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History of the Protestant reformation / in a series of essays ; reviewing D'Aubignbe, Menzel, Hallan ... and others ... ; by M.J. Spalding. (vol. 2)

History of the Protestant reformation / in a series of essays ; reviewing D'Aubignbe, Menzel, Hallan ... and others ... ; by M.J. Spalding. (vol. 2) Spalding, M.J. (Martin John), 1810-1872. 400dpi TIFF G4 page images University of Kentucky, Electronic Information Access & Management Center Lexington, Kentucky 2002 b92-264-31852041v2 Electronic reproduction. 2002. (Beyond the shelf, serving historic Kentuckiana through virtual access (IMLS LG-03-02-0012-02) ; These pages may be freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. History of the Protestant reformation / in a series of essays ; reviewing D'Aubignbe, Menzel, Hallan ... and others ... ; by M.J. Spalding. (vol. 2) Spalding, M.J. (Martin John), 1810-1872. J. Murphy, Baltimore : 1876. 2 v. in 1 ; 23 cm. Coleman I. Reformation in Germany and Switzerland -- II. Reformation in England,, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, France, and northern Europe. Microfilm. v. 1-2. Atlanta, Ga. : SOLINET, 1995. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. (SOLINET/ASERL Cooperative MicrofilmingProject (NEH PS-20317) ; SOL MN05068.01 KUK) Printing Master B92-264. IMLS This electronic text file was created by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). No corrections have been made to the OCR-ed text and no editing has been done to the content of the original document. Encoding has been done through an automated process using the recommendations for Level 1 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines. Digital page images are linked to the text file. Reformation. THE H1ISTORY OF TIIE Protestant Reformation, IN GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND, AND IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, THE NETHERLANDS, FRANCE, &ND NORTHERN EUROPE. IN A SERIES OF ESSA YS; REVIEwiNG D'AUB3IGNE, MIENZEL, HALLAM, BISHOP SHORT, PRESCOTT, RANKE, FRYXELL, AND OTHERS. IN TWO VOLUMES. BY M. J. SPALDING, D. D. ARCHBISOP or BALTIOia. Vol. II. REFORMATION IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, THE NETHER- LANDS, FRANCE, AND NORTHERN EUROPE. SEVENTH EDITION, 11EVISICD AND ENLARGED. BALTIMORE: PUBLISHED BY JOHN MURPHY & CO. 182 BALTIMORE STREET. 1 8 7 6. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by R T. R E V. M. J. SI'AL DING, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Kentucky. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S75, by J O 1! ,1N U. P IJ Y, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE TO VOLUME II. IN this Volume, I have endeavored to trace the history of the Protts. tant Reformation in the principal European countries outside of Gcr many and Swvitzerland. As, among these, England and its dependencies possess most interest for the American or Engdiszh reader, more space in proportion has been devote'] to the history of the Anglican Schism than to that of any other European country. Besides an introduction, in which the religious his- tory of England preliminary to the Reformation is discussed, four Chap- ters are devoted to the English Reformation, besides separate Chapters on the Reformation in Scotland, and Ireland. The statements of the great Englih historian, Lingard, are show n to be substantially confirmed by Hallam, Mfacaulay, Bihop Short, Sir James Mackintosh, Agnes Strick- land, and other accredited Protestant historians; and, unless I am greatly mistaken, it will be seen from the comparison of authorities, that not one important fact alleged by Lingard has ever been successfully contro- verted, even by the most determined opponents of the Catholic Church. The excellent Miss Strickland, in her Lives of the English and Scottish Queens, has incidentiy thrown much additional light on what may be calle1i the internal history of the Anglican and Scottish Reformation. Though a decided Protestant, she has done justice to the memory of Mary of England and of Mary of Scotland: and also, in another sense, to Queen Elizabeth and John Knox. Availing herself with much indus- try and fidelity of her ample opportunities for investigation, she has published several new documents from the English State Paper Office; and, what is still better and more commendable, she has dared tell a considerable portion of the truth, in spite of fashionable obloquy and stereotype misrepresentation. She has drawn, what might be called a Daguerreotype likeness of John Knox in his relations with Mary Stuart, whom the Scottish -eformer fiercely hunted to death in the name of the Religion of love I In the Chapter on the fruitless attempts to thrust the Reformation on Ireland, I have endeavored to present, on the most unexceptional Pro- testant authority, together with a summary of the principal facts, a con- densed but somewhat detailed account of the truly infamous Penal Code enacted by the British parliament against the members of the ancient Church in that faithful Island, which, in spite of almost incredible hard- ships and the most atrocious persecutions, has preserved untarnished the precious jewel of faith bequeathed to her by St. Patrick. The Chapter on the Reformation in the Netherlands is a Review of Prescott's Philip II.; and it presents an appreciation of the stern Spanish monarch and of his cruel lieutenant Alva, together with a portraiture of the atrocities committed against the Catholics by the Dutch Calvinists, who are shown to have raged more fiercely than Alva himself. The history of the French Huguenots, together with that of the great central tragedy in this history-the M1assacre of St. Batholouisew-is sketched in the Chapter on the French Reformation, which is a Review of Rank6's I1istory of the Civil Wars of France. It will be seen, that Catholics have nothing whatsoever to fear from the verdict of history, even as the facts are furnished by Protestant historians, in the comparison between the cruelties committed by the French Huguenots and those charged on their opponents. Two Chapters are devoted to the Reformation in Northern Europe. These review the statements of the Protestant historians of S'w-den, Fryxell and Geijer, and present a summary account of the manner in which the Reformation was introduced into Dcnmark, Norway, and Iceland. Here, as elsewhere, I have relied chiefly on Protestant autho- rity, copious extracts from which I have sought to interweave with the narrative. In the eight Notes appended to this Volume, the reader will find sev- eral useful and interesting documents confirmatory of the statements made in the text; besides some brief Essays on important matter con- nected with the history of the Reformation in England and Scotland. To the lovers of historic truth I confidently present these Essays, com- posed with the sincere desire of exhibiting the Protestant Reformation in its true light. Those who have derived their information on this import- ant subject from prejudiced or partisan writers owe it to themselves, as well as to the cause of justice and truth, to examine the other side. Though I have written plainly, I trust that I have employed no lan- guage which may be justly construed as harsh or offensive, and that I have sought to meet fairly and roundly, if summarily, the various issues of fact and argument presented by the great religious revolution of the sixteenth century. BALTIMuoPE, Eastcr Momday, 1865. ANNOUNCEMENT OF A NEw EDITION. Ancsimisnop SPALDINO had intended to issue a complete and uniform edition of all his works; and he was occupied with this task when his last illness came upon him. The new and revised edition of the IIISTORY OF TlE REFORMATION, the EVIDENcEs or CATHOLICITY, and the MrsK CELLANEA, which is now offered to the Public, was prepared by Arch- bishop Spalding himself-the corrections and additions being from his own hand. To the Evidences of Catholicity, as the reader will perceive, he has added his Pastoral Letter on the Infallibility of the Pope; and to the History of the Reformation, he has appended an Article entitled: Rome and Geneva. The Ltfe of Bishop Flaget and the Sketches of Kentucky, which Archbishop Spalding intended to re-write and publish in one volume, are not contained in present edition of his works, since the corrections and additions, which it had been his purpose to make, are incomplete. BALTixOaE, Sept. 8, 1876. is P REY1 I 1L CONTENTS OF VOLUME LI. INTRODUCTION. ENGLAND BEPORE THE REFORMATION, Pp. 17-58. PuturwstARY view useful ............................ 17 Early religious history of England ........ ..... 18 England indebted for every thing to Rome_. 18 Testimony of Bishop Short ......................... 21 11er conversion through St. Gregory the Great.....................................23 The early British Churches ........................ 23 Their controversy with St. Augustine, first Archbilhop of Canterbury . ..................... 23 Morality of their Clergy .................... ........ 24 Gildas.....................................24 Massacre of British Monks ......................... 24 The Anglo-Saxon Church .................. ......... 25 St. Wilfrid....... 26 Testimony of Bishop Short ..................... 26 St. Dunstan.................................28 The Primacy recognized ............................. 28 Nomination of Bihops . ............................. 29 Growing en roachments of the Civil power... 30 Under the Anglo-Saxon Princes .................. 30 And nuder the Norman Kings .................... 30 Archbishops of Canterbury ......................... 30 Lantlranc awl William the Conqueror .......... 31 William Rtufus and St. Anselm ............. ....... 33 Varied fortunes and persecution of St. An- selm.............................. 34 Two English Prime Ministers, Flambard and Oromwell, compared ....................... 34 General remarks and intrences .................. 37 St. Thomas a Becket .3.................. ,3 And St. Edmund Rich ................. 40) Increasing assumptions of English Kings . 41 Statute ot Provisors .41 And of Priennunire .41 Dr. Lingard reiewed.. . 45 And Bishop Short roltert on. lnvestitures.... 46 The Prinmacy alwas recgiiized . .47 Superiority ol the L- jIs ro aied by itone.. 47 Prote-staunt authority.. . Cardinal Langton.. 4b And Lanfrac... 4h Simon ot Sudbury.. 49 And \ illiasu of Wykeb.. ... 4' Monastic Chronicles... 50 Curious developments.. ) And tragical incidents... 5 Modern historic justice . : The trite key to the contest, l,etween ELni lish Kings and Roman Poirtills iin mid- dIle es. . Eve of the tefiation... .. 54 Spirit of servility aind slavery increasing 54 Recapitulatio. 55 CHAPTER I. HENRY VIII. AND EDWARD VI., Pp. 59-119. The way now prepared .............................. 59 The " pear ripe" ...................................... 60 Henry VIII. the founder of the English Reformation ...................................... 60 Two theories ...................................... 61 One of them refuted ................................. 61 And the other defended .............................. 63 Bishop Short ...................................... 64 And the Book of Homilies .......................... 64 What we propose to examine .....................6 5 Five questions ...................................... 656 Was Henry sincere ................................ 6 66 Auspicious beginning of his reign ............... 67 Defender of the Faith ..................................67 I The Divorec ...................................... 68 llenry's scrples...........................68 Anne Boleyn........................... 68 Sir James Mackintosh and Miss Strickland.. 68 The Sweating Sickness a test ..................... 70 D'Anbignd's moral standard ....................... 72 heroism of Clement VIL .. .................. 74 Noble answer of Campeggio ....................... 75 Cardinal Wolsey. ..........................75 Thomas Cromwell ........................... 76 Was Henry licentious and cruel ................ 77 Treatment of his six wives. ................ 77 Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, and Catha- rine Howard...........................77 Satanic conspiracy...........................80 Catharine Parr...........................82 Was lIenry a tyrant...........................82 Conlfiscation of monasteries ........................ 82 Bishop Short testifies again ........................ 84 Protestant testimony . ................................ 84 Exorbitant taxation .................................. 86 Atrocious tyranny . ................................... 86 Trampling on ancient Catholic liberties of England . ........................... 86 Hlallam's testimony . ..................... 87 Means of Reformation . ............................. 90 Cromwell's advice .................................... 91 Royal supremacy _ .. ..................... 91 Cromwell Vicar-General . .......................... 93 Degradation of bishops ........................... 93 Testimony of Bishop Short . ................ ...... 94 Imaginary and real despotism . ................. 94 IHorrid butcheries . ........................ 9 Fisher and More . ........................ 965 Pole's brother and relatives . ..................... 96 And his mother . ....................... 96 The Friars Peyto and Elstow . .................... 98 Hlallam's testimony ......................... 100 Bishop Short on Henry's murders .............. 100 A system of espionage established ............. 101 Curious examples ................................... 101 Froude's idea of law .............................102 Hliisdefending Henry Vm. and persecution. 102 Character of the Anglican Reformation..... 103 The Six Articles ............................. ......... 104 Catholics and Protestants butchered to- gether. ....................................105 Cranmer aids and abets . .................. 105 Edward VI . ........................... 107 Reformation has now an open Ifield ............ 107 Cranmer and Somerset . .107 Gradual Reformation . ............... 108 V Vi CONTENTS. Book of Common Prayer .......................... 109 Put down by foreign soldiers ..................... 112 And Articles of Religion ........................... 109 State of public morals .............................. 114 Inquisition established .................. 109 'Suppression ol nionasteries a master-stroke Joan Bocher burned................ 109 policy............ 114 11er answer to Cranimer .................... .11) Analysis of Ilallam's testimony and reason- Barbarous law against mendicants ............. 111 ing on this subject .......................... 115 people opjiosed to the new religion ............ 11 2 The three conctiliscences ......................... 118 Popular insurrections ............................. 112 t on1clus-ion .......................... 11J CHAPTER Il. MARY; THE CATHOLIC RELIGION-4 RESTORED, pp. 120-158. What Mary and Elizabeth did ................... 120 avowed and acted on by early Protest- Macaulsy's testimony ......................... .121 ants ................... ..................... 1O0 Current opinion ......................... 121 The "original sin` f' the ltelormation ....... 1:,0 What we propose to establish ................... 122 IalIlam and Miss Strickland ....................31 Marv's accession ......................... 12-2 Nuntler.of victtilnt ..................................1 2 Conspiracy and rebellion ......................... 12!2 C auses which provoked the persecution...... 133 The relbrmed preachers. .. 1:2.3Political niotives and action. 131 'Cite popular enthusiasm ........................ 123 F Insurrections ied rebellious ..................... 13 Marv resolves to restore the ancient reli- !itLrv not naturallv cru.el . 1: 6 gbOl ................................ 124 jProohf, of he r clemencmy ............................. ]: 6 1e1r constant devotion to it ...................... 121 H1er nercibtl treatment of Elizabeth ......... 18',7 Itidley's attempt to convert her .1.4 1 totCtuitsted stith the latter's Ireftiuteut of mteps by which the restoration was accom- l 31ry of Scots. 1 . plisited .............................. 125 i (mdtid tetiniony ot Agnes Itri, Mand ....... 1:4. D)eprived Catholic bishops reinstated . 126 Malir3 restored the Uritish CnetittiGtart t- Trhe acts of Edward VI. on religion re- gerhbe lwith atltholicity ..]::. S pealed... 126 Matry h tinenri: :l i ietnientl ciCianme. 1:.9 4 compromnise with the Holy See concern- 'I lit. cttreer o, this mat disected.1 ]:9 ing church property ............................. 127 l, n recantattions ...... .................. 141 Solemn scene .............................. 12s !iii dehat . ......................... 141 Cardinal Pole .............................. 1.28 . laentMlay's portraiture ........................ 145 His address....... 128 Other provocations amid palliating circum- The old Church restored. .................. 12Sstances. ........... 47 Chancellor Gardiner's last speech and I ,tiner and rthi.12..... ] ,l death ............................ 129 Andi other Catholic lisfuq ... ..................... 180 'the qtxeen's noble disinteresteduness .......... 129 Miss Strickland's theoti on the l lsecu- The spoilers retain their prey .................... 130 lioin ................................ 1.51 fBloody Mary".............., 130F Cardinal Pole. 154 The persecution... .........., 130 lary's difficulty with the l'.l.1 ] 57 The principle of intolerance generally Bishop Short's estimate oi Mary . 168 CHAPTER III. ELIZABETH-THE ANGLICAN CUtRCH FnIMLY ESTABLtSIIED aY LAW, pp. 159-207. Glance at the four reigns of Henry TIII., The ptlulic discussFion .17, 0 Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth ........... 159 Bishop Fhort reviewerd ........................ 1,1 Elizabeth the real foundress of the Angli- Catholic bishops intprisoned .171 can Church.. 160 The arts enforcing conformity. 171 Four questions propounded ...................... 163 And establishing the Iook of Common The first question ............. 161 I'rayerand Thirty-Nine Articles ............. 172 T'mporal interests and political expedi- The ehirchb establishied bv law . 173 ency ........................... 161 Cath"lic bi.hops deposed .......................... 174 Mlizabeth and the Pontiff . ........................3 1 The non-juring clergy .............................17 5 Stern consistency of the Papacy ............... 163 Vacancies in parislos ......................... 175 lizabeth takes her stand .................... 161 Slecbanicsappointedtoreadthenewservice. 17.- sir William Cecil ........................... 165 Bisblil Short's testintom'y .......................... 17,5 iler insincerity and hi.; intrigues ............... IC5 Third question ................ ..................... 1.6 Measures adopted for re-establishing Angli- Foundations of Anglican hierarchy . 1 76. (eanim .15.................................. 16 Etilbarrassment . ............................... 178 1ell lplan ................ .................. 16.5 Parker's consei ration ............................. 1. 178 Firm opposition of the Catholic bishops..... 166. Three great difficulties started .................... 178 14easons for their alarm ......... ......... 166 Thevalidityof Anglican ordiriationsat least The queen crowned............... 167 doubtful... ............ 1l3 And immediately breaks her solemn oath.. 167 F The question of jttrisdictiu .183 The second qttestion ................................. 16! The fourth question stated ........................ 184 Did the Anglican church reform itself ...... 16 And answered ...................,.,.,., . 1f4 A packed parliament ............................ , 168 A curiotis '- bil" of Elizabeth. 1F6 The convocation in the opposition ............. 170 Elizabeth sw-arsa.. 14-6 How its voice was bushed ......................... 170 Testimony of Itallamn.14- ]F6 CONTENTS. Penal laws of 15 6 2 3........................... 186 Lord Monwtague's noble speech .................. 187 Hallant on Camden and Strype ................ . 189 Northern insurrections ........................... 189 A terrible and bloody code ....................... 190 Hallain on Lingard ........................... 190 Elizabeth's Inquisition ........................... 192 TIer "Pursuivants" ........................... 193 Fines for recusancy ........................... 193 The prisons filled ........................... 194 And the magistrates complaining .............. 194 Nobility and gentry ruined ....................... 194 Bloody executions................................... 194 Number of victims ........................... 194 Bull of Pope Pius V................................. 196 Vii Did not cause, but greatly aggravated, the persecution.......................................... 196 Hallam's testimony .................................. 197 lie confirms all our important statements... 198 The rack seldom idle ................................ 198 Loyalty of Catholics ................................. 198 Cecil defends the use of the rack ............... 198 The hunted priests ................................... 201 The church spoilers ................................. 203 Nothing can soften Elizabeth .................... 204 Bishop Short on her rapacity, sacrilege, and tyranny............................................... 204 Fate of the church spoilers ....................... 205 Three other Protestant witnesses .............. 206 The verdict of history rendered ................ 207 CHAPTER IV. MARY AND ELIZABETH COMPARED, pp. 208-222. Relative length of their reigns .................. 208 Their respect for their mothers .................. 209 Their religious feelings and conscience ...... 210 Plautus ill the church on Sunday ... .. 210 Their respective relations to the Church..... 211 Their comparative moral character ............ 211 Their disinterestedness and selfishness ....... 211 T'he one merciful, the other cruel .............. 212 The one liberal in government, the other a tyrant.................................................. 212 Hlallam on Lingard's authorities ............... 212 Testimony of Bliss Strickland and of Mac- aulay .................................... 213 Their restoring and crushing English liberty.................................................. 214 Their foreign policy ................................. 215 That of Mary single and honest ................. 215 That of Elizabeth tortuous and insincere .... 215 11er motto " Divide and conquer ................. 216 The success of Elizabeth the chief element of her popularity .................................. 216 11er ministers compared with those of Mary, and particularly Gardiner ...................... 216 Their respective persecutions compared . 217 Ilallam answered ..................................... 219 Macaulay's statement ............................... 219 Their deaths............................................ 221 Success of Elizabeth no evidence of divine approval.............................................. 221 Awful death of Elizabeth, the real found- ress of modern Anglicanism .................. 222 CHAPTER V. REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND-JOHN KNox, pp. 223-276. Distinctive characteristic of the Scottish Reformation, compared with that of Eng- land .................................... 224 It works its way from low to high ............. 224 Condition of the Catholic Church in Scot- land in the sixteenth century ................. 224 Abuse of patronage ................................. 225 McCrie's statement reviewed .................... 225 Exaggeration .................................... .... 227 The real secret of the degeneracy .............. 227 John Knox .................................... 228 his motto...................................... 28.......... 228 Compared with Calvin .............................. 228 His life sketched .................................... 229 The fearful struggle ................................. 230 Ancient Catholic glories scattered ............. 230 What we propose to prove ............... ......... 231 The Scottish Reformation the work of vio- lence .................................... 231 Assassination of Cardinal Beatoun .............2 31 Previous negotiations with Henry VIII. 232 The Scottish proto-martyr Wishart con- cerned ..................................... 232 l Knox approves the deed ............................ 233 his horrible " vein of humor" ................... 233 The Scottish nobles seek plunder .............. 233 The " Lords of the Congregation ................ 234 Two Solemn Leagues and Covenants .......... 234 Knox's ideas of religious liberty and tolera- tion .................................... 235 Conciliation thrown away ........................ 235 Burniag and destructive zeal .................... 235 Reformation at Perth ............................... 236 At St. Andrew's .................................... 237 And elsewhere.........................................237 Horrible destruction and desolation ........... 237 McCrie defends it all, as removing the monu- ments of idolatry ................................. 238 The queen regent offers religious liberty .... 239 11er offer spurned .................................... 239 Knox's idea of religious liberty ................. 240 Two armies in the field ............................ 240 Elizabeth of England meddling ................. 240 The queen regent deposed ........................ 241 Treaty of peace........................................ 242 How the Kirk was established by law ....... 242 Mary of Scots arrives ................................ 24.5 Her first reception and treatment .............. 245 She is imprisoned at Lochleven ................. 245 John Knox her relentless Pleney ............... 246 He clamors for her blood........... ............... 246 Glance at her subsequent history and death.. 246 Miss Strickland and Mackintosh ......... ...... 246 How she was treated in Scotland ............... 247 She is hated by Knox ............................... 247 Her marriage with Darnley ...................... 247 Sermon of Knox .................................... 247 Who approves of the assassination of Rizzio.. 247 He flies from Edinburgh ........................... 247 Mary innocent.......... 248 A cluster of wicked men ........................ 249 Murray the worst .......... .............. 249 Mackintosh reviewed .......................... 249 " The end justifies the means .................... 252 CONTENTS. F orgery...............................................g... 252 Whitaker on Knox and Buchanan ............. 252 Moral character of Knox .................. ...... 253 His death .............. ...................... 263 Quotations from Miss Strickland confirm- atory of the above narrative of facts ...... 254 Mary's reception in Edinburgh .................. 254 The " Rebels of the Crafts ......................... 255 Tumult on her first attendance at Mass_...... 255 Her chaplain narrowly escapes death . .... ... 256 Mary's firmness in her faith ...................... 256 Knox abhors her music andjoyouuity ........ 25S Malignant intolerance .............................. 25S Cruel hard-heartedness of the Scottish no- bles..................................................... 259 Who will not wear mourning on the anni- versary of the death of Mary's husband.. 260 Church property .................................... 261 Greediness of lay Protestant impropriators.. 261 Knox's "humorous" lament over the desti- tution of the niinisters ......................... 261 The queen dancing ................................... 262 Sermon of Knox thereupon ............... ...... 262 IHls Interview with the queen .................... 263 Another interview......,............................. 264 Still fiercer intolerance ............................. 264 Another interview of Knox with the queen.. 265 He opposes her marriage .......................... 265 Knox's account ..................................... 265 Still another interview .............................. 266 He mocks at the queen's tears .................. 267 Signs and wonders against lier .................. 268 She is blamed for the weather! .................. 269 Knox calls her a slave of Satan ................. 269 Is arraigned before the Kirk assembly ....... 270 His answer and behavior .......................... 2i0 Protests again against Mary's freedom of conscience ............,................................ 270 Tumult at her marriage ................I.......... 271 Mary promises and asks for freedom of con- science ................................................ 271 Her eloquent speech................................. 271 DButery. . 272 Horrid plo l........................ 273 Butchery............................................... . 275 CHAPTER VI. REFORMATION tN IREl AND, pp. 277-303. Irelanda noble exception..........................277 Engl.atd labors in vain to destroy her faith.. 278 Ireland compared with England, Scotland, France, Bavaria, andAir-tria.................. 278 Progressive cruelty of the English govern- ment ............................................ 27 9 Successive steps taken to reform Ireland .... 280 Under Henry VIII ................................... 281 Under Edward VI....................................282 Attempts to thrust the new service on Ire- land....................................283 Its failure ...................................... ....................... 2K4 Hleylin's testinxony .........................I......... 284 (Glaring incinsistency ............................... 284 Elizabethtrying toreform Ireland............ 285 Extracts froni Mc(ee ............................... 2f6 The terrible contests under Elizabeth's reign ................................................... 286 The O'Neill ............................................. 287 The revolt of Desmond.............................2i7 And of Tyrone ......................................... 287 Wholesale confiscation . ........................... 288 Confiscation of Ulster, Munster, and Con- naught ................................................ 288 The Deputy Mountjoy .............................. 288 Miss Strickland's testimony ...................... 288 McGee on martyred Irish bishops ............... 289 The English Jezabel ................................. 290 The system of colonization ....................... 291 Rather one of extermination ..................... 292 Elizabeth's land partnership with Essex ..... 292 The English penal laws enforcedl in Ireland.. 293 Another more formidable code established.. 204 Its details furnished by Bancroft ............... 299 .A horrible picture .................................... 299 Other Protestant opinion and testimony..... 299 North American Review ........................... 300 Sydney Smith and Junius .......................... 301 Ireland faithful to the last ........................ 302 The result sumnmed up .............................. 303 Intolerance nobly rebuked ........................ 303 Conclusion.............................................. 303 CHAPTER VII. REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS, pp. 304-348. Interest which attaches to the subject ....... 305 Prescott's Philip II.................................. 306 His prejudices glanced at .......................... 3u6 The Netherlands ill the sixteenth century.. 307 Their highly prosperous condition in conm- merce and mnanufactures......s....... .......... 308 The new doctrines penetrate into the Neth- erlands ................................................. 308 Policy of the emperor Charles V ............... 309 His edicts................................................ 310 He does not establish the Inquisition ......... 310 His repressive policy fails ......................... 310 The Netherlands continue to flourish ......... 310 Accession of Philip II .............................. 310 View of the religious condition of Europe in the middle of the sixteenth century... 311 The "fiery cross" of the Reformation......... 311 It everywhere brings about a union of church and state .................................. 312 Results in civil commotions ................ ...... 313 Which weaken the cause of liberty ............ 313 Guizot's testimony .................................... 313 Character of Philip II .............................. 31.1 The hereditary Spanish feeling beautifully portrayed by Prescott ........................... 314 Sublime sternness of Philip ....................... 314 We have no mission to defend him ............. 315 Much less Alva ....................................... 316 Philip's war with the Pope ........................ 316 Prescott's position reviewed. .......... I ........... 317 Church not responsible for Philip's policy-. 317 Case of Caranza ...................................... 317 Philip defies the Council of Trent ............... 31 His opposition to the Pope in matters trench- ing on the spiritual order ...................... 318 Nomination of bishops .............................. 319 The Pope and despotism ........................... 319 Good qualities in Philip's character..... 326 CONTENTS. iX The Catholic liberties of the Netherlander.. 321 1 General indignation .......... ....................... 334 The struggle begins .................................. 321 The Pacification of Ghent .334 Catholics and Protestants at first combine Approved by Don John in the Perpetutal against Philip .................................... 322 Idict .3. The -ar-cry [esttle u!...................G 3'22 Discontent of Orange. 3 Ma.,tters prec ipitated by violence .......... ..... 322 The Spanish troops dismissed and recalled. 334 Horrible exceew-it cottiniittid by i., l'ro- Tlte war recommences.. ... ... 334 tetant party filly related by Pre-cott .... 323 The Netherlands become the battle-ground The Icono la-ts and church spoilers ........... 3Z3 of Europe .334 The preelaers take the field-Anld stir up The Catholic provinces compelled to sepa- the lpe'ple to violence-Churched and rate from the Protestant ........................ 335 coit' saked ......................... 329 Outrages on their churches and themselves Awful ridt at Atttwerp .................. . 3 c' committed byCasimir, the allyofOrange.. 33 ThoCatlhetir:Ll plundered ................... .. 32.5 An army of Lutheran liuns-Alexander The " two thieyves" presiding over the work.. 3235 Farnese .................... ............................ 338 Its beautiful ornaments in ruins ................ 323 Brilliant in the cabinet as in the field 337 The sacrilegious fury spreads over all Flan- IRenews the Perpetual Edict ...................... 337 ders.326 And attaches the Catholic Provinces to his Pour hutndred churches demolished or government ...................7..................... . 7 sacked in Flanders alone ........................ 327 Philip issues liYa ban against Orange ..........3 7 Awtll desolaitui ............ 32S IWho replies with a declaration of independ- Irreparable inutry to the fine arts............. 328ence........ V, What the b e,( ggars" really meant and lIe is assassinated. 3:, Wanted ......................... 329 Atrocities committed against the Catholics.. 3.37 Their ildea of religious liberty ................... 3.... :Menzel and Motleyv .................................. 32' Reaeti- ......................... . 0 t Dutch Catholics extermjiinatebd ................... 339 Tunitilts s .t... ..... ....................... 33(2 lHorrid excesses ....................................... 339 And nit in-,nrrr-,-tion quelled .....................320 ' Better Turks than P:api.t ........................ 339 lipr'-son tnIle by these outrages on Lutherans do not sympuathize with their Pltiiu ...................... 330 Dutch brethren .................................... 340 Duke of Alva the embodiment of his stern The Catholic religion supp)re!ssed .340 re-soly... 330 I)iplomacy of Orange......................341 Execu ltitun of the Catholic Counts Egmont Ilis character. 341 and tn nll , and of MNonti-gny .................. 330 The butcher Sonoy ................................... 342 William of Ora ng.-e prudently flies . ............. 3,1 llis horrible barbarities ............................ 343 Mezsi' -it'-stInt .............................t. 31 Orange screens hitti front punishment 3a" Two inferene s drawn ....... -.......... 331 Vito der Marck, his predecessor in the Glance at the subsequent events of the 1),telkery .....................e........................ 344 struggle- ................................. 332 lle slays itiore than Alva - 345 Qneen Elizatleth me-dding' ........................ 332 'Testintony of Kerroux. 345 Trea.sures f Alva seized bv her ................- 3 The subsequent history of the Dutch Re- A gene ral gl'ton in consequence of the puIblic .................................................. 345 troops he itig quartered ott the people 333 Filtal result of the struggl - 346 Anw of the imposition of new taxes by (-omarists and Arminians ............................ 6 Atlva . ..................................33 irgJms1ofEglldn tmcln............................. 3:- A etma-,f333tm................ RKing James I. of England intermneddling... 346 A caI!!ti lIte;)re ti storm - ..................333 I Synod of Dort ......................................... 3 The struggle begins its earnest .................. 3 3 (rotius persecuted ................................... 346 Privatee rs cottotr thte British Channel .........- 3 The patriot Barnevelt beheaded ................ 346 Alva recalled, tid l Reqtiesens appointed . 333 Many Protestants banished ....................... 346 Elifzabeth coiuettingr with the irsturgents ... 334 Recapitulation ......................................... 346 Reqte.setis succeeded by Don John of Aus- F 'ur conclusions reached. - 346 tria.334 Religious liberty, as understood by the The Spanish soldiery break through all re- Dutch Calviuists.. 347 strtint, and sack Antwerp ..................... 334 And as exhibited in their acts ................... 348 CHAPTER VIII. REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE IIGUENOTS, pp. 349-393. The whole history of the French Reforma- I The delegation for examining matters of tion told in two sentences ..................... 350 !faith ................................ 355 Origin of the liugutenots .......................- 351 Fratncis I-.............................. 355 Calvin the founder and father of French jlls volatile character en. otirages the Ilu- Protestantism ..................... 352 manists and the refornmrs ..................... 356 Leopold Rank&s Ilistory of the French The Anabaptists in Paris - 56 Civil Wars reviewed in this chapter 352 The state policy of Francis tortuous and Lefevre d Estaples the first forerunner of unprincipled. 356 Reformation ............................. 352 His sister, Queen Margaret of Navarre, an A Ilumatnist, like Erasmus .......................- 353 open friend of the new gospelers- 3 ............ 3 Rank6s portraiture of him .......................- 3Her poetry and writings ........................... 56 Ranke an intettse Protestant 353 ' The Concordat.;15 William Briconnet, Bishop of Meaux 353 And the grievous abuses which grew out of The University of the Sorbonne ................ 354 its perversion by the court 357 X CONTENTS. Conlt patronage the real source of the evil... 357 Attempt to seize the king at Monceaix . 371 RahukS s ................................3S 3 Its failure ....................................... 372 Remnarks on the great question of hIavesti- The English ambassador implilicated . 372 tr-s............................... 3F'lrayo aoieaflrclfll..........................37 lure.35 Treaty of Bayonne a fablricatiri..........372 Henry II., Frainrcis II., auid lHenry III . 358 Lingard, liallamu, RankS, niod Mackinitosh The queen regent Catherinle de Medicis ...... 359 allegerl .......................... 372 Henry of N'.avrre ................................. 3 0 Second civil war .......................... 372 Calvin inatrigmirig front Geneva ................. 360 The third one ............... 373 And Elizabeth front England .................. . 360 Third general pacification ......................... 374 The contest fairly begins .3690 M1arriage concluded between the King of Plots, intrigues, and threatened in.surrec- Navarre, anl the sister of Charles IX. of tions..3.0 France ........... 37 4 Tortuous arid unprincipled policy of Cath- M1assacre of St. Bartholomew . 374 eirine .................................. 360 Lingtird's account ...................3 75 Conspiracy of A.rloise ........ .......... 36( And RankS's .................... . . .. 376 Account of Linrgard arid tank6 ..................3..61 Dispatches of the papal nincio at Paris Calvin s agency examrined ........................ 362 settle the question of premeditation ....... 377 Eliz1iretir at tie bhottom of it .................... 362 Number of victims .................................. 378 Throckmnorton a interview with Antoine de Religion had ntothing to do with the irrassa- Bourbon ........................ 362 cre ...................................... 379 ltankd's statement exanrined ..................... 362 The Pope ...................................... 380 Confirmation of Lirgard'rs stateirrent by The Catholic lilehops anrd clergy . 380 Morley, in his Life of- Palissy the Potter".. 362 Previous trocities voninritted by Iltuge- Lingards authorities ............... 34 nots .. ......................................... 380 BankSi, substantially conifirms Lingard and The Alicelade. .381 Morley.... 3 The ferocious Baron d'Adro-ts................3S2 Thr conspiracy ilefeated by Guise, and the II is barbarities againAt Catlolis . 383 Ifiuguenrt leaders executed .................... 364 Events succeeding the r-wcre ................ 3815 Eliz;aieth's double policy ..........................365 Tire t ienot seize Roei.elle ................... 386 Singular declaration oh peace! ................... 365 Ieltenewed piifticutions .............................. 386 Warlike attitrdle of Con,16 ........................ 365 An]d new civil wars ................................ 3F6 The Irore the Ihurguerrots gain, the more T'ie lirigrierrot ('onederacy . .386 they ask ..... ................................... 366 And the Catholic Lgue .....................a... 387 Their lilrerty. ,(rred,l rut they wish tocrrushl Assassination of IlenrY III ..387 that of other- ....................... 366 And accesion of Ilenry IN ......................... 387 Who begarr tire war ..... ........... 366 lie becoriles a Catholic err the advice of the Affair at Vnussy................................... .67 1ir1gle-nots! .......8....................................3f8 RankSe on thIe Duike of urise .................... 367 Publishes the Edict of Nantes ................... 88 Thre civil warr brr -il out ....................... 367 1 Its revocation I-y Lorris XIN ...................... 'F8 Elizaibetir :idls Ith fitgirenots, who deliver Motives fur thie revoation.. 389 nip to her lhiare arid Dieppe ... ............... 368 Did it impair the prosp-rity of France ...... 390 First camrjpraigri ......................... 369 Number of liriguerrot exile .......................3 S90 Bmrttle of I re ..ix 370 I Testinrony of the Duke of BIurgirmidy rind of The two cormimnanding generals taken pri- Caveirac ........................................... 391 sorrilers .................................. 370 Atrocities on tothid ............................... 391 GOrise rnid Ctligny ............. 370 l Those of Ilugrienrits began at an early Siege if Orleanrs............ 370 period.391 Assaissirratiorn of the Duke of Guise, brought ! D'Arrbigur ..1............................................ 3U1 abrout by (Coligny .................................. 370 The wool-coniber Leclerc .391 Surdden pacification ............... 371 Recapitnilatiori ..................... . .. 393 Elizabeth frilhd ........... 371f The French Reformation and the French The pacification broken by the liguenots.. 371 Revolution .393 CIHAPTER IX. TnE REFORMATIOs IN SWEDEN, pp. 394-43. Retfirmation in Sweden the work of the I The tyrant Christian IT ............................ 401 (r('wn .................. 395 The "Blood Bath" of Stockholm ................ 401 'irrtaf WVasLa its author .395 Bishop of Linkoping escapes ...................... 402 ('rrrrvr-rsirrrr rord civilization of Swede n ........ 396 Gustaf Wasa, the deliverqr of Swetent . 40:2 It. l4i-lrrirrir.s.......I.......I....................... 397 his treachery in breaking his parole . 403 Alid irirly eanretity .............. 39, His remarkable adventures in Northern '-aldr tire n- trrpolis.............................. 397Sweden.. 404 ULniii of ainriarr ...................................... 397 His eloquent address from a tombstonre . 404 Swedrn rrlrrtanrt to suhbait ...................... 398 Popular enthusiasm . 405 The Stunrs administrators ........................ 399 The army of independence . 405 Crintesttsand r omil inpronfise ........................ 399 The Catholic bishops . 405 Tire fauiliries of Sture and Trolle ................ 400 Wasa intriguing with them and with the The fendl between them............................ 400nobles. 405 Archbishlop Trolle deposed by the diet ....... 400 Employs force when persuasion fails . 405 Ihishop of Linkoping ................................ 401 his army of foreignn mercenaries . 403 The Pope excommunicates all who were Ile appoints new bishops, and reorganizes concerned ....... 401 the diet ..... 4418 CONTENTS. xi lle is elected king .................................. 406 Exile and death of Bishop Brask.422 Decides to rob the Church .................................. 407 An extraordinary pastoral visitation .......... 423 Turns reformer .................................. 407 Watching and preyng .............................. 423 The two brothers Olaus and Lawrence ........ 408 Wv'holesale confiscation .............................. 424 Beginning the work of sacrilege ............... 400 New anchnbishop consecrated .................... 424 Waasa depo-es and appoints bishops ............ 4t rJ UO-us ............................................... t425 The Anabaptists .................................. 410 S;wrilege and taxation .............................. 426 The Archbishop of Upsala ......................... 412 ( ninfiscation of church bells ...................... 426 The peasants an"d the Chapter of Upeala .... 413 The Dlmen ............................................. 4n27 Manceuvring of Wana to bend or oust the llow disaffection was put down.. 427, archbishop ............................... 414 l The priests beheaded .............................. . 428 He deposes him and expels him from Swe- Ilow the popular grievances were redressed., 428 den ........... ...................... 415 (Confirmatory tetiinony nl U1tijfr ............... 429 The exile and death of the archbishop . ..... 416 Wasa and Ilenry V hI. compared ............... 432 Two bishops mnocked and put to death ....... 416 Avarice of Wasa .................................. 433 The foreign troops furinish the key to Wan'sH tis hard swearing. 434 position ........................ 417 How lie was rebuked by the two brothers... 436 Diet of Westeras ...........................,.,,,. 418 And how lie punished them .436 The Catholic religion abolished ................. 419 The curse of sacrilege .436 And Wasa declared supreme in church and Family of Vasa. . 430 state. 420 His death........... 436 Diet of Orebro completes the work of de- Imnnorality of Sweden. . 436 struction ................. 421 Testimnmy of Bayard Taylor ..................... 436 Lament of the people ................. 422 Conclusion ............................. 437 CHAPTER X. REFORMATION IN DENMARK, NORWAY, AND ICELAND, pp. 438-454. Reformation in these countries similar to that in Sweden ..................................... 438 Thn.t of DENMARK advised by Qjustaf Wasa.. 439 Christian ll ...................................... 43. 9 I hlis attempt to introduce Lutheranism ....... 439 His injustice to the Church ...................... 440 Ilunnanne provisions in his code of laws ....... 440 I 'J'he peasants liberated .............................. 441 Tine nobles enraged .................................. 441 lie is deposed ..................................... 441 Frederick1. begins the Reformation by crushing popular liberty ........................ 441 And by violating his solemn oath ............... 442 Protestant testimony ................................ 442 Hlis measures for this purpose ................... 44'3 Contest after his death ... ......................... 41l Christian III. succeeds him ....................... 415 And completes the work of the Reforma- tion in Denmark ................................... 44-, A Catholic confessor and martyr ............... 446 The new church organization .................... 441i Terrible penal laws against Catholics ........ 44L6 I Recapitulation ..................................... 447 NORWAY ...................................448 De-ternoined opposition to tine new g'npcl ... 448 flow it WVan quelled by forc ....................... 419 Penal laws .4..............................0...... 4 Firmness of the monks ............................. 40 Norwegian independence destroyed ............ 460 the Reformation and despotismutriumn1.h together. ................................. 450 Religious liberty, as understood in N:;.y.. 450 'lne bishop of the North Pole .......... ......... 450 Interesting ageedote by Bayard Ta3 lor ...... 451 ICELAND...................................451 Its discovery and conversion to Christianity.. 451 Its golden age .................................... 452 The great pestilence ................................ 453 Its annexation to Denmark ...................... 453 The Reformation introduced by violence .... 453 The last Catholic bishop put to death ........ 453 Its two old Catholic sees abolished ............ 454 Its decline since that period ...................... 454 The North and the South ......................... 454 Conclusion....... _ 454 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS. N'To A.-ARTICLES OF RELIGION, AND BOOt OF COMMON PRAYER ......................................... 465 NOTE B.-ANGLICAN ORnDINATIONS .......................................................... 459 N )TZ C.-INSTRUMENTS A.ND METHOD OF TORTURE UNDER ELIZAU::TH .................................... 47, 3 N )TB D.-THE FATE AND PNISHMENT OF THE CHURCH ROBBERS ......................................... 474 NOTE E.-SANDERS ON THE ANGLICAN REFORMAfON ........................................... ............ 483 NOTE F.-MORAL CHARACTER OF JORN Kaox ....................................................... 489 NOTE G.-INNOCENCE OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS .- ............................................. 496 NOTE H.-THE COROXATIOX OATH OF BRITiSH KNOS AND QUaXan ...................................... 50 This page in the original text is blank. H I S T O R Y OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. INTRODUCTION. ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. PRKLIMNARY view useful-Early religious history of England-Eng land indebted for every thing to Rome-Testimony of Bishop Short- Her conversion through St. Gregory the Great-The early British Churches-Their controversy with St. Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury-Morality of their Clergy-Gildas-Massacre of British Monks-The Anglo-Saxon Church-St. Wilfrid-And St. Dunstan- The Primacy recognized-Testimony of Bishop Short-Nomination of Bishops-Growing encroachments of the Civil power-Under the Anglo- Saxon Princes-And under the Norman Kings-Archbishops of Canter- bury-Lanfrane and William the Conqueror-William Rufus and St. Anselm-Varied fortunes and persecution of St. Anselm-Two English Prime Ministers, Flambard and Cromwell, compared-General remarks and inferences-St. Thoma A Becket-And St. Edmund Rich-Increas- ing assumptions of English Kings-Statute of Provisors-And of Prae- munire-The Primacy always recognized-Dr. Lingard reviewed-And Bishop Short quoted on Investitures-Superiority of the Bishops named by Rome-Protestant authority-Cardinal Langton-And Lanfranc- Simon of Sudbury-And William of Wykeham-Monastic Chronicles- Curious developments-And tragical incidents-Modern historic justice -The true key to the contests between English Kings and Roman Pontiffs in middle ages-Eve of the Reformation-Spirit of servility and slavery increasing-Recapitulation. A SUMMARY view of the religious condition of England before the Reformation would seem necessary, to enable us to understand how it was that, after the first quarter of the sixteenth century, almost the whole Island was so suddenly drawn away from the Catholic Church into the vortex of the VOL. II.-2 ( 17 ) 18 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. new religious opinions. Of the English Catholic bishops of the time, but one stood firm and unyielding to the last: all the rest showed themselves ready, however reluctantly, to do the bidding of Henry VIII., in opposition to the Pope and the Church. How is this singular fact to be accounted for and explained There must surely have been something sadly out of joint and grievously wrong somewhere, to bring about so sudden and so general a defection from the Church of the English body of bishops. What that wrong was, our readers will probably be better able to pronounce, after they will have read the facts from previous English history, which will be contained in this Introduction. We do not, of course, propose to furnish a complete and a connected summary of the religious history of England before the Reformation; this would require one or even several volumes, to do the subject any thing like justice. We intend only to glance at such facts in this preliminary history as may seem best calculated to throw light on the startling religious revolution of the sixteenth century. We shall number our remarks, and arrange them; in general, in chronological order. 1. There seems to be nothing more certain in all history, than that England was indebted to Rome for Christianity, and for all the numberless blessings which followed in its train. Near the close of the sixth century, Pope St. Gregory the Great sent thither St. Augustine and his band of forty monks; who, under the auspices of that great and holy pontiff, first converted Ethelbert, King of Kent, and many of his people, and subsequently extended their successful mis- sionary labors rapidly over the whole Island. The present In one of his letters, Pope St. Gregory the Great states, that at Christ- mas more than ten thousand of the pagan Saxons were baptized by St. Augustine and his colleagues: In solemnitate Dominicin Nativitatis plus quam decem millia Angli ab eodem nunciati sunt fratre et co-episcopo nostro baptizati. (Epist. Greg. L. VII. Epist. 30. Smith's Bede, app. viii.) Apud Lingard, Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon (Church, p. 23, note Ameri- can edition, Fithian, Philadelphia, one vol., 8vo. