sity have brought us to this doing."1 He then explained how the heavy tax, by depriving the wealthy men of their capital, had really fallen upon the artisans. Their complaints were so reasonable, that the Duke procured a relaxation of the tax. Henry threw the whole blame on Wolsey, and pleaded ignorance of its severity. The money was raised by way of benevolence.

It was natural that such arbitrary dealing as this should render Wolsey very unpopular. His sudden change of policy in 1525, when he seemed to be throwing over the Emperor, and destroying the market for English woollens in Flanders, and to be connecting the country with its natural enemy the French, increased his unpopularity. But not only was he unpopular; there was, as we have seen, a strong lay party in the Council strongly opposed to him. Thus, when the failure of his policy with regard to the divorce drew the King's displeasure upon him, when in fact, for almost the first time in his reign, Henry VIII. began to look seriously at what was going on around him, there was no lack of advisers to point out the shortcomings of the great minister; and when it was determined that he should be removed from his position, something analogous to a great change of ministry at present took place, only that the fall of the defeated minister was greater, the subversion of his policy and plans more complete. In fact, the turning-point of the reign was reached. Henry awoke to the fact that he need no longer trust to the Church for his counsellors, and fell back on the support of the nobility, who had been hitherto almost excluded from power.

Thus when, in 1529, on the 17th of October, Wolsey surrendered the Great Seal, Norfolk rose for a time to the position of Prime Minister, and set on foot what may be considered as a national and English policy. The Parliament was at once called, and attempts were made in it to bring the conduct of Wolsey under the head of high treason. Stripped of all his wealth, dependent for the little that he had on the bounty of Henry, Wolsey found among his servants Thomas Cromwell, who, as a member of the Lower House, was both able and willing to defend him. The charge of treason, resting entirely upon ecclesiastical assumptions, fell to the ground; but the Statute of Præmunire, to which Wolsey had made himself obnoxious by receiving the legatine authority, was allowed to have its course, and all his property was forfeited to the Crown. The efforts of Cromwell were not unrewarded. Henry appreciated his honest ability, and at once took him into his service; and during the seven

1 Hall, p. 700.

1529]

THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND

389

years that followed-the most momentous in some respects of English history—whatever office he may happen to have held, he Rise of was always the representative of Government in the Cromwell. Lower House of Parliament, the leader and moving spirit of that body which was to establish the ecclesiastical freedom of the country. Wolsey's efforts at staving off the Reformation had done nothing but render its advance more certain. The deep dissatisfaction with the Church, which had long been smouldering in England, broke forth. Its voice was no longer checked by the royal authority. But the royal authority had of late been the only support on which the Church could rely. In dread of threatened attacks from the nation, it had voluntarily allied itself closely with the Crown. When that support failed it, its power was gone. The King having now objects of his own which rendered him the friend of all who would assault the Church, allowed the national feeling free course. He even put himself at the head of the national party, who desired first the retrenchment of the power of the national Church, and, secondly, the independence of the country in matters ecclesiastical of the supremacy of the Roman See. The problem as yet had assumed but these two sides. A change of doctrine was hardly thought of. As was natural, it was the reform of the national Church, the abuses of The Reformation which touched more nearly every man's life and home, which first occupied the attention of the Commons. beginning of their session they presented a petition, in which, after complaining of the spread of heresy, they traced it to the errors of the Church, which they proceeded to denounce at length. Their chief complaints were directed against the independent legislation claimed by the Convocation, the number of officers, and the exorbitant fees of the ecclesiastical courts, the refusal of the Sacrament till certain sums had been first paid, the extravagant probate duties, the granting of benefices to children unfit to hold them, illegal imprisonment by bishops, and other irregularities. Upon this petition were based statutes, originating from Sir Thomas More, who had succeeded Wolsey as Chancellor, against excessive probate duties and mortuaries (or fees upon burial), against the clergy following any trade except their own, and to enforce residence and forbid pluralities. There was much opposition in the House of Lords, the Bishops being very loth to consent, but at length, after many discussions between committees of the two Houses, the King intervened, and insisted on the passing of the Bill. After this triumph, which, though it left the great question of the freedom of ecclesiastical jurisdiction unsettled,

in England.

At the very

Question of the divorce renewed.

yet struck a heavy blow at the ill-gotten wealth and irregular habits of the clergy, Parliament separated (December 1529). Meanwhile the question of the divorce had entered a new phase. No longer content with resting his claims on a technical irregularity in Pope Julius's dispensation, Henry now questioned the right of that Pope to give a dispensation at all between such near relatives. It is said to have been Thomas Cranmer who suggested this point, and who thus attracted to himself the attention and favour of the King. The advantage to be gained by this new question was, that it would of necessity, inasmuch as it had reference to his own power, pass out of the Pope's hands into that of a council. Henry was thus appealing to the world against the Pope's hesitation, and this line of conduct was continued,-again it is believed at Cranmer's suggestion,-when it was determined to collect the opinions of all the universities of Europe. This process was carried out with abundance of bribery and intimidation on the side both of the English King and of the Emperor, who was now his open opponent. It resulted in an uncertain decision, about half the universities giving their opinion in Henry's favour. Curiously enough the Lutherans, who might have been expected to support him-recollecting perhaps his early feats of theology,―gave their opinions against him.

