The importance of the laws, passed this session, even before intelligence arrived of the violent resolutions taken at Rome, is sufficient to justify this opinion.
All payments made to the apostolic chamber; all provisions, bulls, dispensations, were abolished: Monasteries were subjected to the visitation and government of the king alone: The law for punishing heretics was moderated; the ordinary was prohibited from imprisoning or trying any person upon suspicion alone, without presentment by two lawful witnesses; and it was declared that to speak against the pope’s authority was no heresy: Bishops were to be appointed, by a congè d’ elire from the crown, or in case of the dean and chapter’s refusal, by letters patent; and no recourse was to be had to Rome for palls, bulls, or provisions: Campeggio and Ghinucci, two Italians, were deprived of the bishoprics of Salisbury and Worcester, which they had hitherto enjoyed:z The law, which had been formerly made against paying annates or first fruits, but which had been left in the king’s power to suspend or enforce, was finally established: And a submission, which was exacted two years before from the clergy, and which had been obtained with great difficulty, received this session the sanction of parliament.a In this submission, the clergy acknowledged, that convocations ought to be assembled by the king’s authority only; they promise to enact no new canons without his consent; and they agree, that he should appoint thirty-two commissioners, in order to examine the old canons, and abrogate such as should be found prejudicial to his royal prerogative.b An appeal was also allowed from the bishop’s court to the king in Chancery.
But the most important law, passed this session, was that which regulated the succession to the crown: The marriage of the king with Catherine was declared unlawful, void, and of no effect: The primate’s sentence, annulling it, was ratified: And the marriage with queen Anne was established and confirmed. The crown was appointed to descend to the issue of this marriage, and failing them to the king’s heirs for ever. [30th March.] An oath likewise was enjoined to be taken in favour of this order of succession, under the penalty of imprisonment during the king’s pleasure, and forfeiture of goods and chattels. And all slander against the king, queen, or their issue, was subjected to the penalty of misprision of treason. After these compliances, the parliament was prorogued; and those acts, so contemptuous towards the pope, and so destructive of his authority, were passed at the very time that Clement pronounced his hasty sentence against the king. Henry’s resentment against queen Catherine, on account of her obstinacy, was the reason why he excluded her daughter from all hopes of succeeding to the crown; contrary to his first intentions, when he began the process of divorce, and of dispensation for a second marriage.
The king found his ecclesiastical subjects as compliant as the laity. The convocation ordered, that the act against appeals to Rome, together with the king’s appeal from the pope to a general council, should be affixed to the doors of all the churches in the kingdom: And they voted that the bishop of Rome had, by the law of God, no more jurisdiction in England than any other foreign bishop; and that the authority, which he and his predecessors had there exercised, was only by usurpation and by the sufferance of English princes. Four persons alone opposed this vote in the lower house, and one doubted. It passed unanimously in the upper. The bishops went so far in their complaisance, that they took out new commissions from the crown, in which all their spiritual and episcopal authority was expressly affirmed to be derived ultimately from the civil magistrate, and to be entirely dependent on his good pleasure.c
The oath regarding the succession was generally taken throughout the kingdom. Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, were the only persons of note, that entertained scruples with regard to its legality. Fisher was obnoxious on account of some practices, into which his credulity, rather than any bad intentions, seems to have betrayed him. But More was the person of greatest reputation in the kingdom for virtue and integrity; and as it was believed, that his authority would have influence on the sentiments of others, great pains were taken to convince him of the lawfulness of the oath. He declared, that he had no scruple with regard to the succession, and thought that the parliament had full power to settle it: He offered to draw an oath himself, which would ensure his allegiance to the heir appointed; but he refused the oath prescribed by law; because the preamble of that oath asserted the legality of the king’s marriage with Anne, and thereby implied, that his former marriage with Catherine was unlawful and invalid. Cranmer, the primate, and Cromwel, now secretary of state, who highly loved and esteemed More, entreated him to lay aside his scruples; and their friendly importunity seemed to weigh more with him, than all the penalties attending his refusal.d He persisted, however, in a mild, though firm manner, to maintain his resolution; and the king, irritated against him as well as Fisher, ordered both to be indicted upon the statute, and committed prisoners to the Tower.
[3d Novem.] The parliament, being again assembled, conferred on the king the title of the only supreme head on earth of the church of England; as they had already invested him with all the real power belonging to it. In this memorable act, the parliament granted him power, or rather acknowledged his inherent power, “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.”e They also declared it treason to attempt, imagine, or speak evil against the king, queen, or his heirs, or to endeavour depriving them of their dignities or titles. They gave him a right to all the annates and tythes of benefices, which had formerly been paid to the court of Rome. They granted him a subsidy and a fifteenth. They attainted More and Fisher for misprision of treason. And they completed the union of England and Wales, by giving to that principality all the benefit of the English laws.
Thus the authority of the popes, like all exorbitant power, was ruined by the excess of its acquisitions, and by stretching its pretensions beyond what it was possible for any human principles or prepossessions to sustain. Indulgences had in former ages tended extremely to enrich the holy see; but being openly abused, they served to excite the first commotions and opposition in Germany. The prerogative of granting dispensations had also contributed much to attach all the sovereign princes and great families in Europe to the papal authority; but meeting with an unlucky concurrence of circumstances, was now the cause, why England separated herself from the Romish communion. The acknowledgment of the king’s supremacy introduced there a greater simplicity in the government, by uniting the spiritual with the civil power, and preventing disputes about limits, which never could be exactly determined between the contending jurisdictions. A way was also prepared for checking the exorbitancies of superstition, and breaking those shackles, by which all human reason, policy, and industry had so long been encumbered. The prince, it may be supposed, being head of the religion, as well as of the temporal jurisdiction of the kingdom, though he might sometimes employ the former as an engine of government, had no interest, like the Roman pontiff, in nourishing its excessive growth; and, except when blinded by his own ignorance or bigotry, would be sure to retain it within tolerable limits, and prevent its abuses. And on the whole, there followed from this revolution many beneficial consequences; though perhaps neither foreseen nor intended by the persons who had the chief hand in conducting it.