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 19 Anglican church must necessarily derive its orders and its hierarchy-if at all from any ancient source from the see of Canterbury; and this see was certainly established by Pope St. Gregory the Great. Its first incumbent -o consti- tuted by the Pontiff-was St. Augustine himself, whom he had sent out to become the apostle of England. No one, we believe, has ever ventured to deny this fact, or has been able successfully to avoid the inference fairly deducible therefrom. 2. The present Anglican church has manifestly no histori- cal connection whatsoever with the earlier British churches, of which some Anglican writers make so much account. It is not even pretended, so far as we are informed, that the former derives its orders from the latter; which, in fact, ceased to exist, as a distinct organization, not long after the conversion of England under Augustine and his immediate successors. Even the claim set up by some Anglicans, that these earlier British churches were founded without the agency of Rome, and that they existed not only in a con- dition of independence, but of antagonism to the See of Peter, rests upon no solid historical foundation whatsoever. The best that can be said of this theory is, that it is a mere speculation, which may appear more or less plausible to iF friends-not certainly a proposition supported by solid reason ing based on ascertained facts. 3. When Christianity was first introduced into England is not known with any degree of certainty. The introduction evidently took place some time before the close of the second century. Nennius and other British writers tell us, that, late in the second century, Pope Eleutherius, acceding to the pious request of Lucius, a British king, sent out to England two missionaries, Fugatius and Damian; whose preaching and ministrations, under the regular apostolic commission derived from the Chair of Peter, converted great numbers These names are differently written by various early authors; some apparently retaining the BritisN, and others the Latin form. ENGLAND BEFORE TIlE REFORMATION. to the faith, and thus laid the foundations of Christianity in England. What Tertullian says of "places among the Britons inaccessible to the Romans, but subject to Christ," tallies well with this account; for Tertullian wrote about that very time, or perhaps a little afterward; and it was natural that, in his defense of Christianity addressed to pagans, he should refer to events which were recent and well- known. According to this highly probable interpretation of his words, it would appear, that the first apostles of England, after successfully preaching the gospel to the Britons who were then under the Roman dominion, carried the light of the faith among the neighboring tribes, inhabiting districts over which the Roman eagle had never soared. The testimony of a somewhat earlier writer than Tertullian -St. Irenwus, Bishop of Lyons--on which Bishop Hopkins and other Anglican writers insist so strongly, appears, from the interpretation given to it by Grabe, the learned Protestant editor of that father's works, to have nothing whatever to do For a full and learned vindication of the fact, that England was, at least partially, converted to Christianity by missionaries sent out by Pope Eleutherius, at the instance of King Lucius, see Milner's History of Win- chester, vol. i. p. 30, English edition. The event took place probably between the years 176 and 180 of the Christian era; that is, between the election of Eleutherius and the death of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, both of whom are referred to by the Venerable Bede in his account of the matter. Archbishop Usher refers to two ancient medals struck in honor of the event, and the English historian, Camden, to still another. Our readers are aware that both these authorities are Protestant and decidedly Anglican in their prejudices. Speaking of the petition made to the Pontiff by King Lucius, Bede says: "Obsecrans, ut per ejus mandatum Christianus efficeretur; et mox effectum piae postulationis consecutus est. Beseeching that, by his (the Pontiffs) command, he might be made a Christian; and immed ately he obtained the object of his pious petition." The silence of Gildas on the subject is a merely negative argument devoid of all force; for what remains to us of his work, De Excidio Britannix, is merely fragmentary, besides being rather a desultory discourse than a history professing to furnish a full and connected account of events. 2(' THE EARLY BRITISH CHURCH. 21 with the conversion of the Britons; while all other early references to the subject seems to be very obscure and incon- clusive, entirely too much so to justify the airy fabric of con- jectures or fables which some learned Anglican writers have attempted to build up on them.t Speaking of the unity of the Church and of its diffusion throughout the world, Irenaeus "enumerates the churches of Germany, the churches among the Hibernians, and the churches among the Celts." So says Bishop Hopkins, who understands the Britons as being designated under the name Celts. This is an unfounded supposition, refuted by Ireneus himself, who says (Lib. 1. adv. haer. Praef): " We live among the Celts "-thereby clearly implying that the name was given to the people of Southern France living about Lyons. "1 The ibernians turn out to be Iberians, inhabitants of Spain," as appears from the third chapter of St. Irenmus' first book against heresies. See Archbishop Kenrick's "Vindication of the Catholic Church " in reply to Bishop Hopkins, p. 303. t See Dr. Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, chap. 1, for more on this subject, which the learned and judicious historian may be said to have exhausted. The testimony of Eusebius, the father of Church History, to the effect that the apostles "passed the ocean and came to the Islands called the British," (Demonstrat. Evang., L 7.) is vague and inconclusive. He gives no names nor specifications, and the sentence may have been a mere rhetorical amplification-the British Islands being then regarded as the ultima thule. A subsequent historian-Thedoret-probably copied or imitated Eusebius, though his language is not at all definite, and may admit of a much wider interpretation. Both these writers lived hundreds of years after the apostolic days, and their merely general and vague allusions to a matter so remote affords no solid historical ground on which to rest a statement so important. If other documents ever existed on the subject, they have long since perished; the only facts at all reliable are those referred to in the text. The Anglican bishop Short candidly admits the obscurity which hangs over the history of the early British churches, as well as the uncertainty of the theory, that has been broached at a comparatively recent period, that St. Paul or one of the apostles preached the Gospel in Britain. He says: "' To him who seeks only for truths which may be useful for the formation of his own opinions, any considerable investigation of the records which are left us can offer little beyond labor, accompanied with very trifling hopes of re ward." After quoting the general and rather vague passages from Eusebius, Theodoret. and others, usually alleged to prove that the apostles evangelized 3 22 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 4. The story that the ancient British churches were sub. jected by force to the see of Canterbury, through the agency of St. Augustine and his colleagues or of their immediate successors, is all a mere fabrication resting upon no evidence whatsoever; and it has been long since abandoned by all moderate and impartial writers, however a few violent par- tisans may still love to give it currency. As the Venerable the British Isles, he remarks: "If these words are to be taken in their literal sense, little doubt can remain that the kingdom was converted to Christi- anity by the apostle to the gentiles; yet such deductions must always be regarded with suspicion." Again, after stating all that is supposed to be known on the subject, he adds: "The whole of the history of the British church has been exhausted by Stillingfleet in his Origines Britannicae; and to any one who will examine that work, it will be apparent how little is known, and how unimportant that little is; that is, unimportant as far as the present state of the world is concerned." The History of the Church of England, to the Revolution, 1688; by Thomas Vowler Short, D. D., Lord Bishop of St. Asaphs. Fourth American, from the third English edition. New York, 1855. In one vol., 8vo, pages 1, 2, and 8. As this is a standard work among Anglicans, we shall often have occa- sion to quote from its pages. Though the author takes no pains to disguise his prejudice against the Catholic Church, yet he is learned and more than usually candid for writers of his class. Thus, speaking of the Anglo-Saxon thurches, he says: "The Englishman who derives his blood from Saxon veins will be un- grateful, if he be not ready to confess the debt which Christian Europe owes to Rome; and to profess that whenever she shall cast off these innovations of men (!), which now cause a separation between us, we shall gladly pay her such honors as are due to the country which was instrumental in bring- ing us within the pale of the universal Church of Jesus Christ." Ibid., p. 9. Such writers, for instance, as D'Aubign6, who evidently is more intent on establishing a theory, than on vindicating the truth of history. For this purpose, he makes no scruple in garbling Bede, and making the venerable historian say, in effect, the very contrary of what his language would imply, if fairly interpreted. He also quotes Wilkins, the Protestant historian of the English councils, to prove that St. Augustine was not only aware of the war which proved so disastrous to the British Christians, but that he actively promoted it! He forgot, however, to state, that St. Augustine had gone to his reward several years before! See D'Aubign6, History Refor- CO.NTROVERsY WITi sr. AUGUSTINE. Bede declares, and as the whole tenor of the letters of St Gregory the Great clearly proves, one of the principal lessons taught to King Ethelbert by St. Augustine and his missionary associates was, that " the service of Christ ought to be volun- tary, not by compulsion." St. Augustine indeed sought, by earnest expostulation, and by threatening the wrath of God in case of disobedience, to induce the prelates and clergy of the British churches to abandon their peculiarities of obser- vance in matters of discipline, to acknowledge his authority. and to re-enter the pale of Catholic unity, from which their remoteness from the other churches, together with their ignor- ance of what was passing in Christendom, as much perhaps as any other cause, had in a measure severed them. They proved obstinate, and the efforts of the English apostle thus proved abortive. He died in 605; and it was only in 613, eight years afterward, that a ferocious pagan king of Nor- thumbia-Edelfrid--stimulated by vengeance against the mation, 5 vols. in one, 8vo. Edit. Carter, New York, 1854, p. 085, notes. This is the testimony of Bede, Eccl. Hist. L. 1. b. xxvi, quoted by Arch- bishop Kenrick in his Vindication, p. 305. We may as well here, as elsewhere, refer to the singular theory of Bishop Short in regard to the ancient Liturgy of the British churches. He says, (p. 4, and note) that it was derived from the Gallican Liturgy, which was itself probably "derived from St. John through Polycarp and Iraeneus." The differences between this and the Roman service he states as follows: "These consisted in a confession of sins, wherewith the service began; in proper Prefaces, which were introduced for certain days before the consecration of the elements; in several expressions which mark that the doctrine of tran- substantiation had not then been received; and in the attention to singing paid in the Roman Church." What he says, without any proof whatever, in regard to the doctrine of transubstantiation not being then received, may be simply denied, as opposed to the unanimous voice of all Christian antiquity, whether Roman or Greek, Gallican or OrientaL The other "differences" must provoke a smile from every one who has even glanced at the Roman Missal, which has always contained those very things, especially "the attention to singing paid in the Roman Church!" 23 24 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REORMATION. Britons for having given shelter to the heir of a rival claim- ant of his crown, as well as by the feeling of inveterate hatred which existed between the conquerors and the con- quered, invaded their territory in the fastnesses of Wales, conquered them in a great battle at Chester, and finding that the monks of Bangor were praying on a neighboring hill for the success of their British countrymen, caused his troops to rush upon and to massacre them by hundreds. Thus, St. Augustine had been already in his grave for fully eight vears, and he could not therefore possibly have had any thing to do with the expedition of the sanguinary pagan king; who, on the other hand, was not likely to be at all influenced by Christian advice. According to the testimony of Gildas, a contemporary writer and a countryman of the Britons, the British clergy were exceedingly profligate in their morals, and many of them were addicted to disorders which were a disgrace to the priestly character. They openly bought, or sacrilegiously seized upon the dignities of the Church; they were ignorant and indolent; and, in general, all ecclesiastical discipline was greatly relaxed among them.t It was the view of these cry- ing disorders which quickened the zeal of St. Augustine, and which induced the great Roman Pontiff to extend his powers and jurisdiction over all England, in order to enable him effectually to root out scandals so grievous and so glaring. For a full account of all these transactions, with a temperate but tri- umphant vindication of St. Augustine, from the original authorities, see Lingard's Antiquities, etc., sup. cit., chap. 2. That St. Augustine was dead long before the massacre of the monks at Chester, is expressly asserted by Bede: Ipso Augustino jam mulo ante tempore ad ccelestia regna subhito. Bede, p. 81. Apud Lingard, p. 43, note. The absence of this passage from the very imperfect Saxon version made by King Alfred, is no argument against its authenticity; for it is generally admitted by the learned that this version was a mere abridgment. Its presence in the original Latin is quite stUficient and satisfactory. See Ibid. t Ep. Gild. Edit. Gale, pp. 23, 24, 38. Apud Lingard, sup. cit., p. 41. MORALS OF THE CLERGY. The British prelates and clergy did not wish to be reformed especially by a prelate who was acting with their Saxon con- querors lately converted to Christianity. At a conference which was held with them on the borders of Wales, St. Au- gustine "reduced his demands to three: that they should observe the orthodox computation of Easter; should conform to the Roman rite in the administration of baptism; and join with him in preaching the Gospel to the Saxons. Each re- quest was refused, and his metropolitical authority contempt- uously rejected." The result was such as we have already indicated. The British clergy were unwilling to be reformed by legitimate authority; they obstinately refused to unite with the lawful pastors of the Church in preaching the Gos- pel to the Saxons, most of whom were still pagans. In consequence, they experienced the anger of God for their obstinacy, and they soon afterwards almost disappeared from the earth. The prophecy of St. Augustine was fearfully accomplished! Ibid., p. 42. The fact that the British clergy refused to acknowledge the authority of Augustine, is no sufficient proof that they rejected the pri- macy of the Pope. Church history abounds with examples of men who, while fully admitting the doctrine of the papal supremacy, refused never he- less to comply with the commands of the actual Popes, on various pretexts which they ingeniously sought to reconcile with the admitted principle of faith. The facts alluded to in the text furnish a key for understanding the obstinacy of the British clergy. The recognition of St. Augustine's author- ity would have carried along with it, not merely the relinquishment of their old and long-cherished usages, or rather abuses, but also -what was much more difficult-the correction of their morals. That all of them were not, however, so immoral as Gildas would seem to imply, would appear from the fact, that St. Augustine earnestly invited their co-operation for the conversions of the Saxons. Bishop Short confirms the statement of Lingard in regard to the demands made by St. Augustine, and he adds: " The question about the time of ob- serving Easter was also discussed in the council of Whitby, where Oswi de- cided it in favor of the Roman method, because both parties agreed that St. Peter kept the keys of heaven, and that he had used the Roman method of computing (A. D. 664)." Sup. cit., p. 5. VOL II.-3 25 26 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 5. Having thus founded the Anglo-Saxon church, the Roman Pontiffs continued to watch zealously over its inter- ests, and to exercise over it that apostolical jurisdiction which all antiquity recognized as inherent in their sacred office. Their primacy was openly and generally acknowl- edged in England by the Anglo-Saxon Christians, by princes and people, by bishops and clergy; and the examples of its exercise for the organization and regulation of the hierarchy, the reformation of morals, the establishment of sound disci- pline, and the correction of abuses, abound throughout the whole Anglo-Saxon period of English history, from the first advent of St. Augustine near the close of the sixth century, down to the Norman conquest after the middle of the eleventh. During this time, no less than eight Saxon kings devoutly made the pilgrimage to Rome, to receive the papal benediction; and others, who were deterred from performing the journey by its anticipated difficulties, sent their ambassa- dors to do homage to the Chair of Peter in their name. The Popes repeatedly sent their legates into England, to regulate discipline, to settle disputes, and to preside over councils. Those who felt aggrieved appealed to Rome for redress, and the appeal was always heard and acted upon. Thus St. Wilfrid, the holy and celebrated bishop of York Bishop Short virtually admits all this. He writes: "That the Church of Rome did, at an early period, try to extend its power where it could, is beyond all doubt; that it did in after times obtain a spirit- ital supremacy in England is equally unquestionable. The Roman Catho- lic, by proving the early date of these encroachments (!), touches not the broad principles which guided our church in throwing off all foreign author- ity; and the Protestants can never prove, by denying these points, that the Pope did not afterward possess the supreme power over the English church; while both incur the danger of neglecting the pursuit of truth, in endeavoring to establish their own opinions. .... We shall not be able to prove that our forefathers were Protestants, even if they had not then fully admitted the authority of the See of Rome." Ibid., p. 6. In proof of this last statement, he goes into an investigation (p. 9, seqq.) of the doctrines and discipline of the Anglo-Saxon church; from which. ST. WILFRID AND ST. DUNSTAN. when unjustly deposed by Theodore, archbishop of Canter- bury, flew to the Holy See for redress; and he obtained it in full from the justice of Pope Agatho, who convened a coun- cil at Rome to assist him with their advice in determining on an affair of so much importance. The prelates of the Anglo- Saxon church received, with reverent obedience, the decision of the sovereign Pontiff; and archbishop Theodore, having found out and acknowleged his error, expostulated with the Northumbrian king to have the papal judgment executed by the restoration of St. Wilfrid to his see. But the anger of the wounded Northumbrian queen, whom St. Wilfrid had offend- ed, would not be appeased, and she and her husband, Egfrid, continued to pursue the holy prelate with undying hos- tility. It was only after the death of the king, that St. Wil- frid recovered his see, froni which he was soon afterwards again ejected by Aldfrid, successor of Egfrid, at the instiga- tion of the prelate's enemies. Again he appealed to the Pope, who, after long deliberation, again restored him to his place. The same scenes are now re-enacted: Aldfrid, the Northumbrian king, refused the earnest application made to him for St. Wilfrid's restoration by Berthwald, the successor of Theodore in the see of Canterbury; who, like his prede- cessor, had received with great respect, and was fully pre- pared to do every thing in his power to execute the papal decision. It was necessary to await the death of Aldfrid, before the mandate of the Pope could be effectually executed. Thus we see manifested, as early as the close of the seventh even as the facts are unfairly stated by himself it would appear that "our forefathers" were any thing but Protestants. Thus, among other things, he admits that " prayers and oblations for the dead were probably established in England from the first." St. Wilfrid was deposed at the instance of Egfrid, king of Northumber- land, who was instigated thereto by his unprincipled wife Ermenburga, whom St. Wilfrid had grievously offended by endeavoring to curb her vices. and to put an end to her grievous scandals. Bishop Short admits all the facts connected with the appeal of St. Wilfrid to the Pope. P. 5-6. 27 28 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. century, that evil spirit which prompted, not the bishops or clergy, but the sovereigns of England, to interfere with the free- dom of the Church, to thwart the efforts of the Popes for its pro- per government, and to persecute its most saintly prelates. St. Wilfrid felt the sting of kingly persecution during twenty years of exile and tribulation; but, in spite of sufferings so grievous and so protracted, he faltered not in his advocacy of sound doc- trine, in the practice of heroic virtue, and in his loyal alle- giance to the Chair of Peter. And, as we have seen, he triumphed at length over all opposition, and his brethren sus- tained him, while the Church has hallowed his name. 6. If the attempt of temporal princes to tamper with the freedom of the Church, and to trammel and persecute such of her holy prelates as dared rebuke vice in high places, and For a full account of the eventful life of St. Wilfrid, drawn from the original documents, and especially from the statements of his contemporary, the Venerable Bede, and of Eddius, the companion of his varied fortunes, see Lingard's "Antiq. Angio-Saxon Church," p. 106, seqq. For the life of another Anglo-Saxon saint, Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, who so nobly rebuked the vices of King Edgar, who reformed the morals and re- stored the learning of the monks and clergy, and who was himself the vic- tim of much obloquy and persecution from corrupt kings and queens whom he had the courage to rebuke, see the same distinguished historian. Ibid., p. 234, seqq. The chief instigator of the persecutions against this saintly man was an- other wicked woman-Ethelgiva--to whom he had given mortal offense by thwarting her improper intrigues with Prince Edwin, his own favorite pupiL She afterwards suffered a horrible death from the enraged princes and people. Her forehead was branded with a hot iron, and she was ignominiously ban- ished the kingdom; and returning afterwards was cruelly slain by the insur- gents who had risen in arms against her youthful royal lover. (Ibid., p. 237-S.) St. Dunstan, like all the holy prelates who ever lived in England, always reverenced the Holy See; nor is the solitary instance of his opposing the execution of a papal decision, in the case of a nobleman who had de- ceived the credulity of the Pontiff by false representations, a valid exception to the general tenor of his loyalty. His representations on the subject to the Holy See were respectful, and such as an humble and sincere inferior may well make to an acknowledged superior. See Ibid. ROYAL ENCROACHMENTS. struggle valiantly for the independence of the Church and for purity among the clergy, had already done so much mis- chief under the Anglo-Saxon dynasties, it was destined to accomplish much more evil under the Norman kings. Wil- liam of Normandy effected the conquest of England in 1066; and from this epoch an entirely new order of things arose in England both in church and state. Instead of the numerous monarchs who had previously divided among themselves, or had but feebly administered the government of England, we now find the executive power in the hands of one vigorous sovereign. William often wielded the sceptre with an iron arm, and not unfrequently he sought to encroach upon the legitimate province of the Church, and to enslave her minis- ters. The encroachments of the Anglo-Saxon were, in gene- ral, as nothing, compared with the encroachments of the Norman kings: the former were comparatively few and harmless, while the latter were as frequent in their occur- rence as they were mischievous in their results. Yet the Anglo-Saxon state policy had unfortunately left the germ of the evil, which under the Norman rule was easily developed, until it produced its noxious fruits. The history of this pro- gressive development of royal encroachment is curious; and as the subject is one of vital interest in its bearing on the Church, we shall be pardoned if we enter into some details. 7. In regard to the usages which had successively prevailed in the nomination of bishops under the Anglo-Saxon dynas- ties, we can not state them more clearly or succinctly than in the language of the learned author of the Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church. He begins his account with Theo- dore, the learned and zealous archbishop of Canterbury in the seventh century: By Theodore the discipline of the Saxon church was reduced to a more perfect form. The choice of bishops was secured to the national synods, in which the primate presided and regulated the process of election. Gradu- ally it devolved to the clergy of each church, whose choice was corroborated by the presence and acclamations of the more respectable among the laity. 29 0 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. But the notions of the feudal jurisprudence incessantly undermined the free. dom of these elections. As it was dangerous to intrust the episcopal power to the hands of his enemy, the king forbade the consecration of the bishop elect, till the royal consent had been obtained; and as the revenues of the church were originally the donation of the crown, he claimed the right of investing the new prelate with the temporalities of his bishopric. As soon as any church became vacant, the ring and crozier, the emblems of episcopal jurisdiction, were carried to the king by a deputation of the chapter, and returned by him to the person whom they had chosen, with a letter by which the civil officers were ordered to maintain him in the possession of the lands belonging to his church. The claims of the crown were pro- gressive. By degrees the royal will was notified to the clergy of the vacant bishopric, under the modest veil of a recommendation in favor of a particu- lar candidate; at last, the rights of the chapter were openly invaded; and before the fall of the Anglo-Saxon dynasLy, we meet with instances of bishops appointed by the sovereign, without waiting for the choice, or solicit- ing the consent of the clergy." 9. Kings seldom give up what they have once unlawfully grasped. And no where, perhaps, has the force of precedent been more felt or more frequently acted on than in England. The Norman kings began where the Anglo-Saxon kings had left off, and they successively encroached on the rights of the Church, especially in the matter of the election of bishops, until at last her freedom of action had well nigh disappeared. From the forcible thrusting of incompetent or unworthy men into the episcopal sees by the king, in spite of the protests of the clergy, the Church had occasionally suffered much under the later Saxon rulers. Abuses and scandals had abounded, as a necessary consequence of this unhallowed attempt of the secular power to lay violent hands on sacred things; and the subsequent Norman conquest, with its horrors, was viewed by many as a just retribution of heaven on the degeneracy of morals among the Saxons. But the case was destined to be still worse under the Norman rule. 10. Fortunately for the Church, the first archbishop of Canterbury under the Norman dynasty was Lanfranc, an Lingard, Ibid., p. 47-8. 30 LANFRANC AND WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 31 Italian by birth, and a most learned, pious, and prudent man, who was not easily influenced by considerations of courtly policy, much less by those of flesh and blood. William the Conqueror entertained feelings of great respect and veneration for the character of his metropolitan, and he proved a steady friend and protector of the archbishop in his frequent strug- gles with the rapacious Norman barons. So long as Laiifranc lived, though the original Saxon bishops and clergy were often harshly dealt with by their haughty conquerors, yet the freedom of the Church in the appointment of her bishops seems not to have been, at least glaringly, violated by the crown. The vigor and unbending integrity of the archbishop rooted out abuses, restored ecclesiastical discipline, promoted learning, overawed disaffection, and checked the rapacity of the hungry adventurers who had came over in the train of the Conqueror. He rendered willing homage to the character and office of the sovereign Pontiff, from whom, like his pre- decessors, he had received the pallium, the badge of metro- political jurisdiction. William, though fierce and haughty, had many good quali- ties both of head and heart. The spirit of chivalry had tempered his native ferocity; and though he could not well brook opposition, much less endure rebuke, yet he was in- clined to admire the boldness and courage of the man who dared thwart him in his royal will. According to Orderic, a contemporary historian, he refrained from seizing on the revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys, protected them from the rapacity of his barons, and "named a successor with the advice of the principal clergy." He had a special vener- ation for the bold character and chivalrous bearing of his great contemporary, Pope St. Gregory VII., and though often blunt in his intercourse with the Pontiff, he seems never to have fully broken with him, and generally to have treated Apud Lingard, History of England, voL ii, p. 71. Edit of Dolman London, 1844. 32 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. him with as much respect as his haughty character would allow him to render to any man on earth. In return, Gregory commended him " for his attachment to the Holy See, for the zeal with which he enforced the celibacy of the clergy, and for his piety in not exposing to sale, like other kings, the vacant abbeys and bishoprics.` Still the Conqueror discovered in his conduct and in the spirit of his enactments, the germs of that unworthy supicion of Rome, which, under his successors, produced fruits so very disastrous to the English church. "le would not permit the authority of any particular Pontiff to he acknowledged in his dominions without his previous approbation; and lie directed that all letters issued from the court of Romne should, on their arrival, be submitted to the royal inspection :" and "so jealous was he of any encroachment on his authority, that without the royal license he would not permit the decisions of national or provincial councils to be carried into effect."t He even went so far in his jealousy of papal influence, as to require that no English bishop should visit Rome without his permission! St. Gregory VII. expressed his just indignation at this petty tyranny in the following energetic language: " No one of all kings, even pagan, ever presumed to attempt so much against the Apostolic See."J Finally, though William recog- nized the regular ecclesiastical courts, yet " he forbade them either to implead or to excommunicate any individual holding in chief of the crown, till the nature of the offense had been certified to himself." 10. His son and successor William II., surnamed Rufus8, unhappily carried into full effect the insidiously encroaching spirit of these various enactments. He inherited the haughty boldness of his father, without any, or hardly any, of his many good traits of character. Hewas extravagant, licentious, and reckless. He ascended the throne in 1087. So long as Lan- Greg. VII Epist. Lib. 1. 10. Ibid. f Ibid. I Epist vii 1. Ibid. I Eadmer, 6. Ibid. WILLIAM RUFUS AND ST. ANSELR. franc lived, he was overawed into something like decorum by the influence of the words and example of the venerable pri- mate. But after the death of the latter, two years later-in 1089-he openly cast off all restraint, and recklessly trampled under foot all the laws even of common decency. To supply himself with money, for his own sensual gratification and for squandering among his guilty favorites, he seized without scruple on the revenues of the vacant benefices, and applied them to his own uses. That he might enjoy them the longer, he kept the bishoprics and abbeys vacant for years together, to the great injury of the faithful and detriment of the Church. Thus he forcibly kept the see of Canterbury without a pastor for four years-from the death of Lanfranc in 1089 to the ap- pointment of St. Anselm in 1093; and he would probably have protracted the widowhood of the principal English see to a much longer period, had not a dangerous illness overtaken him in the midst of his excesses, and awakened remorse in a heart not yet wholly dead to the principles of faith. Fearing the approach of death, he sent for the sainted monk Anselm, and gave his royal consent to his appointment to the prima- tial see. Well knowing the fickle character of the king, and fully appreciating the difficulty and responsibility of the ele- vated position, the holy man at first refused the proffered honor. After much entreaty, he however finally consented to accept it, but only on condition that William would restore the church property upon which he had seized, and acknowledge IPoIpe U rbans II. as legitimate Pontiff. The sick king promised every thing with willing alacrity, and Anselm was accord- ingly consecrated. But, as the holy archbishop had feared, William well was nIht what William had been when sick. The fear of death Like his friend and preceptor Lanfiranc, St. Anselm was a Benedictine monk from the renowned monastry of Bec in Normandy, and he was also, like him, a native of Italy. He was born at Aosta, or Aouste, in Piedmont. while Lanfranc was a native of Pavia, in Lcmbardy. 33 EUROPE BEFORE TlIMl RKFORMATION. once removed, the king became even worse than before; he forgot all his solemnly plighted promises, and plunged again into all his former excesses. Ile refused to give up the church property and revenues, to allow the vacant benefices to be filled, or to permit the convening of free ecclesiastical coun- cils, for re-establishing decaying discipline and correcting ex- isting abuses. In vain did the zealous primate plead and expostulate with the unprincipled and infatuated monarch, who had now given himself up wholly to the guidance of his unscrupulous prime minister, Flanibard. This reckless man had purchased his royal master's confidence by pandering to his worst passions. He played toward William II. the same unprincipled part which Cromwell afterwards acted towards Henry VIII.; and with similar results, though fortunately not so disastrous to religion.t Ile was the first who had advised William to seize on the revenues of the Church, and in order the better to accomplish this purpose, to keep the sees and abbeys vacant during his royal pleasure. Anselm continued firm, the king obstinate. The latter even See Lingard, list. England, vol. ii, p. 100, for the original authorities; Edit. Dolman, London. f Those fond of historical parallels may compare the two cases in all their bearings, as furnishing one out of a thousand evidences that human nature is substantially the same in all ages, and that similar agencies generally pro- duce similar results, making proper allowance for difference of times and circumstances. In the present instance, neither Henry nor William profited much by the riches of the Church on which they sacrilegiously seized. These were speedily squandered on unprincipled favorites or consumed in low debauchery, and the two monarchs remained in the end none the richer for the unholy seizure. The fate of both these courtly prime ministers who advised the sacrilege was similarly disastrous. Both perished suddenly and violently. Both monarchs also died miserably; William by a violent ind unprovided death while engaged in the chase, Henry 6n his bed, in- deed, but in the eyes of faith, in a manner probably still more fearful and terrible. History has its lessons, some of them fearful ones indeed, but all of them profitable, if we would only learn wisdom from the treasured expe. rience of the past. 34 PERSECUTION OF ST. ANSEM. 35 attempted to have the former deposed, on the ground that without the royal assent he had dared recognize Pope Urban II.; whom lhe himself nevertheless had solemnly promised to acknowledge a short time before, and whom lie actually did acknowledge very soon afterwards. During the controversy, the king won over to his side the bishop of Durham and some other prelates more courtly than courageous, who, however. declared that they were vested with no power to depose the holy archbishop, and could merely withdraw themselves from his obedience, on the ground of his having acknowledged Urban II. in anticipation of the royal recognition. The kind would probably have succeeded in accomplishing his wicked purpose, but for powerful opposition from an unusual and unexpected quarter. The barons stood up nobly and reso- lntely in defense of their primate. The king then tried a new expedient. He acknowledged Urban, and wrote him an obse- quious letter, in which lie promised the Pontiff a rich pension, if lie would consent to depose Anselm. TIme Pope spurned the bribe, and sternly refused his consent to the punishment of an innocent and holy man. Tired of the seemingly fruitless contest, Anselm left England in 1097, and betook himself to the feet of the sovereign Pontiff. in order to disburden his conscience of the heavy responsibility which weighed upon it, and to obtain redress for the griev- ances of his afflicted church. If the Pope could not assist him in his overwhelming affliction, who could There was no other means of redress left to him on earth against the injustice of his all-powerful and wholly unscrupulous persecutor. In his letter to the Pope, the holy prelate presented the follow. ing reasons for leaving the kingdom: "The king would not restore to my church those lands belonging to it. which he had given away after the death of Lanfranc; he even continue ! to give more away notwithstanding my opposition; he required of me griev- ous services, which had never been required of my predecessors; he ai :iulled the law of God and the canonical and apostolical decisions, by customs oV his own creation. In such conduct I couid not acquiesce without the loss 36 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION. of my own soul: to plead against him in his own court was in vain; for nc one dared assist or advise me. This then is my object in coming to you, to beg that you would free me from the bondage of the episcopal dignity, and allow me to serve God again in the tranquillity of my cell; and that, in the next place, you would provide for the churches of the English, according to your wisdom and the authority of yowr station." The Pope received the persecuted primate with open arms, but he would not consent to accept his resignation. Anselm remained in Italy for about three years, and he attended the synod held at Bari, and tnesuDsequent one at Rome in 1099; both of which pronounced sentence of excommunication against laymen who would dare usurp the right of granting investiture for cathedrals and abbeys without a previous free and canonical election. In the meantime, his royal persecutor met with a sudden and violent death on the second of August, 1100 ; t and Anselm returned to England in the following September. He was at first well received by the new king, Henry I., whom he had greatly aided in securing the crown against the claims of his brotner Robert, duke of Normandy. But very soon afterwards, the ungrateful monarch lost sight of all gratitude, forgot all his good resolutions, and revived the claim to investitures, very similar to that which had been so scandalously exercised by the iate king. Anselm was again compelled to visit Rome in 1103, and to lay his grievances before Pope Paschal II. This Pontiff first condemned the king, but afterwards entered into an accommodation with him. Eadmer, 43. Apud Lingard, list. England, vol. ii, p. 100, note. t Of William's continued rapacity, even to the very hour of his sudden and unhappy death, Dr. Lingard bears the following testimony on the au thority of the original documents: "' William kept the vacant bishoprics for several years in his own possess- ion; and if he consented at last to name a successor, it was previously un- derstood that the new prelate should pay a atim into the exchequer propor- tionate to the value of the benefice." Again: "The king at his death had in his hands one archbishopric, fourbishoprnt. and eleven abbeys, all of which had been let out to farm." (Hist. England, vol. ii, p. 94, note. He quotes Orderic 763, 774, and Bles. iii.) ST. THOMAS A BECKET. 37 in virtue of which Anselm was allowed to return to England Here, after struggling to the last for the rights of the Church against royal rapacity and tyranny, he died holily in 1109. 11. We have given this rapid summary of well-known facts, in order to exhibit the growing spirit of royal encroach- ment on the legitimate province of the Church, which was actively at work in England at so early a period as the close of the eleventh century. Unhappily the case of St. Anselm is not a solitary one in English history. It was repeated, at least substantially, in almost every subsequent reign, down to the period of the Reformation. The Henrys vied with the Williams, and the Edwards and Richards with the Henrys, who should be most exorbitant in their claims to the seizure and administration for their own benefit of church revenues, and to the nomination to the vacant bishoprics and abbeys. This claim, and the intolerable abuses and scandals to which its exercise necessarily gave rise, constituted the most crying evil of the times, and the one which gave most uneasiness to the holy men of those ages; precisely because it was the one which inflicted the most grievous injury upon the Church. It was the fruitful origin, not of a single evil, but of a whole series of scandals, which were sure to follow in the train of a bad appointment to a vacant bishopric or abbey. Whenever a mere creature of the king was thrust by royal influence into a bishopric, lie was sure to neglect his own duties, and to ap- point other clergymen under him who were no better than himself; and thus the scandal was extended and perpetuated. For all the facts and authorities on this subject, see Alban Butler, life of St. Anselm, ApL 21, and Lingard in loco. The facts are, so far as we know, disputed by no one. Dr. Lingard thinks, that, in this settlement with the Pontiff, the king, while resigning the form, retained the substance of his mischievous claim. At any rate, he did not discontinue his encroachments on the rights of the bhshops, nor his rapacity in seizing the revenues of the vacant benefices. He violated without scruple his solemn promises, and persisted in annoying SL Anse m to the hour of the saint's death. (Ibid., ii., p. 118.) 34 38 EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 12. It is a remarkable fact, which is susceptible of the clearest proof, that all the greatest and best archbishops of Canterbury, under the Norman Kings, with the exception, per. haps, of Lanfranc, were more or less the victims of royal perse- cution, and that all of them were protected in their tribulation by the sovereign Pontiffs. From St. Anselm in the eleventh, down to St. Edmund Rich in the thirteenth century, we know of no exception to this statement; unless, perhaps, it be Car- dinal Langton, who, aided by the barons whom he headed, was able to overcome the tyranny of King John, without the aid, and seemingly in spite of the Pope, whose vassal John had become. But in this contest, Langton was struggling for civil rights and franchises, not for the freedom of the Church. 13. Every one is acquainted with the eventful career and glorious martyrdom of the brilliant and sainted Thomas A Becket, in the reign of Henry II. He was, in some respects, the Wolsey of the twelfth century, but lie was composed of much sterner material, and was therefore far greater than Wolsey; for he became, what Wolsey was not privileged to be, a martyr fori the freedom of the Church against royal encroach- ments and tyranny. At first he was, like Wolsey, a great favorite at court; then, like him, he fell into disgrace for hav- ing dared follow his conscience and do his duty. Made archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, he gave up, to a great extent, his worldly occupations, and applied himself diligently to the work of a Christian bishop. For resisting the king in the attempt of the latter to enforce the pretended customs of the kingdom, which either he or his immediate predecessors That the Pope, Innocent III., though he at first was led by false repre- sentations, to side with John against Langton and the barons, was really not opposed to the liberties secured by the Magna Charta at Runnymede, which instrument was afterward so often confirmed and renewed with the full sanction of Honorius and subsequent Roman Pontifs, must be apparent to all who have diligently studied the history of England. We have at- tempted to present a summary of the facts bearing on this case, chiefly from Hurter's Life of Innocent, in the appendix to the Miscellanea. ST. EDMUND RICH. 39 had but recently introduced, he lost favor, was forced to fly the kingdom, and was pursued with undying hostility by Henry's emissaries. The Roman Pontiff received the persecuted exile with parental kindness, fully sanctioned his noble resistance to royal tyranny, and employed every means in his power to soften the heart of the king. He succeeded at length in bringing about an accommodation, in consequence of which the archbishop returned to his see. But he returned only to die at the foot of his own cathedral altar by the hands of courtly assassins, who thought they would thereby ingratiate themselves into the royal favor. The fearful deed of blood and sacrilege filled all Christendom with horror, and the royal tyrant himself trembled on his throne when he heard of its horrible details. Filled with remorse, he expiated the crime, which he had only indirectly authorized, by assuming the humble garb of a penitent, and making a memorable pilgrimage to the tomb of the martyred archbishop, which he bedewed with his tears. There is a show of consistency, and a species of logic, in err or as well as in truth, in crime as well as in virtue. Henry VIII. ruthlessly destroyed the tomb of A Becket, which admiring Christendom had erected and decked with the richest orna- ments, and which Englishmen had visited with growing rever- ence for nearly four centuries. He went further still in his insane indignation. He caused the venerable relics of the martyr to be exhumed and destroyed! 'The boldness with which the martyr had withstood royal encroachment on the rights of the Church, commemorated and kept alive by the splendid monument over his remains, conveyed a standing reproach to his own sacrilegious rapacity, which he could not endure. The memory which it awakened of the royal penitent who had prostrated himself weeping thereat, with all Christendom reverently looking on the dMifying and affecting scene, was too much for the eighth Henry, in com- parison with whose crimes, actual or meditated, those of the second Henry were as nothing. The times were, moreover, 40 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. sadly changed for the worse. The spirit of royal encroach ment had fearfully grown in strength and extension, and after having first attempted-alas! but too successfully-gradually to undermine the freedom of church government by thwart- ing the Papacy for centuries, it was now prepared to sap the very foundations of the faith itself, and sacrilegiously to set up altar against altar! 14. The case of St. Edmund Rich was almost a counterpart of that of St. Anselm and of St. Thomas, with this exception, that he did not die at home like the former, nor a martyr like the latter. After having been long heart-sick at the sight of evils which he could not remedy, he voluntarily withdrew from his see of Canterbury, the responsibilities of which his con- science could no longer bear; and he retired to the continent, where he devoted himself to prayer for his afflicted flock, and where he died holily at Borins in Champagne, in 1242. King Henry III., true to the encroaching spirit of his prede- cessors, had still persisted in keeping the sees vacant, or in filling them with his own creatures. To check the crying abuse, St. Edmund had obtained a bull from the reigning Pope Gregory IX., by the tenor of which he was himself authorized to fill such sees, whenever they would be left vacant for more than six months. This measure irritated the king to such a degree, that the prudent or timid Pontiff, probably fearing greater evils, withdrew the bull some time afterward. The state of things which followed was such, as to render the holy archbishop's position no longer tolerable; and finding himself like a lamb in the midst of wolves, he quietly withdrew from the scene of useless contention, to await in solitude and prayer the coming of better times. But these did not come during his life-time; and he died in exile, a noble confessor of the faith, and another victim of royal encroachment on the liberties of the English church. 15. The spirit of royal aggression on the freedom of the Church, especially in the matter of elections to bishoprics and abbeys, instead of diminishing, went on steadily increasing GROWING ENCROACHMENTS after the death of St. Edmund. The rightful authority claimed by the Popes, as the universally acknowledged heads of the Church, to have a voice in the nomination of bishops and abbots, was clogged and hampered at almost every step by royal interference and opposition; and the natural result was any thing but favorable to the character of many among the higher English clergy. The Popes never resigned, and never could resign their claim; however they may have occasionally and for a time let it lie in abeyance, for the sake of peace, or because they were hopeless of a favorable issue. Worried with the protracted and often useless contest, they sometimes entered into terms of accommodation with the English monarchs, who, however, generally abused the con- ciliatory temper of the Holy See, by making it an occasion of still further encroachment. Things went on in this way, until near the middle of the fourteenth century, when a series of enactments were passed by the English parliament, which were highly detrimental to the freedom and true interests of the Church, because they clearly trenched on the rightful prerogatives of the Papacy. We refer to the different statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, passed successively between the years 1343 and 1393, under Edward III. and Richard II. 16. Our present purpose does not require, nor will our limits permit a full and detailed account of these odious enactments. The following brief summary of the principal facts connected with them will suffice. They were leveled against the authority claimed by the Popes to issue what were called Letters of Provision for the filling of vacant benefices. Those persons who were named to execute such letters, and sometimes those also in whose favor they were issued, were called provzisos. The exercise of this right by the Pontiffs, though often quietly submitted to by the English kings, had The term prmmunire, as applied to a subsequent statute, was derived from the first word in the royal writ for inducting the candidate into office: Prceinunire facias-Forewarn, etc. However Fuller, quoted by D'Aubign6 VOL. lI.-4 41 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORIMATION. generally been viewed by them with more or less of disfavor, as being an encroachment on what they conceived to be the rights of the crown; and the higher clergy, who were oi expected to be benefited by the royal patronage, but too fre- quently sympathized with their monarch in the protracted struggle which ensued, and which came to a crisis in the fourteenth century. The acts of 1343 and the following years, under Edward III., forbade, under penalty of forfeiture, and subsequently of outlawry, the bringing into the kingdom of such letters of provision for vacant benefices, or of documents of any other description which should be deemed contrary to the rights of the monarch and of the realm ; and provided that the elections to vacant sees and abbeys should be nominally free, but that the king should have the bestowal of the va- cant benefice whenever the Pope interfered, and the lay patron neglected to select the incumbent.t With this last enactment the clergy were greatly dissatisfied; because while it professed to protect the freedom of election against the Pope, it really " abolished such freedom in favor of the king." The clergy began then to open their eyes, and to perceive whither the encroaching spirit of their kings was really tend- ing; a lesson which it is a great pity they did not learn sooner, or better profit by at a later period. Every blow struck at the prerogatives of the Popes was one really leveled at their own dignity, and at their independence of royal ag- g regsion in the exercise of their spiritual functions. The P"ontiff was the only person on earth who had the power or the will to shield them from the tyranny of their sovereigns, which afterwards, when this restraint was entirely removed, (p. 702, note), thinks the more obvious meaning of the term is to fence and fortify the royal authority. We prefer the former meaning, which is that adopted by Lingard. RotuL Parliam. ii, p. 144-5. Apud Lingard, Hist. England, vol. iv, p. 153. t Statutes of Realm, I, 316. Ibid. 42 STATUT OF PROVISORS-AND OF PREMIUNIRE. actually crushed out all the remaining liberties of the English church, and rendered it the most abject slave of the crown. In the year 1375, a compromise was effected between Ed- ward III. and Pope Gregory XI., in the Concordat entered into at Bruges; by which all previous penalties were remitted by the English king, and Gregory, without renouncing his claims, revoked all reservations and provisions made by him- self and his predecessors which had not yet taken effect. This Concordat was but a temporary remedy for a permanent evil, which it palliated without removing. The noxious plant was indeed removed from sight, but its roots remained deep in the soil. In 1379, the controversy was revived, on occa- sion of the appointment by the Pope of Edward Bromfield to the vacant abbey of St. Edmund's.t After continuing for some months, the contest was finally settled by the translation of Bromfield to another benefice, in 1380. Pope Urban VI. confirmed the Concordat of Bruges, but he was unwilling to give up the right, so often claimed and exercised by his predecessors, to fill up such English benefices as had been previously held by cardinals and other prelates attached to the immediate service of the Holy See. The English parliament re-enacted the Statute of Provisors in 1383; but as its execution was made dependent on the dis- cretion of the crown, the king generally granted his royal license to such cardinals and Roman prelates as the Pontiff designated to fill vacant benefices; and thus the re-enactment of the statute proved nugatory in practice. After the death of Urban VI., his successor Boniface IX. declared all the previous acts of the English parliament on this subject utterly void and of no effect, as infringing the clearly established rights of the Holy See; and in 1391 he appointed Cardinal Brancaccio to a prebend in the church of Wells. Hereupon great popular commotion ensued in En- See Lingard, voL iv. p. 155. 