Attack on the
Church in

Before the Parliament again met, in January 1531, Convocation was informed that, by acknowledging the legatine authority of Wolsey, the whole clergy had laid itself open to Convocation, the penalties of Præmunire, and that consequently all their property was at the King's disposal. From this awkward position they were offered, however, an opportunity of extricating themselves. As, no doubt, Wolsey's tyranny had been unpopular with the clergy, it must have seemed to them very hard that they should be involved in his ruin; and that so sharp a blow could be struck shows the great want of sympathy which existed between the clergy and the laity. So palpable an act of oppression could scarcely have been tolerated had it not been popular. The alternative offered to the clergy was a payment of £118,000,―a vast sum if we remember that we may safely multiply the money of that day by ten to bring it to its present value. Nor was this all. In the preamble of the Bill by which the subsidy was to be granted, they were obliged to give the King the title of Head of the Church; not that Henry had as yet determined to break with Rome, but that, as head of the national party, he was determined that the civil power should be superior to the ecclesiastical.

1531]

THE CHURCH BECOMES NATIONAL

391

The Parliament, which had held its second session in the beginning of the year 1531, had done little beyond strengthening the King's hands in his struggle with the clergy. It was prorogued with a speech from Sir Thomas More, declaring the opinions and in of the universities with regard to Henry's divorce. This Parliament. seems to have been the first time that he brought the matter before Parliament, but he now thought it well to set himself right in the eyes of the people, especially as the nation was in great excitement, and the clergy everywhere uttering the strongest denunciations against his conduct. The Nun of Kent, of whom more will be said afterwards, had already begun her prophetical impostures, and the superstitious feelings of the whole people were deeply moved. The separation of the King and Catherine gave a centre round which these vague feelings could collect, and a dangerous discontented party began to be formed. Early the following year (1532) the Parliament, in their third session, continued their war with the clergy. Benefit of clergy had come to be an intolerable nuisance. Any one who could read was held by that talent to have proved his connection with the clergy, and could be withdrawn from the hands of justice, to be treated with ridiculous leniency by the ecclesiastical courts; so that, as the Act to limit it asserts, "continually, manifest thieves and murderers, found guilty by good and substantial inquests,

were speedily and hastily delivered and set at large by the ministers of the ordinaries, for corruption and lucre." An Act was passed forbidding any one under the degree of subdeacon to plead the privilege of his clergy if proved guilty of felony. The Court of Arches was also reformed. The Mortmain Act had forbidden corporations to hold property left to them by will. But this prohibition had been constantly evaded; testators had left property to support a priest to pray for their souls in perpetuity. This evasion, by which property had passed, though indirectly, into the hands of the Church, was now checked, and no will of this description was to hold good for more than twenty years, which was supposed to be long enough for the purpose. While these reforms of the national Church were being carried out, that Church itself set on foot the second stage of reform by an attack upon the power of Rome. However much the clergy may have pillaged the laity, and however much they may have derived assistance in so doing from their connection with Rome, The Church bethey had themselves, as the natural and submissive comes national. subjects of the Pope, been unmercifully pillaged in their turn. They now suggested the abolition of annates, the payment, that is,

This would

Less hasty

of the first year's income of benefice or see to Rome. have cut off a large source of income from the Pope. than the clergy, the Commons passed a Bill for the abolition of annates, but only conditionally. It was held in terrorem over the Pope. The clergy went a step further. They at length surrendered that independent position for which they had struggled from the time of Anselm, and acknowledged that they could not legislate without the consent of Parliament. Thus, though without any direct assumption of the name, Henry had become. Head of the Church. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction and ecclesiastical legislation were both subordinated to the temporal power, and the Church, although retaining the Catholic doctrine, had become a national or Anglican Church. Unable to see such a change without protesting, Sir Thomas More resigned the chancellorship, and was followed out of office by Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, who very shortly afterwards died. His office was given to Cranmer.

But although the King had not completed the Annates Act, nor determined to proceed to extremities with Rome, he had been taking steps which rendered the final breach inevitable. On Queen Catherine's withdrawal, and indeed before, he had openly entertained Anne Boleyn in his palace; and now he was determined that she should be accepted into the circle of crowned heads. He wished to show the Pope, too, that his views were shared by the French King, and that he did not stand alone. A pompous meeting was therefore arranged to take place at Calais, to which Henry was to take Anne Boleyn with all the state of a Queen, and where they were to be met and entertained, not by Francis alone, but by his sister, the Queen of Navarre, for the express purpose apparently of showing that the relation between him and Anne Boleyn was recognized. The meeting took place, but without such effects as Henry had desired and expected; for Francis was persuaded, after all, to side with the Pope, and Henry found himself unsupported in his quarrel. He resolved, however, that he would no longer be cajoled, and, in January 1533, was secretly married to Anne Boleyn. This act was followed by the publication on the church doors of Flanders of a threat of excommunication from the Pope. In

Marriage with
Anne Boleyn.

Separation from Rome.

presence of this threat, and having now completed his marriage, the King could do nothing but proceed to the completion of his business. In the next session of Parliament an Act, called the Act of Appeals, was passed, declaring the sufficiency of the English Church to settle its own spiritual questions, and