43 t Ibid., p. 224-5. ENGTAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. gland, though the appointment certainly presented nothing ,hat was unusual. The parliament re-assembled in 1393; and amnidst much excitement, and after an angry debate, the famous Statute of Prammunire was drawn up, though it was probably never regularly passed, but left to be carried out at the discretion of the king with the advice of his council. By this statute, " it was provided that if any man pursue or obtain in the Court of Rome, or elsewhere, such translations, excommnunications, bulls, instruments, or other things against the king's crown and regality or kingdom as aforesaid, or bring them into the realm, or execute them either within the realm or without, such person or persons, their notaries, pro- curators, fautors, and counsellors shali be out of the king's protection, their goods and chattels, lands and tenements shall be forfeited to the king, and their perons attached wherever they may be found."-" The prelates, however, de- clared, that it was not their intention to deny that the Pope could issue sentences of excommunication and translate bishops, according to the law of the holy Church; but to do so in the cases proposed would be to invade the rights of the crown, which they were determined to support with all their power." t Another accommodation was soon after entered into with the Pontiff, by which provisions in favor of aliens (not Eng- lishmen), except cardinals, were entirely abandoned by the Holy See, and those in favor of natives were to be generally granted to such persons as had previously obtained the royal license.. Thus ended the controversy, evidently greatly to It is not found in the Rolls of Parliament, but only in the Statutes of the Realm (Lingard, Ibid., voL iv, p. 228, and note). It met with great resistance in the House of Lords, and it was sent back to the Commons, who seem to have withdrawn it, leaving the king and his council free to modify its enact- ments at will, or to let them remain a dead letter; as they, in fact, did gen- erally remain for more than a hundred years-up to the time of Henry VIII. f R. of Parl. iii, p. 304, Apud Lingard, Ibid., voL iv, p. 227. 1 Ibid., p, 229. 44 DR. LINGARD REVIEWED. the advantage of the English monarch, who gained the prin- cipal point, that of being able to thrust his own nominees, or creatures, into the vacant benefices, whether these were elect- ed by the clergy or nominated by the Pontiff; the election being often merely nominal, and the Pope generally approv- ing of the royal choice, which he seldom felt able to oppose. 17. This result was certainly most disastrous to the English church; but the Popes had done all they could, and they were therefore not to blame for the evils which subsequently ensued; among which the principal one was, that quite too many of the English bishops became courtiers, and were infected to a greater or less extent with worldly-minded- ness. The English kings would have it so, in spite of the Popes; and the blame therefore should justly attach to the former, not to the latter. We totally dissent from the opinion expressed by the great English historian in the following sin- gular passage-his facts are nearly always reliable, his infer- ences may occasionally be questioned: "In the obstinacy with which the Court of Rome urged the exercise of these obnoxious claims, it is difficult to discover any trace of that political wisdom for which it has been celebrated. Its conduct tended to loosen the ties which bound the people to the head of their Church, to nourish a spirit of opposition to his authority, and to create a willingness to listen to the declamations, and adopt the opinions of religious innovators., I So far from being fairly charged with "obstinacy," the counter charge of too much conciliation might be preferred with much greater plausibility. The Popes pushed this spirit of compromis3 to the extremity of almost yielding the exercise of their clear and inalienable rights, as Dr. Lingard himself admits in the case of Paschal II. above referred to, and also in his concluding remarks on the negotiations which followed the passage of the Statute of Prmemunire. Beset with diffi- culties, and fearing that greater evils might arise from oppos- t Ibid., p. 157. t Ibid., vol. iv, p. 157. 45 "L England, Ibid. 46 ENGLAND BEFORE TilE REFORMATION. ing too strenuously the headlong passions of the English monarchs, the policy of the Popes was generally mild and conciliating, sometimes it was even timid and un- decided. 18. Yet, in spite of all the efforts of the English monarchs and of their subservient parliaments for centuries, the Popes, however conciliatory in the adjustment of details, never would or could resign the right, inherent in the Primacy, to have a controlling voice in the nomination to the vacant bishoprics. This was indispensable, in order that they might be able to keep unworthy men from being numbered with the chief It may be interesting to see how the Anglican bishop, Short, writes on this subject. He is probably almost, if not quite, as just to the Popes as Dr. Lingard. Speaking of William Rufus and St. Anselm, he says: 1 Wil- liam Rufus might have kept himself as independent as his father, had not his invasion of church property compelled Anselm to fly to Rome for protec- tion. The quarrel about investiture was really one as to the power which it gave the king of selling his preferments." (Sup. cit., p. 24.) Again, treating of the general question between the Popes and the English mon- archs, he writes: "Most of the contests which took place concerned the property of the church, and might more justly be viewed as questions of civil right than as belonging to ecclesiastical matters. The church is a body corporate with spiritual functions, but possessed of temporal rights; the injustice generally arose with regard to the temporalities, ordinarily with respect to the appoint- ments; and as the ecclesiastical body had no other means of defending its own rights than by spiritual thunders, the invasion of a right purely tempo- ral (') in its nature became a question of spiritual power, from the way in which the contest was carried on. The king kept a bishopric or abbey va- cant, and let the temporalities out to farm. The church was injured by the want of a head, but the injustice was such as might have been remedied without any appeal to a foreign power, if the barons had maintained the ights of the church; but when the church found no other remedy, her members were forced to seek for aid from any source which could afford it to them, and so put themselves under the protection of Rome.,, Ibid. The church was certainly not "in want of a head ;" the great evil was, that the king usurped the rights properly belonging to him who was the recognized head; and the barons were often as bad as the king. SUPERIORITY OF THE ROMAN NOMINEES. shepherds of the flock. Though sometimes compelled reluct antly to acquiesce in a state of things which they could not approve, yet they never relaxed their vigilance over the inter- ests of the English church; and if its purity was generally preserved in spite of appalling difficulties, the result is due mainly to the Popes, not certainly to the rude and half-bar- barous English monarchs of the middle ages. 19. During the continuance of these protracted conflicts between the English sovereigns and the Roman Pontiffs, it is a remarkable fact that the Primacy of the latter was not im- pugned by king, parliament, or people. On the contrary, it was repeatedly acknowledged and openly proclaimed. Dis- tinctions were sometimes drawn between the spiritual juris- diction inseparable from the Primacy, and the particular claims set up by the Popes to influence or control the episcopal and abbatial nominations: and while the former was unanimously acknowledged, the latter were often op- posed, as involving matters of temporal interest. The dis- tinction was more selfish than logical; still it was made. Says Lingard: "Of the Primacy of the Pontiff, or of his spiritual jurisdiction, there was no question: both these were repeatedly acknowledged by the Commons in their petitions, and by the king in his letters. But it was contended that the Pope was surrounded by subtle and rapacious counselors, who abused for their own emolument the confidence of their master; that by their ad- vice he had 'accroached' to himself a temporal authority, to which, as it invaded the rights of others, he could have no claim; and that when repeat- ed remonstrances had failed, it was lawful to employ the resources of the civil power in the just defense of civil rights." 20. Certain it is, that the English prelates who were ap pointed either directly by the Holy See, or with its full con- sent, were those precisely to whom England is most indebted. In general, they were immeasurably superior to those who were nominated by the king, after a sham election by the chapter, and an extorted approval from the Pope. What a Hist. England, voL iv, p. 156. 47 48 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. candid Protestant writer says of the clergy in Germany may apply, with still greater force, to those of England during the period of which we are speaking: "It can not be denied that, whatever the national writers may say to the contrary, the ecclesiastics appointed by the Pope were generally far superior, as regards both merit and conduct, to those nominated by the chapter or the bishops." We think we have already sufficiently proved this, in what we have heretofore said of Lanfranc, St. Anselm, St. Thomas, and St. Edmund. We will merely add, that it was to the Pope, and in direct opposition to the twice declared wishes of the chapter of Canterbury supported by the English king, that the English church was indebted for the nomination to the English primacy of the great Stephen Langton, the cham- pion of Magna Charta. Mathew of Westminster, a monkish chronicler of the times, furnishes all the particulars of this interesting case, which of itself would show how much Eng- land is indebted to the Popes.t Again, the successor of Langton, St. Edmund Rich, was nominated by the Pope, who rejected Blunt, or Blundy, the candidate presented by the chapter of Canterbury with the sanction of the king. The chief ground for the rejection of Blunt was, that, contrary to the sacred canons, he already held a plurality of benefices. At the suggestion of Langton. the Pope had previously ordered a rigid visitation of the whole province of Canterbury, with a view to correct abuses, and especially to inquire into the conduct of the clergy, both secular and regular. In spite of monastic and royal opposi- tion, the visitation was rigidly carried out; and it resulted in the removal of scandals, and in the correction of many abuses, which had crept in through human weakness and royal encroachment. Roger of Wendover, another monkish Hist. Germanic Empire, vol. ii, ch. 3, in Cabinet Cyclopedia, apud Dublin Review, for October, 1858. An interesting summary of the facts is given in the article of the Dub. tin Review, for October, 1858, already quoted. L.ANFRANC AND WYKEHAM. chronicier, furnishes us all the particulars of this most wis' and salutary measure of discipline. Speaking of Lanfranc, the first archbishop of Canterbury after the Norman conquest, the recent Protestant biogi aphei of the English Judges, Mr. Foss, bears the following honor- able testimony: "He was not only willingly accepted by the monks and approved by the barons and people, but gladly confirmed by the Pope. He was accordingly consecrated in 1070, and on visiting Rome in the following year to receive the pall, he was welcomed with particular respect by his former pupil, Alex- ander II., who rose to give him audience, kissed him instead of presenting his slipper for that obeisance, and not satisfied with giving him the usual pall, invested him with that which he had himself used in celebrating Mass. On his return from Rome, he devoted himself strenuously to the duties of his office, and labored successfully in reforming the irregularities and rude- ness of his clergy. His severity in depriving many occasioned considerable complaints, but the introduction of foreign scholars in their places contri- buted effectually to the enlightenment of the nation." t Of another archbishop of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury, who was a favorite of the Pope, but was murdered by an English mob under Richard II., Mr. Foss says: " The character of the archbishop, as represented by the historians, was such as to make him least liable to popular hatred. He was of a liberal, free, and generous spirit; admired for his wonderful parts, for his wisdom, his learn- ing, and his eloquence, and revered for the piety of his life, the charity he dispensed, and the merciful consideration he always exhibited" I The same candid Protestant writer speaks equally well of another of the Pope's bishops, the illustrious William of Wykeham, whom the king compelled to become chancellor. IHe held the seals for two years and a half; but "during that period, he had the happiness to restore the public tranquillity so effectually, that parliament thanked the king for his good government; and could he have been induced to remain in office, it is probable that his wise councils might have checked Dublin Review, ibid. + The Judges of England, etc. 6 vols. By Edward Foss, F. S. A., apud Lublin Review, for July, 1858. W Ibid. VOL. II.-5 4.4 50 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. the kinges intemperance, and prevented the fatal consequences that followed." 21. In reading the English monastic chronicles of the tbir- teentlh and fourteenth centuries, some of which have been recently published by the British governments we are often shocked at the sneering or irreverent tone, in which they not unfrequently speak of the Holy See. They are usually found sympathizing with the royal pretensions, and in opposition to the claims of the Pope. They occasionally dismiss, with cold words or a passing sneer, the most atrocious acts of violence perpetrated against the ecclesiastical nominees of the Pontiff Take, for instance, the following extract from Mathew of Westminster, for the year 1260: "A prebendary of St. Paul's, dying beyond the Alps, the Pope imme- diately bestowed the prebend on another. The king, not being aware of this, bestowed the prebend on Lord John de Crakehall, his treasurer. When this was heard, a procurator, one of the secular clergy, was sent into Eng- land with writings from the Pope, to support the papal collation. And the archbishop of Canterbury, deciding on the case, as he was ordered to do, ascertaining at length that the papal donation preceded the king's appoint- ment in order of time, by his formal sentence adjudged the prebend to the Roman before mentioned; who after he was installed, endeavored to take possession of the principal mansions attached to the prebend in the city; but he was denied entrance, on which account, yielding to violence and arms, he withdrew. And they who occupied the house, seeing this, presently followed him behind, and some one in the crowd of passers-by clove his head in two between the eyes, and escaped without being arrested by any one; and a companion was treated in the same manner, while the slayer escaped;" and although "an investigation took place, the criminal could not be dis- coverel." The whole account looks very much like a criminal conniiv- ance of the civil powers in two atrocious assassinations, un- The Judges of England, etc., apud Dublin Review. Quoted already. t Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Mid- dle Ages. Published by the authority of her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. London; Longman, 1858 Quoted by Dublin Review, for October, 1858, sup. cit. SINGULAR DEVELOPMENTS. 51 blushingly perpetrated at noonday in the streets of London, on a man too who was peaceably withdrawing, yielding qui- etly his acknowledged rights to "violence and arms !" These horrid crimes seem to have created but slight sensation at the time, else the investigation which is said to have taken place would have had some result. Here we may, more- over, see what was the character of some at least of the men whom the king thought proper to promote to the principal church-livings. This " Lord John de Crake- hall, the king's treasurer," was but one out of a vast num- ber of such creatures of the king, who were thus promoted to high dignities in spite of the Pope. He was a 'nan of little virtue or integrity - a mere courtier. here is another specimen exhibiting a similar spirit, from Capgrave, a chronicler of the fourteenth century-the occurrence belongs to the year 1315: "At that time came into England two legates. As the manner of the Romans is, they ride with great solemnity into the North country, for to make Lodewick Beaumont bishop of Durham, against the election of the monks who had chosen another: And though they were warned that they should not come there, yet they rode till they came to Darlington. And sodeynly out of a vale rose a grete people-Capteyns Gilbert de MNydleton and Walter Selby. They laid hands upon them, and robbed them of all their treasure; and Lodewick, whom they intended to make bishop, they led to a town called Morpeth, and compelled him to make a grete ransom. Then came the cardinals to London, and asked of the clergy eight pence in the mark"-by way of compensation for their loss. They were answered with a sneer, " that they gave them no counsel for to go so far North! As And yet these same men, who could treat with so much cold contempt and heartlessness the envoys of the Holy See thus grievously outraged in the discharge of their official duty, and who were so niggardly of their contributions even to the holy father himself when he called on them in his sore distress, were themselves the veriest slaves of the king, and Dublin Review. ibid 2ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. dared not resist his demands for money, no matter how fre- quent and how exorbitant these were. They were wholly at the mercy of their royal master; and though they begrudged the miserable pittance of Peter pence to sup port the common father of the faithful in the discharge of his duties for the common good of Christendom, they would, with courtly cheerfulness, vote hundreds of thou- sands of pounds to a profligate monarch, who generally squandered the amount among his unprincipled favorites, or in low debauchery! Verily, the mischievous claim of the crown to interfere with the nomination of bishops and abbots was producing its legitimate, but most poisonous fruits. Thus, for example, in the reign of Edward I., we are told by Mathew of Westminster, that the king demanded, and the clergy with apparent cheerfulness and unanimity granted one hayf of their annual revenues. A knight rose up in the midst of the convocation, and said: "My venerable men, this is the demand of the king, the moiety of the annual revenue of your churches. And if any one objects to this, let him rise up in the middle of the assembly, that his person may be recog- nized and taken note of, as he is guilty of treason against the king's peace. When they heard this, all the prelates were disturbed, and immediately agreed to the kings de- mands." These courtly ecclesiastics were in mortal dread of the king, who seems to have ruled them with a rod of iron; as the in- stance just furnished abundantly proves. -Mathew further states, that before the extravagant tax of the king was voted by the terror-stricken clergy in the manner described above, the dean of St. Paul's ventured to the court with a view to expostulate with the monarch, and to induce him, if possible, to lower his demands, but that upon " coming before the king to deliver the speeches which he had conceived in his mind, Quoted ibid. 62 GROWING SERVILITY. 53 he became suddenly mute, and losing all the strength of his body, fell down before the king and expired.." 22. Such was the sad condition to which the successive royal encroachments on the proper domain of the Church, and on the just prerogatives of the Holy See, had reduced the bishops and higher clergy of England, as early even as the beginning of the fourteenth century. It is manifest, from. all these facts, and from many others of a similar nature which might be al- leged, that though the Pope's supremacy was openly and gen- erally recognized in theory, he was in effect already shorn of many of the rights to its practical exercise which were indis- pensable for the proper government of the church in England. The royal pretensions had already absorbed almost every thing in the way of patronage, and had left but little real practical power to the Pontiffi, either to select good men for the bishop- rics, or to punish the worldly-minded and scandalous among the higher clergy and monks. As the late writer already quoted, energetically remarks: " The obstinate absurdity of ascribing to the Holy See all the evils in which they were compelled reluctantly to acquiesce, or at least to watch in silent anguish, is the fallacy which distorts most modern views of history; and as it misled the Catholic chroniclers of that age, we can hardly wonder at its leading astray their modern Anglican editors. The truth is that the Pope, in the middle ages, was nearly powerless in the hands of princes. If they were ' ages of faith,' they were far more ages of force. And it is impossible to quote too often the remarkable phrase of Mr. Froude, which is the key to mediawval history, that the authority of the Pope was but a name and a sham."t This last expression, borrowed from the Protestant Froude, is doubtless much too strong. Throughout those ages, as we have already seen, the authority of the Popes was generally recognized; and it was not only patiently submitted to, but reverently spoken of by all the good and virtuous of every country in Europe. But it is also lamentable to observe, that t In Dublin Review, for October, 1858. Quoted ibid. .Lla ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. the practice was not always in conformity with the theory, especially among those whose passions were curbed by the papal power. The haughty and but half civilized king or baron, who panted to lay sacrilegious hands on the treasures of the Church, and who, to carry out his design, wished to thrust into the richest livings such men as would be most ready to pander to his ungoverned appetites, was not likely to view with pleasure the exercise of a power, which alone could effectually thwart his wicked purpose, and protect the Church from his mischievous encroach- ments. And, unfortunately, it too often happened, that the wicked prince was powerfully aided by courtier pre- lates and monks, who expected to reap worldly advantage by pandering to his passions. 23. This fact furnishes the true key to the scandalous quar- rels of mediteval English kings with the Popes, which so often meet our eyes and shock our religious sensibilities in reading the chronicles of the middle ages. These were written mostly by monks, who had caught the rude spirit of the times, and had learned to argue in favor of their temporal lords. The latter could reward them with rich benefices, whereas the Popes could only restrain their vices and hurl anathemas at their heads from a distance. This contemptible courtier-spirit among the higher clergy went on steadily increasing, especially in England, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century; when under Henry VII1. it finally culminated in the most abject servility to the crown. The writer already quoted more than once very justly re- marks as follows on this growing degeneracy: "As we advance towards the Reformation, we see the spirit of slavery stealing over men's minds, taking its origin from a servile worship of the visible, embodied in an earthly sovereignty .... The old English vigor ot intellect and character was becoming palsied beneath the heavy, chilling pres- sure of regal tyranny, and losing all its elastic energy and racy heartiness..... In truth, these chronicles, taken altogether, throw a clear, strong light upon our English history: and the more that light is diffused, the more apparent will it be, that all the abuses of the Church in that age arose from servility 54 EVE OF THE REFORMATION. 55 to royalty; and from the virtual subjection of the episcopate to that spirit ol the world, which was afterwards formally embodied and enthroned, and still is so in the royal supremacy: in other words, all these mcdiaeval chronicles are witnesses for the Papacy." 24. From this rapid summary of facts showing the religious condition of England before the Reformation, especially in her relations with the Holy See, we draw the following Coll- clusions, the soundness of which few impartial men will be inclined to dispute: 1. That England was indebted to Rome for the boon of Christianity, and this in both epochs of her early religious history-the British and the Anglo-Saxon. Pope St. Eleu- therius in the second, and Pope St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century, sent out the apostolic men that labored success- fully for the conversion of her people; who but for the effect- ive zeal of those holy Pontifis might have continued for centuries longer to sit " in the region of the shadow of death." There is no clear or satisfactory evidence of any attempt to convert England before the days of Eleutherius; and if there were Christians on the island at an earlier period, they must have been few in number, and history has left no record of their existence as an organized body. 2. That the present Anglican hierarchy, professing to derive its succession, as it certainly does, from Canterbury, and not from the British Christians of Wales, must necessarily refer back its origin to Pope St. Gregory the Great, who established the see of Canterbury, and who appointed its first incumbent. St. Augustine is thus clearly the first link in the chain of the Anglican succession, without which it could lay claim to no possible connection with the early Church. The present An- glican hierarchy must then derive its authority-if at all - - from the Pope through St. Augustine of Canterbury, else it ha6 no beginning nor succession whatsoever, even in appearance. 3. That throughout the entire period of the Anglo-Saxon and of the Anglo-Norman dynasties-for nearly a thousand .-ears before the Reformation-the Primacy of the Holy See 56 ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. was fully and generally recognized by all classes in England; that its authority was appealed to by the greatest and the best in all great emergencies; and that, in a word, the Church in England regarded herself during all those centui- ries as being under the special protection and fostering care of the Roman Pontiffs. This is manifest from the public acts of Saints Wilfrid and Dunstan in the Anglo-Saxon period; and of Lanfranc, St. Anselm, St. Thomas A Becket, St. Ed- mund, and many other great men during the Anglo-Norman. The Popes continued to send their legates to England down to the reign of Henry VIII. inclusively; and amidst the tur- moil of those troubled times, and the storm of angry passions. the voice of Rome continued to be heard and to be generally respected throughout the Island. The Pontiffs often made the English tyrants quail, in the midst of their actual or medi- tated oppressions and rapacity: and their authority proved a bulwark of strength to the good and virtuous, and a powerful shield to the oppressed. Though often thwarted by royal or princely chicanery and avarice, the Pontiffs were generally triumphant in the end, and they were always right in the principles which they upheld, for the vindication of the free- dom of the Church. This is the general verdict of English religious history, when viewed impartially, and in all its bearings. 4. That the numerous and protracted conflicts of the En- giish monarchs with the Popes, to which we have referred somewhat at length, do not prove the contrary of this conclu- sion, but rather serve to confirm its truth. The English kings and parliaments often sought to hamper in various ways the exercise of the Primacy, not to destroy the Primacy itself; which they clearly and repeatedly recognized, even while an- grily opposing its decisions. The Saxon was naturally a rude and intractable character, narrow and almost insular in his views, suspicious of the least shadow of encroachment on what he conceived to be his rights; and though often liberal and even generous, yet in the main strongly wedded to his material SUMMING UP. .57 comforts and pecuniary interests. Most of the contests in question grew out of the intense English feeling, that money should not go out of the kingdom, nor aliens come in to share its emoluments whether in church or state, to the exclusion of natives. The mere fact of our opposing-no matter on what personal grounds-the justice or expediency of a decision emanating from an authoritative tribunal, does not carry with it the denial of the right itself of the tribunal to adjudge the case. Thus, many politicians in this country oppose certain decisions of the Supreme court of the United States; and yet, few, if any, deny the authority of the court itself. 5. That the best and brightest names in English ecclesias- tical history were precisely those of men who were friends of the Popes, and often, in consequence of this, the victims of royal persecution. These were men above this world, who preferred the spiritual to the material, heaven to earth, eter- nity to time. Such men were incapable of sacrificing con- science to expediency, or of becoming the pliant and subser- vient creatures of royal rapacity. Hence they were hated and persecuted by the world, represented by the English monarchs. 6. That most of the abuses and scandals which existed n the English church during the period preceding the Refor- mation, grew out of the encroachments of the civil power on the domain of spiritual rights, and out of the persistent claim set up by the English monarchs to thrust worldly-minded or unworthy men into the highest dignities of the Church, in spite of the energetic protests so often made by the Popes. The question of the nomination to bishoprics and abbeys was the vital issue of the times; and though it accidentally in- volved temporal emoluments and interests, it was primarily a religious question, fraught in its issues with life or death to the Church. But for the interposition of the Roman Pontiffs to check this crying evil of overweening lay patronage, the En- glish church would have been, according to all human calcu- lations, utterly and irretrievably ruined. As it was, it re- ceived many grievous wounds from this poisoned weapon, 58 ENGLAND BEFORE THE RFORMATION. wielded so persistently, and often so fatally by the English monarchs. 7. We will add, that during the Anglo-Saxon period-and, a fortiori, during the Anglo-Norman-the same doctrines were held, and the same general usages of discipline connected with doctrine were observed, as we now see still held and observed by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world. In his learned work on the Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, Dr. Lingard has established this great fact by cumulative evi- dence, which no one can gainsay, much less refute. REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. CHAPTE'R I. HENRY VIII. AND EDWARD V1. The way now prepared-The " pear ripens-Henry VIII. the founder of the English Reformation-Two theories-One of them refuted-And the other defended-Bishop Short-And the Book of Homilies-What we propose to examine-Five questions Was Henry sincere -Auspicious beginning of his reign-Defender of the Faith-The Divorce-Henry's scruples !-Anne Boleyn-Sir James McIntosh and Miss Strickland- The Sweating Sickness a test-D'Aubign6's moral standard-Heroism of Clement VI.-Noble answer of Campeggio-Cardinal AVolsey- Thomas Cromwell-Was Henry licentious and cruel -Treatment of his six wives-Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, and Catharine Howard-Satanic conspiracy-Catharine Parr-Was Henry a tyrant Confiscation of monasteries-Bishop Short testifies again-Protestant testimony-Exor- bitant taxation-Atrocious tyranny-Trampling on ancient Catholic liberties of England-Hallam's testimony-Means of Reformation- Cromwell's advice-Royal supremacy-Cromwell Vicar General-Degra- dation of bishops-Testimony of Bishop Short-Imaginary and real despotism-Horrid butcheries-Fisher and Moore-Pole's brother and relatives-And his mother-The Friars Peyto and Elstow-Hallam's testimony-A system of espionage established-Curious examples- Froude's idea of law-His defending Henry VIIL and persecution-Bishop Short on Henry's murders-Character of the Anglican Reformation-The Six Articles-Catholics and Protestants butchered together-Cranmer aids and abets-Edward VI.-Reformation has now an open field-Cranmer and Somerset-Gradual Reformation-Book of Common Prayer-And Articles of Religion-Inquisition established-Joan Bocher burned-Her answer to Cranmer-Barbarous law against mendicants-People opposed to the new religion-Popular insurrections-Put down by foreign sol- diers-State of public morals-Suppression of monasteries, a master- stroke of policy-Analysis of Hallam's testimony and reasoning on this subject-The three concupiscences-Conclusion. WE are now better prepared to understand, how it was possible for Henry VIII. to succeed in so suddenly separating England from the communion of the Catholic Church. By (59) ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. the gradual operation of the causes above referred to in the Introduction; by the growing abuse of the royal patronage in the nomination of bishops, and by the silent but powerful influence on the popular mind of the principles contained in the statutes of provisors and praemunire, the higher clergy of England had become gradually more and more estranged from the Holy See, and more and more subservient to the king. The jealousy of Rome was slowly leading them to the brink of the frightful abyss of schism, into which they were now prepared madly to plunge. The only one who could protect them from the usurpations and tyranny of the king, in matters connected with the interests of the Church, was the Pope; but the feeling of loyalty to the Pope had been waning for centuries, however strongly his Primacy itself had been recognized. The increasing worldly spirit among the higher clergy-itself a necessary consequence of the un- due influence of the crown in their nomination and appoint- ment-was fast preparing their minds for unlimited and unreasoning obedience to the commands of a tyrant, in things spiritual as well as in things temporal. "The pear was nearly ripe"-and Henry VIII. greedily plucked it at the first favorable moment. The whole merit or demerit of having caused the separa- tion of England from 'the Catholic Church belongs fairly to Henry VIII. He was the real father of the English Refor- mation, which was peculiarly his own work, moulded accord- ing to his royal will, and made to his own image and like- ness. This fact is incontestable. But for him, there would been no schism, and consequently no Reformation in England- at least not then. At a subsequent period, an equally unscru- pulous English monarch might have, indeed, availed himself of the growing disaffection to Rome, and brought about a schism; but this is merely a speculation as to what might have possibly occurred, whereas we are dealing with the facts as they really took place. Had Henry remained firm, there would have been no divorce from Catharine, and conse 60 THE FIRST THEORY REFUTED. 61 quently no Edward VI. and no Elizabeth, to carry out to its full length of heresy the fatal schism which he originated. The whole complexion of English history since the beginning of the sixteenth century would have been changed; and in all human probability England would be Catholic to this very day. The apologists of the Anglican Reformation generally adopt one of two theories. One section of them, and per- haps the larger and more respectable, give up the character and acts of Henry VIII. as wholly indefensible, and say that the Reformation was a good thing brought about by a bad man; while another section, comprising several ancient and some recent Anglican writers, of some respectability and weight with their own partisans, undertake the defense of Henry VIII., and would have us believe that he was not half so bad a man as history usually paints him, and that his con- duct was generally prompted by conscientious motives, and governed, more or less, by sound principles. The first of these theories is easily refuted. God does not employ the agency of wicked men to do His work. especially to introduce great changes for the better. Such a course were unworthy His sanctity, as it is clearly opposed to all the facts of sacred history. The instrument employed must be suitable to the work to be accomplished. This is a sound maxim even in human policy and wisdom, and one who should contravene it would be justly deemed neither wise nor ordinarily prudent. With how much stronger reason is not the principle applica- ble to the operations of the all-wise and all-holy Godhead I Would it not be clearly incompatible with both His holiness and His wisdom to select wholly unworthy, and, therefore wholly unsuitable and inadequate instruments to accomplish Two modern champions of Anglicanism, Bishop Hopkins in America and Froude in England, would seem to incline to this theory; from the pains they take to show that Henry VIII was not half so bad as he is usu. ally represented. They herein adopt the only really logical course for de- fending the Anglican Reformation. ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. His great designs for the sanctification and salvation of men I Would not this be clearly in opposition to the maxim laid down in the gospel by the Son of God himself: " By their fruits ye shall know them" How could this be verified, if bad men could produce good fruits True, God may and does tolerate some bad ministers of His own chosen work among many good ones, where the or- dinarv course of things is to be maintained, and no great re- formatory change, whether in doctrines or morals, to be introduced. Under such circumstances, the influence of the evil example of the wicked could not be so extensively perni- cious, being counteracted by the preponderating example and teaching of the good; and the former would be thereby effect- ually restrained from circulating new or dangerous principles for the perversion of others. But the case is totally different, where a new order of teaching and practice is to be intro- duced for the reformation of an entire people. Then we naturally expect to find the agents adapted to the nature of their work.-" Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles " Accordingly, we find that all the true reformers of whom we read in sacred and ecclesiastical history were men of God, and that most, if not all of them, were even gifted with super- natural powers. Such was the case with Moses who intro- duced the old law, such was the case with the Apostles who proclaimed the new. Miracles were the seals of their apos- tleship, and the unmistakable evidence before the people of their divine mission and authority to teach the revealed truths, and enforce the divine commandments. Without such gifts. we can scarcely understand how Christianity could have been established, or even one nation converted from paganism. The apostles of all the different nations, which were success- ively converted from paganism to Christianity, were men of this heavenly stamp, as all ecclesiastical history pro St. Mathew, vii: 16. 62 THE SECOND THEORY MAINTAINED. claims. Not one of them all was certainly a man of even doubtful character, much less openly wicked in his life and conduct. And the same may be said of those Christian reformers of popular morals, without reference to doctrinal changes, who have adorned the Church in every age of her eventful history. They were all men of the purest morals and of the highest type of sanctity. They practiced in their daily life what they so eloquently preached to others; and God abundantly blessed their holy labors for His own honor and glory. A' hundred examples of this might be alleged, while not a solitary in- stance of the contrary can be produced. It would lead us much too far to go into facts and specifications on this subject; but we may be allowed simply to refer to a few of such reform- ers in medimval or in more modern times as many Anglican writers, like Palmer and Pusey, are in the habit of looking up to with respectful reverence;' to such men, for instance, as St. Bernard, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Vincent de Paul, and St. Francis de Sales. Until the advent of the Protestant Reformation, such a thing as a true refor- mation in morals, and still more in doctrine, brought about by the agency of wicked men, was never even thought of as probable, or even as possible. This remarkable discovery, like many others, was reserved for more enlightened modern times ! It is clear, then, that the only logical, or even plausible de- fense of the Anglican Reformation consists precisely in the adoption of the second theory referred to above; namely, that those who brought it about and perfected the work were good, at any rate, not bad men or women. This line of defense, of course, necessarily carries along with it the vindication of Henry VIII. and of his daughter Elizabeth; the former of whom began, and the latter consummated the Anglican Reformation. But though the defense of such characters is manifestly a very difficult, if not a hopeless task, it 63 64 ANGLICAN REFORMATION\-HENRY VIII. is really the only vindication which is at all admis sible. That Henry VIII. was, in fact, the real originator and fecinder of the Anglican church, few impartial men will be disposed to deny. English history proclaims the fact in lan- guage too clear to admit of any misunderstanding or doubt. The Anglican bishop Short, speaking of the gratitude Anglicans owe to God for having brought about the Reformation in England, says: "The chief mover of the Reformation in this country was a king brought up with a high respect and ad- miration for those doctrines which were combated by the reformers; who had publicly embarked in their defense and acquired the title of Defender of the Faith, etc."t A little further on, he candidly admits, that "the existence of the church of England, as a distinct body, and her final sep- aration from Rome, may be dated from the period of the divorce." 1 The same fact is attested by an authority which may be deemed almost, if not quite official and decisive; we refer to the Book of Homilies of the church of England, issued origin ally by Cranmer and his associates in the reign of Edward VI., and indorsed as containing sound doctrine in one of the Thirty-Nine Articles. In these Homilies is found the follow- ing remarkable passage, highly eulogistic of Henry VIII., as In his Constitutional History of England, (Edit. Harper. New York, 1857, p. 30, note,) Mr. Hallam rebukes a leading champion of Anglicanism- Sharon Turner-for having, "in his history of Henry VIII., gone upon the strange principle of exalting that tyrant's reputation at the expense of every one of his victims, to whatever party they may have belonged. Odit dam- natos. Perhaps he is the first, and will be the last, who has defended the attainder of Sir Thomas More." Burnet had previously set the example of unworthy adulation towards the royal tyrant; and his spirit seems to have descended to the poet Gray, who sings of Henry, as "The majestic lord, Who broke the bonds of Rome."-Quoted Ibid. t History of the Church of England, sup. cit. p. 53. t Ibid., p. 44. WHAT WE PROIOSE TO PROVE. the great reformer whom God had raised up in England and filled with his own spirit: "Honor be to God who did put light in the heart of his true and faithful minister, of most famous memory, King Henry the Eighth, and give him the knowledge of His word, and an earnest affection to seek His glory, and to put away all such superstitions and pharisaical sects by antichrist invented and set up against the true word of God and glory of His most blessed name, as He gave the like spirit to the most noble and famous princes Josaphat, Josias, and Ezechias." We willingly accept the issue as thus made by some of the strongest champions of Anglicanism, and we are fully pre- pared to abide the test which the issue involves. Though our purpose does not require, nor will our limits permit, a full, detailed, and connected account of the rise and progress of the Anglican Reformation, the history of which is probably already familiar to most of our readers, yet we hope to refer to a sufficient number of facts fully to apply the test, and to enable the impartial to form a correct judgment on the sub- ject. What we will have to say will be comprised in our answers to the following questions, which, if we are not mis- taken, cover the whole ground of the controversy:- I. Was Henry VIII. sincere, in the motives which he al- leged, and in the means which he employed for originating the Anglican schism '. II. Was he licentious and cruel III. Was he a tyrant, and did he destroy English liberty IV. By what means, and through what agencies, did he bhing about the Reformation V. Finally, what was the nature and what the real char- acter of the religious change or revolution called the Refor- f Book of Homilies; Edition of C. Biddle; Philadelphia, 1844, p. 52. This edition is indorsed by thirteen American Episcopal bishops, and by many of the more celebrated among the clergy. VOL. II-6 65 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-LIENRY VIII. mation, begun under his reign, and continued under that of his son and successor, Edward VI. I. Was Henry VIII. sincere, in the motives which he alleged, and in the means which he employed for originating the Anglican schism G(d only searcheth hearts, and He alone can judge finally and with infallible certainty of the motives which prompt and govern the actions of men. Still we are not only not forbid- den, but we are even sometimes required to form a judgment on the motives which control the public acts of public men, especially when these acts have, or may have, a powerful in- fluence for good or for evil on faith and morals. Such is clearly the case in regard to Henry VIII. and the Reforma- tion which he originated. No event or revolution probably, whether in ancient or in modern times, has exercised a wider or more protracted influence on mankind, than the revolution called by its friends the Reformation, of which the Anglican is so important a branch. In forming our opinion of men, we have a reliable standard -their acts. Judged by this criterion, Henry VIII. stands forth a man of strong and ungovernable passions, who was vwilling to sacrifice every thing for their gratification, and who boldly trampled down and crushed by the most unrighteous means all opposition to his imperious will. As a general rule, he did not play the role of the hypocrite; this was little con- genial with his naturally bold, blunt, impetuous temperament. When. however, he did think it exppedient to put on the mask, it was so clumsily adjusted and so unskillfully worn, as to deceive no one. Pretension was not his element, and he betraved himself at almost every step, whenever circuinstan- ces led him to adopt this expedient for appearing what he was not. His whole historv abounds with evidences going to 66 WAS HENRY VHI. SINCERE -THE DIVORCE. 67 confirm this estimate of his character, which has been very compendiously and suitably designated by the homely, but significant English word-bluf. ryle commencement of his reign was auspicious, arid it gave reason for anticipating a long and brilliant career for himself and a prosperous future for England. With a pre- possessing personal appearance, tempered with a dash of that mediaeval chivalry which was not yet dead, and with a mind adorned by the graces and enriched with the stores of an education rather above than below the average standard of the time, he bade fair to outstrip all the contemporary sove- reigns of Europe. Wedded to a virtuous woman of high lineage and lofty bearing, Catharine of Aragon-the aunt of the great Charles V.-his kingdom was brought into close alliance with that of Spain, which was then, and for inore than a century afterwards continued to be the most wealthy and powerful government of Europe. All eyes were turned upon the youthful sovereign, whose fervent attachment to the faith of his fathers was not the least among his many shining qualities. When Luther reared the standard of religious revolt, and launched forth his coarse tirades and virulent diatribes against the Papacy, the chivalrous Henry entered the arena of controversy, published his book in defense of the Seven Sacraments against the attacks of the German monk, and obtained from the reigning Pontiff Leo X., at whose feet he had laid his first literary offering, the honorable title of Defender of the Faith-Fidei Defensor-which his successors still retain, though scorning the religious faith for defending which it was bestowed. From Luther the roval champion received in reply a torrent of abuse, which greatly annoyed him, and caused him bo prefer complaints to the Elector of Saxony. The latter compelled the audacious monk to write an apology, which, though marked by the lowest ser- vility, was nevertheless so unskillfully drawn as to be but little better than the original insult. 68 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. Things went on in this way for eighteen years, during all which time Henry lived peaceably and happily with (Jatha- rine, against whose purity and loftiness of character, no one, no matter how much envenomed-not even Henry himself in all his subsequent recklessness of wickedness-has ever yet dared breathe a reproach. But Catharine was unfortunate in having no living male heir, an object naturally very desirable both to herself and her royal husband. Suddenly Henry's conscience becomes alarmed, and he now discovers, apparently for the first time, that he had been living unlawfully for eighteen years with the widow of his deceased brother Arthur ! His eyes had fallen on, and he Henry was solemnly united in marriage with Catharine on the 6th of June, 1509, six weeks after the death of his father, Henry VII. His elder brother Arthur had died at the age of fifteen, in the year 1503; and the dispensation of Pope Julius IL, authorizing Henry's marriage with Catha- rine, the widow of Arthur, had been in England already for six years; so that Henry had full time to examine the matter of conscience before he freely chose, at mature age, publicly to wed Catharine. "If any doubt then oc- curred of the validity of the marriage, the last moment for trying the question was then come ;" says the author of the Memoirs of Henry VIII., quoted by Waterworth (" Historical Lectures," etc., on the Reformation in En- gland, in one vol. 8vo. Stereotype edit. of Fithian, Philadelphia, 1842; p. 13.) An unimpeachable Protestant witness Sir James Mackintosh-gives the following opinion of Henry's scruples: "Whether Henry really felt any scruple respecting the validity of his- marriage during the first eighteen years of his reign, may be reasonably doubted. No trace of such doubts can be discovered in his public conduct till the year 1527. Catharine had then passed the middle age: personal infirmities are mentioned, which might have widened the alienation. About the same time, Anne Boleyn, a damsel of the court, at the age of twenty- two, in the flower of youthful beauty, and full of graces and accomplish- ments, touched the fierce, but not unsusceptible heart of the king. One of her ancestors had been lord mayor of London, in the reign of Henry VII.; her family had since been connected with the noblest houses of the king- dom; her mother was the sister of the Duke of Norfolk.! He adds (ibid.): " The light which shone from Anne Boleyn's eyes might have awakened or revised Henry's doubts of the legitimacy of his THE SWEATING SICKNESS had been captivated by the charms of the youthful and blooming Anne Boleyn, one of the queen's maids of honor, who had been educated amidst the gayeties of the brilliant French court, and had there acquired all the arts of an ac- complished coquette. While she employed every female stratagem to encourage his unhallowed passion, she at first coyly repelled every advance which was not made on the condition of her becoming queen of England by lawful mar- riage with the king. This could be accomplished only by the death or divorce of Catharine; and as the former was a doubtful contingency, if left to the ordinary course of nature, and as Henry was not yet trained to the line of conduct in which lie subsequently became such an adept - the murder of his wives - the latter was evidently the only practicable course. Completely taken in the toils of a wicked and ambitious woman, Henry now bent his whole energies towards bringing about the divorce. This became his all-absorbing passion; and he spared neither labor, money, nor intrigue, to accoin- plish his darling object. Before his friends, especially Wolsev and the clergy, he eloquently pleaded scruples of conscienlce; to his parliament he alleged reasons of state policy, and the dangers to the realm of a disputed succession. His real motive was no doubt his own unbridled passion. This was clearly established by the sequel, which is well known, and long union with the faithful and blameless Catharine. His licentious pas- sions, by a singular operation, recalled his mind to his theological studies."1- History of England, p. 222. American edition, in one vol. 8vo. Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, Philadelphia, 1834. The excxllent Protestant authoress, Agnes Strickland, admits this. She says: "Meantime a treatise on the unlawfulness of his present marriage was compoundel by the king and some of his favorite divines. How painfully and laboriously the royal theologian toiled in this literary labyrinth, is evinced by a letter written by himself to the fair lady, whose bright eyes had afflictei him with such unwonted qualms of conscience, that he had been 36 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. need not therefore be dwelt on in detail. We will, however, refer to one fact, bearing directly on the sincerity of Henry. During the pendency of the divorce, which he was wont to call his great " secret matter," God spoke to his heart and conscience, in the startling but salutary language of the " Sweating Sickness ;" a malady which, from its previous ap- pearance and disastrous results in England, was peculiarly terrible in its influence on the simple Catholic faith of the inhabitants. This scourge was a providential test of faith and sincerity, which reached even to the throne of royalty. The kin-, as well as the vassal, deeply felt the influence of this touchstone of their loyalty to God. The conscience- smitten monarch now did, what might have been expected from a man who had not yet lost faith, and who wished to save his immortal soul. He quickly sent away Anne Boleyn, and recalled Catharine; and this in spite of all his previous pretended Rcruples of conscience about the sin of living with the relict of his deceased brother! Not only did lie recall Cacharine, but lie united with her in all her daily devotions; he devoted himself seriously to the great work of preparing himself for a better world; he went to confession every day, and to holy communion every week! Nay more, lie now became reconciled with Wolsey, and exchanged with him friendly greetings. fain to add the pains and penalties of authorship to the cares of government for her sake."-Lives of the Queens of England, vol. iv, p. 142. Enition of Lea & Blanchard, Philadelphia, 1847. We quote from this edition in the sequel. If Anne was not actually his mistress at the time of the Sweating Sick- ness in 1528, she seems to have become such not long afterwards, at least during the three years previous to her marriage with the king. The mar- riage was hastened by the fact of her being suddenly found in a condition to give him an heir, the legitimacy of whose birth it was deemed important to place beyond doubt or cavil. The marriage was celebrated privately by Dr. Rowland Lee in a chapel situated in a garret at Whitehall, on the 25th of January, 1533; during the pendency of the application for the divorce, and some time before Cranmer had pronounced the previous marriage with TO 1IALLAINM AND LINGARD. 71 His faith was thus revived, and lie was apparently animated with the fervor of a saint, while apprehending the approach of death;-what did he become, so soon as the plague hlaed disappeared and the fear of immediate death was removed He became-just what he had been before, only much worse! Immediately after all peril had vanished, he again dismissed his lawful wife Catherine,-with whom he had daily praved and confessed, and communed weekly while danger threat- ened-and recalled the unprincipled Anne Boleyn! Do)s this look like the deed of a man acting sincerely and from conscientious scruples-Out upon such a conscience as this! Catharine annulled. The king quieted the scruples of the chaplain, by filsely assuring him that Pope Clement VII. had already granted the divorce, and that the papal decree was safely deposited in his closet !-See the authorities quoted by Lingard, Hist. Eng., vol. vi, p. 188-89. Elizabeth was born a little over seven months after the date of the marriage. Hallam (Constit. History, p. 46, note) severely censures Lingard, for hav- ing asserted, on the authority of the French ambassador, that Anne had been Henry's mistress for three years before her marriage with him; though he adds: "It may not be unlikely, though by no means evident, that Anne's prudence, though, as Fuller says of her, 'she was cunning in her chastity,' was surprised. at the end of this long courtship." Yet (p. 69, note) he again severely blames Ling-ard for iot following more closely the authority of the French ambassador and of Carte who copied him, in portraying the character of Queen Mary; though he clearly admits, that the French am- bassador was at the time the bitter enemy of Mary, and was constantly intriguing with Elizabeth for her overthrow! Lingard was wholly wrong in following the French ambassador in the former instance, and he was again wholly wrong in not following him in the latter! Such is the justice of English Protestant criticism, even in the ordinarily moderate and just 'Mr. Hallam. In general, however, Hallam quotes Lingard with respect, and follows him, even while occasionally making a show of censuring him as an adroit partisan. It is also remarkable, that, even while objecting tim Lingard's statements or opinions, as in the case of his admirable balancing of evidence for and against Anne Boleyn's innocence (p. 29-30, note), he takes little pains to tefute him, by answering his arguments, or even at- tempting to dissect his authorities. Lingard may be said to have passed almost unscathed through the severe ordeal of Hallam's criticism. He jtuestions very few, and he refutes not one of his statements of fact. 72 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. It was all a sham-a mere pretense to blind others; and it did not succeed in accomplishing even this; for the mask was too thin and transparent. In what he calls his history of the English Reformation, D'Aubigni gives in full the correspondence which passed between Henry and A nne about the time of the Sweating Sickness, which correspondence, he says, has been preserved in the Vatican. His desire to invest his pretended history with the interest of a romance, and to make heroes and heroines of all his char- acters who ever were privileged to lift their voices against Rome, would not allow him to forego the publication of such letters, which even he seems to have thought very questionable in their bearing on morals-for be remarks: "We are far from approving their contents as a whole, hut we can not deny to the young lady to whom they are addressed the possession of noble and generous sentiments."-(History of the Reformation, one vol. 8vo, p. 810, American Edit.) A " young lady" who would receive and answer such let- ters from a married man, must have been singularly endowed with " noble and generous sentiments !" We fear that the moral theory of D'Aubi-ne is but little, if any thing more rigid, than was the actual practice of his hero- the founder of the Anglican Church. We can not refrain from extracting here what D'Aubign, tells us of an interview which took place between Henry VIII. and Wolsey on the sub- ject of the divorce, and of the influence which the Sweating Sickness had on the mind of the monarch. These extracts have the merit of being at least sufficiently graphic: " Wolsey now resolved to broach this important subject in a straightfor- ward manner. The step might prove his ruin; but if he succeeded he was -aved and the popedom with him. Accordingly one day, shortly before the Sweating Sickness broke out, says Du Bellay, (probably in June 1528) Wolsey openly prayed the king to renounce his design; his own reputation, he told him, the prosperity of England, the peace of Europe, the safety of the Church,-all required it; besides the Pope would never grant the di- vorce. While the cardinal was speaking, Henry's fiace grew black; and be- ,ore he had concluded. the kings anger broke out. 'The king used terrible words,' said Du Bellay. He would have given a thousand Wolseys for one Anne Boleyn. 'No other than God shall take her from me,' was his most iecided resolution..... "His real conscience awoke only in the presence of death. Four of his attendants and a friar, Anne's confessor, as it would appear, filling ill, the king departed for Hunsdon. He had been there two days only when Powis, SArew, and Carton, and others of his court, were carried off in two or three HEROISM OF CLEMENT VII. 73 In spite of the Sweating Sickness, the project for the divorce was prosecuted with untiring vigor, and with every possible expedient which unscrupulous diplomacy could devise. The foreign Catholic universities were diligently canvassed; bribes were liberally proffered and bestowed; trickery the most con- temptible was resorted to without scruple; and still the an- swers, though some of them favorable, were wholly unsatis- factory, because predicated upon a state of the case whlich the virtuous Catharine solemnly denied. The envoys of Henry might influence, bribe, or deceive others; they could not deceive, or move in the slightest degree the venerable Pontiff, Clement VII., who then sat on tie Chair of Peter. Though inclined to do every thing in his power to favor his dear son Henry-Defender of the Faitlh- he could not consent, even for his sake, to trample under foot hours. Henry had met an enemy whom he could not vanquish. fle quitted the place attacked by the disease; he removed to another quarter, and when the sickness laid hold of any of his attendants in his new retreat, he again left that for a new asylum. Terror froze his blood; he wandered about pursued by that terrible scythe whose sweep might perhaps reach him; he cut otf all communication, even with his servants; shut himself up in a room at the top of an isolated tower; ate all alone, and would see no one but his physician: he prayed, fisted, confessed, became reconciled with the queen; took the sacrament every Sunday and feast day; received his Maker, to use the words of a gentleman of his chamber: and the queen and Wolsey did the same.... At last the sickness began to diminish, and imme- diately the desire to see Anne revived in Henry's bosom. On the 18th of August she re-appeared at court, and all the king's thoughts were now bent on a divorce.-d-Hist. Reformation, p. 812-13. They were predicated on the hypothesis, that Catharine's marriage with Arthur had been consummated, which Catharine solemnly and persistently denied. According to Cardinal Pole, Henry himself had acknowledged to Catharine's nephew, the emperor Charles V., that her assertion was correct Tu ipse hoc fassus es, virginem te accepisse, et Ccesari fassus es etc.,,- (Pole, De Unitate Ecclesiwe, apud Waterworth, sup. cit., p. 14, note.) The opinions of the universities which apparently pronounced for the divorce were, moreover, wholly valueless; for the reason that they did not present VOL. II.-7 74 ANGLICAN RI&FORMNATION- HENRY VIII. the holy law of God, which forbids any Christian man to have more than one wife at a tinie. He firnmly refused to grant the divorce, both because it would have been wrong to do so, and because, at the same time, it would have been a flagrant outrage oIn the sacred rights of the virtuous Catlariiie. In thus defending the right, lhe was filly aware that lhe 1periled much. England would probably be lost to the Church, through the headlong passions of the baffled king. Still his duty was clear and unmistakable, and lie must fearlessly do it, even if all the world should go to ruin in consequence. The attitude of the Pontiff, though not an unusual one for the Papacy. thus certainly had in it elements of the sublime. It ignored the doctrine of expediency, and thought only of main- taining the right. All honor to Clement VII. for his noble heroism! And let all men who prefer right to might, truth to error, virtue to vice, matrimonial unity and purity to polygamy and impurity, female innocence and dignity to overbearing male tyranny and oppression, applaud the righteous decision of the Pontiff. England was, indeed, lost by it, or rather in consequence of it, fairly the opinions of the members. That of the Sorbonne, for instance, was obtained by the merest trickery, while those of the Italian universities were procured by open fraud and bribery. Henry's agents used freely money, threats, and the lowest arts of diplomacy to attain their end. For the authorities, see Lingard -Henry VIII. Even Hallam, in his Con- stitutional History, (p. 45, note) speaks "of the venal opinions of foreign doctors of law," and expressly maintains, against Burnet, the bribery of the universities. Even Luther was strongly opposed to the divorce, though he would not appear to have been so averse to Henry's having two wives at once, accord- inm to the famous indulgence which he and seven of his brother reformers had already granted to the scritp7es of Philip, Landgrave of Hesse,-that im- maculate fostering father of the German Reformation.-(See Hallam, Con- stit., Hist., p. 49, note.) Says Miss Strickland: "Anne, however, had her anxieties at this crisis, for the opinion of all Christendom was so much against the divorce, that Henry was disposed to waver. Luther himself declared, 'that he would rather allow the king to take two wives than dissolve the present marriage.'"-tQueens of Englan'l; vol. iv, p. 163. She quotes Lutheri Epist., Halse, 1717, p. 290. CAMPEGGIO-WOLSEY AND CROMWELL. 75 to the Church; but a signal and brilliant victory was gained for truth and virtue. Thle stern resolution of Clement was communicated to his legate, the aged Campeggio. The Protestant historian Tytler so well describes what occurred at the last sitting of the court for trying the divorce, that we can not do better than report the scene in his own words :t x On the 23d of July the legatine court met for the last time, and as it was generally expected by those ignorant of the intrigues at I'ome that a decision would be pronounced for the king, the hall was crowded. Henry himself was present, but concealed behind the hangings, where he could hear all that passed. When the cardinals had taken their seats, his majes- ty's counsel demanded judgment; upon which Campeggio replied, that the case was too high and notable to be determined before he should have made the Pope acquainted with all the proceedings. ' I have not, said he, 'come so far to please any man for, fear, meed, or favor, be he king or any other potentate. I am an old man, sick, decayed, and looking daily for death. What should it then avail me to put my soul in danger of God's displeasure, to my utter damnation, for the favor of any prince or high estate in this world. Forasmuch, then, that I understand the truth in this case is very difficult to be known, and that the defendant will make no answer thereunto, but hath appealed from our judgment; therefore, to avoid all injustice and obscure doubts, I intend to proceed no further in this matter until I have the opinion of the Pope, and such others of his council as have more experience and learning. For this purpose,' he concluded, rising from his chair, 'I adjourn the cause till the commencement of the next term, in the beginning of October.'" During the pendency of the question concerning the divorce, Henry wavered more than once in his resolution. Wolsey, though he at first culpably favored the project in " To all their remonstrances (of Henry's ambassadors) he (Pope Clement VII.) returned the same answer; that he could not refuse to Cathaline what the ordinary forms of justice required; that he was devoted to the king, and eager to gratify him in any manner conformable with law and equity; but that they ought not to require from him what was evidently unjust, or they would find that, when his conscience was concerned, he was equally insensible to considerations of interest or of danger.-(Lingard, History of England, vol. vii, p. 147.) t Quoted by Waterworth, Lectures on the Reformation, p. 21-22. ANGLICAN REFORNIATION-HEYRY VIII. order to please his royal master, was in the end firmly opposed to it, and he availed himself of every suitable occa- sion to avert the calamity. One of these occasions was the terror induced by the Sweating Sickness. Another was presented, when it became fully known in England, by the reports of Henry's Italian ambassadors, that Clement would never grant the divorce. Henry often declared that he would abide by the papal decision, and now he openly an- nounced his determination to give up the project forever. Anne Boleyn was alarmed, and she employed, alas! with too much success, all her arts of blandishment to turn him from his purpose. She had a powerful coadjutor in Thoruas Cromwell, the son of a fuller in the vicinity of London, whom Wolsey had raised from his obscurity and employed in an honorable position in his own household. This man thought the present a favorable occasion for supplanting his noble benefactor, taking his place in the king's council, and thereby making his own fortunes. He succeeded but too well. Wolsey was disgraced, Catharine was divorced, and Anne became queen of England; while Cromwell for a time attained a position and a power which even Wolsey had never possessed in his palmiest days. By what arts Cromwell succeeded in gaining the royal ear, in supplanting Wolsey, and in securing the divorce of Henry from Catharine and of England from the Catholic Cliurch, we shall see a little further on. Meantime, we must hasten on to the answer of the second question. D'Aubign6 very appropriately heads his final chapter-so fir published -on the English Reformation, "The Two Divorces;" thereby very prop- erly intimating, what is the fact, that the divorce of Henry from Catharine led to the divorce of England from the Catholic Church. " There is a close relationship," he says, " between these two divorces." He displays consid- erable prudence also in closing his history at this early date; for in con- tinuing it further, he would find much difficulty in making heroes and saints of Henry, Cranmer, and other English reformers, and would moreover be greatly embarrassed in settling the riva zlaims of the various sections of .7 WAS HENRY VIII. CRUEL AND LICENTIOUS II. Was Henry VIII. licentious and cruel This need not detain us long. Once separated from the Church, and rid of the curbing influence of Wolsey, Henry's passions knew no longer any restraints or bounds. He had divorced a virtuous wife, he soon tired of Anne Boleyn. At the instigation of the latter, he had pursued Catharine with every possible annoyance in her quiet and dignified retreat; he had torn her only surviving child, Mary, from her com- pany, after having had her declared illegitimate by his par- liament; lie had cruelly denied the dying request of the mother to see for the last time her beloved and only daugh- ter. Catharine died, invoking a blessing on the head of her cruel husband; whose stern heart relented somewhat on receiving her dying message-but it was now too late. He had her buried with the solemnity befitting a queen of the royal house of Spain, and he, with all his court, went into mourning. Only Anne refused this tribute to the memory of her whom she had supplanted; she arrayed herself in gay attire, as for a bridal, and openly declared that she was now indeed queen without a rival! Short-lived triumph! But four months elapsed, and she was herself divorced and brought to the block as an adulteress and as guilty of high treason. The supple Thomas Craniner, whom Henry had made archbishop of Canterbury, was now as ready, at the bidding of his royal master, to divorce her as lie had been before to divorce Catharine. On this occa- Anglicanism, especially from his own " Evangelical" point of view. He may, perhaps, hereafter conclude to continue his history, but we suspect that both he and his readers will be content with what he has already written. Cardinal Pole, in his Apology addressed to Charles V., mentions this act of unheard of cruelty-of Henry refusing to be softened either by the en- treaties of Catharine or the tears of Mary into granting one final interview between mother and daughter: "Cum hoc idem filia cum lacrymis postu- laret, mater vix extremum spiritum vitae ducens flagitaret, quod hostis nisi crudelissimus nunquam negasset, conjux a viro, mater pro filia, impetrare non potuit."1-Apud Lingard, vol. vi, p. 236, note. 77 7NGLICAIN REFORNIOTION-H1ENRY VIU. sion, he played the first of those solemn farces, for which his subsequent career was so distinguished. He solemnly pro- nouriced sentence involving two things which were wholly incompatible with each other: that Anne had never been truly married to Henry, and yet that she was guilty of adul tery by matrimonial infidelity! The subservient parliament accordingly declared her daughter Elizabeth illegitimate; and thus notwithstanding two marriages, the king was still without a legitimate heir. Whether Anne was really guilty or riot, it is hard to determine, in the midst of conflicting testimony on the subject; nor does it much matter now, as it certainly mattered little then. Guilty or innocent, her death was decreed by her royal husband or paramour; and he always found willing instruments to execute his decrees. Hle had cast his eyes on Jane Seymour, one of Anne's maids, and Anne, in a fit of jealousy, had been prematurely delivered of a dead male child. This was offense enough for Henry. "lie had wept at the death of Catharine; but, as if to dis- play his contempt for the memory of Anne, he dressed him- self in white on the day of her execution, and was married to Jane Seymour next morning." Agnes Strickland graphically relates this occurence as follows: " While the last act of that diabolical drama was played out. which con- summated the destruction of poor Anne, it appears that her rival had the discretion to retreat to her paternal mansion, Wolf Hall, in Wiltshire. There the preparations for her marriage with Henry VIII. were proceeding with sufficient activity to allow her royal wedlock to take place the day after the axe had rendered the king a widower. Henry himself remained in the vicinity of the metropolis, awaiting the accomplishment of that event, The traditions of Richmond Park and Epping Forest quote each place as the locale of the following scene. On the morning of the 19th of May, Henry VIII., attired for the chase, with his huntsmen and hounds around him, was standing under a spreading oak, breathlessly awaiting the signal gun from 'he Tower, which was to announce that the axe had fallen on the neck of his once ' entirely beloved Anne Boleyn!' At last, when the bright sum- Lingard, Ibid., vol. vi, p. 250-51. 78 HENRY'S WIVES. 79 mner sun rode high towards its meridian, the sullen sound of the death-gun boomed along the windings of the Thames. Henry started with ferocious joy. ' Ha, ha! ' he cried with satisfiiction, 'the deed is done! Uncouple the hounds and away.' The chase that day bent towards the west, whethei the stag led it in that direction or not. At nightfUll the king was at Wolf Hall, in Wilts, telling the news to his elected bride. "The next morning the king married the beautiful Seymour. It is com- monly asserted that he wore white for mourning the day after Anne Boleyn's execution; he certainly wore white, not as mourning, but because he on that day wedded her rival." His subsequent career of licentiousness and cruelty is but too well known. On the death of Jane Seymour after hav- ing given birth to Edward VI.,t he negotiated a marriage with a German princess, Anne of Cleves. On her arrival in England, he was disgusted with her appearance, and he angrily inveighed against his ambassadors for having deceived him. At the persuasion of the wily Cromwell, lie neverthe- less married her; but he divorced her soon afterwards; the pliant Cranmer, as usual, officiating in both cases. Crom- well's fate was sealed from that day. He had dared advise what proved to be disagreeable to the king, and his head soon rolled from the block. He was the first victim of his own law of attainder, by which much better men than himself in great numbers afterwards lost their lives, without a trial or even a hearing! Vain were all his entreaties for mercy, based on oyal devotedness and services rendered; his offense was leemed unpardonable by the relentless Henry. The next victim of the royal cruelty was his fifth wife, Queens of England, vol. iv. p. 219. t Of Henry's feelings on the birth of Edward, while the life of the mother was in imminent danger, Miss Strickland writes as follows: "When the hour came in which the heir. of England was expected to see the light, it was by no means ' the good hour' so emphatically prayed for in the ceremo- nial of her retirement. After a martyrdom of suffering, the queen's attend- ants put to Henry the really cruel question of ' whether he would wish his wife or infant to be saved.' It is affirmed, and it must be owned the speech is too characteristic of Henry to be doubted, that he replied, ' The child by all means, for other wives could be easily found.' -Vol. iv, p. 228. ANGLICAN REFORMATION-IIENRY VIII. Catharine Howard, of the noble holuse of N(rfolk. Ile first married, then divorced her for the alleged crime of atdulteiy, said to have boen committed hfre the marriage; and lhe finally had her beheaded foir the crine of treason, of which she certainly never had been guilty, even if the other charge had been nla(lc out-which it was not. I3ut Ihenry and his sub- ser-ient instruments stopped at nothing; and on this occasionr a new crime of constructive treason, which would operate backwards so as to reach the case of Catharine, was created by special act of parliament! There is the strongest reason to believe, that Cranmer and the other leaders of the Protest- ant party cunningly contrived, and by false allegations basely accomplished the ruin of Catliirine Howard, (out of revenge for the fall of Cromwell, and through fear lest her influence and that of her family in favor of the Catholic Church might lead Henry back to the olden paths, and thus mar all their prospects for future advancement and fortune. That the death of Catharine Howard was the result of a conspiracy of the reformers, with Cranmer at their head, would seem to be the opinion of the candid Miss Strickland, whose testimony will scarcely be impeached. We furnish the fallowing extracts on the subject from her interesting work: "Five years had passed away since these rival queens had vanished from the arena, and yet the names of Anne and Katharine were still the watch- words of the warring parties, for Henry was again the husband of two living See, on this subject, a strongly written paper reviewing Froude's History of England, in the Dublin Review for July, 1858, p. 476 seqq. The writer ably reviews the whole case, and furnishes abundant evidence to establish the fact, that "Cranmer was the prime mover in this satanic conspiracy against the poor queen;" who, as the leader of the Catholic party, " was re- garded by the Protestant faction with inveterate aversion." The evidence is chiefly circumstantial, but it is very plausible; and the whole plot tallies well with what is otherwise known of "the diabolical craft and cruelty of Cranmer," who opportunely availed himself of the king's absence at the north to begin his machinations against his youthful and defenseless queen. 80 HENRY'S WIVES-A DARK PLOT. 81 wives of those names, anil the legality of his divorce from the Protestant queen, Anine, and his inarriage with the Catholic Katharine, was almost as much qlitestioned by his Protestant subjects as his divorce from Katharine of Arragon, and his marriage with Anne Boleyn, had been by the Catholics. Thus we see that Katharine Hloward was regarded by the reformed party in mufch the same light as Anne Boleyn had formerly been by the Catholics. It was fotndly imagined by such of the former, who regarded Anne ot' Cleves as Henry'.s lawful queen, that he might be won to a reconciliation with her, if he could be convinced of the unworthiness of her fair successor to fill her place. " That the Duke of Cleves was so persuaded, we have shown in the pre- ceding, memoir, and it is a fact that throws some light on the diplomatic tact with which the political leaders of that party had organized their plans for the downfall of Katharine Howard. "The early follies of Katharine were known to too many, not to have reached the persons most interested in destroying her influence with the kin-. and if they delayed striking the blow that was to lay her honors in the dust, it was only to render it more effectual. The 'snake was to be killed, not scotched.' "1 Cranmer's agency in the dark plot is thus attested: " But on that fatal morrow, while Henry was at Mass, the paper that con- tained the particulars of the misconduct of her, whom he esteemed such a jewel of womanhood and perfect love to himself, was put into his hands by Cranmer, with an humble request that he would read it when he was in entire privacy.t The oVbect of Cranmer in presenting the information against the queen to Henry in the chapel was evidently to prevent the an- nouncement to the people of the public form of thanksgiving, which had been prepared by the bisnop. The absence of Katharine from her accus- tomed place in the royal closet afforded the archbishop the better opportu- nity of stiking this decisive blow." And again "When this was reported to the king, he sent Cranmer to her in the morning with a deceitful assurance, that if she would acknowledge her transgressions, the king, although her life had been forfeited by the law, had determined to extend unto her his most gracious mercy." t Queens of England, vol. iv, p. 299-300. She preserves the old spelling of Katharine. f She quotes Herbert, Burnet, Rapin. t Ibid., p 304-5 82 AYGlICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIH. Henry's sixth and last wife was Catharine Parr, who also narrowly escaped death at his hands for high treason, which consisted merely in her having ventured to differ from him in theological opinions! Henry had even given the order for her arrest; but Catharine was watchful and adroit, and hav- ing soon discovered her fatal mistake, had made so ample an apology for her heresy, mingled with so flattering an opinion of her royal husband's superior learning and almost divine discrimination in religious questions, that when the officers arrived to convey her to the tower, Henry drove them out rudely, after having loaded them with roval invective and abuse! Catharine never more ventured to dissent from her lord, and she thus fortunately contrived to survive him. Out of six wives, Henry had divorced four, and led two to the block. The very announcement of this plain and unques- tioned fact is well calculated to create a shudder in the bosom of every honest and impartial man; but what must be the spontaneous expression of indignant feeling among all honest men, if. entering into further details, we shall be able to prove by the undoubted facts of history, that the divorce and murder of his wi-ves were not probably the greatest of the offenses com- mitted by Henry VIII. and his parasites, Cranmer. Cromwell, and otiers. against society, against liberty, and against even common justice and common decency! III. Was Henry VIII. a tyrant, and did he destroy English liberty Most undoubtedly. All his acts prove it beyond the possi- hilitv of successful contradiction. The following undisputed facts and specifications establish the proposition so clearly, as to leave no doubt whatever on the sublject. 1. Henry coveted the wealth of the monasteries, those venerable establishments which had been for centuries the nurseries of religion and learning, as well as the solace and support of the poor. In 15:36, a bill was introduced into parliament to give unto the king the property of all those 82 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIE. 83 monastic establishments, whose annual revenue did not ex- ceed two hundred pounds sterling. The bill soon passed the house of lords, who were probably anticipating a rich harvest to themselves in the division of the spoils, but it encountered much opposition in the commons, who knew well with what veneration the people looked up to those establishments. In this emergency, as the candid Protestant historian Sir Henry Spelman informs us, Henry sent for the commons, and with a scowl told them that " he would have the bill pass or take off some of their heads." t Of course, the terror-stricken commons passed the bill without further demur; and from that time forward, their spirit seems to have been completely broken, and they became the pliant tools of Henry's will. To confiscate, at one blow, so vast an amount of property, required some decent or plausible pretext which would have weight with the people. For this reason Henry appointed a commission to inquire into the morals of the monks, under the direction of Cromwell; and the commissioners, of course, reported in a manner satisfactory to their master. He thus " suborned the voice of calumny to sanctify the deeds of op- pression;" for neither this inquiry, nor that which was instituted subsequently to accomplish the destruction of the larger monasteries, really elicited any thing material in. the way of evidence, to prove that the morals of the monks were such as to require the suppression of their houses. The monks were sent adrift on the world, to live as best they A very large amount at that time, equal to nearly if not quite twelve thousand dollars of our present money, it being estimated that money then was about twelve times as valuable as now. From this fact, and from the confiscation of the larger monasteries which took place later in the same reign, we may easily gather what enormous wealth fell to the crown from these wholesale robberies. The king, however, soon squandered the whole of it, or distributed it among his courtiers, thereby strongly binding them to himself in a community of interests. Theii fortunes were thus made de- pendent on their maintenance of the religious changes, and hence their zeal- ous support of Henry's supremacy. t History and Fate of Sacrilege, p. 183, apud Lingard, vol. iv, p. 232, note 84 ANGLICAN PEFORM1AT10N\-IINIRY VIII. might; ;:nd the poor helpless nuns, wvith but a single gown a piece-the imunificent gift (X the crown which robbcd them of all else-were driven out to live on the precarioiis clarity of the faithful, or to starve. Meantime Henry and his rapacious courtiers parceled out among themselves the revenues and property thus sacrilegiously seized on, and the who)le was soon absorbed, or dissipated in riotous liviiig. In his late History of the Church of England, the Angli- can Bishop Short devotes considerable space to the question regarding the dissolution of the monasteries, which lie views as an act of wanton avarice on the part of the king and nobility, and as disastrous in its immediate influence on religion and learning. Following Fuller, he estimates the number of the smaller monasteries which were dissolved at Much testimony, Protestant as well as Catholic, might be here alleged in proof of what is asserted in the text. We content ourselves for the present with the following: "This would not have satisfied the ends of himself (Henry) and his covetous and ambitious agents. They all aimed at the revenues and riches of the religious houses, for which reason no arts or contrivances were to be passed by that might be of use in obtaining those ends. The most abomi- nable crimes were to be charged upon the religious, and the charge was to be managed with the utmost industry, boldness, and dexterity. And yet, after all, the proofs were so insufficient, that, from what I have been able to gather, I have not found any direct one against any single monastery."- Hearne. Preliminary Observations to the View of Mitred Abbeys by Brown Willis, p. 84. Apud Lingard, Antiquities Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 245, note Speaking of the spoliation of the monasteries, D'israeli says: "As the scheme was managed, therefore, it was a compromise or co-part nership of the king and his courtiers. The lands now lay the open prey of the hardy claimant or the sly intriguer; crowds of suppliants wearied the crown to participate in that national spoliation. Every one hastened to urge some former service or some present necessity as a colorable plea for obtain- ing a grant of some of the suppressed lands. A strange custom was then introduced, that of 'begging for an estate.' .... "The king was prodigal in his grants; for the more he multiplied the receivers of his bounties, the more numerous would be the staunch defend- ers of the new possessions."-(Amenities of Literature, 2 vols. 12mo. New Yorkl, 1845. VoL i, p. 349.) BISHOP SHORT'S TESTIMONY. three hundred and seventy-five, yielding an annual income at that time of thirty thousand pounds, " besides a large sum aris- ing from plate and jewels; " but lie adds that " the mass of this wealth was quickly dissipated." Of the act for dissolving the smaller monasteries, he says: "But it was easy to perceive that this alienation was but a step to the total dissolution of the monastic orders, and that the same avarice which had swallowed up the weaker bodies was only restrained fronm destroying the stronger by want of power." TIhe total number of monasteries dissolved, including the greater ones, was, according to the same writer, eleven hundred, which yielded an annual revenue of about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds - fully equal to the income derived from all the other church property in EDg- land.t Of the evil effects which followed this wholesale confiscation of what had been accumulated during centuries by the pious liberality of the Catholic English, for the benefit of the Church and the poor, he candidly writes as follows: " The estates of which the Church was deprived, were thrown into the hands of those who could not be entitled to them upon any plea; and while at the moment the nation was the loser, the court favorite alone derived advantage from the spoiL The poor were robbed of the rude hospitality with which the monasteries abounded; they were no longer provided with the same number of spiritual guides, who, with all their imperfections, must at least have equaled in point of information their lay contemporaries, and who, by being scattered through the country, must have furnished cnmply- ment to a large portion of the lower orders. The farmer lost a kind and indulgent landlord, whose place was frequently supplied by a griping spend- thrift; at the hospitable board which his own farm supplied, he was always a welcome guest whenever he chose to partake of the liberality of the con- vent: the new proprietor, under whom he held, was occupied with the affairs of the nation and the court; and was scarcely known to him, but as the receiver of his hard-earned rents."' Finally the candid bishop adds: P. 56, 202. t Ibid., p. 77, 258. Reduced to the standard value of our present money, this income would be about nine millions of dollars! t Ibid., p. 7.5, Q 253 37 85 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY Vi. " But the imnmediate effect was not at all that of promoting the welfare of this land. It was not the quiet transfer of wealth, accompanied by activity and prudence; but the forced dissolution of the right of property, and attended with waste and destruction. The tenants of the monastery were, in many cases, deprived of their leases, and the rents forced up to an unpre- cedentel bight. .... Attempts were indeed made to obviate these evils; but who shall be bold enough to presume to set limits to violence, when the first principles of justice are destroyed Or who shall check the rapacity of plunder, when the rights of property are systematically disregarded ax 2. The English parliament, which in the good old Catholic times had hurled defiance in the face of kings, and which had stood bravely to the rights secured by Magna Clharta even as lately as the earlier years of Henry's reign, was now suddenly palsied, and trembled at the slightest breath of the king's anger. Its independent spirit had vanished, its very manhood had disappeared. It became a mere automaton, for recording and legalizing the commands of the tyrant, whose royal prerogative swallowed up every other element of government. At his bidding, the parliament passed bills for divorcing and beheading his wives, bills of attainder against those whom he wished to destroy, bills to declare illegitimate and incapable of inheritance his daughters Mary and Eliza- beth; and finally a bill authorizing him, failing issue by Jane Sevm-nour, to grant the succession to the crown by letters patent to whomsoever he willed! t Nay- more; by an act passed in 1539,: the king's proclamation was clothed with all the force of law, under the same penalties as if its provisions had received the sanction of parliament; and by a singular and unheard of refinement of tyranny. it was declared high treason to escape from the kingdom with a view to avoid these penalties! Thus the liberties of the English people were laid prostrate at the feet Ibid., p. 76, 255. f This bill was passed in June 1536. t 31 Henry VIII. 8. q The qualifying clauses which were introduced to satisfy the scruples of some of the members seem to have been mere forms, and wholly nuga- torv in their effects. S. e Lingard, vol. vi, p. 296, and note. 86 LIBERTY DESTROYED. 87 of the royal tyrant, whose power, both in church and state, became almost as unlimited as that of the Russian Czar or the Turkish Sultan. 3. To understand still more clearly how Henry destroyed the ancient Catholic liberties of England, it will be useful to compare the political state of the kingdom in the fifteenth with what it became in the sixteenth century. Hallam tells its, that "England, more fortunate than the rest of Europe, had acquired in the fifteenth century a just reputation f'or the goodness of her laws and the security of her citizenis from oppression." He furnishes under five heads a view of the liberties then enjoyed by the English people. At that period. the king could levy no new tax, nor impose any new law upon his people without the previous consent of parliament; and the personal liberty of the subject was still further guarantied by the privilege of habeas corpus, in virtue of which he could not be arrested without a regular warrant, nor detained in prison for an undue length of time, but was entitled to a speedy trial by a jury of his peers, with the additional privilege of arraigning the officers of the crown before the regular courts with a view to their condign punish- ment, in case they violated any of the franchises secured to him by the old Catholic Magna Charta.t This is still further confirmed by the great English his- torian: "n When Henry ascended the throne, there still existed a spirit of freedom, which on more than one occasion defeated the arbitrary measures of the court, though directed by an able minister, and supported by the authority of the sovereign: but in the lapse of a few years that spirit had fled, and before the death of Henry, the king of England had grown into a despot, and the people had shrunk into a nation of slaves."t 4. Under such a monarch, invested with powers so wholly The instigator to this royal absolutism seems to have been Cromwell, the king's vicar general, who tried to bring Gardiner over to his views. See Gardiner's testimony, Ibid. t Condensed from his Constitutional History, p. 14, Am. Ed. t Lingard, voL vi, p. 366. ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. unlimited, it is not at all surprising that state trials became a mere delusion, and a not even solemn mockery of justice. All whom Henry willed to perish were as sure of their fate in advance, as if it had already overtaken them. Never has there, perhaps, been a more wicked and unjust act passed in Christian times, than Cromwell's bill of attainder, of which, as we have seen, he was himself the first victim. It gave the doomed man or woman no possible chance of suitable defense, no hope of escape but in the king's mercy. Hence, we find those who were prosecuted sometimes humbly plead- ing guilty, even when innocent, and throwing themselves on the king's mercy. And when their fate was assured notwith- standing, they dared not, even at the last dread hour, openly avow their innocence, for fear of additional vengeance to their family or friends after their death! Some noble excep- tions there were, indeed, but they were chiefly among the Catholic martyrs. Was there ever tyranny to equal this, whether in Christian or in pagan times ' When was it ever heard of" exclaims the indignant Regi- nald Pole, the relative and contemporary of Henry-" I say not merely in England, where the people have always been imore free under the government of kings, but in any one of all Christian kingdoms, that one man should so lord it over all, and so subject all things to his power and lust, that the laws afford no longer protection to any against his will, and that all things are governed by the sole beck of the king." t The ancient liberties of England, secured by the sturdy resist- ance in the "dark ages" of Catholics to royal aggression, were thus wantonly trampled in the dust by the royal founder of Anglicanism; and all submitted tamely to the glaring usurpa- tion, induced to this blind subserviency to the king by the For the truth of this, we appeal with confidence to the timid and wavering declarations of many among Henry's victims, when about to be brought to the block for their honesty. f Pole, fol. ci. See Lingard, vi, 366, note, for the original Latin text. X8 SLAVERY OF PARLAMENT. 89 hope of plunder, and by the recently evoked and self-interesterl hatred of Rome. 4. Thle revenues and property of the confiscated monasteries did not, as we have already said, long enrich the king, or add any thing to the real resources of the government. The idea that it would have this effect was all a mere sham! Taxation grew more and more burdensome on the people at each suc- ceeding year of the king's reign; until at last it became so enormous, as to arouse a feeling of general discontent and murmuring throughout the kingdom. This discontent was still more increased by the iniquitous adulteration of the coin current in the kingdom, and by its consequent deprecia- tion in value, to the injury of all and the ruin of thousands.t The king went a step further, and adopted the despotic expe- dient of exacting a forced loan; and the obsequious parlia- ment not only sanctioned the oppressive measure, but even passed an act to release the king from all obligation of repay- ment! The great modern English Protestant lawyer Man- ning confirms this statement in the following remarkable passage, which contains also a just appreciation of Henry's reign, in its bearing on popular rights and the security of property: : "Henry VIII. obtained an indirect, though in his hands, a very available interest in the possessions of the secular clergy, by assuming the then unde- fined character of head of the church. Having afterwards acquired the absolute disposal of the property of the monastic establishments of the country, by extorted surrenders or by direct spoliation, the prince next turned his eyes for further supplies towards the lay possessions of his subjects. From the same parliament which inflicted the penalty or death upon those who should preach, teach, or maintain any thing contrary to the king's instructions or declarations made, or to be made, two acts of a very peculiar complexion were obtained. By one of these the king was absolutely discharged from the payment of all debts which he had incurred during the two preceding years. For the acts of parliament enforcing this progressive taxation, see Lin- gard, vol. vi, p. 302. t Ibid., p.347. 1 Manning's Exchequer Practice, 4. See Rapin, vol. v, p. 438, and Dublin Review, for March, 1856. VOL. n.-8 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. The other contained several provisions for the more rigorous exaction of debts due to the crown. The former of these acts contained this most singular clause, that if the king had paid to any person any sum of money which he had borrowed, such person should repay the same to the king! " 5. We conclude this branch of the subject with the testimony of another learned Protestant Englishman, Henry Hallam, Who fully confirms what we have said of the utter obsequious ness of the English Parliament: "They (the houses of parliament) yielded to every mandate of Henry's imperial will; they bent with every breath of his capricious humor; they were responsible for the illegal trial, for the iniquitous attainder, for the san- guinary statute, for the tyranny which they sanction.ed by law, and for that which they permitted without law. Nor was this selfish and pusillanimous subserviency more characteristic of the minions of Henry's favor, the Cromn wells, the Riders, the Pagets, the Russells, and the Pauletts, than of the representatives of ancient and honorable names, the Norfolks, the Arundels, the Shrewsburys. We trace these noble statesmen concurring in all the inconsistencies of the reign, and supporting all the changes of religion; con- stant only in the rapacious acquisition of estates and honors from what- ever source, and in adherence to the present power." IV. By what means, and through what agencies, did Henry VIII. bring about the Reformation The answer is plain. He did it by his own imperious will, aided by a subservient clergy and a still more subservient parliament; by confiscation, spoliation, and bribery; by a code of pains and penalties so terrible as to silence all oppo- sition; by imbruing his hands in the blood of the best men in England:-in one word, by making himself supreme lord and master of England in church and state, by crushing out all English liberty, both civil and religious, and lording it, with a rod of iron, over both the bodies and souls of his sub- jects! This is, indeed, strong language, but the facts fully justify it, and prove beyond the possibility of doubt or cavil, that Catholicity and liberty fell together in England. Our scope and limits will allow us to refer briefly to only some Constitutional History of England, p. 51, quoted Ibid. 90 THE KING'S SUPREMACY. of the more prominent facts, in addition to those already pre- sented, out of the mass of evidence which might be alleged in proof. 1. When Henry VIII. professed to have given up the pro- ject of the divorce, Cromwell came to him, and in a private audience whispered in his ear the fatal plan by which lie might be effectually rid of Catharine, and might secure Anne, in spite of the Pope's refusal to grant the divorce. This plan was, to oust the Pontiff from the spiritual supremacy, of which he had been in undisputed possession for nearly a thousand years, and to make himself supreme head of the church of England. The bishops and clergy, he suggested, by their ac- quiescence in Wolsey's exercise of the office of papal legate, had incurred the penalties enacted in the unrepealed statute of premunire; and they, with their possessions, were there- fore entirely at his -mercy. Wolsey had, indeed, received the royal license for exercising the office of legate; but this need not interfere with the project, as Wolsey and the prelates would scarcely dare plead the royal permission. The suggestion of the wily courtier pandered to the pas- sions and flattered the pride of Henry, who immediately promoted Cromwell to his privy council, and determined to act upon his advice.t The convocation of the clergy hastily As, in fact, Wolsey did not, from motives of prudence or of excessive timidity. Judgment having in consequence gone against him by default, all the bishops were involved in its penalties as " fautors and abettors." t It is not likely that Henry at first contemplated a final rupture with Rome, much less an entire separation of England from the Catholic Church. But the refusal of the Pope to yield the sacred principle involved in the divorce aroused his own headlong passions, and drove him he scarcely knew whither. Says Heylin (Preface to History of the Reformation): " This king being violently hurried with the transport of some private affections, and finding that the Pope offered the greatest obstacle to his desires, lie first divested him by degrees of that supremacy which had been challenged and enjoyed by his predecessors for some ages past, and finally extinguished his authority in the realm of England." (Apud Waterworth, p. 11.) Burnet says "When Henry began his Reformation, his design seemed to have 91 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. asseml)led, and in great alarm offered the king a present of one hundred thousand pounds to be released from the dreaded penalties of the statute. hlough this had been the usual panacea for curing royal displeasure in former years, to their surprise and mortification it proved unsuccessful in the pres- ent instance. Henry would not accept the offer, unless in the act granting it a clause should be inserted acknowledging him supreme head of the church in England! Unfortunately, the clergy compromised between their consciences and their places, by passing the act with the clause annexed, " so far as the law of Christ will allow;" which restriction Henry, after some hesitation, finally agreed to, knowing full well that he could afterwards sweep it away at will-as lie really did. Thus it was, that the mischievous legislation of the four- teenth century, referred to in our Introduction, by which the bonds of union with the Holy See had been so much weak- ened, was now made the instrument for breaking those bonds entirely, and permanently severing England from Catholic unity. Innovations are always dangerous, and the aggres- sions of the civil power are always progressive. Henry VIII. carried to its fullest extent the but imperfectly developed pro- gramme of his predecessors-the Edwards and the Richards- been, in the whole progress of these changes, to terrify the court of Rome, and force the Pope into a compliance with what he desired." (Quoted ibid.) DI Israeli, in his Amenities of Literature, (vol. i, p. 351) gives the follow- ing opinion concerning Henry's Reformation: "We are accustomed to trace the Reformation to Henry the Eighth, but in verity, small are the claims of this sovereign on posterity; for through all the multiplied ramifications of superstition (!) nothing under him was re- formed. The other great event of the Reformation, the assumption of the spiritual supremacy, accorded with the national independence from a foreign jurisdiction. The policy was English(!), but it originated in the private passions of the monarch. (And was therefore peculiarly English) As- suredly, had the tiara deigned to nod to the royal solicitor, then had the 'Defender of the Faith' only given to the world another edition of his book against Luther." See Wilkins, ConciL ii, p. 725; and Lingard, vol vi, p. 178, seqq. 92 DEGRADATION OF BISHOPS. 93 another evidence that there is a logic in history as well as in philosophy. 2. But the humiliation of the time-serving bishops was not yet complete. The layman Cromwell-the low-born son of the fuller-was made spiritual vicar general of the realm; and as the representative of Henry-the supreme head of the church-he was placed over their heads, to rule them in the name of their sovereign! On the ground that the king was the only fountain of all power, spiritual as well as temporal, and at the suggestion of the new vicar general, the powers of all the bishops were suspended by a circular from the sub- servient primate Cranmer, on pretext of an approaching visitation of their dioceses by Cromwell. The bishops reluct- antly submitted, and within a month they humbly sued for new faculties from the king, to enable them to govern their flocks! In consequence "a commission was issued to each bishop separately, authorizing him, during the king'. plea8- ure, and as the king'8 deputy, to ordain persons born within his diocese and admit them to livings; to receive proof of wills; to determine causes lawfully brought before ecclesias- tical tribunals; to visit the clergy and laity of the diocese; to inquire into crimes and punish them according to the canon law; and to do whatever belonged to the office of a bishop, besides those things which, according to the sacred writings, were committed to his charge. But for this indul- gence a most singular reason is assigned: not that the govern- ment of bishops is necessary for the Church, but that the king's vicar general, on account of the multiplicity of business with which he was loaded, could not be everywhere present, and that many inconveniences might arise, if delays and in- terruptions were admitted in the exercise of his authority." The degradation of the episcopal body was now complete, thanks to the wily Cromwell and the unprincipled and time- Eor the sentence of suspension, see Collier, ii, Rec., p. 22; for the form of restoration, see Burnet, 1. Rec. iii, No. xiv.-Lingard, voL vi, A. 230. 04 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VI1. serving Cranmer. The bishops had, by their own act, dwin- dled down into mere temporary civil functionaries, holding their precarious powers at the will or caprice of their royal head, and of his lay vicar general. They had cast off the supremacy of the Pope; they had gained in its place the supremacy of a head much nearer home, the weight of whose little finger would press more heavily on them than that of the whole body, not merely of one Pope, but of all the Popes that ever reigned. They had rid themselves of the shadow of a distant and imaginary despotism; they obtained, in its stead, the stern substance of an ever present and ever active tyranny, now wholly unrestrained, because the only effectual check on its encroachments was removed. 3. Supreme now, both in church and state, Henry began to rage fearfully against all who had the manliness to dissent from the new order of things, and especially against those who, however quietly and timidly, dared reject his spiritual supremacy. The penalty awarded to the latter was the ter- rible death of a traitor, as had been solemnly declared by the parliament. Nor was the iniquitous act suffered to remain a Bishop Short fully confirms all this. He writes: "Henry now suspended all the bishops from the use of their episcopal authority, during the visitation which he purposed to institute; and after a time the power of exercising it was restored, by a commission to the follow- ing effect, which was granted to each of them on their petitioning for it: 'Since all authority, civil and ecclesiastical, flows from the crown, and since Cromwell, to whom the ecclesiastical part has been committed, is so occu- pied that he can not fully exercise it, we commit to you the license of or- daining, proving wills, and using other ecclesiastical jurisdiction, besides those things which are committed to you by God in holy Scripture; and we allow you to hold this authority during our pleasure, as you must an- swer to God and to us.k It must be confessed that this commission seems rather to outstep the limits of that authority which God has committed to the civil magistrate; but in this case there was no opposition raised on the part of the bishops, excepting by Gardiner, and when the suspension was taken off, they continued to perform the usual duties of their office; for the visitation was really directed against the monasteries."-History of the Church of England, p. 55, Q 201. This extract speaks whole volumes. FISHER AND MORE 95 dead letter. The tragedies enacted under this new and un- heard of law of high treason, by which some of the best men of England were brought to the block, merely for adhering quietly and without disturbing any one, to.the time-honored faith of their fathers, are such as to make our blood run cold, even after the lapse of three centuries. The venerable bishop Fisher, of Rochester, Henry's former tutor, and the favored counselor of his father, now in the seventieth year of his age, was cruelly butchered by order of his ungrateful pupil, merely because he would not subscribe to the new doctrine of the king's supremacy. The learned and irreproachable chancellor More suffered the same death penalty for the same cause. Of the execution of these two truly great and vener- able men, the excellent and candid Agnes Strickland writes as follows,-we furnish also her authorities:-t "Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, refused to take this two-fold oath on scruples of conscience; both had previously enjoyed a great degree of Henry's favor; both had much to lose and nothing to gain by their rejection of a test which they regarded as a snare. They were the fast friends of the persecuted and repudiated queen Katharine, and had incurred the animosity of her fair triumphant rival by counseling the king against forsaking the wife of his youth. " The resentment of Anne Boleyn is supposed to have influenced the king to bring these faithful servants to the scaffold under very frivolous pretexts. The integrity of Sir Thomas More, as lord-chancellor, had been some time before impugned by Anne's father, the earl of Wiltshire, but, like pure gold from the crucible, it shone more brightly from the triaLt "When More's beloved daughter, Margaret Roper, visited him in the Tower, he asked her, 'How queen Anne did' 'In faith, father,' she replied, 'never better. There is nothing else in the court but dancing and sporting.' 'Never better ! said he; 'alas ! Meg, alas ! it pitieth me to think He was treated with every possible indignity. He was suffered to re- main in prison without necessary clothing and food, and after his death, "his head was placed on London bridge, but the trunk, despoiled of the garments, the perquisite of the executioner, lay naked on the spot till evening.-Poli. Apolog. 96.-Lingard, voL vi, p. 221. f Lives of Queens of England, voL iv, p. 181-2. 1 Roper's Life of More; Hoddesden; More's Life of More. ANGLICAN REFORMATION-II1ENRY V[II. into what misery, poor soul, she will shortly come. Those dances of hers will prove such dances, that she will spurn our heads off like foot-balls, but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like (lance.-' And how pro- phetically he spoke these words,' adds the kindred biographer vt More, ' the end of her tragedy proved.' " When the account of the execution of this great and good manl was brought to Henry while he was playing at tables with Anne, he cast his eyes upon her, we are told, and said, 'Thou art the cause of this man's death; '-then rising up, he left his unfinished game, and shut himself up in his chamber, in great perturbation of spiritt "' Had we been master of such a servant,' exclaimed the emperor Charles to the English ambassador, with a burst of generous feeling, 'we would rather have lost the fairest city in our dominions than such a counselor.' " Out of revenge for the refusal of his relative cardinal Pole either to sanction the divorce or accept the royal su- premacy, Henry had his brothers and nearest relatives arrested, and several of them executed as traitors; . and to wound the absent cardinal in a still more tender part, he had the brutality to arrest, and afterwards to execute for treason his venerable mother, the countess of Salisbury, the last in a direct line of the noble race of the Plantagenets, and the nearest living relative of Henry himself! But neither the ties of blood, nor her advanced age-he was over seventy- could stay the bloody hand of the tyrant. She was beheaded; but with the spirit of the Plantagenets, she nobly refused to lay her head on the block, exclaiming: " My head never More's Life of More; and Roper's More. f More's Life of More. t Says Miss Strickland: "While Anne of Cleves was thus tormented and perplexed by the per- secutions of her unreasonable husband, terror was stricken into every heart by the execution of two of his nearest kinsmen, whom he relentlessly sent to the block on the 3d of March. One was the favorite companion of his youth, Courtenay, marquis bf Exeter, the son of his aunt, Catharine Plan- tagenet; the other was Henry Pole, lord Montague, the son of Margaret Plantagenet, countess of Salisbury. The offense for which they suffered was correspondence with Reginald Pole, (afterwards the celebrated cardinal,) whom Henry called his enemy."-Ibid., vol. iv, p. 256-7. She quotes Hall and Burnet. For a fuller account, see Lingard, Hist. England, voL vi, p 285-6. 96 COUNTESS OF SALISBURY. 97 committed treason; if you will have it you must take it as you can." The scene which followed was too horrible to contemplate! Her last words were: ' Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake!" Her deat.. was a murder-a downright butchery ! We must again quote Agnes Strickland, who enters into interesting details in regard to the teal and (loath of this venerable lady;-it will be seen that Cromwell, who was mainly instrumental in bringing about her condenitiati, suffered himself before her, in virtue of his own iniquitous law of attainder:- " Cromwell produced in the house of lords, May 10, by way of evidence against the countess, a vestment of white silk, that had been found in her wardrobe, embroidered in front with the arms of England, surrounded with a wreath of pansies and marigolds, and on the back the representation cf the host, with the five wounds of our Lord, and the name of Jesus written in the midst. Cromwell persuaded the lords that this was a treasonable en- sign; and as the countess had corresponded with her absent son, she was for no other crime attainted of high treason, and condemned to death with- out the privilege of being heard in her own defense.t The marchioness of Exeter was also attainted and condemned to death by the same illegal pro- cess, in direct opposition to the laws of England. Both ladies were, mean- time, confined in the Tower. "The lords, indeed, hesitated, for the case was without precedent; but Cromwell sent for the judges to his own house, and asked them 'whether the parliament had a power to condemn persons accused without a hearing.' The judges repliedT 'That it was a nice and dangerous question, for law and equity required that no one should be condemned unheard; but the parlia- ment being the highest court of the realm, its decisions could not be disputed.' When Cromwell, by reporting this answer in the house, satisfied the peers that they had the power of committing a great iniquity if they chose to do so, they obliged the king by passing the bill, which established a precedent tor all the other murders that were perpetrated in this reign of terror. As an awful instance of retributive justice, it is to be recorded, that Cromwell waus himself the first person who was slain by the tremendous weapon of See Pole's letter to the cardinal of Burgos, quoted by Lingard, vol. vi, p. 290, note. f Lingard; Tytler; Herbert; Burnet; Journals of Parliament I Parlianientary History, voL iii, p. 143-4; Rapin; Lingard; Herbert. VOL. a.-9 98 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. despotism, with which, like a traitor to his country, he had furnished the most merciless tyrant that ever wore the English crowu. "Exactly one month after this villany, Cromwell was arrested by the duke of Norfolk at the council-board, and sent to the Tower, by the com- mand of the king, who, like a master-fiend, had waited till his slave had fiiled up the full measure of his guilt, before he executed his vengeance upon him.. "She was the last of the Plantagenets, and, with a spirit not unworthy of her mighty ancestors, refused to submit to an unjust sentence by laying her head upon the block. 'So should traitors do,' she said, ' but I am none, and if you will have my head, you must win it as you can.' A scene of horror followed, which was concluded by the ruffian minister of Henry's vengeance dragging the aged princess by her hoary hair to the block, where he 'slovenly butchered her, and stained the scaffold from veins enriched with all the royal blood of England.' "t 4. Though among the monks of some of the greater monas- teries. which were not yet suppressed, there was obtained by dint of threats and promises an appearance of acquiescence in the new state of things, there still remained many mem- bers of the more rigid and secluded orders of the Carthu- sians, Brigittins, and Franciscan Observants, who had spirit and conscience enough not to bow to the unlawful commands of the king. Upon such men as these, separated from and entirely above this world, the wily arts and the terrible menaces of Cromwell and his associates were thrown away. The answer of the noble Friar Peyto to Cromwell-who had threatened to inclose him and his associate Elstow in sacks and to cast them into the Thames-is well known: "Threaten such things to the rich and dainty folk which are clothed in purple and fare deliciously. We esteem them not. We are joyful that for the discharge of our duty we are driven hence. With thanks to God, we know that the way to heaven is as short by water as by land, and therefore care not which way we got The three religious orders above named were then filled. Queens of England, vol. iv, pp. 259, 260. t Ibid., p. 300; she quotes Acts of Privy Council, Hall, and Guthrie. I Stowe, 543, apud Lingard, vol. vi, p. 218. INCREASING TYRANNY. according to Pole, with the most strict and pious ecclesiastics in England; and as it was found that most of them shared in the noble sentiments of Peyto and Elstow, they were driven by violence from their monasteries; and the priors of the three great charter houses of London, also refusing from con- scientious motives to take the oath of supremacy, were " sus- pended, cut down alive, embowelled, and dismembered" as traitors, after having earnestly plead in vain for the consola- tions of religion before their barbarous execution.t The jury had hesitated to convict men of so much acknowledged piety, and it required repeated threatening messages from the king, and even a personal visit from his vicar general, to shake their righteous resolution, and to induce them to bring in a verdict of guilty.: Thank God, that amidst the general defection, there was some independence, some faith, and some manliness left in England, though those who dared possess these exalted qualities were almost sure to fall victims to the royal despotism. Besides those who perished on the scaffold, hundreds of the monks were thrust into the prisons, where many of them died of hardship and of cruel treatment. 5. The new doctrine of the royal supremacy, to the exclu- sion of the Pope, proved so repugnant to the general sense and feeling of the people, that it was everywhere viewed with distrust and astonishment. " To dispel these prejudices, Henry issued injunctions that the very name Pope should be carefully erased out of all books employed in the public wor- ship; that every school-master should diligently inculcate the new doctrine to the children intrusted to his care; that all clergymen, from the bishop to the curate, should on every Sunday and holiday teach, that the king was the true head of the church, and that the authority hitherto exercised by the Popes was an usurpation, tamely submitted to by the care- lessness or timidity of his predecessors; and that the sheriffs in each county should keep a vigilant eye over the conduct Pole, foL ciii, apud Lingard, voL vi. 99 t Ibid. I Mbd., p. 220 100 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIEI. of the clergy, and should report to the council the names not only of those who might neglect these duties, but also of those who might perform them indeed, but with coldness and iridif- ference." 6. In his Constitutional History of England, Mr. IHallam furnishes the following estimate of Henry's increasing despo- tism and blood-thirstiness, after he had severed England from the communion of the Catholic Church:t "' But after the fall of Wolsey, and Henry's breach with the Roman See, his fierce temper, strengthened by habit and exasperated by resistance, de- manded more constant supplies of blood; and many perished by sentences which we can hardly prevent ourselves from considering as illegal, because the statutes to which they might be conformable, seem, from their temporary duration, their violence, and the passiveness of the parliaments that enacted them, rather like arbitrary invasions of the law than alterations of it. By an act of 1534, not only an oath was imposed to maintain the succession in the heirs of the king's second marriage, in exclusion of the princess Mary, but it was made high treason to deny that ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown, which, till about two years before, no one had ever ventured to assert. Bishop Fisher, the most inflexibly honest churchman who filled a high sta- tion in that age, was beheaded for this denial. Sir Thomas More, whose name can ask no epithet, underwent a similar fate. He had offered to take the oath to maintain the succession, which, as he justly said, the legislature was competent to alter; but prudently avoided to give an opinion as to the supremacy, till Rich, solicitor-general, and afterwards chancellor, elicited in a private conversation some expressions which were thought sufficient to bring him within the fangs of the recent statute. A considerable number of less distinguished persons, chiefly ecclesiastical, were afterwards executed in virtue of this statute. The sudden and harsh innovations made by Henry in religion,... his destruction of venerable establishments, his tyranny over the recesses of the conscience. excited so dangerous a rebellion in the north of England, that his own general, the duke of Norfolk, thought it absolutely necessary to employ measures of conciliation."T Lingard, vi, p. 216.-He quotes the act of parliament and Wilkins, Cone. f P. 27; American Edition, sup. cit. t The Anglican bishop Short furnishes the following compendious state- ment of the executions which occurred during Henry's reign, by his order: "Some urge two queens, one cardinal, (in procinctu at least-in intention) for Pole was condemned though absent; one or two dukes; marquises, earls, and ESPI)NAGE-CURIOUS EXANHILM. 7. Towards the end of his reign the king jecame more and more morose and tyrannical, and more and more sensitive in this delicate matter of his spiritual supremacy; and whosoever dared even whisper a doubt on the subject incurred imminent danger of meeting the doom of a traitor. The better to probe the minds of his subjects in reference to this new tenet of faith, a most minute, searching, and harassing system of espionage was organized. throughout the kingdom, with Cromwell at its head, to inquire into the opinions and report to the king's council the careless words of the people of England, made use of in their most unguarded moments and when they were in the most confiding mood. From the most obscure laboring man up to the highest nobleman in the land, no man was saf ;- his next neighbor might be a spy in the pay of the govern- ment. The mutterings of old women, and the careless speeches of hostlers and grooms were alike reported. Mr. Froude gives us many curious examples of this in his recent History of England. We select two of these reports, as specimens of this vexatious system of tyranny. "A groom was dressing his master's horse when the hostler came in, and said there was no Pope, but a Bishop of Rome. And the groom said, he knew there was a Pope, and the hostler and they who held his part were strong heretics, and the hostler answered that the kings grace held of this opinion; and the groom said that he was one heretic, and the king was another, and said moreover, that this business had never been, if the king had not married Anne Boleyn." All honor to the noble independence of the honest groom, who no doubt spoke the general popular sentiment, how munchi soever he may have suffered for telling the truth! The other example regards the abbot of Woburn Abbey: "In the spring of 1537, Woburn Abbey was in high confusion. The brethren were trimming to the times, anxious merely for secular habits, wines, and freedom. In the midst of them Robert Hobbes, the abbot, who earls' sons, twe!ve: barons and knights, eighteen; abbotts, prior, monkq, and priests, seventy-nine; of the more common sort, between one religion and another. hitcqe mt11idetde."-(I1ist. Ch. England, 2 227, note, p. 67.) Quoted in Dublin Review, for July, 1858, p. 451. 88 101 102 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. in the past year had accepted the oath of supremacy in a momer of weak- ness, was lying worn down with sorrow, unable to endure the burden of his conscience. On Passion Sunday, dying, as it seemed of a broken heart, ho called the fraternity to his side, and exhorted them to charity, and prayed them to be obedient to their vows. Hard eyes and mocking lips were all the answers of the monks of Woburn. Then, being in great agony, the ab- bot arose from his bed, and cried out, and said: 'I would to God, that it would please Him to take me out of this wretched world, and I would I had died with the good men that have suffered death for holding with the Pope.' Abbot Hobbes had his wish. Spiteful tongues carried his words to the council, and the law, remorseless as destiny, flung its meshes over him on the instant. He was swept up to London, and interrogated in the usual form, 'Was he the king's subject, or the Pope's' He stood to his faith like a man, and the scaffold swallowed him up." The "law" indeed! And who made the law A remorse- less king and a terror-stricken and subservient parliament. Mr. Froude can not defend the atrocious tyranny and unut- terable cruelty of Henry in thus ferreting out and punishing with death men's secret thoughts and opinions, on the shallow plea that he had the law on his side, with such minions as Cranmer and Cromwell to execute its bloody enactments; while such a man as Russell was looking eagerly on, waiting for the death of the abbot and the dissolution of the Abbey of Woburn, to pounce upon it and make it all his own.t Out upon a law which made men traitors to their country because they would not prove traitors to their God. Out upon a law, which thus threw a close network of espionage over all England, and made a once free people a nation of trembling slaves, and which, not content with enslaving the body, sought also to degrade and enslave the soul! "The slightest whisper of sedition Was considered as sedition; and sedition was construed as treason. Nay, a statute passed making it a capital offense for the hearer of aught seditious not to denounce the speaker! The tyrant, conscious that the nation was disgusted with his impious assumption of suprem Quoted in Dublin Review; ibid. t Lord John Russell still holds Woburn Abbey and its ample lands. TIE SIX ARTICLES. 103 acy, and yearned for the lost allegiance to Rome, set on foot by means of his minions, a detestable system of espionage, which made it almost as perilous to hear as to utter a word against his measures, which paralysed the voices of all but the few brave enough to die, making every man certain to feel that a whisper might betray him to death, and hushing the tongues of all into a terror-stricken silence, or moving them to a servile tone of adulation." V. What was the character of the Reformation under Henry VIII., and under his successor Edward VI. The answer to this is obvious. Those who, in the face of the facts so far stated, still maintain that the Anglican church reformed itself must be strangely forgetful of history, or con- tent with a very slight foundation for their theory. During the first period of its existence as a separate organization, the Anglican church was just what Henry VIII. and his subser- vient parliament chose to make it, neither more nor less. And the same may be said of its character during the subse- quent period. Its standard of belief and practice varied with the ebb and flow of royal or parliamentary orthodoxy in each succeeding reign. Under Henry particularly, the bishops and the convocation of the clergy bad only as much to do with deciding as to the shape which the new church was to assume, as the king chose to give them. This was about as much as the imperious master chooses to give to his trembling slaves, who are expected to hear and obey, nor to dare proffer advice as to what is best to be done without being first asked by their master! Notwithstanding his defection from the Church, Henry was still attached to the ancient faith, and he decided to retain its principal articles, as well as the ancient worship. In 1536, he compiled, with the assistance of his theologians, a book of "Articles," which Cromwell presented for signature to the Dublin Review-ibid. ANGLICAN REFORMATION-HENRY VIII. convocation, and which the members, of course, subscribed without a word. These articles declare that a belief in the three ancient creeds, the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian, is necessary to salvation; that the sacraments of haptism, penance, and the holy Eucharist are the ordinary means of salvation; and that the use of Masses, the honoring and invoking of saints, and the usual ceremonies of the pub lie service "are highly profitable, and ought to be retained.' 4 Thie lay vicar general accordingly issued his injunction to the bishops and clergy, requiring that these articles should be explained to the people, should be accepted by all and be reduced to practice. This was followed by a fuller exposition of doctrine, entitled, "The Godly and Pious Institution of the Christian Man,' issued by the convocation on the com- nand of the king. This document strongly denies the possi- l)ility of salvation out of the Catholic Church ; and it incul- cates slavish passive obedience to the king, in the same breath with which it denounces the papal supremacy.t A few vears later, the famous Six Articles-the Bloody Six, as M1r. Fronde calls them-were sanctioned by parlia- ment, after having been first duly approved by the royal head of the church, who had selected theml in place 4t- '.t s presented by one section of the committee of convocation Headed by Cranmer. They inculcated the real presence of Christ in the holy Eucharist, the sufficiency of communion tunder one kind, the celibacy of the clergy as obligatory by the divine law, the binding force of vows of chastity, the lawfulness of low Masses, and the obligation of auricular (1onfession. The penalties annexed to the rejection or viola- tion of these articles were terrible. Those who rejected the :eal presence were punished with death, without the privilege 4 abjuring; while the rejection of any of the other five articles was made a felony, with death for the second offense. W Wilk-ins Concil. iii, 804, apud Lingard, vol. vi, p. 272-3. f Ibid. t It is even probable that Henry composed them himself, at least in subs stance. See Lingard, vol. vi, p. 292, note. 104 CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS BUTCHERED. 105 The last clause in the act is singular: that persons 3orntempt- uously refusing to confess at the usual times, or to receive the sacrament, shall for the first offense be fined and imprisoned, and for the second be adjudged felons, and suffer the punish- ment of felony. Cranmer did not believe in all, if in any, of these six articles; in direct opposition to two of them, and in contra- vention of his own solemn priestly vows, lie had secretly mar- ried a wife whom he still retained at his palace; yet he subscribed them all, and aided in their bloody execution. With his assistance, if not at his instigation, Catholics and Protestants were executed together; the former perishing as traitors for denying the king's supremacy, and the latter being burned at the stake as heretics for rejecting either the real presence or some other article which the king and his parliament had chosen to adopt, as the faith of the new Anglican church for the time being. In one instance, three Catholics-Powel, Abel, and Featherstone-and three Prot- estants-Barnes, Garret, and Jerome-were coupled two and two, Catholic and Protestant, on the same hurdles, and were thus led out to execution !t And if the bloody executions did not become more -general, it was only because universal terror had stricken men with dumbness, and few dared even whis- per dissent. Such was the emancipation of the mind, and the freedom of thought which the Reformation first gave to England ! In such a state of things, can we wonder that the general popular discontent, so long kept down by a system of terror- ism, should at length, like a smothered volcano, break out into open insurrection At one time-in 1536, shortly after the suppression of the lesser monasteries-the whole north of England rose in rebellion, while the south was kept down by Statutes of Realm, iii, 739-741, apud Lingard, Ibid. f See Ibid, p. 309, and note. The Catholics were hanged and quartered as traitors, the Protcestants burned as heretics. 106 ANGLICAN REFORMATION -HENRY 7111. main force. " From the borders of Scotland to the Lune and Humnber, the inhabitants had generally bound themselves by oath to stand by each other for the love which they bore to Almighty God, His faith, the holy Church, and the mainten- ance thereof." This formidable insurrection, called the " Pil- grimnage of Grace," was finally suppressed, partly by threats and violence, and partly by a general pardon, with the solemn promise of the king to the insurgents that their grievances should be speedily heard and discussed in a parlia- ment to be assembled at York; a promise which the king afterwards, however, violated without scruple. The suppression of the northern insurrection was followed by that of the greater monasteries, which had hitherto been spared. A commission was appointed, under the presidency of the earl of Sussex, to examine into the conduct of the monks; and as the commissioners made the inquiry with the express intention of suppressing these great houses, and of appropriating their lands and revenues to the king and to themselves, there could be from the very beginning but little doubt of its result. Guilty or innocent, the monks were to be expelled, because the king and his hungry lords wanted their property! Thus, a most searching investigation was twice made into the conduct of the abbot and monks of Furness, but nothing was elicited to criminate them; still the abbot was compelled by blandishments and menaces to relinquish the property to Henry by a regular deed, which his brethren also very reluctantly signed. And the same may be said of Whal- ley and other great monasteries in the north of England. When threats failed, bribery was tried, and finally open vio- lence was used whenever it was found necessaryt So it happened that, by one unhallowed means or another, the whole vast property which the piety of ages had devoted to religion. to learning, and to charity, was swept away forever by sacrilegious avarice stimulating royal tyranny. , See, for full details, ibid., vol. vi, p. 261, seqq Lingard, p. 254, seqq. THE BOY-KING AND CRANIMER. EDWARD VI. Henry died in 1547, and he was succeeded by Edward VI., his son by Jane Seymour, who was only in his ninth year. During his reign, which lasted for only six years, the leaders of the new religion had full scope. The terrors inspired by the iron will of Henry had ceased, and Crarimer, who occupied the principal place and wielded the most influ- ence in the royal council, could now hope to mould to his own purposes the pliant disposition of the weak and sickly youth who nominally swayed the sceptre. He succeeded in this according to his utmost wishes. He controlled the spir- itual, while the king's uncle, the Duke of Somerset, as lord protector, ruled the temporal administration. The Reforma- tion had now a free and open field, and its leaders eagerly availed themselves of the golden opportunity. First, the older nobility, whose fortunes had been waning during the preceding reign, were now cast still more into the shade; for a new set of hungry aspirants had their fortunes still to make. These new men looked with a greedy eye on the vast remaining property of the Church; and to appease their avarice, many of the rich chantries, colleges, and free chapels which had escaped the rapacity of Henry, were now confiscated nominally for the king's, but really for their bene- fit. Then the wily Cranmer proceeded to develop his real sentiments, before cautiously concealed, as to the nature and Says Miss Strickland: "The will of Henry VIIL was as replete with seeds of strife for his subjects, as the capricious acts of his life had been. This monarch, who had, on the suppression of the monasteries, desecrated so many altars, and scattered the funds of so many mortuary chapels, and endowed chantries, in utter disregard of the intentions of the founders, whose very tombs were often violated, left, by his will, six hundred pounds per annum for Masses to be said for his soul! He had likewise enjoined his executors to orng up his son in the Catholic faith; by this he probably meant the cruel churc h of the six articles, which he had founded."-Queens of England, v, 165. 1 07 108 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-EDWARD VL measure of the Reformation to be established. The successive steps of his progress in reform are sufficiently curious. 1. lie humbly petitioned the crown to be restored to the episcopal jurisdiction, which, according to his favorite theory, had wholly ceased with the death of the late king; and most of the other bishops followed his obsequious example. 2. Through his influence, a visitation of all the dioceses of the realm was ordered, the visitors to be composed of laymen and clergymen, and during its continuance the jurisdiction of the ordinaries was to be suspended. 3. lHe composed the book of Homilies, and ordered every clerical incumbent of a church living to possess and use Erasmus' paraphrase of the New Testament. 4. The Mass was retained, for the present, until some better order of service could be devised. 5. The celibacy of the clergy was first attacked and then abolished by act of parlrament, and by the same authority communion under both kinds was enjoined, with some excep- tions. 6. In conformity with his well known opinion and practice, the parliament solemnly declared that all jurisdiction, both spiritual and temporal, is derived entirely from the king, and hence the election of bishops was withdrawn from the dean and chapters and vested wholly in the crown; and the bishops, of course, became mere state officials. 7. A year later, the Book of Common Prayer was com- pleted, and it was adopted by parliament in 1549, as having been dictated " by the aid of the Holy Ghost, with one uniform agreement," and as obligatory, instead of the Mass, through- out the kingdom, under the usual pains and penalties for non- conformity.t 8. Finally, the articles of religion, originally forty-two in number, were prepared by Cranmer and his colleagues, and Stat. of Realm iv, 2. Apud Lingard, vol. vii, p. 24, seqq. t For an account of the Book of Common Prayer, and of its various chan ges, see note A. at the end of the present volume. CRANMER REFORMING-JOAN BOCHER BURNED. adopted by the youthful king, who a short time before his death, ordered them to be subscribed by all clergymen pos- sessed of benefices. This headlong career of innovation, so speedily entered upon and so eagerly pursued by Cranmer, in total opposition to the sentiments which he had so recently avowed, and for which he had so lately aided in sending much better men than himself to the scaffold or to the stake, did not meet with gen- eral approbation. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, would not consent to the change, and he even boldly accused Cranmer of insincerity and duplicity, in so soon abandoning the belief which lie had avowed during the reign of Henry. He wrote to the vacillating prelate as follows: "Which if had been so" (if the doctrine in Henry the eighth's book had been erroneous) "I ought to think your grace would not, for all princes christened, being so high a bishop as ye be, have yielded unto. For-obedire oportet Deo magis quam hominibus. (It is better to obey God than men.) And therefore, after your grace hath four years continually lived in agree- ment of that doctrine, under our late sovereign lord, now so suddenly after death to write to me that his highness was seduced, it is, I assure you, a very strange speech.' It was difficult to answer such an argument, and danger- ous to deal with so able an adversary. Accordingly, Gardiner was silenced by being sent to the Tower, where he remained closely confined till the death of Edward, and the succession of Mary. Others who had the boldness to judge for them- selves, and to dissent from Cranmer, encountered an even sterner fate. Commissions were repeatedly issued by the royal council, appointing Cranmer and " several other prelates, and certain distinguished divines and civilians, inquisitors of heretical pravity."t The inquisitors apprehended and brought to trial many persons, both Protestant and Catholic. Among the former, was a poor, weak-minded fanatic Joan Bocher; a woman who had deserved well of the Reformation Stry-pe's Cranmer. App., p. 74. See Lingard, vol. vii, p. 20, note. f Ibid., p. 72. 109 110 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-EDWARD VI. by her previous zeal in the cause of the new doctrines. Ye' she was condemned to be burned as a heretic, and was ac- cordingly so executed a year later-in May, 1550. The reason of the delay was the reluctance of Edward to sign the death- warrant. The boy-king felt a scruple about sending the poor woman unprepared to the judgment seat of God, and thereby endangering her eternal salvation. It required all Cran- mer's eloquence to overcome the reluctance of the youthful monarch, and to harden his tender heart against the cry of pity; but he succeeded at length in securing this result. The archbishop seems to have had some personal feelings in the matter; for at her trial and after her condemnation, Joan had twitted him and his colleagues with their inconsist- ency and duplicity, in the following energetic strain: "It is a goodly matter to consider your ignorance. It was not long ago that you burned Anne Askew for a piece of bread, (deny- ing the real presence) and yet came yourselves soon after- wards to believe and profess the same doctrine for which you burned her; and now, forsooth, you will needs burn me for a piece of flesht and in the end will come to believe this also, when you have read the Scriptures, and understand them. 'I Such an argument as this could not well be answered but by the stake, the sight of which, however, did not change in the least, much less convert poor Joan. She cried out to the Speaking of Edward VL and Cranmer, in this connection, Hallam says: Yet in one memorable instance he had shown a milder spirit, struggling against Cranmer to save a fainatical woman from the punishment of heresy. This is a stain upon Cranmer's memory, which nothing but his own death could have lightened! (obliterated "')-Constit. Hist. p. 64, sup. cit. t This determined Protestant female theologian persisted to the last in maintaining, that "Christ did not take flesh of the outward man of the Virgin, because the outward man was conceived in sin, but by the consent of the inward man which was undefiled.,, What she really meant by this jargon, it were hard to say; but at any rate she was but following her own clearly guarantied right of private judgment, and was certainly far better than tnose who burned her. t Ibid. p. 73. Wilkins Concil., vol. iv, p. 39-42. BARBAROUS LAW-POPULAR INSURREMtIONS. preacher Dr. Scorey, who accompanied her to execution and sought to convert her from her heresy, that "lie lied like a rogue, and had better go home and study the scripture." And so she perished; one out of a thousand evidences which history presents, to show how far the right of private judg- ment was guarantied even to Protestants by the Reformation! How very hard-hearted and cruel the English nation was fast becoming, or had already to a great extent become, under the influence of the Reformation, may be inferred from a most barbarous and unchristian act passed by the first parliament which was assembled under Edward VI. We refer to the cruel law against mendicants; a class that had been formerly charitably fed at the gates of the monasteries, but now, since the suppression of these benevolent establishments, wandered in hungry crowds over the country. To abate this nuisance, as it was considered, the parliament enacted, that "whosoever 'lived idly and loiteringly for the space of three days,' came under the description of a vagabond, and was liable to the following punishment. Two justices of the peace might order the letter V. to be burnt on his breast, and adjudge him to serve the informer two years, as his slave. His master was bound to provide him with bread, water, and refuse meat; might fix an iron ring round his neck, arm, or leg, and was authorized to compel him 'to labor at any work, however vile it might be, by beating, chaining, or otherwise.' If the slave absented himself a fortnight, the letter S. was burnt on his cheek or forehead, and he became a slave for life; and if he offended a second time in like manner, his flight subjected him to the penalties of felony."t This barbarous statute remained in force for two years, du- ring the first fervor of Cranmer's Reformation! No wonder the English people sighed for the good old Catholic times, when charity was cultivated as a virtue, and poverty was deemed no crime, but a misfortune to awaken Wilkins, Con. iv, 39-42. t Stat. of Realm, iv, 5-Apud Ling., vii, 24-5. illl 112 ANGLICAN REFORMKC 1ON-EDWARD VI. compassion and elicit free and bountiful relief. No wonder the people all cried out for the restoration of the monasteries, which had for long centuries afforded so great and so general a relief to popular indigence and afflictions, both spiritual and corporal. No wonder they cried out, in their honest indigna tion, against the rapacity and hard-heartedness of the sacrile- gious harpies, who, under pretense of reforming God's Church, had seized by violence upon these time-honored and sacred nurseries of religion and learning and ever-flowing fountains of charity. No wonder that the popular patience was com- pletelv exhausted, when the last indignity was attempted to be put upon them by force-the total abolition of the holy Mass, and the substitution therefor of the cold and chilling service of the Common Prayer Book. The people rose in vast masses throughout the kingdom; the insurrections under Henry were as nothing compared to those which now broke out under Edward. But unfortunately, though they had sufficient numbers, they had no sufficient or- ganization and no able leaders. They were put down in detail, and butchered in immense numbers by the aid of foreign German and Italian troops! Butchery by foreign swords and bayonets, was followed by wholesale executions under native judges; and it is estimated that the battle-field and the scaffold together swallowed up no less than four thousand victims! Martial law was proclaimed, and its sudden and awful awards were executed without remorse or scruple by the new lords Russell and Grey, who were greatly interested in establishing the new order of things, as their titles were new, and based solely on the sacrilegious spoliation of the Church. Against the foreign soldiery led by such men, vain were the efforts of the popular leader Ket-the tanner of the county of Norfolk-who, in the name of the " common people," issued his proclamation to this effect: that he waged war, for the ancient liberties of England, against the new lords who sought to change the established order, "who con- founded things sacred and profane, and regarded nothing but FOREIGN SOLDIERY EMPLOYED-STATE OF MORALS. 113 the enriching of themselves with the public treasure, that they might riot in it during the public calamity." The friends of the ancient order of things were put down by the strong arm of the government, which, in this instance, employed for the purpose fbreign bayonets and lances; and the voice of the poor was smothered by the violence of the rich-rich precisely because they had robbed the Church, and thereby left the poor without resource. That the bulk of the English people were totally opposed to the change of religion, especially under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and that the change was forced on them by foreign bayonets, is freely admitted by Mr. Hallam; who, after saying that in the towns many were favorable to the new opinions, writes as follows : "But the common people, especially in remote counties, had been used to an implicit reverence for the Holy See, and had suffered comparatively little by its impositions(!). They looked up also to their own teachers, as guides in faith; and the main body of the clergy were certainly very reluctant to tear themselves, at the pleasure of a disappointed monarch, in the most dangerous crisis of religion, from the bosom of Catholic unity. They com- plied indeed with all the measures of government far more than men of rigid conscience could have endured to do; but many, who wanted the courage of More and Fisher, were not far removed from their way of thinking." Again: "But an historian (Burnet,) whose bias was certainly not unfavorable to Protestantism, confesses that all endeavors were too weak to overcome the aversion of the people toward reformation, and even intimates that German troops were sent for from Calais, on account of the bigotry (!) with which the bulk of the nation adhered to the old superstition (!). This is a somewhat humiliating admission, THAT THE PROTESTANT FAITH WAS IMPOSED UPON OCR ANCESTORS BY A FOREIGN ARIMY."t Constit. History of England, p. 49. t Ibid., p. 62.-He quotes Burnet (vol. iii, pp. 190, 196;) and adds this testimony of the unscrupulous lord Paget from Strype, (vol. ii, Appendix, 11. H.:)-" The use of the old religion is forbidden by a law, and the use of the new is not yet printed in the stomachs of eleven out of twelve parts of the realm, whatever countenance men may make outwardly, to please them VOL. IT.-1O 114 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-EDWARD VI. The state of morals which ensued in England, in conse- quence of all this native and foreign violence to force upon the people the recent innovations in religion, was truly de- plorable. Divorces were granted with the greatest facility. The founder of the Anglican church had set a brilliant ex- ample in this respect, and the determined opposition thereto of the hated Roman Pontiff was rather a recommendation than an impediment. "Nor were the national morals improved, if we may judge from the por- traits drawn by the most eminent of the reformed preachers. They assert that the sufferings of the indigent were viewed with indifference by the hard-heartedness of the rich; that in the pursuit of gain, the most barefaced frauds were avowed and justified; that robbers and murderers escaped punishment by the partiality of juries; that church-livings were given to laymen, or converted to the use of the patrons; that marriages were repeat- edly dissolved by private authority; and that the haunts of prostitution were multiplied beyond measure. how far credit should be given to such representations, may perhaps be doubtful. Declamations from the pulpit are not the best historical evidence. Much in them must be attributed to the exaggeration of zeal. mpuch to the affectation of eloquence. Still when these deductions have been made, when the invectives of Knox and Lever, of Gilpin and Latimer, have been reduced by the standard of reason and experience, enough will remain to justify the conclusion, that the change of religious polity, by removing many of the former restraints upon vice, and enervating the authority of the spiritual courts, had given a bolder front to licentiousness, and opened a wider scope to the indulgence of criminal passion.s As the suppression of the monasteries, and the partition of their property and revenues among the hungry courtiers of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., were among the principal, if not the principal means by which the change of religion in England was successfully accomplished; and as this spolia- in whom they see the power resteth."-Du Bellay, the French ambassador, had written, as early as 1528, that a revolt was expected on account of the unpopularity of the divorce.-Ibid., p. 49. Lingard, vol. vii, p. 107-8. He refers to Strype, as having collected several passages from the invectives of the early reformed preachers on this subject. SPOLIATION OF MONASTERIES. 115 tion did more, perhaps, than any thing else to shape the destinies of the English Refirmation and the subsequent poli- tical policy of England; we ean not probably better close this chapter, than by endeavoring to present a condensed analysis of what a very competent, and certainly an unex- ceptionable witness-the author of the Constitutional History of England-says upon this subject, which he examines at considerable length, and in many of its bearings. Mr. Hal- lam says: "This summary spoliation led to the great northern rebellion soon after- wards. It was, in fact, not merely to wound the peoples' strongest impres- sions of religion, and especially those connected with their departed friends, for whose souls prayers were offered in the monasteries, but to deprive the indigent, in many places, of succor, and the better rank of hospitable recep- tion. This, of course, was experienced in a far greater degree at the dis- solution of the larger monasteries, which took place in 1540."1 The confiscation of tmonastic and clhurch property was, moreover, a stroke of policy no less adroit than it was un- principled. It would appear, that the same Cromwell, who had so cunningly suggested the bringing of the clergy under the operation of the terrible prwmunire in order to frighten them into acquiescence in the kings views, also suggested this iniquitous measure of seizing on the property and reve- nues of the venerable monastic establishments. Says Hallam: " It has been surmised that Cromwell, in his desire to promote the Refor- mation, advised the king to make this partition of abbey lands among the nobles and gentry, either by grant, or by sale on easy terms, that, being thus bound by the sure ties of private interest, they might always oppose any return towards the dominion of Rome. In Mary's reign accordingly, her parliament, so obsequious in all matters of religion, adhered with a firm grasp to the possession of church lands; nor could the papal supremacy be re-established until a sanction was given to their enjoyment. And we as- ribe part of the zeal of the same class in bringing back and preserving the reformed church under Elizabeth to a similar motive; not that these gentle- men were hypocritical pretenders to a belief they did not entertain, but that according to the general laws of human nature, they gave a readier reception to truths which made their estates more secure." t Constit. Hist., p. 51. t Ibid., p. 55. 116 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-EDWARD VI. Most of the present aristocratic families of England owe the foundation of their princely fortunes to the suppression of the monasteries, and to the share which their ancestors received in the sacrilegious spoliation of the same: "Those families indeed, within or without the bounds of the peerage, which are now deemed the most considerable, will be found, with no great number of exceptions, to have first become conspicuous under the Tudor line of kings, and if we could trace the titles of their estates, to have ac- quired no small portion of them, mediately or immediately from monastic or other ecclesiastical foundations.` Tlhe suppression of the monasteries was a measure of state policy under another point of view: " The fall of the mitred abbots changed the proportions of the two estates which constitute the upper house of parliament.. Though the number of abbots and priors to whom the writs of summons were directed varied con- siderably in different parliaments, they always, joined to the twenty-one bishops, preponderated over the temporal peers. It was no longer possible for the prelacy to offer an efficacious opposition to the reformation they ab- horred. Their own baronial tenure, their high dignity as legislative counsel- ors of the land, remained; but one branch, as ancient and venerable as their own thus lopped off, the spiritual aristocracy was reduced to play a very second- ary part in the councils of the nation. Nor could the Protestant religion have easily been established by legal methods under Edward and Elizabeth, without this previous destruction of the monasteries Mr. Hallam admits, that many enlightened and just-minded Protestants have always been and are still strongly opposed to the sacrilegious destruction of the monasteries; though he thinks they are not consistent with their faith in their reason- ing on the subject: "Those who, professing an attachment to that religion (Protestant,) have swollen the clamor of its adversaries against the dissolution of foundations that existed only fbr the sake of a different faith and worship, seem to me not Constit. Hist. p. 5Gi. Hallam makes a feeble attempt to show that this sac- rilegious spoliationof the monastic establishments was ultimately beneficial to the nation. Its chief, if not only benefit certainly accrued to the families of the new nobility and gentry, not to the people; and if the former constituted the nation, he is in so far right, not otherwise. t Ibid., p. 52. HALLAM'S TESTIMONY-POOR LAWS. 117 veryconsistent or enlightened reasoners. In some, the love of antiquity produces a sort of finciful illusion; and the sight of those buildings, so magnificent in their prosperous hour, so beautiful even in their present ruin, begets a sympathy for those who founded and inhabited them. In many, the violent courses of confiscation and attainder which accompanied the great revolution excite so just an indignation, that they either forget to ask whether the end might not have been reached by more laudable means, or condemn the end itself either as sacrilege, or at least as an atrocious viola- tion of the rights of property. Others again, who acknowledge that the monastic discipline can not be reconciled with the modern system of religion, or with public utility, lament only that these ample endowments were not bestowed upon ecclesiastical corporations, freed from the monkish cowl, but still belonging to that spiritual profession to whose use they were originally consecrated. And it was a very natural theme of complaint at the time, that such abundant revenues as might have sustained the dignity of the crown, and supplied the means of public defense without burdening the subject. had served little other purpose than that of swelling the fortunes of rapacious courtiers, and had left the king as necessitous and craving as before." Though Hallam labors to prove that the poor laws of England did not, at least necessarily, grow out of the sup- pression of the monasteries, yet the facts he alleges would go far towards proving that such was precisely their origin. At any rate, there is a remarkable coincidence in point of time between the vast multiplication of the destitute poor and the consequent laws for their relief, and the closing of the monastic establishments which had so long munificently aided in feeding and clothing them. There were no poor laws in the Catholic times; they became indispensable, and were multi- plied to an alarming and burdensome extent, immediately after the rise of the English Reformation. These two facts are undeniable. The first parliamentary act for the relief of the indigent poor was passed in 1535, the 27th of Henry VIII.; others followed under Edward VI. and Elizabeth; Constit. Hist., p. 55-6. This single faict, which is fully admitted, goes far towards overthrowing the entire theory of Hallam about the " public utility " accruing from the high-handed confiscation of the monastic property. To say nothing of the sacrilege, the injustice of the proceeding, as well as its motive, was atrocious. 39 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-EDWARD VI. until the system. grew into the enormous proportions which it has since nlaintained. Finally, there is not the slightest doubt that the Reforma- tion, chiefly through the additional patronage growing out of the suppression of the monasteries, greatly increased the prerogative of the crown, to the proportionate detriment of p npular liberty. The nobles became sycophants and the people slaves. This is not denied by Mr. Hallamn, who writes: "Nor were the nobles of this age more held in subjection by terror than by the still baser influences of gain. Our law of forfeiture was well devised to stimulate as well as to deter; and HIe'nry VilI. better pleased to slaugh- ter the frey than to gorge himself with the carcass, distributed the spoils it brought him among those who helped him in the chase. rhe dissolution of the monasteries opened a more abundant source of munificence; every courtier, every peer, looked for an increase of wealth froin grants of eccle- siastical estates, and naturally thought that the king's favor would be most readilv gained by an implicit conformity to his will. N'othing, however, seems more to have sustained the arbitrary rule of llcnry VIII., than the jealousy of the two religious parties formed in his time, and who for all the latter years of his life were maintaining a doubtful and emulous contest for his favor."-t Such. then, was the character of the Anglican Reforma- tion, as first introduced by Henry VIII., and as subsequently developed by Cranmer and his colleagues under his youthful successor Edward VI. Such were the means by which it was forced on a reluctant people. The three great concupiscences, which according to the inspired apostle, govern the world, had certainly more to do with the religious chiaiiges thus introduced than any sincere desire for reformation in doctrine or morals. " The concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes. and the pride of life," were manifestly the ani- mating principles of the Reformation in England. Had these fearful passions been wanting, or been properly governed, there would most certainly have been either no Reformation at all in England, or surely not such a one as was actually See Constit. tlst., p. 55-6. t See Ibid. 118 TESTIMONY OF MACAULAY AND MACRKITOSH. 119 accomplished. As Macaulay caustically remarks, speaking of the Anglican Reformation : "Here zeal was the tool of worldliness. A king, whose character may be best described by saying that he was despotism itself personified, un- principled ministers, a rapacious aristocracy, a servile parliament-such were the instruments by which England was delivered from the yoke of R1ome. The work which had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, wa.s continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest. Sprung from brutal passion, nurt ure'i by selfish policy, the Reformation in England displayed little of what had in other countries distinguished'it." A very prejudiced Protestant historian-AMackintosh- furnishes the following estimate of Henry VIII., the chief actor in the first part of the Reformation drama in England: "Had he died in the twentieth year of his reign, his name might have come down to us as that of a festive and martial prince, with much of the applause which is lavished on gayety and enterprise, and of which some fragments, preserved in the tradition of the people, too long served to screen the misrule of his latter years from historical justice. In the divorce of his inoffensive wife, the disregard of honor, of gratitude, of the ties of long union, of the sentiments which grow out of the common habitudes of domestic union, and whiclh restrain the greatest number of imperfect husbands from open outrage, threw a deeper stain over the period employed in negotiating and effecting that unjustifiable and unmanly separation ..... The execution of More marks the moment of the transition of his government from jovial- ity and parade to a species of atrocity which distinguishes it from, and per- haps above, any other European -tyranny . He is the only prince of modern times who carried judicial murder into his bed, and imbrued his hands in the blood of those whom he had caressed. Perhaps no other moD- arch, since the emancipation of women from polygamy, put to death two wvives on the scaffold for infidelity, divorced another, whom he owned to be a faultless woman, after twenty-four years of wedded friendship, and rejected a fourth without imputing blame to her, from the first impulse of personal disgust"f Miscellan., p. 71. Review of Hallam's Constit. Hist. f Mackintosh, History of England, p. 237-s. American Edit. REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. CHAPTER II. AARY; THE CATHOLIC RELIGION RESTORED. What Mary and Elizabeth did-Macaulay's testimony-Current opinion- What we propose to establish-Mary's accession-Conspiracy and rebel- lion-The reformed preachers-The popular enthusiasm-Mary resolves to restore the ancient religion-Her constant devotion to it-Ridley's at- tempt to convert her-Steps by which the restoration was accomplished- Deprived Catholic bishops re-instated - The acts of Edward VI. on religion repealed-A compromise with the Holy See concerning church property-The old Church restored-Solemn scene-Cardinal Pole-His address-Chancellor Gardiner's last speech and death-The queen's noble disinterestedness-The spoilers retain their prey-" Bloody Mary "-The persecution-The principle of intolerance generally avowed and acted on by early Protestants-The "original sin" of the Reformation-Hallam and Miss Strickland-Number of victims-Causes which provoked the persecution-Political motives and action-Insurrections and rebellions- Mary not naturally cruel-Proofs of her clemency-Her merciful treat- ment of Elizabeth-Contrasted with the latter's treatment of Mary of Scots-Candid testimony of Agnes Strickland-Mary restored the British Constitution together with Catholicity-Mary's merciful treatment of Cranmer-The career of this man dissected-His seven recantations- His death-Macaulay's portraiture-Other provocations and palliating cir- eumstances-Bonner and Gardiner-And other Catholic bishops-Miss Strickland's theory on the persecution-Cardinal Pole-Mary's difficulty with the Pope-Bishop Short's estimate of Mary. MARY restored, Elizabeth again destroyed the Catholic Church in England. To attain their respective ends, both resorted to measures of severity; the former for more than three years, the latter during the more than forty-four years of her protracted reign. But history, as it has been generally written since the Reformation, has presented very different, in fact, opposite portraitures of the two sister queens. Mary has been usually painted in the most odious colors, and her (120) WHAT WE PROPOSE TO EXAMIN.12 name has been handed down to the execration of posterity with the epithet bloody attached to it; while Elizabeth has been extravagantly praised as the model queen, if not as the model woman of English history. The motives which have led to this relative estimate are very apparent. Elizabeth may be viewed as the real found- ress of the church of England, as it now exists. Her long and vigorous administration consolidated the new order of things, and amply secured the new possessors in their titles to the church property, which had been confiscated during the two reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. Hence it was obviously the interest of all those who adhered to the new Anglican church, and more especially of that very large number of Englishmen who had been enriched by the change in religion, to make every effort to exalt Elizabeth, and to blacken Mary. The sacrilegious spoilers and their descend- ants, as well as their numerous dependent aiders and abettors, judged rightly, that such a course would answer the double purpose of justifying themselves in public opinion, anxd of rendering more stable the immense fortunes which they had amassed by the religious revolution. In his Review of Nares' Memoirs of Lord Burghley (Miscellaneous Essays, American Edition, p. 174,) Macaulay writes as follows of the Angli can Reformation: " The history of the Reformation in England is full of strange problems. The most prominent and extraordinary phenomenon which it presents to us, is the gigantic strength of the government contrasted with the feebleness of the religious parties. During the twelve or thirteen years which followed the death of Henry VIII., the religion of the state was thrice changed. Protestantism was established by Edward; the Catholic Church was restored by Mary; Protestantism was again established by Elizabeth. The faith of the nation seemed to depend on the personal inclinations of the sovereign. Nor was this alL An established church was then, as a matter of course, a persecuting church. Edward persecuted Catholics. Mary persecuted Protestants. Elizabeth persecuted Catholics again. The father of those three sovereigns had enjoyed the pleasure of persecuting both sects at once; and had sent to death on the same hurdle, the heretic who denied the real presence, and the traitor (!) who denied the royal supremacy." VOL. II.-1 1 121 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MARY. We propose to examine the soundness of this verdict so generally rendered by English Protestant history; and to do so with some order, we will inquire in successive chapters; firstly, under what circumstances and in what way Mary restored the Catholic religion in England; secondly, how Elizabeth subverted it, and what was the character of the new Anglican system which she substituted in its place; and thirdly, we will briefly compare the character and acts of these two queens. Under these three heads, we shall range whatever our pur- pose and scope may seem to require us to state or establish in regard to the religious events and changes which occurred during these two important reigns. Our preseit chapter will be devoted to the reign of Mary. Mary came to the throne in the midst of political commotion and of threatened revolution. The ambitious Northumber- land, who had succeeded the fallen Somerset as lord Pro- tector of the realm, had, in conjunction with the royal coun- cil, deliberately but secretly organized a conspiracy to set her aside, and to place on the throne her cousin, the youthful Lady Jane Gray. Cranmer, a leading and most influential member of the council, yielded his powerful co-operation towards con- cocting and carrying out this nefarious scheme. Edward VI. died July 6, 1553; but his death was kept secret, in order to enable the conspirators to carry out their design, before the people could have time to rise and organize in defense of the rightful heiress. An essential part of the plan was to seize on Mary, and imprison, perhaps even make way with her, before the death of Edward should be publicly known. This design was luckily frustrated. The earl of Arundel, a member of the council, thought himself bound in loyalty to give Mary timely warning of the impending danger; and accordingly, on the very night of Edward's death, she hastily escaped on horseback, and rode to Kenninghall in Norfolk. She fled not too soon; for that very night she would have been seized and lodged in the tower. 122 CONSPIRACY THWARTED-MARY'S FIRM FAlls. 123 The conspirators, though thus sadly disappointed and baulked of their purpose, had gone too far to recede. They hastened the denouement as rapidly as possible. They determined to make the contemplated political revolution a matter of re- ligion. For this purpose, they earnestly invoked the aid of the reformed preachers to stir up popular prejudice, and from their pulpits to arouse the people to a sense of the threatened danger to their liberties and property, if Mary should ascend the throne and the Catholic religion be restored. The preachers responded to the call with willing alacrity. Cranmer led the way and threw the whole weight of his powerful influence, and of his versatile talents and skill in the management of business, into the scale of the new line of succession. Ridley preached a strong sermon, full of bitter invectives against Mary, and of denunciation of "Popery," at St. Paul's cross; while Latimer entered the lists in his own more coarse and impassioned style of oratory, well calculated to awaken the prejudices and to excite the passions of the more ignorant among the populace. But the attempt to create popular excitement, by combining disloyalty and rebellion with the new religion, signally failed. The loyalty of the people was still too deeply rooted; the memory of the virtuous and ill-treated Catharine was still too fresh; and the public sympathy for the virtuous mother des- cended too warmly to the scarcely less aggrieved daughter, to allow any general or deep popular feeling to be aroused against her, or awakened in favor of her rival. ThDe burning words of Ridley and Latimer made but little impression on the minds or hearts of their hearers; and when Mary unfurled her banner, the population rose in mass and bore her in triumph to the throne, while the armies of her enemies. till lately so formidable, melted away at her approach. The people were heartily tired of the perpetual changes in reli- gion, as well as of the storms and insurrections, of the rob- beries and butcheries, which had accompanied or followed each successive religious innovation. They sought repose, 124 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-M1ARY. and they hoped to obtain it under the daughter of the venera- ted and beloved Catharine of Arragon. On ascending the throne, the first and dearest object of Mary's heart was naturally the re-establishment of the Catho- lie religion. This religion was closely associated in her mind with the memory and suffelings of her noble mother; it had been her chief solace and support during the vicissitudes, an- noyances, and troubles which had marked her lonely life since hermother's death. When all other resources for comfort had failed her, she had stood firmly by this, and had courageously withstood every menace and resisted every attempt to tear this jewel of faith from her heart. Her health might, and it did suffer, and became enfeebled under the harassing annoy- ances to which she was continually exposed; her faith could never be impaired. Mary had been frequently annoyed on the subject of religion during the reign of her father, and more particularly during that of her youthful brother. On one occasion Ridley visited her in her retirement, with a view to bring about her conversion to the new doctrines. The account of the interview, as given by Lingard from Foxe, (vol. vii, note A.) is curious and interesting; as showing on the one hand, the courteous and dignified firmness of Mary, and, on the other, the rude zeal and overweening self-righteousness of the preacher "Ridley waited on Mary, Sept. 2, 1552, and was courteously received. After dinner, he offered to preach before her in the church. She begged him to make the answer himself. He urged her again; she replied, that he might preach, but neither she, nor any of hers, would hear him. "Ridley. ' Madam, I trust you will not refuse God's word.' "Mary. ' I can not tell you what you call God's word. That is not God's word now, which was God's word during my father's time., " Ridley. 'God's word is all one in all times; but is better undeirstood andl practiced in some ages than in others.' " Mary. ' You durst not for your ears have preached that for God's word in my father's time, which you do now. As for your new books, thank God, I never read themL I never did, nor ever will do.' " Soon afterwards she dismissed him with these words: 'My lord, for your gentleness to come and see me, I thank you; but, for your offer to preach be- fore me, I thank you not.' As he retired, he drank according to custom STEPS FOR RESTORING THE ANCIENT RELIGION. 125 Yet in ringing about the change which was nearest to hex heart, she proceeded slowly and cautiously, in accordance with the advice of her cousin, the emperor Charles V., whom she had thought proper to consult on a subject of so much import- ance. She decided to do nothing without the advice of her council and the full concurrence of her parliament. We will furnish a brief summary of the successive steps by which she accomplished her object. 1. While she issued no order for the restoration of the ancient religion, she proclaimed that she had a clear right to worship God within her own palace according to the dictates of her conscience, and she made no secret of the gratification which the imitation of her example by others would afford her, as the faith of her fathers was very dear to her heart. 2. According to the award made by a new court of dele- gates, the Catholic bishops who had been forcibly deprived with Sir Thomas Wharton, the steward of her household, But suddenly his conscience smote him. 'Surely,' he exclaimed, 'I have done wrong. I have drunk in that house in which God's word hath been refused. I ought, if I had done my duty, to have shaken the dust off my shoes for a testimony against this house.' -Foxe, ii, 131. How very sincere and earnest Mary was in clinging to her faith, and how ready she was to sacrifice every thing, even life itself for its preserva- tion, will appear still further from her conference on the subject with her bro- ther King Edward VI., the particulars of which Miss Strickland has published: " Succeeding years have drawn the veil from ' the two hour's conference,' which was Mary's concern at court, rather than the goodly banquet. ' The lady Mary, my sister,' says young Edward, in his journal, 'came to me at Westminster, where, after salutations, she was called with my council into a chamber, where was declared how long I had suffered her Mass against my will, in the hope of her reconciliation, and how (now being no hope, which I perceived by her letters,) except I saw some short amendment, I could not bear it.' He told her, moreover, 'she was to obey as a subject, not rule as a sovereign.' She answered, 'that her soul was God's, and her faith she would not change, nor dissemble her opinion with contrary words.' She likewise offered 'to lay her head on the block in testimony of the same.' To which it appears the young king answered with some tender and generous words" -Queens of England, v. 174. ANGLICAN REF RRMATION-MARY. during the last reign, and some of whom had been imprisoned, were restored to their resp)ective sees. Gardiner was liberated from the tower, and Tunstall, Bonner, Heath, and Day were reinstated. 3. Oil the assembling of her first parliament, her earliest and most pressing solicitude was to have an act passed, by which the stain which rested on the name of her mother, and the consequent taint on the legitimacy of her own birth, might be obliterated from the statute book. 4. This accomplished by an unanimous vote, her next step was, to have an act passed, by which all the laws con- cerning religion which had been promulgated during Edward's reign were repealed, and religion was reinstated in the same c Edition in which it was at the death of Henry VIII. This act was passed with but little hesitation or difficulty; and it was carried out by the new chancellor Gardiner almost with- out opposition. The married bishops and clergy retired or were removed; and new bishops were consecrated for the vacant sees, with the secret approbation of the Roman Pontiff, with whom Gardiner had an understanding on the subject. 5. The recognition of the papal supremacy, a necessary preliminary to the full restoration of the Catholic religion, was a matter of much more delicacy and of much greater difficulty. During the two previous reigns, a new generation had grown up in a feeling of estrangement from the Holy See, and this feeling was in unison with, and had been greatly strengthened by, the hereditary jealousy of Rome, which, as we have seen, had been nurtured by repeated acts of legislation running far back into the Catholic times of the monarchy. Moreover, there was another most formidable obstacle in the way of a reunion with Rome. The confiscated monastic and church property had passed into the hands of a new and hungry body of gentry and nobility, who had built up their newly made fortunes and secured their new titles chiefly o i it as a basis. Much of this property, too, 126 THE CATHOLIC RELIGION RESTORED. had passed into other hands than thi)se who had originally seized on it, or who had received it from the royal bounty. This class of new proprietors, who had thus fattened on the spoils of the Church, was numerous, active, greedy, and influential. They had much selfishness with but little religious principle; they might yield all else, they certainly would not yield this, and it was dangerous even to try the experiment. Gardiner saw the difficulty, and he grappled with it at once with his usual ability and success. Fearing that Cardinal Pole, the newly appointed papal legate to Eng- land, might entertain scruples on the subject, hie had him detained in Flanders until lie could obtain from the Pope a promise that the holders of the church property should not be interfered with, or forced to disgorge their ill-gotten goods. Very reluctantly,the Pontiff consented to the sacrifice, with a view to prevent greater evils and to accomplish a greater good in England. It was like throwing overboard the treasures, in order to save the ship in the storm. 6. This great obstacle being removed, and the way for recon- ciliation being now fully prepared, a numerous and brilliant delegation of nobles, among whom figured conspicuously such new lords as Paget and Sir William Cecil, repaired to Brussels, and escorted the cardinal legate into England, where he was received with great pomp, and greeted with the hearty acclamations of the people. Parliament was opened, and the lords spiritual and temporal immediately This man, who showed himself so zealous for the restoration of the Catholic religion, and who took so prominent a part in the proceedings, be- came a few years later the most determined enemy and the most deadly per- secutor of Catholics; as we shall see in the next chapter. He appears to have been from the beginning a mere politician, if not a time-serving hypocrite, who made religion a cloak for his selfish purposes and interests. Mackintosh says: "Lord Paget who had been raised by Somerset, and Sir William Cecil, afterwards distinguished in a policy more acceptable to Protestants, were among the most forward persons in their respective parts of the rocon- ciliation."-History of England, edit., sup. cit., p. 287. 127 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MARY. prepared and signed an humble petition, in which they ac- knowledged their past errors, and earnestly pleaded for par- don and reconciliation with the Holy See. The cardinal legate entered the august assembly in state, and took his seat at the right of the queen, who was on her throne, with her consort Philip of Spain at her left. The chancellor Gardiner then read the petition of the lords and commons, and the le- gate delivered a lengthy and impressive address ; after which, the whole house being hushed in silence and on bended knee, he solemnly pronounced, in the name of the Pontiff, the sentence, by which he absolved "all those present, and the whole nation, and the dominions thereof, from all heresy and schism, and all judgments, censures, and penalties for that cause incurred; and restored them to the communion of holy Church, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." A responsive " Amen" resounded from every part of the hall; " and the members, rising from their knees, followed the king and queen into the chapel, where Te Deum was chanted in thanksgiving for the event."t England, after a quarter of a century's alienation, was now at length reconciled to the holy Catholic Church and to the Apostolic See ! 7. MDary not only cheerfully surrendered and renounced all claim to the spiritual supremacy, which her father had vio- lently usurped and her young brother had unwittingly retained, but she could not rest quiet in conscience, until she had re- Mackintosh (Ibid.) furnishes us the following extract from Pole's ad- dress to the parliament: "That having for many years been excluded, not only from that assembly, but also from his country, by laws enacted person- ally against himself, he should ever be grateful for the repeal of those laws; and that, in return, he was come to inscribe them denizens of heaven, and to restore them to that Christian greatness which they had forfeited by re- nouncing their fealty; that to reap so great a blessing, it only remained that they should repeal the laws which they had enacted against the Holy See, and by which they had cut themselves from the body of the faithfuL' t Poli epist. v. Foxe, 91. Journal of Commons, 38. Lingard, vii, 179. '128 GARDINER'S LAST SPELCIT. 129 stored every portion of the monastic and church property which still remained vested in the crown. Vain were the ex- postWIl:ttions of Philip, who had yielded but a reluctant consent to the measure of restitution before his departure for the con- tiient; vain were the remonstrances of her council, who pleaded the amount of her debts and the sadly impoverished condition of the royal exchequer. Nothing could satisfy her conscience, short of a restoration in full of what had been so unjustly and sacrilegiously obtained; and to all arguments she nobly answered, in words worthy her exalted mother,-that "she set more by the salvation of her soul than by ten such crowns." On the re-assembling of parliament, Gardiner made known her determination in a speech of more than usual ability and eloquence, even for himi, and which won general admiration, and was greeted with a burst of hearty applause. It is but just, however, to add, that the applause was bestowed not so much on the eloquence of the chancellor, as on the distinct- ness with which he stated, in the name of the queen and of the cardinal legate, that the newly created lords and corn- mions would not be required or even expected to follow the This was the last speech of Gardiner. It proved too great an affort for his weakened frame. He took to his chamber, and died three weeks after- wards, Nov. 12, 1555. "During his illness, he edified all around him by his piety and resigna- tion: after observing, 'I have sinned with Peter, but have not yet learned to weep bitterly with Peter,' he desired that the passion of our Saviour might be redde to him, and when they came to the denial of St. Peter, he bid them stay there; for (saythe he) 'negavi cum Petro, exivi cum Petro, sed nondum flevi anare cum Petro!l" (Lingard, vii, 113, who quotes Wardword, 48, and Pole, Ep. v. 52.) It is not true that he and Pole disagreed: the cardinal speaks of him in the highest terms of eulogy, and laments his death as a great calamity to Eng- land. In this, he did but share in the sentiments of his royal relative, Mary. Uinigard fully refutes the absurd story concerning the sudden and violent uxanner of Gardiner's death, related by Foxe on the authority of " an old wvoman." He proves by incontestable facts and dates, that the story is sim- piy absurd and impossible-a fiction wholly baseless and very clumsily con- trived. (See note D., voL vii) 130 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MIARY. noble and disinterested example of their sovereign! They would be allowed to retain their ill-gotten property; which was still further and more fully secured to them, by a recent bull of the Pope which the chancellor read, and which ex- pressly excepted them from the operation of another bull of a different tenor which had been recently issued.-It was scarce- lv to be expected that they, the queen's loyal subjects, would be gifted with her delicacy of conscience, or would feel in- clined to participate in her disinterested love of restitution! They were neophytes, as yet weak in the faith, and they should be carefully guarded from so rude a trial of their newly born orthodoxy! Mary is usually represented by modern Protestant writers as a monster of cruelty, and her name is seldom heard with- out having attached to it the odious prefix of bloody. It would seem as if she had monopolized all the cruelty, and done all the blood-shedding of her time. The charge rests entirely upon the religious persecution which unhappily raged during a portion of her reign; the atrocity of which has been too vividly portrayed. while the number of its victims has been greatly exaggerated. Far be it from us to defend persecution. Catholics, especially those who speak tile English language, have been too long the victims of persecution in all its terrible forms, to have grown enamored of it, or to feel disposed to be its advocates. It is, however, no justification of the doctrine of persecution, to state the real facts of history in regard to the executions of Protestants which took place during Mary's reign, and which were repaid, more than an hundred fold, on Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth and those of her Prot- estant successors. During the sixteenth century-and even during the two following ones-the principal Protestant sects openly defended and steadily practiced persecution as fully and to as great an extent, to say the very least, as did Cath- olics. As Lingard well remarks: "The extirpation of erroneous doctrine was inculcated as a duty by the leaders of every religious (Protestant) denomination. Mary oDly practiced " BLOODY MARY" -PROTESTANT TESTIMONY. 131 what they taught. It was her misfortune rather than her fiult, that she was not more enlightened than the wisett of her contemporaries." What the great historian of England here asserts, in lan- guage so terse and elegant, is declared even more emphatic- ally by accredited and weighty Protestant historians. We shall probably have occasion to quote others hereafter; for the present we content ourselves with the testimony of Henry Hallam and Miss Strickland. Hallam writes as follows: " The difference in this respect between the Catholics and Protestants was only in degree, and in degree there was much less difference than we are apt to believe. Persecution is the DEADLY ORIGINAL SIN OF THE REFORMED cHuRcrEs; that which cools every honest man's zeal for their cause, in pro- portion as his reading becomes more extensive. The Lutheran princes and cities in Germany constantly refused to tolerate the use of the Mass, as an idolatrous service; and this name of idolatry, though adopted in retaliation for that of heresy, answered the same end as the other, of exciting animosity and uncharitableness. The Roman worship was equally proscribed in Eng- land. Many persons were sent to prison for hearing Mass and similar offenses. The princess Mary supplicated in vain to have the exercise of her own religion at home, and Charles V. several times interceded in her behalf."t Says MIiss Strickland: "It is a lamentable trait in human nature, that there was not a sect established at the Reformation that did not avow, as part of their religious duty, the horrible necessity of destroying some of their fellow-creatures (mostly by burning alive), on account of what they severally termed heret- ical tenets. The quakers were absolutely the first Christian community, since the middle ages, who disavowed all destructiveness in their religious precepts.1 How furiously these friends to their species were persecuted, Lingard, voL vii, p. 242. t Constitutional History, sup. cit. p. 63-64. t The excellent authoress is here mistaken. As we shall see from her own testimony, to be alleged later in the present chapter, she herself admits that, under this very reign of Mary, Plowden and a respectable minority of both Catholics and Protestants in the British parliament were strongly and decidedly opposed to persecution for conscience' sake; and so also were Car- dinal Pole and the great body of Catholic bishops of the time, according to her own testimony and that of the Protestant historian Mackintosh, whom she quotes. We say nothing of Sir Thomas More and of others. 132 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MARY. the annals of New England can tell; and Great Britain, though more spi ing of their blood, was equally wasteful of their lives, for they were penned, by Cromwell and Charles II., by hundreds, in gaols-such gaols as were provided then, rife with malignant fevers and every horror. Janies IL declared to the hon. Mr. Bertie, that he had released one thousand twc hundred and thirty quakers, confined in different gaols at his accession." The following summary of undoubted, and we believe, un- disputed facts on the subject will, if we are not mistaken, exhibit the real causes and the true measure of the persecu- tion under Mary; and if we do not greatly err, they will have a tendency considerably to modify the opinion current among Protestants in regard to her supposed cruelty. 1. The persecution continued, with frequent interruptions, for less than four years: from January, 1554, to near the end of Mary's reign in November, 1558. The total number of its victims did not probably reach two hundred; all of whom, except Cranmer and a few of his immediate associates, were from the lower walks of life. The number of preachers who suffered was comparatively small; and most of these had been implicated, some as leaders, some as accessories, in the treasonable attempt to set aside Mary and to set up Lady Jane Gray. This offense, of itself, might have been visited by the death penalty, even under a milder administration and in milder times than Mary's.t Queens of England, sup. cit. v, 166, note. t See Lingard, voL vii, p. 206. Many of the preachers, not coveting the crown of martyrdom, fled to the continent of Europe; where, though they were welcomed by the Zuing- lians, they were coldly received bv the Lutherans, who viewed them as heretics, for denying the real presence in the holy Communion. Even the usually mild Melancthon, quoted by the Anglican historian Heylin, (p. 250) coarsely denounced the refugees as " martyrs of the devil ! "-" Vociferantem martyres Anglicos esse martyres diaboli." (Apud Waterworth, sup. cit. p. 283, note.) The number of those who suffered under Mary has been variously estimated by Protestant writers, as exceeding two, and not reaching three hundred. Miss SLrickland places it above two hundred. (VoL vii, p. 271.) Burnet's list comprises two hundred and eighty-four; while that of Strype PROVOCATIONS AND PALLIATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 133 2. The persecution did not commence for more than a year after her accession; and it originated in a series of most provoking causes, which, if they did not excuse, at least greatly palliated its enormity. It appears certain, that Mary was led to adopt these measures of severity by the urgent advice of hex counselors, against the natural promptings of her own gentle heart, and from political much more than from religious mo- tives. The treacherous conspiracy and stormy rebellion, through which she came to the throne, and which had well- nigh succeeded in depriving her of her hereditary right, by setting up one who was plainly an usurper; the subsequent rebellion of Wyat, which threatened to hurl her from the throne shortly after she had been seated thereon; the fear- fully agitated state of the kingdom, of which these and other later conspiracies were the index; and above all, the well known fact, that the leaders of the reformed party either actively promoted all these treasonable commotions, or at least warmly sympathized with them:-these were some of the principal reasons that led to the deplorable measure of persecution; which, Mary's counselors earnestly pleaded, was the only effectual means for securing the peace of the realm, and for upholding her throne. 3. That Mary was not naturally cruel, but rather equitable and even kind-hearted, is apparent from the following plain facts and considerations. 1. At her accession, she issued two makes the number two hundred and eighty-eight Cooper's estimate is two hundred and ninety; Speed's, two hundred and seventy-four; and that of Soames, the same as Strype's--two hundred and eighty-eight We believe that Dr. Lingard was nearer the truth, when he wrote: " After having ex- punged the names of all who perished as felons or traitors, or who died peaceably in their beds, or who survived the publication of their martyrdom. or who would for their heterodoxy have been sent to the stake by the reformed prelates themselves, had they been in possession of the power, .... almost two hundred persons perished in the flames for religious opinion." (Vol. vii, p. 207.) For the detailed lists of Burnet and Strype, and other particulars on this subject, see Waterworth, Lectures, ete., p. 282 note; also Bishop Short's History of the Church of England. 40 ANGLICAN IREFORMATION-MARY. proclamations which drew down upon her the benediction of the whole nation: by the first she restored to its standard value the coin, which had been depreciated by her predeces- sors, and she did this at the expense of the royal exchequer; by the second, she remitted a heavy tax, which had been imposed by the last parliament under her brother. 2. Though many persons, both among the lords and commoners, were deeply involved in the treason of Northumberland which had set up Lady Jane Gray, and though three of the former and four of the latter had already pleaded guilty to the charge, only Northumberland among the lords, and Gates and Palmer among the commoners, were executed. Mary willingly granted all the last requests which were made by the arch-traitor Northumberland himself; and, at the instance of Gardiner who had visited him in prison, she even pro- posed to spare his life, and she would probably have done so, had not a portion of her council strongly opposed the act of clemency, and induced-her cousin, the emperor Charles V. to write to her, " that it was not 8afe for her or the state to par- don his life." 3. Mary went further in her clemency, and even intended to spare the life of her rival Lady Jane Gray, and of her husband Guildford Dudley. For this benevolent purpose, she delayed their execution as long as possible. It was only after the putting down of Wyat's rebellion, that her was only after the putting down of Wyat's rebellion, when hei lenity was so severely censured by the emperor and by her own council, that she found herself compelled reluctantly to For the authorities clearly proving this statement, see Lingard, vii, p. 127-8, note. Northumberland's requests, which the queen granted, were: that he might be beheaded, instead of suffering as a traitor; that his chil- dren might be spared; that an able Catholic divine might be sent to prepare him for death; and that he might be allowed to confer with two lords of the council on certain secrets of state. He died a fervent Catholic, publicly stating-" not being required or moved thereto of any man, nor for any Battery or hope of life--that he died in the faith of his fathers, which am- bition alone had induced him to abandon to conform to a worship which he condemred in his heart. Ibid. 134 HER TREATMENT OF ELIZABETH. sign the death warrant; which she did on the very day after the decisive action at Temple Bar, wherein Wyat had been captured, and his followers defeated and scattered. So much clemency, under all the aggravating circumstances of the case, may be justly regarded as without a parallel in the his- tory of those times, if not in the annals of all history. 4. Mary's treatment of her half-sister, the princess Eliza- beth, is another signal proof of her natural kindness and clem- ency. Elizabeth was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, who had basely supplanted her good mother Catharine in the affections of Henry her father. Thle very sight of Elizabeth must have recalled to her mind the bitter memories of the past-her mother's disgrace and her own multiplied and protracted sufferings, from early childhood to mature womanhood. Elizabeth was, moreover, a formidable rival to the throne. Having been reared up a Protestant, she was the hope and almost the idol of the reformed party. She was well aware of this, and she had cunningly shaped her course accord- ingly. In the first rebellion-that of Nortlhumberland-Elizabeth had cautiously abstained from taking sides; had given vague and non-committal answers to those who approached her on the subject; and had remained shut up in her apartments, ready to make the best terms for herself with whichever party might prove ultimately victorious. She was also known to have sympathized with the objects of Wyat's rebellion, though she had prudently avoided committing any overt act of trea- son, by which she might be fully and legally compromised. She had certainly participated in the previous treasonable conspiracy of Courtenay; and she was strongly suspected of having been implicated in the subsequent attempts of Dudley and Cleobury, and in several other conspiracies having for their object the removal of her sister from the throne. She was, undoubtedly, a focus of insurrection, and the disaffected constantly looked up to her for encouragement, if not for positive assistance, in carrying out their treasonable designs. 135 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-M1ARY. Now, under all these aggravating circumstances, involving the strongest political and personal considerations, what was the treatment which Elizabeth received at the hands of her sovereign sister-" the bloody Mary" Against the urgent advice of her council, who recommended the at least tem- porary arrest of Elizabeth as a necessary stroke of policy, Mary on her accession sent for her, greeted her as her dear sister, treated her according to her high rank, and made her ride in state by her own side in the solemn procession at her coronation. To her council, who represented that the reform- ers looked up to Elizabeth as her rival, she generously and nobly replied; that she would endeavor to weaken their interest in her good sister, by employing every means in her power to promote her conversion to the Catholic faith. She succeeded in her purpose. Elizabeth at first exhibited some reluctance, but suddenly, after only a week's instruction, she conformed to the faith of her fathers; and to show the sin- cerity of her conversion, she publicly accompanied her royal sister to Mass, procured all the implements of Catholic wor- ship from Flanders, and set up a Catholic chapel in her own house ! Her subsequent conduct soon tested the sincerity of these early religious and sisterly professions. She secretly and cau- tiously, and we may add treacherously, availed herself of every occasion which offered, to supplant her sister, as Anne Boleyn had supplanted Catharine. Fully implicated, through inter- cepted letters and dispatches, in the conspiracy of Courtenay, she was arrested and consigned to the tower. Mary was very unwilling to yield her consent to this measure of necessary severity, and she consented to sign the warrant, only after she had in vain pleaded with each member of her council to assume the responsibility of guarding her sister in her own house. Elizabeth was soon afterwards released, chiefly Diaptches of Nouailles, the French ambassador, and of Renaud, the ambassador of Charles V. Lingard, vii, 135. 136 ELIZABETH'S NTRIGUEF. through the active influence and signal legal ability of the chancellor Gardiner; whom many modern writers nevertbe less choose to represent as her worst enemy. In spite of the advice of the emperor from Brussels; in spite of the en- treaties of the imperial party in the queen's own council, who strongly urged that she would not be safe on her throne so long as Elizabeth lived; in spite of the powerful effort made to prejudice Gardiner in her good opinion; she openly took his side which inclined towards mercy, and she followed his opinion in practice. Elizabeth was not again arrested, nor even seriously molested during her reign. Had their relative positions been reversed, would Elizabeth have treated her royal sister with the same indulgent clem- ency For a satisfactory answer to the question, look to her subsequent treatment of the unfortunate sisters of Lady Jane Gray, and another imaginary rival to the throne, her ill-fated cousin, Mary Queen of Scots! One who has studied the character of Mary and Elizabeth more deeply, perhaps, than any other modern writer, who has probably done more than any other to rescue the name of Mary from obloquy, and who, though a Protestant, has had the courage to tell the truth as unfolded in the original records, fully confirms all that we here say concerning Mary's clemency. We refer to Miss Strickland, who testifies, more- over, to another important fact: that Mary wholly repudiated the system of political tyranny which had been introduced by her father and brother, and restored the British Constitution to its ancient Catholic integrity! Speaking of her successful effort to save Elizabeth from punishment, Miss Strickland says and proves by her authorities, which we also copy, what follows: "It was fortunate for Elizabeth, that the queen meant conscientiously to abide by the ancient constitutional law of England, restored in her first par- liament, which required, that an overt or open act of treason must be proved Dispatches of Nouailles, Lingard, vii, 166, seq. vOL. .-12 137 13i .iNGLiCAN REFORMA.I'ON--MARY. before any English person could be attainted as a traitor. Courtenay wad as well as Elizabeth, in disgrace; he had been arrested a few days after the contest with Wyat, and sent to the tower. It is to Queen Mary's credit that she urged the law of her cou itry to the Spanish ambassador, when he informed her 'that her marriage with the prince of Spain could not be con- cluded till Courtenay and Elizabeth were punished.' " The Spaniard thus quotes her words to his master, Charles V.:-The queen replied, 'that she and her council were laboring as much as possible to discover the truth, as to the practices of Elizabeth and Courtenay; and that, as to Courtenay, it was certain he was accused by many of the prison- ers of consenting and assisting in the plot, and that the cipher by which he corresponded with Sir Peter Carew had been discovered cut on his guitar; that he had intrigued with the French, and that a match had been projected between him and Elizabeth, which was to be followed by the deposition and death of her, the queen; yet the law of England condemns to death only those who have committed overt acts of treason; those who have merely implied consent by silence, are punished but by imprisonment, and some- times by confiscation of goods.' Renaud, the Spanish ambassador, angrily observes elsewhere, 'that it was evident the queen wished to save Courte- nay, and of course, Elizabeth; since she does not allow that her guilt was as manifest as his.'t Correspondence, of a nature calculated to enrage any sovereign, was discovered, which deeply implicated Elizabeth. Notwith- standing all that has been urged against Mary, it is evident, from the letters of the Spanish ambassador, that she proved her sister's best friend, by remain- ing steadfast to her expressed determination, that 'although she was convinced of the deep dissimulation of Elizabeth's character, who was in this instance, what she had always shown herself; yet proof, upon proof; must be brought against her before any harsher measures than temporary imprisonment were adopted.' In short, wnatever adverse colors may be cast upon a portion of her history, which really does her credit, the conclusion, built on the irre- fragable structure of results, is this,-Mary dealt infinitely more mercifully by her heiress, than Elizabeth did by hers. And how startling is the fact, that Queen Mary would not proceed against her sister and her kinsman, because the proof of their treason was contained in cipher letters, easy to be forged, when correspondence in cipher brought Mary queen of Scots to the block, protesting, as she did, that the correspondence was forged! "At this crisis Queen Mary gave way to anger; she had offered if any nobleman would take the charge and responsibility of her sister, that she should not be subjected to imprisonment in the tower; but no one would undertake the dangerous office. The queen then expedited the warrant, to Tytler's Mary I, voL ii, p. 320. t Ibid. HER TREATMENT CF CRATNNLR. 139 commit Elizabeth to the tower. The earl of Sussex and another nobleman were appointed to conduct the princess thither; but she persuaded them, (it does not seem for any particular object, except writing a letter to the queen) to outstay the time of the tide at London bridge. This act of dis- obedience incensed Mary; she rated the offending parties at the council- board, 'told them that they were not traveling in the right path, that they dared not have done such a thing in her father's time,' and finally, as the most awful feature of her wrath, ' wished that he were alive for a month!' " Well she knew that he was never troubled with scruples of conscience, concerning how the ancient laws of England regarded treasons, open or con- cealed; for if he supposed, that even a heraldic lion curled its tail contu- maciously, that supposition brought instant death on its owner, despite of genius, virtue, youth, beauty, and faithful service." 5. Mary's treatment even of Cranmer affords additional evidence that she was not naturally inclined to severity, much less to wanton cruelty. Cranmer had been her very worst enemy, and he had done her mortal and almost irre- parable wrong. He had officially divorced her mother, had stigmatized her memory by solemnly declaring that she had never been the lawful wife of her father, and had conse- quently stigmatized her own birth by pronouncing her ille- gitimate. On the death of her brother, lie had been one of the prime movers in the attempt to exclude her from the throne, and had successfully urged the other leading reformed preachers to denounce her publicly as illegitimate, and there- fore as not entitled to the throne. He was the active promoter of all the mischief by which her whole life had been embit- tered, and now he had crowned all his previous misdeeds by treacherous conspiracy and open rebellion. Yet, in spite of all these indignities so long endured and so keenly felt-as only a woman born and reared as she had been could feel them-the "bloody Mary" exhibited no inde- cent haste to punish the arch-traitor, and her own arch-enemy. She allowed him tranquilly to officiate at the funeral of Edward; she did not permit him to be arrested for several The gallant earl of Surrey was put to death for a supposed difference in the painting of the tail of the lion in his crest. ANGLICAN REFORMATION-.MARY. months after her accession, content with merely ordering him to confine himself to his palace at Lambeth; and she finally consented to his arrest, only after he had published a coarse and violent attack on what she prized more dearly than honor or life-her religion. Even then, she allowed nearly two years to elapse before he was led to execution4 A portion of this very long interval was employed, at the instance of the "bloody" queen, in the attempt to win him and his associates, Ridley and Latimer, back to the true faith, and thereby to promote their eternal salvation. For this purpose the conference, or theological discussion at Oxford, between the three leaders of the reformed party and three Catholic divines, was ordered and took place. Mary would probably have saved them all from death, had she been allowed to follow her own gentle womanly impulses; but her council resolutely demanded the execution of Cranmer " for ensample's sake."t Ridley and Latimer, though both likewise deeply implicated in Northumberland's rebellion, might be spared, on condition they would recant; Cranmer's crimes had been too atrocious and too mischievous, to allow him to go unpunished. 6. Ridley and Latimer refused to recant, and they-were led to the stake, where they died martyrs to their opinions. In this manifesto, he denounced the Mass as "a device and invention of the Glther of lies," though he had caused others to be burnt for much less 'luring the reign of Henry VIII.-Apud Lingard, vol. vii. t Mary came to the throne July 15, 1553; Cranmer was executed March 21, 1555. Strye s's Cranmer, p. 385. Ibid., p. 200. R Ridlev had been promoted by the influence of Cranmer, and under Henry VIII. he had blindly followed the theological views of that despotic monarch, uniting with Cranmer in sending Protestants and Catholics alike to the stake. Under Edward, he exhibited himself one of the most zealous promoters of the new religion, which he would not have dared defend under Henry. We havc already seen how he intruded his officious zeal on the princess Mary, and with what meagre result. Implicated in the conspiracy for setting up Lady Jane Gray and excluding Mary from the throne, he was 140 CRANNIER'S RECANTATIONS. 141 Not so Cranmer. True to the policy of his whole life, he recanted not once, but seven time8; each form of recanta- tion being more ample than the preceding.t arrested as a traitor on the accession of the latter. In prison, he recanted and conformed to the ancient faith; but finding that the step was likely to bring him no favor with Catholics, while it brought on him the execration of his former co-religionists, he relapsed; and thenceforward, says Foxe, (iii, 836, apud Waterworth, p. 269,) "he never after polluted himself with that filthy dregs of anti-Christian service." Latimer had been still more erratic in his religious changes and evolu- tions. He conformed backward and forward so frequently, that it were te- dious to reckon his changes. First the bitter opponent, then the warm supporter of the German reformers; then, on the command of Cardinal Wolsey, a second time their opponent and denouncer; then again, after two years, threatened with excommunication by Cranmer and with the stake by Henry VIII., for being supposed to have relapsed into his former German errors, and narrowly escaping the spiritual and consequent temporal penalty by begging pardon on his knees and promising amendment, before Henry; we next find him named by the royal monster-head of the new church- to the bishopric of Worcester, in reward for his coarse invectives against the Papacy; then again thrown into prison for dissenting from Henry in theo- logical matters; finally, arrested by order of Mary's council for alleged seditious preachings against her, on her accession to the throne. Such was Iatimer. See Tytler and Strype. That the number of recantations was seven instead of six, Lingard proves by reference to a very old, if not the oldest printed copy of the book containing them, published in London shortly after Cranmer's death. Sef his Vindication against the strictures of the Edinburgh Review, etc., printed at the end of the volume, in the American edition of his History of England. t Bishop Short speaks of Cranmer's "fall" in the following tone of re gret: "The fall of which this good man was subsequently guilty, in signing the recantation, takes off from the whole of the glorious dignity with which the closing scene of the other martyrs was enlightened." In a note, he adds: " Fuller's view of this part of his history is far less favorable, (p. 371). Cranmer " W done no ill and privately many good offices for the Protest- ants, yet his cowardly compliance hitherto with popery, against his con- science, can not be excused; serving the times present in his practice, and waiting on a future alteration in his hopes and desires' "-History of the Church of England, sup. cit. p. 115. 142 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MARY. "He acknowledged that he had been a greater persecutor of the Church than Paul, and wished that, like Paul, he might be able to make amends. He could not rebuild what he had destroyed; but as the penitent thief on the cross, by the testimony of his lips, obtained mercy, so he trusted that, by this offering of his lips, he might obtain mercy of the Almighty. He was unworthy of favor, and worthy not only of temporal, but eternal pun- ishment. He had offended against King Henry and Queen Catharine: he was the cause and author of the divorce, and also of the evils which resulted from it. He had blasphemed against the Sacrament, had sinned against heaven, and had deprived men of the benefits to be derived from the Eucharist." Lingard, Ilist. England, ibid. This recantation is contained in Strype, iii. 2i.5. See also Foxe, iii, 559. The recantations are given in full by Waterworth, p. 275, seqq., notes. We subjoin the sixth recantation as a specimen of the rest, and with a view to show how much he was in earnest in his efforts to persuade others of his sincerity: " I Thomas Cranmer, late Archbishop of Canterbury, confess and grieve from my heart that I have most grievously sinned against heaven, and the English realm; yea against the universal church of Christ; which I have more cruelly persecuted than Paul did of old; who have been a blasphemer, a persecutor, and contumelious. And I wish that I, who have exceeded Saul in malice and wickedness, might with Paul make amends for the honor which I have detracted from Christ, and the benefit of which I have deprived the Church. But yet that thief in the gospel comforts my mind. For then at last he repented from his heart, then it irked him of his theft, when he might steal no more. And I, who, abusing my office and authority, purloined Christ of his honor, and the realm of fiLith and relig- ion; now by the great mercy of God returned to myself, acknowledge my- self the greatest of all sinners, and to every one as well as I can, to God first, then to the Church and its supreme head, and to the king and queen, and lastly to the realm of England, to render worthy satisfaction. But as that happy thief; when he was not able to pay the money and wealth which he had taken away, when neither his feet nor his hands, fastened to the cross, could do their office; by heart only and tongue, which were not bound, -he testified what the rest of his members would do, if they enjoyed the same liberty that his tongue did; by that he confessed Christ to be in- nocent; by that he reproved the impudence of his fellow; by that he detested his former life, and obtained the pardon of his sins; and, as it were by a kind of key, opened the gates of paradise; by the example of this man, I do conceive no small hopes of Christ's mercy, that he will pardon my sins CRANMER 'S RECANTATIONS. 143 Trembling for his life, his last act before he marched to the stake, was a striking evidence of that duplicity which had marked his entire career. After duly signing the last recan- I want hands and feet by which I might build up again that which I have destroyed, for the lips of my mouth are only left me. But he will receive the calves of our lips, who is mercifnl beyond all belief By this hope con- ceived, therefore, I chuse to offer this calf; to sacrifice this very small part of my body and life. "I confess, in the first place, my unthankfulness against the great God; I acknowledge myself unworthy of all favor and pity, but most worthy, not only of human and temporal, but divine and eternal punishment. That I exceedingly offended against King Henry VIII., and especially against Queen Catharine his wife, when I was the cause and author of the divorce. Which fault indeed was the seminary of all the evils and calamities of this realm. Hence so many slaughters of good men; hence the schism of the whole kingdom; hence heresies; hence the destruction of so many souls and bodies sprang, that I can scarce comprehend with reason. But when these are. so great beginnings of grief, I acknowledge I opened a great win- dow to all heresies; whereof myself acted the chief doctor and leader. But first of all, that most vehemently torments my mind, that I affected the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist with so many blasphemies and re- proaches; denying Christ's body and blood to be truly and really contained under the species of bread and wine. By setting forth also books, I did impugn the truth with all my might. In this respect, indeed, not only worse than Saul, and the thief, but the most wicked of all which the earth ever bore. ' Lord, I have sinned against heaven and before thee.' Against heaven, which I am the cause, it hath been deprived of so many saints; denying most impudently that heavenly benefit exhibited to us. And I have sinned against the earth, which so long hath miserably wanted this sacrament; against men whom I have called from this supersubstantial morsel; the slayer of so many men as have perished for want of food. I have defrauded the souls of the dead of this daily and most celebrious sacrifice. " And from all these things it is manifest, how greatly after Christ I have been injurious to his vicar, whom I have deprived of his power by books set forth; wherefore I do most earnestly and ardently beseech the Pope, that he, for the mercy of Christ, forgive me the things I have committed against him and the Apostolic See. And I most humbly beseech the most serene kings of England, Spain, etc., that by their royal mercy they would pardon me; I ask and beseech the whole realm, yea, the universal church, that they take pity of this wretched soul; to whom, besides a tongue, nothing ANGLICAN REFORMATION-M1ARY. tation to be read at the stake, he secretly wrote another directly opposite, which he meant to read-and which hie did read-in case pardon should not be extended to hin at the last moment! In this last instrument, he retracted all his previous recantations, which he declared were wrung from him by the fear of death alone. He. even thrust the offending hand which signed them into the fire first; and thus lhe perished-a willing martyr, because lie could not help it and could not save his life! He perished in the flames which he had so often enkindled for much better men than himself; and this circumstance, as well as the whole tenor of his life, must greatly modify the sympathy with his is left, whereby to make amends for the injuries and damages I have brought in. But especially because against thee only have I sinned, I beseeeh thee, most merciful Father, who desirest and commandest all to come to thee, however wicked, vouchsafe to look upon me neerly, and under thy hand, as thou lookedst upon Magdalen and Peter; or certainly, as thou, looking upon the thief on the cross, didst vouchsafe by the promise of thy grace and glory, to comfort a fearful and trembling mind; so, by thy wonted and nat- ural pity, turn the eyes of thy mercy to me, and vouchsafe me worthy to have that word of thine spoken to me, ' I am thy salvation;, and in the day of death,.' To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' "Written this year of our Lord 1555, in THoxAs CRAMMER." the 18th day of the month of March. As we have already seen, he had employed the whole weight of his powerful influence with the amiable boy Edward VI., to steel his tender heart against its natural reluctance to persecution; and in the last year of Edward's reign, he had prepared a code which provided for the burning of heretics; but luckily, it was not formally approved, in consequence of the king's death. That such was really the meaning of the law concerning the punishment of heretics, contained in this code, is sufficiently proved by Lingard, who was probably the first to direct attention to the subject. Hallam, in his Con- stitutional History, discusses this point at considerable length, but does not venture to dissent from the opinions of Lingard, which he deems at least plausible. The prejudiced Sir James Mackintosh flippantly blames Hallam for his qualified indorsement of Lingard; but impartial men will be disposed to attach far more value to the opinions of the English constitutional lawyer than to that of the Scotchman. 144 MACAULAY 'S PORTRAITURE. 14a fate, which would otherwise be strongly felt by every one who detests persecution. In his review of Hallam's Constitutional History, Macaulay pronounces the following severe, but just opinion oil the character of the false and time-serving patriarch of the Anglican churchl: " If we consider Cranmer merely as a statesman, he will not appear a much worse man than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or Somerset. But when an attempt is made to set him up as a saint, it is starcely possible for any man of sense, who knows the history of the times well, to preserve his gravity..... "The shameful origin of his history, common enough in the scandalous chronicles of courts, seems strangely out of place in a hagiology. Cranmer rose into favor by serving Henry in a disgraceful affair of his first divorce. He promoted the marriage of Anne Boleyn with the king. On a frivolous pretense he pronounced it null and void. On a pretense, if possible, still more frivolous, he dissolved the ties which bound the shameless tyrant to Anne of Cleves. He attached himself to Cromwell, while the fortunes of Cromwell flourished. He voted for cutting off his head without a trial, when the tide of royal favor turned. He conformed backwards and forwards as the king changed his mind. While Henry lived, he assisted in condemn- ing to the flames those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. When Henry died, he found out that the doctrine was false. He was, how- ever, not at a loss for people to burn. The authority of his station, and of his gray hairs. was employed to overcome the disgust with which an intel- ligent and virtuous child regarded persecution. " Intolerance is always bad. But the sanguinary intolerance of a man who thus wavered in his creed, excites a loathing to which it is difficult to give vent without calling foul names. Equally false to political and to re- ligious obligations, he was first the tool of Somerset, and then the tool of Northumberland. When the former wished to put his own brother to death, without even the form of a trial, he found a ready instrument in (Cranmer. In spite of the canon law, which forbade a churchman to take any part in matters of blood, the archbishop signed the warrant for the atrocious sentence. When Somerset had been in his turn destroyed, his destroyer received the support of Cranmer in his attempt to change the course of the succession. " The apology made for him by his admirers only renders his conduct more contemptible. He complied, it is said, against his better judgment, because he could not resist the entreaties of Edward! A holy prelate of VOL. IT.-1 3 146 ANGLICAN REFORMATION--MIARY. sixty, one would think, might be better employed by the bedside of a dying child, than committing crimes at the request of his disciple. If he had shown half as much firmness when Edward requested him to commit trea- son, as he had before shown when Edward requested him not to commit murder, hie might have saved the country from one of the greatest misfor- tunes that it ever underwent. lie became, from whatever motive, the ac- complice of the worthless lDudley. The virtuous scruples of another young and amiable mind were to be overcome. As Edward had been forced into persecution, Jane was to bI seduced into usurpation. No transaction in our annals is more unjustifiable than this. If a hereditary title were to be re- spectedl, Mary possessed it. If a parliamentary title were preferable, Mary possessed that also. If the interest of the Protestant religion required a departure from the ordinary rule of succession, that interest vould have been best served by raising Elizabeth to the throne. If the forcign relations of the kingdom were considered, still stronger reasons migigt be found for preferring Eli7abeth to Jane. There was great doubt whether Jane or the Queen of Scotland had the better claim; and that doubt would, in all proba- bility, have produced a war, both with Scotland and with France, if the project of Northumberland had not been blasted in its infancy. That Eliza- beth had a better claim than the Queen of Scotland was indisputable. To the part which Cranmer, and unfortunately some better men than Cranmer, took in this most reprehensible scheme, much of the severity, with which the Protestants were afterwards treated, must in fairness be ascribed. "The plot failed; popery triumphed; and Cranmer recanted. Most people look on his recantation as a single blemish on an honorable life, tile frailty of an unguarded moment. But, in fact, it was in strict accordance with the system on which he had constantly acted. It was part of a regu- lar habit. It was not the first recantation that he had made; and, in all probability, if it had answered its purpose it would not have been the last. We do not blame him for not choosing to be burned alive. It is no very severe reproach to any person, that he does not possess heroic fortitude. But surely a man who liked the fire so little, should have had some sym- pathy for others. A persecutor who inflicts nothing which he is not ready to endure deserves some respect. But when a man, who loves his doctrines more than the lives of his neighbors, loves his own little finger better than his doctrines, a very simple argument, a fortiori, will enable us to estimate the amount of his benevolence. "But his martyrdom, it is said, redeemed every thing. It is extraordinary that so much ignorance should exist on this subject. The fact is, that if a martyr be a man who chooses to die rather than to renounce his opinions, Cranmer was no more a martyr than Dr. Dodd. Ile died solely because he could not help it. He never retracted his recantation, till he found he had OTHER PROVOCA UION.14 made it in vain. The queen was filly resolved that, Catholic or Protestant, he should burn. Then he spoke out, as people generally speak out when they are at the point of death, and have nothing to hope or to fear on earth. If Mary had suffered him to live, we suspect that he would have heard Mass, and received absolution, like a good Catholic, till the accession of Elizabeth ; and that he would then have purchased, by another apostasy, the power of burning men better and braver than himself." 7. Besides the causes already indicated, there were others whlich tended more immediately to overcome Mary's natural repugnance to measures of severity, and which should fairly be talken into account in considering the deplorable religious persecution of her brief, unhappy, and agitated reign. Not only had Ridley preached against her legitimacy and de- nounced her " bigotry," at St. Paul's Cross, and Latimer had thundered forth his coarse and exciting invectives against her religion and herself among the people,even before she had mounted the throne, but shortly after her accession a popular riot was excited in London, in consequence of a priest cele- brating AMass at a church in the horse market. Pow ne, one of the royal chaplains, was rudely assaulted on the next day, while preaching by order of the council at St. Paul's Cross; he was interrupted by tumultuous shouts, and a dagger, thrown at him from the crowd, stuck in one of the columns of the pnjpit. The tumult was evidently preconcerfed, and it was intended as a menace to the queen and an insult to her religion. " A proclamation followed, in which the queen declared that she could not conceal her religion, which God and the world knew that she had professed from her infancy; that she had no intention to compel any one to embrace it, till further order were had by common consent; and therefore she strictlv forbade all persons to excite sedition, or to foment dissensions by using the opprobrious terms of heretic or papist." More than a vear later, on the eve of the breaking out of the persecution itself, Ross, a reformed preacher, had openly prayed, in presence of a large congregation which he had Lingard, ibid. p. 134. Wilkins, Conc. iv, p. 86. 147 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MUARY. assembled at midnight, " that God would either convert the heart of the queen, or take her out of this world." There- upon he was apprehended and imprisoned with his disciples; and the parliament hastened to declare it treason "to have prayed since the commencement of the session, or to pray hereafter, for the queen's death. It was, however, provided that all who had been already committed for this offense might recover their liberty, by making an humble protesta- tion of sorrow and a promise of amendment."t 8. After the first four victims had perished, in February, 1555, The statute was passed in great haste on the 16th of January, the day on which the parliament was dissolved. Speaking of the excesses and out- rages committed by some of the reformed party, before the persecution broke out, Heylin says: "The like exorbitances were frequent in this queen's reign, to which some men were so transported by a furious zeal, that a gun was shot at one Dr. Pendleton, as he preached at St. Paul's Cross, on Sun- day, 10th of June, the pellet whereof went very near him, but the gunner was not to be heard of. Before which time, that is to say, on the 8th of April, some of them had caused a cat to be hanged on a gallows, near the cross in Cheapside, with her head shorn, the likeness of a vestment cast upon her, and her two fore-feet tied together, holding between them a piece of paper in the form of a wafer (!). The governors of the Church, exaspe- rated by these provocations, and the queen charging Wyat's rebellion on the Protestant party, she (they) both agreed on the reviving of some ancient statutes made in the time of King Richard IL, King Henry IV., and King Henry V., for the severe punishment of obstinate hereticks, even to death itself"-Heylin, p. 47, apud Waterworth, p. 261-2. So that Mary's parliament did not enact new statutes, but merely revived the old ones, according to Heylin. It merely carried out the programme of Cranmer. After the persecution was suspended, on occasion of De Castro's excellent sermon, and while the council were hesitating whether to renew it or not, new excesses were committed. The statue of St. Thomas of Canterbury was first mutilated, and then totally destroyed after it had been again re- paired and set up. On the 14th of April, "as a priest was administering the Eucharist in St. Margaret's church, Westminster, a man drew a hanger, and wounded him upon the head, hand, and other parts of the body."-Soames and Strype, apud Waterworth, p. 266. t Lingard, p. 191. Statutes of [ealm, iv, 254. 148 DE CASTRO'S SERMON. Alphonso de Castro, a distinguished Spanish fi tar and con- fessor of king Philip, preached before the court and strongly denounced these bloody executions, as contrary not only to the spirit but to the text of the gospel. He declared " that it was not by severity, but by mildness, that men were to be brought into the fold of Christ, and that it was the duty of the bishops, not to seek the death, but to instruct the ignor- ance of their misguided brethren.' Coming from the quar- ter it did, the noble rebuke of the friar made a deep impres- sion; the executions were suspended for five weeks;t and they would probably not have been revived at all, but for fresh outbreaks of fanaticism among the advocatesof the new gospel, and the discovery of a new conspiracy extending throughout several counties of England. These things af forded a plausible pretext for those members of the council who had been from the first in favor of adopting strong meas- ures, and their arguments finally but too unhappily triumphed over those of the more moderate and more enlightened mem- bers. 9. Mary at length yielded to the arguments, and gave her reluctant consent to the stern resolves of her council. When their final resolution was communicated to her, she gave in writing the following answer: " Touching the punishment of heretics, we think it ought to be done with- out rashness, not leaving in the meantime to do justice to such as, by learn- ing, would seem to deceive the simple; and the rest so to be used, that the Miss Strickland presents the following account of De Castro's sermon: (Vol. v., p. 271.) "At the end of the week of crime, which saw the sufferings of these four good men, Alphonso de Castro, a Franciscan friar, confessor to king Philip, preached before the court a sermon, inveighing against the wickedness of burning them; he boldly declared the truth, that the English bishops learned not, in Scripture, to burn any one for conscience sake. This truly Christian sermon produced an order from court, whether from the queen or her hus- band is not known, to stop the burnings for upwards of five weeks, which raised hopes of future clemency, but in vain." t Lingard, vii, 193-Strype, iii, 209. 41 149 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MARY. people might well perceive them not to be condemned without just occasion; by which they shall both understand the truth, and beware not to do the like. And especially within London, I would wish none to be burnt, with- out some of the council's presence, and both there and everywhere, good sermons at the same time." 10. By the statute, the bishops were made the judges of neresy, and were directed to use all diligence in finding out the guilty, whom on conviction they were to hand over to the secular arm for punishment. That they did not relish the un- gracious task thus imposed upon them, and that they performed it with much reluctance, is apparent from the fact, that they were often rebuked by the council for their tardiness. The chancellor Gardiner was so averse to the office, that he sat but once in virtue of his office-in the first prosecution for heresy; after which he handed over the unwelcome duty to Bonner, bishop of London. But Bonner did not proceed fast enough, to escape the severe reprimands of the council; he seems to have judged and with much apparent unwillingness, only such as were sent to him for trial; and he was heard to complain, that lhe was often compelled, as bishop of London, to judge persons not born in his diocese.t 11. Our account of the causes which led to the persecution under Mary tallies, in the main, with that furnished by Agnes Strickland in her learned and graphic account of this reign. Collier, ii, 371. Ibid., p. 189-190. t See Foxe iii, 462. Ibid., p. 194, note. The numerous letters of rebuke addressed to Bonner by the council, prove that he arted too slowly and too tardily to suit their newly awakened zeal for the Catholic faith. In one of the prelate's letters, addressed to Philpot, he complains thus: "I am right sOITy for your trouble, neither would I you should think that I am the cause thereof. I marvel that other men will trouble me with their matters; but I must be obedient to my betters; and I fear men speak of me otherwise than I deserve.-Foxe, iii, 462, apud Water- worth, p. 268, note. Had Bonner been the bloody monster he has been painted, he would pro- bably have fared worse than he did wl en Elizabeth came into power. The dreadful character given of him and of "bloody Mary" seems to have beer. an after-thought of the reformed writers, hit upon and developed for effect on popular pi 'judice. 130 311 STRICKLAND'S THEORY. 151 Speaking of the conspiracies formed, and of the libels uttered or published, against Alary, she writes: " Conspiracies against Queen Mary's life abounded at this insettled time; even the students of natural philosophy (which, despite of the stormy atmos- phere of the times, was p oceeding with nfinite rapidity) were willing to apply the instruments of science to the destruction of the queen. ' I have heard,' says Lord Bacon, 'there was a conspiracy to have killed Queen Mary, as she walked in St. James' Park, by means of a burning glass fixed on the leads of the neighboring house. 1 was told so by a vain, though great dealer in secrets, who declared he had hindered the attempt.' Of all things, the queen most resented the libelous attack on her character, which abounded on all sides. She had annulled the cruel law, instituted by her father, which punished libels on the crown with death ; but, to her anguish and astonish- ment, the country was soon after completely inundated with them, both written and printed; one she showed the Spanish ambassador, which was thrown on her kitchen table. She could not suffer these anonymous accu- .sationstobe made unanswered; she said, with passionate sorrow, that 'she, ad always lived a chaste and honest life, and she would not bear imputations to the contrary silently; and, accordingly, had proclamation made in every county, exhorting her loving subjects not to listen to the slanders that her enemies were actively distributing.t This only proved that the poisoned arrows gave pain, but did not abate the nuisance."t Her theory for explaining the origin of the persecution is a very plausible one, and with one exception upon which we shall comment in a note, it appears conformable to the facts of history. She puts the blame on the parliament and the coun- cil, and pleads the queen's extreme illness and feebleness, as an argument that she ought not to be held responsible for -acts which she could scarcely control, even if she would. But we will let the fair historian speak in her own words, and give her own authorities: "Her hope of bringing offspring was utterly delusive: the increase of her figure was but symptomatic of dropsy, attended by a complication of the most dreadful disorders which can afflict the female frame; under which "See the abstracts from Parliamentary History and Holingshed, which show that Henry VIn. for the first time in England, caused an act to be made punishing libel with death." f Tytler's Edward and Mary, vol. ii, p. 377. t Queens of England, v., 237. i Ibid., voL v., p. 268-9. 152 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-M1ARY. every faculty of her mind and body sunk, for many months. At this time commenced the horrible persecution of the Protestants, which has stained her name to all futurity. But if eternal obloquy was incurred by the half-dead queen, what is the due of the parliaments which legalized the acts of cruelty committed in her name Shall we call the house of lords bigoted, when its majority, which legalized this wickedness, were composed of the same indi- viduals who had planted, very recently, the Protestant Church of England Surely not; for the name implies honest, though wrong-headed attachment to one religion. Shall we suppose, that the land laid groaning under the iron sway of a standing army, or that the Spanish bridegroom had introduced foreign forces But reference to facts will prove, that even Philip's house. hold servants were sent back, with his fleet; and a few valets, fooLs, and fiddlers, belonging to the grandees, his bridesmen, were all the forces per- mitted to land-no very formidable band to Englishmen. The queen had kept her word rigorously; when she asserted, 'that no alteration should be made in religion, without universal consent.' Three times in two years had she sent the house of commons back to their constituents; although they were most compliant in every measure relative to her religion. If she had bribed one parliament, why did she not keep it sitting during her short reign If her parliament had been honest as herself, her reign would have been the pride of her country, instead of its reproach; because, if they had done their duty, in guarding their fellow creatures from bloody penal laws regarding religion, the queen, by her first regal act, in restoring the ancient free constitution of the great Plantagenets, had put it out of the power of her government, to take furtive vengeance on any individual, who opposed it. She had exerted all the energy of her great eloquence, to impress on the minds of her judges, that they were to sit, as 'indifferent umpires between her- self and her people.' She had no standing atrmy, to awe parliaments-no rich civil list, to bribe them By restoring the great estates of the Howard, the Percy, and many other victims of Henry VIII. and Fdward VI.'s regency; by giving back the revenues of the plundered bishoprics, and the church lands, "The house of lords, in the sixteenth century, was composed of fewer members than our present queen's privy council. A numerous legislative nobility, it may be inferred, from the history of the Tudors, is far more favor- able to civil and religious liberty. Many of the haughty ancient nobility, who controlled the crown in the preceding age, were cut off by Henry V1ii; and their places supplied by parvenus; the menial servants of the royal household, raised by caprice, whose fathers had been mace-bearers to lord- mayors, heralds, and lower limbs of the law, etc; proper candidates for the lower house if they won their way by ability, but awkward members of a house of peers, th n amounting to but fifty laymen."-Queens of England. MISS STRICKLAND AND MACKINTO'SHI. possessed by the crown; she had reduced herself to poverty, as complete, as the most enthusiastic lover of freedom could desire. But her personal ex- penditure was extremely economical, and she successfully struggled with poverty, till her husband involved England in a French war. " The fact of whether the torpid and half-dead queen was the instigator of a persecution, the memory of which curdles the blood with horror, at this distance of time, is a question of less moral import, at the present day, than a clear analyzation of the evil, with which selfish interests had infected the legislative powers of our country. It was in vain, that Mary almost ab- stained from creating peers, and restored the ancient custom of annual par- liaments ; the majority of the persons composing the houses of peers and commons were dishonest, indifferent to all religions, and willing to establish the most opposing rituals, so that they might retain their grasp on the ac- cursed thing with which their very souls were corrupted-for corrupted they were, though not by the unfortunate queen. The church lands, with which Henry VIII. had bribed his aristocracy, titled and untitled, into co- operation with his enormities, both personal and political, had induced na- tional depravity. " The leaders of the Marian persecution, Gardiner and Bonner, were of the apostate class of persecutors. ' Flesh bred in murder,, they had belonged to the government of Henry VIII., which sent the zealous Roman Catholic and the pious Protestant to the same stake. For the sake of worldly advan- tage, either for ambition or power, Gardiner and Bonner had, for twenty years, promoted the burning or quartering of the advocates of papal supre macy; they now turned with the tide, and burnt, with the same degree of conscientiousness, the opposers of papal supremacy. "The persecution appears to have been greatly aggravated by the caprice, or the private vengeance, of these prelates; for a great legalist of our times, who paid unprejudiced attention to the facts, has thus summed up the case: ' Of fourteen bishoprics, the Catholic prelates used their influence so success- fully, as altogether to prevent bloodshed in nine, and to reduce it within lhmits in the remaining five.t Bonner, 'whom all generations shall call Drake's Parliamentary History. t We are sorry to find that the usually candid authoress here omits an important sentence in Mackintosh's testimony, going very far towards ex- onerating Gardiner. The omitted passage is this: "Justice to Gardiner requires it to be mentioned that his diocese was of the bloodless class." She also omits a passage which immediately follows that quoted by her, and which contains a palliating circumstance in favor of Bonner; and she forgets to mention Fuller, as the author of the strong denunciation uttered against him. We give the passage, marking in italics the omitted portions:- 1b4 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MARY. bloody,' raged so furiously in the diocese of London, as to be charged with burning half the martyrs in the kingdom." " Cardinal Pole, the queen's relative and familiar friend, declined all inter. ference with these horrible executions; he considered his vocation was the reformation of manners; he used to blame Gardiner, for his reliance on the arm of flesh, and was known to rescue from Bonner's crowded piles of mar- tyrs the inhabitants of his own districtt It is more probable that the queen's private opinion leant to her cousin, who had retained the religion she loved unchanged, than to Gardiner, who had been its persecutor; but "Of fourteen bishoprics, the Catholic prelates used their influence so suc- cessfully as altogether to prevent bloodshed in nine, and to reduce it within limits in the remaining five. Justice to Gardiner requires it to be mentioned that his diocese was of the bloodless class. Th2irlby, bishop of Ely, who wept plentifully when he was employed in desecrating Cranmer, perhaps thought him- self obliged to cause one man to be burned at Cambridge, as an earnest of his seal. 'Bonner,' says Fuller, 'whom all generations shall call bloody,' raged so furiously in the diocese of London, as to be charged with burning about one half of the martyrs of the kingdom. Truth, however, exacts the observa- tion, that the number brought to the capital for terrific example, swells the appar- ent accourd of Bonner even beyond his desert." (Mackintosh's History of Eng- land, p. 249. Edit. Carey, Lea & Blanchard, Philadelphia, 1834.) Surely, while so strongly blaming Gardiner, she should not have omitted a passage so much in his favor. Whatever may be said of the conduct of Bonner and Gardiner under the reign of Henry VIII.. we are strongly in- clined to believe that injustice is done them by the amiable authoress, in as- signing to them so prominent a part in the Marian persecution. They ap- pear to have been rather reluctant agents than active instigators, much less originators of the persecution; as we have partly shown above. Of the Catholic prelates under Mary, Mackintosh says, that many of them "are recorded by Protestant writers to bhve exercised effectual, and perhaps hazardous humanity. Tunstall, bishop ot Durham, appears to have some- times spoken to the accused with a violence foreign from the general tenor of his life. It has been suggested that, according to a practice of which there are remarkable instances, in other seasons of tyranny and terror, he submit- ted thus far to wear the disguise of cruelty, in order that he might be better able to screen more victims from destruction." (Ibid. p. 291. See also Water- worth, p. 268, note.) And even the prejudiced Soames says: "The bishops eagerly availed themselves of any subterfuge by which they could escape Dronouncing these revolting sentences."-Vol. iv, p. 412, Ibid. History of England, by Sir James Mackintosh, vol. ii, p. 328. t Burnet's History of the Reformation, vol. ii. A NOBLE MINORITY--CARDINAL POLE. Gardiner was armed with the legislative powers of the kingdom, unworthy as its time-serving legislators were to exercise them. "Yet all ought not to be included in one sweeping censure: a noble mi- nority of gxod men, disgusted at the detestable penal laws, which lighted the torturing fires for the Protestants, seceded bodily fiom the house of com. mons, after vainly opposing them. This glorious band, for the honor of hu- man nature, was composed of Cathl -ics as well as Protestants; it was headed by the great legalist, Sergeant Plowden, a Catholic so firm, as to refuse the chancellorship, when persuaded to take it by Queen Elizabeth, because he would not change his religion. This secession is the first indication of a principle of merciful toleration to be found among any legislators in E ngland. "Few were the numbers of these good ment and long it was before their principles gained ground. For truly the world had not made sufficient ad- vance in Clhristian civilization, at that time, to recognize any virtue in reli- gious toleration." "When Francis Plowden published his History of Ireland, Sir Philip Musgrave entered into some strictures on it. He was answered by the au- thor, who quoted a letter of Queen Elizabeth, offering the chancellorship to his ancestor, if he would abjure his religion. Fuller, our church historian, a man as honest as himself; is enthusiastic in the praise of this noble-minded lawyer, who is, perhaps, a still finer specimen of human nature than Sir Thomas More himself; since he was so far in advance of his age, as to have understood that religious toleration was a virtue. Camden, another honest man, speaks with delight of Plowden. ' How excellent a medley is made,' says he, ' when honesty and ability meet in a man of his profession !' He was treasurer of the Temple in 1572, when that magnificent hall was builded, he being a great advancer thereof His monument is to be seen in the Tem- ple church close by, at the north-east of the choir, lying alone, with his hands in the attitude of supplication; he is represented in his coif and gown, and a little ruff about his neck. He died Feb. 6, 1584." t "They were thirty-seven in number. See Parliamentary Hlistory, voL iii, p. 333, where the names of all these intrepid members of parliament may be read. Good Christians they were, though different denominations of re- ligion were fiund in their ranks. Some of their descendants are Catholics to this day, as the Plowdens; some are Protestants of our church, as the des- cendants of Rous, member for Dunwich. The humane seceders from parlia- ment were punished for the desertion of their seats by fine, imprisonment, and other star-chamber inflictions, and (what does not appear so very un- reasonable) by loss of their parliamentary wages. The secession took place twice. Sir Edward Coke has preserved some particulars relating to it;-he was the last man who would have followed such an example." 1 5 156 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MARY. 12. There is abundant evidence, besides that already alleged, to show, that Cardinal Pole, the papal legate, was greatly averse to all these severe proceedings, and that his mroderation even gave oflense and provoked censure; and it were manifestly unjust to charge them on the Catholic Church or on the sovereign Pontiffi Though Avery Of Cardinal Pole, the papal legate arid official representative of the sen- timents of the Holy See in England, the two standard Protestant historians, Burnet and Ileylin, speak us follows: " lie professed himself an enemy to extreme proceedings. He said, pastors ought to have bowels, even to their straying sheep; bishops were fathers, and ought to look on those that erred as their sick children, and not for that to kill them; he had seen that severe proceedings did rather inflame than cure that disease."1 "'lie advised that they should rest themselves satisfied with the restitution of their own reli- gion; that the said three statutes should be held forth for a terrour only, but that no open persecution should be raised upon them; following therein, as he affirmed, the counsell sent unto the queen by Charles the emperour, at her first comming to the crown, by whom she was advised to create no trouble unto any man for matter of conscience, but to be warned unto the contrary by his example, who, by endeavoring to compell others to his own religion, had tried and spent himself in vain."-Burnet ii, 467, apud Water- worth, p. 263-4. Heylin, p. 47, Ibid. Even the worst enemies of Pole seem never to have accused him of intol- erance. The fact that he was a near relative of Mary, and her official adviser in behalf of the Church and the Pontiff, would seem to point to the inference, that her opinion agreed with his, and that she was forced by the pressure of her council and parliament, and by the reasons of state which these alleged, to act against her own opinion and wishes. Certain it is, that in persecuting she was not led, nor even warranted, by any principle or doc- trine of her Church. In his History of England, Mackintosh very unjustly censures Pole for not having prevented the persecution, thereby supposing that he had more power in England than he really possessed. Bishop Short is more just; he says (p. 111 sup. cit.): "Pole had always been averse to violent persecution, but was unable to show any opposition to it sufficiently strong even to mitigate its severity; for independently of the suspicions which were entertained concerning his own opinions, Gardiner had sent unfivorable reports of his conduct to the apos- tolic chamiber."1 This last fact may be questioned, but Short's opinion of Pole is valuable. He says, moreover, (p. 117) that the reason why Pole was recalled from BISHOP SHORT'S ESTIMATE OF MIARY. inherited the exalted virtues of her mother, she haa some- thing, too, of the rude Tudor boldness and waywardness of her father, though she generally kept this temper under sub- jection. She made no scruple, for instance, of quarreling with the Pope, when he thwarted her views. Thus, true to the traditions of her house, she urged the penalty of a prx- munire, to prevent the bulls of the Pope from entering the kingdom, when she apprehended his intention of recalling Pole. She even went to the length of causing the bearer of the papal letters to be arrested at Calais on his way to England, of having his despatches secretly forwarded to her- self, and of suppressing or destroying them; so that Pole might receive no official account of his being displaced. Such a sovereign was likely to rule on her own responsibility, and not to be guided by the advice, much less to brook the dicta- tion of the Pontiff. Her acts were her own, and she, with her parliament and council, is alone fairly responsible for them. But that she was really a most virtuous, upright, conscien- tious, and even merciful woman, and that there were strongly mitigating circumstances in the case of her persecution, all candid persons who have read English history, or even the imperfect summary of facts above given, will be fully pre- pared to admit. That she does not deserve the epithet of "bloody," must be apparent to every man of justice and moderation. We will close this chapter by presenting the estimate of Mary's character as made even by the prejudiced Anglican bishop Short. Though he naturally censures her for perse cuting Protestants, yet, under some respects, he does a mea sure of justice to the long proscribed and unfortunate queen, as well as to Cardinal Pole and her chancellor Gardiner. Of the latter he writes: England, and his legative powers were withdrawn by the Pope was, that he had not prevented the war between France and Spain into which England was drawn. 41 For a full account of this difficulty, see Lingard, ibid., p. 233-4. 157 158 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-MARY. "IHe was a shrewd, clever man, and probably much more of a politiciar. than a churchman. The treatment which he himself had received may account for some of his virulence, if it cannot excuse it; nor ducl he appeal to have been totally devoid of kindness towards Protestants; fur during his prosperity he screened Sir Thomas Smith and R. Ascham from persecution: and it must never be forgotten that he effectually prevented this country from utalling under the Spanish yoke, at a moment when his pers. nal inter- ests would have induced him to promote a connection with that court." Of 11arv and Pole lie writes as follows: "In the earlier part of the summer, the queen had been engaged in re- building the convent of Franciscans at Greenwich; and for the purpose of endowing as many religious houses as she could, gave up all the Church lands vested in the crown, and in the end of the year discharged the clergy from the payment of first fruits and tenths; anxious no doubt that the Church should be provided for in temporalities, as well as reformed in its dis- cipline: for in the convocation which was held by Cardinal Pole (Nov. 2), many constitutions were made highly beneficial to the ecclesiastical body, in preventing abuses and reforming its members, and which, had they been car- ried into full execution, must have gone far to establish the Roman Catholic religion, for a time at least, on a firm basis."t '-With all her faults, Mary must be allowed the praise of sincerity; for the love she bore to the Roman Catholic religion and the Papacy induced her to advance its supposed interests at her own expense, as well as that of her persecuted subjects; and her chief misfortune seems to have been this, that a genius which would have shone in a nunnery was exalted to a throne."I In proof of her disinterested zeal for religion, he adds: "Her foundations were made out of the revenues of the crown, and in- stead of making a gain of godliness, as wag the general plan of the Beforma- tion, she offered not up unto the Lord of that which cost her nothing. kmong other donations, she gave some rectories, which were in the hands of the crown, to Oxford, to repair the schools; and restored the temporali- ties to Durham, which had been taken away as a prey for the duke of Northumberland." 0 History Church of England, p. 114. f Ibid. t Ibid., p. 117. Ibid., note. We omit some of his remarks about Mary, whose chief misfortune he considers was not to have had more wise and liberal counsel- er. He must needs say something to show his sound orthodoxy as an Anglican, which circumstance renders his admissions all the more valuable. REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. CHAPTER III. ELIZABETH-THE ANGLICAN CHURCH FIRMIL ESTABLISHED BY LAW. Glance at the four reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabetb- Elizabeth the real foundress of the Anglican Church-Four questions pro- pounded-The first question-Temporal interests and political expediency -Elizabeth and the Pontiff-Stern consistency of the Papacy-Elizabeth takes her stand-Sir William Cecil-Her insincerity and his intri.;ues- Measures adopted for re-establishing Anglicanism-Cecil's plan-Firm opposition of the Catholic bishops-Reasons for their alarm-The queen crowned-And immediately breaks her solemn oath-The second 4ues- tion-Did the Anglican church reform itself -A packed parliament- The convocation in the opposition-How its voice was hushed-T lie pub- lic discussion-Bishop Short reviewed-Catholic bishops imprisoned- The acts enforcing conformity-And establishing the Book of Common Prayer and Thirty-nine Articles-The Church established by law-Catholic bishops deposed-The non-juring clergy-Vacancies in parishes-Me- chanics appointed to read the new service-Bishop Short's testimony- Third question-Foundations of Anglican hierarchy-Embarrassment- Parker's consecration-Three great difficulties stated-The validity of Anglican ordinations at least donUdful-The question of jurisdiction-The fourth question stated-And answered-A curious "bull" of Elizabeth- Elizabeth swears-Testimony of Hallam and McCrie-Penal laws of 1562-3-Lord Montague's noble speech-Hallam on Camden and Strype- Northern insurrections-A terrible and bloody code-Hallam on Lingard- Elizabeth's Inquisition-Her " Pursuivants "-Fines for recusancy-The prisons filled-And the magistrates complaining-Nobility and gentry ruined-Bloody executions-Number of victims-The rack seldom idle Bull of Pope Pius V.-Did not cause, but greatly aggravated the perse- cution-Hallam's testimony-He confirms all our important statements- Loyality of Catholics-ecil defends the use of the rack-The hunted priests-The church spoilers-Their fate-Three other Protestant wit- nesses-Nothing can soften Elizabeth-Bishop Short on her rapacity, sacrilege, and tyranny-The verdict of history rendered. UNDER Henry VIII. the foundations of the Anglican church were laid, by the violent wresting of Englane from obedience (159) ANGLICAN REFORMATION-EIABll. to, and communion with the Holy See; under Edward VI, the breach was made still wider, the remnants of Catholicity which Henry had left were swept away, and the prelimina- ries were arranged for a new and distinct church organiza- tion; under Elizabeth, finally, the work of the Reformation was completed, the old Church was finally destroyed in Eng- land, and the new church firmly established by law. Under her long reign of more than forty-four years, the new church organization was consolidated, and England took her final stand among the nations which were arrayed in opposition to Rome and to the Catholic Church. Elizabeth may then be viewed as the zeal foundress of the Angliman church, as established by law, and as existing to this day; and to her rigftly belongs the merit or demerit of having firmly estab- lished in England a new church on the ruins of the old. Such being plainly the case, it is not only curious, but highly important to inquire, what motives prompted, and what means were employed to bring about and to consummate this final separation of England from Catholic unity. 1. Was the action of Elizabeth prompted by religious, or by merely temporal and political motives; by a newly born love of the truth as contained in the new gospel, or by a wish to promote her own interests and the consolidation of her own throne 2. Did the regularly constituted authorities and organs of the English church willingly adopt the change in religion, and thereby make it true that "the English church reformed itself;' or was the change brought about by the state in spite of their solemn protest and united opposition 3. Were the foundations of the new hierarchy, which supei- Bishop Short, an accredited authority, admits this. He Wsys (History of the Church of England, p. 125): "As these documents together, (he is speaking of the acts passed in the first year of Elizabeth) form the basis of our presnt church, we may deem the Reformation to have now received its accomplishment; the changes which have been since made are in their nature insignificant." 160 POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY. seded the old, solidly laid; or are the claims of the new Anglican bishops to valid orders and lawful jurisdiction even plausibly defensible 4. Finally, were the means employed for establishing the new religions order, and for securing conformity with the new worship and obedience to the new organization, such as are consistent with the spirit of the gospel, and such as we would naturally look for in a change for the better We propose briefly to answer these four questions, in the order in which they are here placed; and the facts which we will endeavor to present under each head will, if we mistake not, go far towards enabling our candid readers to form a proper estimate of the real foundations upon which rest the claims of the present Anglican church to be the Church of Christ. I. Was the action of Elizabeth, in bringing about and consummating the final separation of England from Catho- lic unity, prompted by religious or by merely temporal and political motives There can be but one answer to ,this question; the facts of history clearly allow of no other. They all point in one direction-not heavenward but earthward. We may not, indeed, penetrate the secrets of hearts, which only He "who searclieth hearts and reins" is able to fathom; but it is fair to estimate the motives of public characters by their un- doubted public acts; and, in fact, we have no other criterion than this for forming a sound judgment on matters of his- torical importance. Judged by this standard, it is altogether certain, that Elizabeth was prompted to her new course of religious policy, not by the love of truth, but by temporal 11 tives alone. Elizabeth was a Catholic when she ascended the throne on the death of Mary, in November, 1558. As we have already seen, she had conformed to the Catholic faith during the reign of her sister, and had striven to give palpable evidence VOL. II.-14 161 ANGUCAN REFORMATION-E-ZTABSH. of her sincerity by the zeal and alacrity with which she per formed the outward duties of the ancient religion, which she had with so much seeming willingness embraced. The Catholics at first seem to have trusted her sincerity; the Protestants hoped that she had conformed only temporarily. through mo)tives of enlightened self-interest, and that her real sympathies were still with them. The Protestants wvere right, and the Catholics were deceived, as the event abundantly proved. With the sturdy self-will and tyrannical spirit of her father, she had inherited the coquetry, the finesse, and the insincerity of her mother; but she was endowed with far more adroitness and cunning, was possessed of far more ad- ninistrative ability, and was probably guided in her conduct by less of moral principle, than either of her parents. All this is proved by the whole tenor of her long reign. 2. It is probable that she was really indifferent on the subject of religion, and that if it had suited her interests as well, she would have continued a zealous Catholic, and would have maintained the Catholic religion just as she found it on her accession. But she was well aware, that the Catholic Church, through the Pope, had decided against the divorce of her father and his attempted marriage with her mother, thereby declaring her own birth illegitimate; and that, as a principle was involved, and the Catholic Church never yields a principle, she could not reasonably hope that her claim to be considered the lawful heir of her father and the rightful successor to the throne, however it might be acquiesced in as There is no evidence to sustain what Hallam says, in his Constitutional History of England (p. 71) concerning Elizabeth's "forced compliance with the Catholic rites during the late reign." As we have seen, Mary treated her with the utmost kindness, and no threats, much less forcible means, were employed for her conversion; to the full sincerity of which Elizabeth most soleninly swore before her sister's death. Oaths, however, seemed to have cost her very little, and to have weighed but very lightly on her pecu- liarly versatile and elastic conscience. What cared she, if the earth did open and swallow her up, in case she did not tell the truth !-she had not suffi- cient faith to make this terrible imprecation even impressive. 162 POPE PAUL IV. a matter of fact, would ever be formally recognized on prin- ciple by the Pontiffs or the Church. This apprehension was still further increased by the answer of Pope Paul IV. to Came, the English ambassador at Rome, when the latter announced to him her accession to the throne, with the additional message containing her promise, that she would offer no violence to the consciences of her subjects. The aged Pontiff-lie had passed his eightieth year-is said to have responded rather coolly, that "lie could not com- preliend the hereditary right of one not born in lawful wed- lock; that the queen of Scots claimed the crown as the nearest legitimate descendant of Henry VII.; but that, if Elizabeth were willing to submit the controversy to his arbi- tration, she should receive from him every indulgence which justice could allow." If this statement may be relied onst Pallavicino, Storia del Concdlio di Trento, ii, 521; quoted by Lingard, History of England, vii, 253. t In his Constitutional History of England, (p. 72, note,) Mr. Hallam says, in reference to this alleged message to the Pontiff and the answer of the latter: " This remarkable fact, which runs through all domestic and foreign histories, has been disputed, and, as far as appears, disproved by the late editor of Dodd's Church History of England (vol. iv, preface,) on the authority of Carne's own letters in the State Paper office. It is at least highly probable, not to say evident from these, that Elizabeth never con- templated so much intercourse with the Pope, even as a temporal sovereign, or (as ) to notify her accession to him; and it had before been shown by Strype, that on December 1, 1558, an order was despatched to Carne, for- bidding him to proceed in an ecclesiastical suit, wherein, as English ambas- sador, he had been engaged." Mr. Tierney, the editor of Dodd, ascribes the story to "the inventive powers of Paul Sarpi." However, it had been stated, or copied, by Spondanus and Pallavicino, and from them had passed to most historians. One thing appears certain: that Elizabeth's early movements against Rome were taken without any reference whatever to the alleged reply of the Pontiff, which she could not have had time to receive, before she took her final stand on the subject of religion. This is clearly proved by Ilallam, by reference to dates and other arguments. He says: "But it is chiefly mate- rial to observe, that Elizabeth displayed her determination to keep aloof from Rome in the very beginning of her reign;," and again, "From the dates ot 163 164 ANGLICAN REFORlMATION-ELIZABETH. probably the Pontiff had been previously addressed on the subject by the French anibassador, who had strongly urged the claims of Mary of Scots; she having lately become the daughter-in-law of the French monarch, by marrying Fran- cis, his eldest son and the heir to the throne. The alleged response of the Pontiff, if unfortunate and highly impolitic, as it may have been, was at least dictated by sound principle, and by that love of truth which rises above all merely human considerations and leaves conse- quences in the hands of God. It was fully in conformity with the hereditary traditions of the Papacy, which has always preferred truth and justice to mere expediency. The opinion of the Pontiff, if ever uttered, was, moreover, clearly in accordance with the declaration of the English statute book itself, upon which the record of her mother's attainder and of Elizabeth's illegitimacy still remained unrepealed. The result was, to confirm Elizabeth in her determination to abolish the Catholic religion in England, and to set up another of her own creation, which wu'ldd be more supple in prin- ciple, more compliant with her wishes, and more subservient to her policy. She was haunted by the phantom of a Cath- olic rival to the throne from the very moment of her acces- sion; and this phantom, while it seems to have thus deter- mined her early policy, pursued her during more than half of her long reign, until it was finally laid by the bloody consum- mation of a cruelty, combined with a treachery unparalelled in the annals of history-the barbarous murder of her cousin, poor Mary of Scots! these and other facts, it may be fairly inferred that Elizabeth's resolution was formed independently of the Pope's behaviour towards Carne."-Constit. Hist., p. 72, note. The argument in the text is based on the supposed authenticity of the Pope's answer to Carne, as generally reported by historians. If this be not true, however, the argument is not weakened, but, in one point of view, rather strengthened; for then the action of Elizabeth was wholly unprovoked, and her insult to the religion of her subjects more atrocious, because wanton and without any excuse. The truth is, she wished to be Pope, or Popess, herself! INTRIGUES OF SIR WILLIAM CECIL S. Having determined on her line of policy, Elizabeth chose her instruments for carrying it out. In this she dis. played that sagacity in the selection of her advisers, which distinguished her throughout her reign. She chose, as her prime minister and principal counselor, a man as remarkable for his signal ability in the administration of public affiairs, as for his utter disregard of principle in carrying out his measures. Sir William Cecil was a man after Elizabeth's own heart. Pardoned by the clemency of Mary for his par- ticipation in the treason of Northumberland, he had, like Elizabeth, conformed to the Catholic religion, and had taken great pains to ingratiate himself with Mary by outward com- pliance with Catholic duties and an affectation of zeal tfr Catholic interests, especially in bringing about the reconcilia- tion with Rome. But Mary with reason distrusted his sin- cerity, and was slow in bestowing on him her confidence, in spite of Cardinal Pole's recommendation. Cecil, thus foiled in his ambition, directed his attention towards Elizabeth, " the rising sun" and heir presumptive to the crown; and by his wily arts and fulsome flattery, he succeeded in worming himself fully into her confidence, even during the latter days of her sister's reign. From the moment of her accession, le became the controlling spirit of her council, and regulated her whole policy. He was as ready as she, to turn his back on the old Church, and to undertake the task of destroying it from the face of England. To accomplish this end the more surely, lie suggested the following plan, which was acted on within the f1itt month of Elizabeth's reign : " 1. To forbid all manner of sermons, that the preachers (Catholic) might not excite their hearers to resistance; 2. to intimidate the clergy by prose- cutions under the statute of praemunire and other penal laws; 3. to debase in the eyes or the people all who had been in authority under the late queen, by rigorous inquiries into their conduct, and by bringing them, when- ever it was possible, under the lash of the law; 4. to remove the present Lingard, vii, p. 244-5. Condensed from the paper as published by Burnet. ii 327, and more accurately t1 Strype, AnnaLs, i, lRec. 4. 42 165 166 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. magistrates, and to appoint others 'meaner in substance and younger in years,' but better affected towards the reformed doctrines; 5. to name a secret committee of divines, who should revise and correct the liturgy pub lished by Edward VL; and lastly, to communicate the plan to no othei persons than Parr, the late marquess of Northampton, the earls of Bedford and Pembroke, and the lord John Crey, till the time should arrive when it must be laid before the whole council." 4. By degrees this secret movement became generally known. The Catholic bishops, most of whom were then in London to attend the funeral of Mary and assist at the coro- nation of her successor, were justly alarmed. Their appre- hension was increased by the arrest and imprisonment of Bishop White of Winchester, for having dared defend the Catholic religion in his funeral sermon over the remains of the late queen; it settled down into a conviction of coming mischief to the Church, when a royal proclamation appeared, forbidding the clergy to preach, and ordering the established worship to be observed " until consultation might be had in parliament by the queen and the three estates.' Another indication of the royal councils tended still further to aggra- vate the alarm. Oglethorpe, bishop of Carlisle, when about to celebrate Mass in the royal chapel on Christmas day, received an order not to elevate the sacred Host in the queen's presence. He replied, with noble independence, "that his life was the queen's, but his conscience his own; on which Elizabeth, rising immediately after the gospel, retired with her attendants. 5. Thlank God, there was now found to exist some independ- ence of royal dictation in the episcopal body; which appears to have been only surprised into acquiescence or conformity in Henry's reign, but had now learned by bitter experience the wiles of unscrupulous politicians seeking to destroy the Church of God. The bishops immediately met in council, and after mature deliberation, unanimously resolved, that they could not in conscience assist at the consecration of a Lingard, vii, p. 255. Camden 33, 34. etc. DID THlE CHURCH REFORM ITSELF queen, who even at this early day undertook, by her sole will, to settle against them grave questions of theology; who would probably take it upon herself to set aside, in the same arbitrary way, the most solemn and important rites of thle coronation service itself; and who, if she took the usual oath to uphold with her entire authority the freedom and stability of the established Catholic Church, could not reasonably be expected to comply with her solemnly sworn promise. Elizabeth and Cecil were now embarassed; their artful design had prematurely transpired, and fears were entertained that it might meet with serious popular opposition, perhaps be entirely thwarted, should the queen not be crowned in the usual way. At length, the scruples of Oglethorpe were over- come, and he consented to crown the queen, but only on con- dition that the entire service should be performed, and that she should take the oath in its usual form. She did so, and solemnly sealed it by the reception of the holy Sacrament under one kind. How she kept her oath-or rather how recklessly she trampled it under foot almo8t immediately afterwards-we shall see more fully in the answer to the second questions The coronation took place January 15, 1559; the parliament which abolished the religion she had so solemnly sworn to uphold, was opened on the 25th of the same month-only ten days afterwards. The bishops were clearly right in doubting her sincerity. t Says Macaulay (Review of Hallam's Constit. History): Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages which were to be derived from a close connection between the monarchy and the priesthood. At the time of her accession, indeed, she evidently meditated a partial reconciliation with Rome. And throughout her whole life, she leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious parts of the Catholic system. But her imperious temper, her keen sagacity, and her peculiar situation, soon led her to attach herself completely to a church which was all her own. On the same principle on which she joined it, she attempted to drive all her people within its pale by persecution. She supported it by severe penal laws, not because she thoughi conformity to its discipline necessary to salvation, but because it was the fastness which arbitrary power was making strong for itself; because she 167 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETfH. II. Did the regularly constituted authorities and organs of the English church willingly adopt the change of reli- gion, and thereby make it true that " the English church reformed itself; " or was the change brought about by the state in spite of their solemn protest and united opposition Nothing can be more certain than the truth of the propo- sition implied in the latter member of the question. The popular theory-that " the English church reformed itself"- is a mere fiction of the imagination, and it has not even the shadow of a foundation in the real facts of English history. TIle change of religion in England was introduced and ac- complished solely by the strong arm of the state, and in direct opposition to the known and clearly expressed wishes, not only of the entire Catholic episcopate, but of nearly all the higher clergy, including the leading members of the two great universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It was made, too, in plain opposition to the faith and will of the great mass of the English population, which was still Catholic. By what expedients the religious revolution was brought about, under such seemingly untoward circumstances, we will now attempt briefly to show. 1. The parliament, which was to accomplish the great work, had been previously carefully packed by the arch manceuvrer, Cecil. To secure a majority in the upper house, five new lords of well known Protestant principles were created i while a majority was obtained in the commons by the high-handed measure of sending to the sheriffs of the counties lists of court-candidates, out of which the members expected a more profound obedience from those who saw in her both their civil and their ecclesiastical head, than from those who, like the Papists, ascribed spiritual authority to the Pope, or from those who, like some of the Puritans, ascribed it only to Heaven. To dissent from her establishment was to dissent from an institution founded with an express view to the maintenance and extension of the royal prerogative." 168 A PACKED PARLJAME.NT-DESPOTIC TONE. to be returned must be selected. With a parliament thus artfully selected, composed of crouching aspira ts after court favor and of greedy new lords who had their fortunes to make out of the remaining spoils of the old Church, Cecil entertained no apprehensions of failure in carrying out his favorite project. Constituted as it was, the parliament clearly did not fairly represent the sentiment of England, and its action could be no certain exponent of the opinions, religious or otherwise, of the English masses. The members were, like Cecil's new magistrates, "meaner in substance and younger in years," than their predecessors; but, for this very reason, they were all the better qualified to do the work which was expected of them. And they did it accordingly, most promptly and most zealously. The better, however, to prepare their minds for obedience to the royal will, the queen's opening speech, delivered by the new lord keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was marked by the imperious tone of Henry VIII.; and it boldly assumed the ground of an absolute and all absorbing royal prerogative, which could illy brook popular opposition. Such a pretension was comparatively unknown in the good old Catholic times, and it had become fashionable only since England had con- sented humbly to lay her religion, and with it the liberties of her Catholic Magna Charta, at the foot of the throne.t The houses. of parliament "were not, however, to suppose, that their concurrence was necessary for these purposes-the queen could have effected them if she had so pleased, of her own authority-but 'she rather sought contentation by assent, and surety by advice, and was wilting to require of her lov- "The court named five candidates for shires, or counties, and three for the boroughs."-Strype, i 32. Ibid., p. 257. t How very different was the tone of her sister, the "bloody Mary," who had the noble courage to relinquish prerogative and to restore the ancient Catholic constitution of England to its pristine freedom and integrity we have already seen in the previous chapter, on the authority of Miss Strick- land. VOL. II.-15 169 170 ANGLICAN REFORlATTION-EIZABEH. ing subjects nothing which they were not contented freely and frankly to offer."' 2. In the commons, as was already foreseen and carefully provided for, the bill to abolish the old and establish the new religion, passed without much, at least serious opposition; in the lords, it passed only after a stormy debate. But what is more to our present purpose, in the convocation of the clergy, it experienced a most vigorous and unanimous, but fruitless oI)position. This body presented to the house of lords a mcnorial, setting forth their full and unshaken belief in all the principal articles of the Catholic faith, with a solemn protestation, "that to decide on doctrine, sacraments, and discipline belonged, not to any lay assembly, but to he aw- ful pastors of the Church. Both universities subscribed the confession of the convocation, and the bishops ufnalnimou8ly seized every opportunity to speak and vote against the measure."t To neutralize or overcome this opposition, Cecil adopted an expedient well worthy of his sagacity. He ordered a public dispute on religion between five Catholic bishops and three Catholic doctors on the one side, and eight Protestant minis- ters on the other. The lord keeper Bacon-a violent partisan of the new gospelers-was appointed to act as moderator; and the debates of parliament were suspended that all might be able to attend the discussion. The manifestly partial regulation was adopted, that on each day of the debate the Catholic side should have the opening and the Protestant the closing argument: and when, on the second day, the bishops objected to this unjust arrangement, and claimed equal pri- vileges with their adversaries, their request was sternly refused by Bacon; whereupon the bishops refused to go on with the discussion, under disadvantages so manifest and The hand of the adroit and wily Cecil is apparent in this speech, which, while claiming despotic power, seems to defer to the wishes of the people. See Strype, and D'Ewes, ii. f Wilkins, Concil. iv., 179. Ibid., p. 260. THE CHURCH ESTABLISHIED BY LAW. 171 glaring. This seems to have been precisely the result con- templated and desired by Cecil. Two of the most influential bishops-of Winchester and Lincoln-were committed to the tower, and the other six disputants on the Catholic sidev were bound over to make their appearance daily, till judgment would be pronounced on them. The desired object was now attained: the majority was fully assured in the house of lords by the effectual silencing of two strong voices; and it was calculated with confidence, that the fear of similar punishment by the rest of the clergy would break, if not silence, the determined opposition in the convocation. Tile convocation does not seem to have yielded to the menace; but such of its nmembers as had a vote in parliament were utterly powerless to prevent the passage of the additional bill in favor of the new book of Common Prayer, which was adopted in the house of lords, however, only by the meagre majority of three; nine temporal and nine spiritual lords-including all the bishops who could be in attendance-voting against its passage. 3. The bills passed on the subject of religion, in this first parliament under Elizabeth, provided for the repeal of all the They attended daily for more than a month-from the 5th of April till the 10th of May, 1559-and were then heavily fined. Strype, i, 87. Rec. 41. Foxe, iii, 822, etc. Ibid. Bishop Short is very unfiir in his statement of this discussion. He omits many of the facts and distorts others. Following a document signed " by several of the privy council " republished by the partisan Burnet, he lays all the blame for breaking up the discussion on the Catholic bishops. Still he admits the fact of the harsh treatment of the disputants and the imprison- ment of the two Catholic bishops; "a step," he adds, "which, though it may possibly be defended, on the plea of their disorderly (!) conduct, can not but appear severe and vexatious." He says the Catholic bishops objected "in toto to thus allowing the laity to become judges in ecclesiastical affairs ;" which objection was reasonable enough. He concludes: "Thus ended the disputation, of which the result was such as might naturally have been ex- pected, in which all the passions are excited by its publicity, and no room left for quiet discussion; and yet it was not without its use."-History of the Church of England, p. 120-1, and note. ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. laws restoring the Catholic religion enacted under the late reign, and for the revival of the acts of Henry VIII. against the papal supremacy, as well as of those of Edward VI. in favor of the reformed worship. The Book of Common Prayer, as amended by the committee of divines already referred to, was ordered to be everywhere used under the penalties of confiscation of property, of deprivation of office, and ultimately of death itself! All spiritual jurisdiction, for the correction of heresies and abuses, was declared to be vested in tile crown, and it might be delegated "to any per- son or persons whaterer at the pleasure of the sovereign." The penalties for asserting the supremacy of the Pope were: forfeiture of all real and personal property for the first offense, perpetual imprisonment for the second, and the death of a traitor for the third! Finally, all clergymen taking orders or having livings, all magistrates and inferior officers paid by the government, as well as laymen suing out the livery of their lands, or about to do homage to the queen, should, under penalty of deprivation, take the oath of supremacy, whereby they renounced all foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction whatever within the realm, and acknowledged the queen as supreme head and governor of the church in England, in all things and causes spiritual as well as temporal.t 4. The creed of the new church, like its worship, had undergone various changes, and had been improved by various amendments in the previous reigns of Henry and Edward. Under Henry, the number of articles to be believed under penalty of death was reduced to six; under Edward, these six were all excluded, and forty-two were substituted in their place; under Elizabeth, the matter of doctrine was still further reconsidered, and the number of articles was reduced to thirty-nine, as they stand to this day. They passed, with very little debate, in the convocation of 1563, which during For more on the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion see note A. at the end of this volume. t Stat. 1, Elizabeth L Lingard, ibid., vii, 260. 172 A LAW AND PARLIAMENT-CHURCH. 173 the previous four years had been duly expurgated and drilled into conformity by the government. The convocation was still, indeed, through the royal clemency, permitted to as- semble simultaneously with the parliament; without whose authority and that of the council, however, the clergy could accomplish nothing. Thus, in the present instance, the con- vocation wished also to make provision for the adequate sup- port of the inferior clergy, as well as to establish a code of ecclesiastical discipline; but they were peremptorily ordered to pass over these matters, as not within their province, and to confine themselves to the exposition of doctrine. Thus again, the convocation labored hard to force these articles on the consciences of all, and to make the rejection of them a penal offense; but the council opposed and defeated their design, as not then necessary against the Catholics, who were already completely at the mercy of the government, and as being offensive to the Protestant dissenters whom it was thought prudent to conciliate. All officials of the new, church were, however, compelled to sign them under pain of depri- vation. 5. Such was the sweeping and terrible legislation, by which, in a few short days, the religion and the worship which had been hallowed by reverent adoption and constant use, with but slight interruption, for nearly a thousand years in Eng- land, were ruthlessly swept away forever! The work of destruction was evidently accomplished by laymen, headed by a lay-woman, against the solemn protest and united oppo- sition of the bishops and of the higher clergy of England. It was done by persons to whom Christ never certainly dele- gated any spiritual authority whatsoever, and who were there- fore evidently incompetent either to set up one church or to destroy anothe r, to adopt one set of doctrines and one kind of worship, or to abolish another. It was done by men clothed with no spiritual authority, but armed with the carnal See for authorities Lingard, ibid. pi 318 seq. ANGLICAN REIORMATION-ELIZABEII. weapons of civil power alone. Hence, they ye( y appropri ately hedged their new church around with civil pains and penalties, and made the chlief executive in temporalis its siuprenme head also in spirituals. It was thus mianifestly a law and a parliament-church, from its very ince)tion, and it could, by no possibility, be regarded in any other light. It -ai a novelty in legislation, before utterly unheard of in all Christian times, to declare the supreme spiritual jurisdiction and power vested in a woman; and thus, while rejecting the Pope, really setting up a pope88;-clad, too, with power far more ample than ever Roman Pope claimed, or even thought of claiming! 6. Of all the bishops, only one--Kitchin of Llandaff-could be prevailed upon to take the oath of supremacv, and lie did it with reluctance, and only to retain his see. The rest were immediately deposed, and many of them impriso-tAd.t The Of the nature of the headship over the church of England claimed by Elizabeth, we will speak more fully a little further on, when we will come to treat of the oath of supremacy. It will be seen, that what is here stated in the text is not too strong Bishop Short says as much, in substance, in more than one place. Thus, among other instances of high-handed author- ity, lie mentions her having suspended her primate, Grindal archbishop of Canterbury, for having dared write her a respectful letter of remonstrance on a matter purely ecclesiastical. See his Church History etc., p. 149-seq. t This is confirmed by Hallam, a moderately just, but prejudiced Angli- can writer, as appears particularly from his two elaborate chapters on the reign of Elizabeth; in one of which he speaks of her treatment of Cath- olics, in the other of that of dissenters. He tells the truth by instalments, and with sundry qualifications and awkward interruptions, as an English orator often pauses in speaking to recover his breath and collect his ideas! He tells us that the number of Catholic bishops happened then "not to ex- ceed sixteen, one of whom was prevailed on to conform; while the rest, refusing the oath of supremacy, were deprived of their bishoprics by the court of ecclesiastical High Commission."1-Constit. History, p. 73. He admits (Ibid., p. 72) that all the bishops opposed the new religious establishment: " These acts did not pass without considerable opposition among the lords; nine temporal peers, besides all the bishops, having protested against the bill 17-4 THIRD QUESTION-ANGLICAN ORDINATIONS. 175 same may be said of the great body of the higher and more learned and pious of the clergy; such as the deans, preben- daries, archldeacons, and leading members of the two uni- versities, who nobly preferred to the sacrifice of their con- sciences the loss of their places, and, as happened in mnany cases, of their personal liberty. It was only among the lower clergy, who either dreaded the hardships of poverty or ex- pected another speedy change in religion, that the odious oath was taken by any considerable number. Still, with every effort to induce them to conform, and after repeated injunc- tions and commissions issued and appointed by the govern- ment, in order the more effectually to purge out the non- juring clergy, the number of vacancies was still so great in the parishes, that lay-teachers, mostly mechanics, had to be employed to read the new service. This leads us to the third question: of Uniformity establishing the Anglican Liturgy, though some pains had been taken to soften the passages obnoxious to Catholics." Bishop Short confirms all this. Ile says: "During the whole of the debate on this act (of conformity) the strongest opposition was shown on the part of the Roman Catholic bishops, who advo- cated the cause of civil liberty; being naturally adverse to opinions so much at variance with what they had lately professed, and which were at the same time likely to eject them from their preferments .... "All the bishops, with the exception of one only, Kitchin of Llandaff, refused to do so (to take the oath of supremacy,) and were ejected from their sees to the number of fourteen." Sup. cit. p. 120-1. Strype, i, 139 etc. Lingard, ibid., p. 265. Bishop Short speaks of the deplorable state to which the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge were reduced a year after Elizabeth's accession, and he quotes for this purpose Jewell and Bullinger, who declare the mem- bers "without piety, without religion; without a doctor, without any hope of literature, etc." (p. 123, note.) The terrible system of wholesale confis- ration adopted during the reigns of Henry and Edward had done its sad work, which Mary could not repair during her short reign, though she labored to do so. Of Elizabeth's clergy the same Anglican prelate furnishes a very sad account. They seem, in general, to have been men of little learning and of less piety. Thus ainong the queen's injunctions, was one 176 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. III. Were the foundations of the new hierarchy, which superseded the old, solidly laid; and are the claims set up by the A iiglican bishops to valid orders and lawful jurisdic- tion esven plausibly defensible This is a vital question for the Anglican church estallish- ment. Its discussion has filled volumes on both sides. We can only furnish some of the principal facts, and state some of the chief points which have been made, referring our readers for fuller information to works wherein the subject is discussed in full. 1. Cardinal Pole, archbishop of Canterbury, died in July 158, twenty-two hours after his relative, Queen Mary. This was opportune for the new religious establishment, and it became a matter of great importance to its interests to fill the vacant primatial see with a man who would be the best cal- culated to promote them. Elizabeth, the royal head of the new church, selected for the post Dr. Matthew Parker, who had been chaplain to her mother, and her own particular friend. But who was to consecrate him, and in what manner forbidding the clergy to marry a woman, "without the consent of the master or mistress with whom she was at service, in case she had no relatives-a proof of the low rank held by the clergy."-(P. 121, note.) Thus again, the primate Parker wrote to Grindal, bishop of London, "desir- ing him not to ordain any more mechanics."-(P. 124) Thus again, he quotes Gibson, afterwards bishop of London, to show the learning and abilities of the clergy in the archdeaconry of Middlesex in 1563; from whose statement it appears, that out of one hundred and eighteen clergymen, only three were learned in Greek and Latin, and eighty-eight were only moderately (mediocriter) or very slightly (parum aliquid) learned in Latin only; while thirteen knew no Latin at all, and three seem to have been complete know-nothings (indocti) !-Gibson adds: "If the London clergy were thus ignorant, what must we imagine the country divines were .' (P. 124 and note.) Elsewhere Short quotes from Bullinger's Decads a passage which may aid us in accounting for this sad degeneracy of Elizabeth's clergy: "Patrons now-a-days search not the universities for a most fit pastor; but they post up and down the country for a most gainful chapman: he that hath the big- PARKER 'S CONSECRATION. 177 2. The difficulties in the way were manifold. All the Catholic bishops, except Kitelhin of Llandaff, had been de- posed, and it could scarcely be expected that they would con- sent to consecrate an archbishop who belonged to the party which had supplanted them. The law of the 25th Henry VIII., which had been revived in the first parliament of Elizabeth, required the election of the archbishop to be con- frined, and his consecration to be performed by four bishops. If four could even be found to perform the ceremony, how should they do it The Catholic ordinal had been abolished in the present, and that of Edward VI., in the last reign; so that there was actually left in existence no legal form what- ever for the consecration of a bishop. The difficult case was referred by the council to six learned theologians and canon- ists, who decided that in such an emergency the queen, as supreme head of the church, had authority to supply all deficiencies ! 3. Accordingly, after having, as it would seem, first ap- plied in vain to an Irish Catholic archbishop, who was then gest purse to pay largely, not he that hath the best gifts to preach learned- ly.,, (P. 138.) Hallam says (Constit. History, p. 73), on the authority of Burnet and Strype: " In the convocation of 1559, the queen appointed a general eccle- siastical visitation, to compel the observance of the Protestant formularies. It appears from their reports, that only about one hundred dignitaries and eighty parochial priests resigned their benefices, or were deprived." This number was for a single year, the first of Elizabeth; and still it is, no doubt, far below the mark. Bishop Short states the number as one hundred and eighty-nine. (P. 122.) The members of the ecclesiastical visitation were court employees and partial witnesses, whose interest it clearly was, to make out as favorable a statement as possible to the new head of their church. Lingard and other historians place the number of the clergy, who were deprived or who resigned, much higher. Burnet, quoted by Hallam (Ibid., note,) says, that "pensions were reserved for those who quitted their benefices on account of religion." If so, and the pensions were not partial, and not merely nominal-which we greatly suspect-it was an act of simple justice, not "a very liberal measure," as Hallam says it was. See authorities, Lingard, ibid., p. 263. ANGLIOAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. a prisoner for his faith in the tower, Elizabeth on the 9th of September, 1559, issued a commission, with the requisite san- atory clause, to Tunstal, bishop of Durham, Bourne of Bath and Wells, Pool of Peterborough, Kitchin of Llandaff, and Barlowe and Scorey, the deprived bishops of Bath and ClIi- chester under Mary. The four first named Catholic prelates including even Kitchin, refused to act; and the time having elapsed, another commission was issued in December follow- ing to William Barlowe, John Hodgkins, John Scorey, and Miles Coverdale, all reformed bishops, who had been deprived under the last reign. It is said, that these four, after having first confirmed his electiont proceeded shortly afterwards, (December, 17,) to consecrate Parker according to the rite prescribed in the repealed ordinal of Edward VI. Parker, as archbishop, then confirmed the election of two among those nominal prelates who had confirmed his own; and he subsequently proceeded to consecrate all the other newly ap- pointed bishops. Parker is thus, plainly, the fountain of all subsequent epis- copal ordinations in the Anglican establishment; and if lie was not himself validly consecrated, none of the present epis- copal bishops and clergy-all of whom derive their ordination from him-can claim to possess valid orders. 4. In regard to the validity of Parker's consecration, three principal difficulties were raised at the time by his opponents, and they have never been satisfactorily solved even to the present day.: 1. It was doubted whether Barlowe, the prin- This fact is expressly stated by Sanders, a contemporary writer, in his well known work on the Anglican Schism, to which we may refer more par- ticularly hereafter. f The majority of the chapter of Canterbury had refused to concur in the election of Parker. See Lingard, and his authorities. Ibid., p. 262. T Besides the difficulties mentioned in the text, there was another very embarrassing legal one which was raised, notwithstanding the sanatory clause in the commission for the consecration of Parker. We cannot better state it than in the words of Dr. Lingard. (Hist. England, note G, voL vii) 178 THREE DIFFICULTIE 179 cipal consecrator, was himself validly consecrated. The Catholics at the time challenged their adversaries to produce evidence proving the fact of Barlowe's consecration, but they seem to have challenged in vain. "Neither Archbishop Bramhall, with all his industry; nor Mason, with all his art; nor Burnet, with all his researches; nor Weston, with all his learning, could ever find out the useful document. So that Stephens, a learned Protestant clergyman, makes the following observation upon the cir- cumstance: 'It is a wonderful thing by what chance or providence it hap- pened, that Barlowe's consecration, who was the principal actor in this, should nowhere appear, nor any positive proof of it be found, in more than fourscore years since it was first questioned, by all the search that could be made by so many learned and industrious and curious persons." 2. The fact itself of Parker's consecration has been ques- tioned. It is a very suspicious circumstance, that no con- His statement is fully confirmed by Hallam, in his Constit. History, p. 76, and by Bishop Short (p. 123, note 2.) "A question was afterwards raised, whether the new metropolitan, and the prelates confirmed and consecrated by him, were bishops according to law. When Horne, the new bishop of Winchester, tendered the oath to Bonner, the latter refused to admit his authority: he was not a bishop recognized by law, because he had been consecrated after an illegal form, and his consecrator had been consecrated himself in defiance of the statute of the 25th of Henry VIII. The question was argued before the judges of the court of Exchequer, who were unwilling, or forbidden to give judgment; and to remedy every defect, it was enacted by the statute of the 8th of Eli- zabeth, c. 1, that all acts and things previously done by any person in any consecration, confirmation, or investing of bishops, in virtue of the queen's letters patent or commission, should be judged good and perfect to all in- tents and purposes; and that all persons consecrated after the form in the ordinal of Edward VI. should be had to have been validly consecrated; and that the same ordinal should be thenceforth observed.-Strype, i, 340, 493; Strype's Parker, 61; Statutes of Realm, iv, 484." Lingard repudiates the story of the " Nag's Head " consecration of Parker, of which "he could find no trace in any author or document of the reign of Elizabeth."-Ibid. Of this we may have a word to say further on. Great Question. Fletcher's Comparative View, p. 227-8. Dr. Lingard, indeed, says that Barlowe was consecrated according to the Catholic pontifi. cal, but he gives no reference, and furnishes no proof He also simply states the fact of Parker's consecration. ANGLICAN REFORMA'I1ON-ELIZABETH. temporary Protestant historian relates it, and that not even Stowe, the intimate friend of Parker, says a word about it in his elaborate history, where it would seem the important fact should have found place had it really occurred. It is also not a little curious, that the Lambeth Register, upon the authority of which the fact chiefly, if not entirely rests, should not have been discovered or produced for more than fifty years afterwards, though the validity, and it would seem, even the fact itself of the consecration, were questioned, at or near the time, by such able Catholic writers as Harding, Stapleton, Allen, Bristow, and Sanders. Thlose who have maturely examined the question in all its bearings have, moreover, found what they believed to con- stitute strong evidences of forgery, both extrinsic and intrin- sic,in the Register itself, as discovered or produced for the first time by Mason, early in the seventeenth century. During the sixteenth century, as we have already seen, so much im- Bishop Short (p. 123) rejects the story of the Nag's Head consecration, as follows: " The story is, that when the bishops elect met at a tavern which bore that sign, and that Oglethorpe (Kitchin ) refused to consecrate them, Scorey laid a bible on each of their heads, and bade them rise up bishops. This tale has been refuted as often as brought forward, and bears on its face this difficulty: that had this account been known to the enemies of the church of England, it is not likely that any delicacy on their part should have delayed its publication for so long a period "-forty years. This argument is merely negative, and it has besides two edges, the sharper one of which is turned towards the Anglican champion. If we are to reject the account of the Nag's Head consecration, merely on the ground that we have no published account of it dating further back than forty years after the alleged occurrence, why should we not, a fortiori, reject the fact of Parker's consecration, of which no account was published earlier than Mason's-aboutfifty-three years after the alleged fact How account for this singular circumstance The Catholics were persecuted and could not publish their works in England; not so the Protestants who were in power. Strype, whom Short quotes, is no authority, for he merely followed Mason. See Archbishop Kenrick on Anglican Ordinations, for more on this subject. 180 TESIDIONY OF MCCRIE AND HALLAM. 181 portance was not attached to episcopal cohsecration as in the following period. The Protestant bishops were then regarded, and in fact they regarded themselves, merely as agents and a sort of spiritual bailiffs of the crown, upon which they depended for the exercise of all spiritual power, if not for the very fountain of the power itself. Such was the doctrine of Cranmer, and probably of all, or nearly all the leading An- glican reformers of the first half of the sixteenth century. 3. A third, and even stronger objection to the validity of the consecration, even supposing it to have really taken place, was based upon the form used, which was that prescribed in the ordinal adopted in the latter portion of the reign of Edward VI. It was said, and with reason, that this form, lbesides being clearly illegal,t was not only incomplete, but In his Life of Knox, McCrie, in answer to the claim set forth by many hierarchical writers of the English church" that ordination by a bishop is "absolutely necessary," says: "The fathers of the English Reformation were very far from entertaining such ridiculous and illiberal sentiments. Knox's call to the ministry was never questioned, but his services readily accepted when he afterwards went to England. Archbishop Cranmer, in the reign of Edward VI., and all the bishops in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, corresponded with and cheerfully owned the foreign reformed divines as brethren and fellow-laborers in the ministry of the gospeL In the year 1582, Archbishop Grindal, by a formal deed, declared the validity of the orders of Mr. John Morrison, who had been ordained by the synod of Lothian, ' according to the laudable form and rite of the church of Scotland' (says the instrument)-per generalem syno- dum sive cong-regationem illius comitatus juxta laudabilem ecclesia, Scotia reformatse formam ac ritum ad sacros ordines et sacro-sanctum ministerium per manuum impositionem admissus et ordinatus. Nos igitur formam ordi- mtnionis et praefectionis tuse hujusmodi modo praemisso factain, quantum in nos (sic) est et jure possumus, approbantes et ratificantes etc. (Strype's Life of Grindal, Appendix, etc.) Whittingham, dean of Durham, was ordained in the English church of Geneva, of which Knox was pastor; and Traverse, the opponent of Hooker, was ordained by a presbytery at Antwerp. At- tempts were made by some high-flyers to invalidate their orders, and induce them to submit to re-ordination, but they did not succeed."-Life of John Knox, p. 42-3, note; edition, New York, 1813. H Jallam fully admits the illegality of the early Anglican consecrationa 43 182 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. radic-ally defective; that in its most important part it did not indicate the real nature of the office for which the incumbent was consecrated; and that therefore it was wanting in what is clearly essential to the validity of the ordination. This ob- jection is still further strengthened by the well known fact, that the form alluded to was afterwards materially modified and amended, in this very particular, by the Anglican church itself. But the amendment could not certainly be retrospective in its operation, so as to heal the radical defect Speaking of Horn's attempt "to drive Bonner to high treason" by compel- ling him to take the oath of supremacy, and of Bonner's successful resist- ance he says: "Bonner, however, instead of evading the attack, intrepidly denied the other (Horn) to be a lawful bishop; and strange as it may seem, not only escaped all further molestation, but had the pleasure of seeing his adversa- ries reduced to pass an act of parliament, declaring the present bishops to have been legally consecrated. This statute, and especially its preamble, might lead a hasty reader to suspect, that the celebrated story of an irregu- lar consecration at the Nag's Head tavern was not wholly undeserving of credit. This tale has, however, been satisfactorily refuted; the only irregu- larity which gave rise to this statute consisted in the use of an ordinal which had not been legally re-established.c-Constit. History, p. 76. He does not tell us, how "it has been satisfactorily refuted; I' he gives us no authority whatever, for what must therefore rest on his own mere assertion. It is apparent, that there was someting sadly out of joint in Parker's consecration, which required for its remedy the healing act of par- liament; and that this was something more than a mere legal technicality, may be suspected from the fact recorded by Hallam, on the authority of Strype, (note, Ibid.,) that when the act was on its passage, "eleven peers dissented, all noted Catholics except the earl of Sussex."-Why did they dissent, if there was nothing but a legal flaw to heal It is a pity that there is not more satisfactory information contained in the documents which have been preserved, in reference to Parker's consecra- tion. The meagerness and unsatisfactory nature of all proceedings extant on this subject, is, of itself, a very suspicious circumstance, and we are left to our own conjectures. Have the original documents been mutilated or suppressed Why, for instance, do not the records of parliament state the precise grounds on which those "eleven peers dissented "a This would furnish a clue to unravel the whole mystery of Parker's consecration. QUESTION OF JURISDITON. in the consecration of Parker, which defect it seemed, more- over, virtually to admit. Whatever may be thought of each one of these objections taken separately, they are, when considered collectively, well calculated to raise at least a reasonable doubt on a subject, which should surely admit of no doubt whatsoever; because it is vital to the very existence of the Anglican church estab- lishment. With so much uncertainty thus lying at its very foundations, how can any reflecting man trust in it as the work oIf God How can any Christian, who values his eternal salvation, continue to cling to an establishment, which besides being evidently of merely human origin, rests for its most essential element-the ministry-on the most human, the most fallible, and the most doubtful basis Even admitting the validity of Parker's consecration, and that of the subsequent Anglican ordinations, it does not at all follow, that the Anglican clergy have lawful jurisdiction. Jurisdiction emanates from a lawfully constituted govern- ment, which has power to impart it, and which actually im- parts it to its duly appointed and accredited agents or minis- ters. In separating from the Catholic Church, and setting up a new and antagonistic church organization, the Anglican reformers forfeited all claim to jurisdiction from the Catholic Church which.they repudiated, and which repudiated them, as a schismatic body. Clearly they could not derive their jurisdiction from the Catholic Church. Whence, then, did they derive it From Queen Elizabeth-But who gave her For an elaborate, learned, and modern examination of the whole ques- tion, see the work of Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, "On Anglican Ordi- nations," second edition, to be had in any of our Catholic bookstores. See also note B. at the end of the present volume. In the last London edition of Dr. Lingard's History, revised by himself the author, in a note at the end of the volume, enters at some length into the discussion of the form of ordination as prescribed in this earlier ordinal of Edward VI., showing its utter deficiency, and proving that his admission of the fact of Parker's consecration does not carry with it the belief in its validity. 183 184 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. the power to impart spiritual jurisdiction From the parlia- ment-But who made the British parliament the fountain of spiritual power From themselves-But how could they give what they had not From Christ-But Christ says: "He that heareth not the Church, let him be to you, as a heathen and a publican ;" and addressing His first body of ministers, " le that hears you, hears me, and he that despises you, despises me, and lie that despises me, despises Him that sent me."' Christ evidently made His Church His only regular organ of communication with the world, his only channel and fountain of jurisdiction for the work of the ministry. He never promised spiritual power or jurisdiction to anv who were separated from and at war with Him, by separating from and warring with His spouse-the Church. He said: "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth'." Whence then, we repeat, did the Anglican hierarchy derive its spiritual jurisdiction We come now to the last question referred to above: IV. Finally, were the means employed for establishing the new religious order, and for securing conformity with the new worship and obedience to the new organization, such as are consistent with the spirit of the gospel, and such as we would naturally look for in a change for the better This question has been already in part answered. We have shown that it was not the lawfully constituted spiritual authorities of the English church, acting in a lawful way- or in fact in any other way-but the temporal power alone acting in spite of the spiritual, which forcibly established the new church; and that it was not, moreover, by spiritual pen- alties, but by the ruder carnal weapons of confiscation, im- prisonment, and death, that conformity with the new religious ,rder was enforeed. Mens' consciences were then reputed as nothing, religions freedom was wholly disregarded, spurned, and trampled upon from the very outset of Elizabeth's reign. FOURTH QUESTION STATED-AND ANSWERED. She, as head of the new church, and her parliament, as tier servile organ, armed with its terrible code of pains and pen- alties, were paramount both in church and state; and no other authority dared even show itself, much less assert its claims to be heard.' The reign of brute force, based on the consolidated union of church and state, was now at hland: and it trampled in the dust all opposition. We supply the following additional summary of facts on a very painful sub- Ject, which the pen almost shrinks from describing, and the bare contemplation of which causes a shudder, even after the lapse of three centuries. In his Constitutional History of England, where he professedly discus- ses this whole subject from the legal stand-point, Mr. Hallam fully confirms almost every important statement we have made above, with regard to the manner in which the Anglican establishment was firmly fixed on the necks of the reluctant and down-trodden English people. He furnishes an account of the famous acts of supremacy and conformity, passed in the first year of Elizabeth, and he says of them, that they "form the basis of that restrictive code of laws deemed by some the fundamental bulwark, by others the reproach of our constitution; which pressed so heavily for more than two centuries upon the adherents of the Romish(!) Church." (P. 72.) From his subsequent remarks, we infer that he himself regards them as "a reproach," though his censure is not so strong as it should have been. He funmishes (Ibid. note) a copy of the Oath of Supremacy, in which every one was required to swear, that "the queen's highness is the only supreme governor of this realm, and all other her highness' dominions and countries, as wael in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal." This was really to declare her not only an absolute monarch-as she really was -but a popess, in the fullest meaning of the term. The qualifying explanation, made in the injunctions to the ecclesiastical visitors appointed in 1559, did not at all mend the matter, so fiar at least as Catholics were concerned. It was intended to soothe not them, but the 7ender consciences of their most bitter enemies, the dissenters. It declared, as the meaning of the oath, that "her majesty neither doth, nor ever will challenge any other authority, than that which was challenged and lately used by the said noble kings of famous(!) memory, King Henry VIII. and King Edward VI."-This was surely enough to gratify the ambition even of Elizabeth. The explanation that the supremacy regarded the "persons either ecclesiastical or temporal of her realm, rather than things, was a mere VOL. I.-16 185 186 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABlElH. 1. In the second parliament of Elizabeth, held in 1562-3, the obligation of taking the oath of supremacy was extended, quibble well worthy the tortuous and insincere mind of the queen and of the wily Cecil. If all ecclesiastical persons were entirely subject to her headship; and if she could appoint and displace them at will-as she really did-it was surely a real spiritual supremacy in the broadest sense. The spiritual jurisdiction of the Pontiff was expressly excluded in the explana- tion; which, Hallam admits, rendered it impossible for Catholics to take it. Ilallam himself furnishes us with some curious examples of the manner in which she exercised her spiritual supremacy over the persons of her sub- jects-bishops included. He says: "Thus Hatton built his house in Hol- born on the bishop of Ely's garden. Cox (the bishop) on making resistance to this spoliation received a singular epistle from the queen. This bishop, in consequence of such vexations, was desirous of retiring from the see be- fore his death. After that event, Elizabeth kept it vacant eighteen years." He also says, that "Cecil surrounded his mansion house at Burleigh with estates once belonging to the see of Peterborough."-(Const. Hist.,p. 134.) In a note he gives the "singular epistle" from the queen to Bishop Cox. Miss Strickland also furnishes a copy of the same, which we republish, with her introductory remarks: "Dr. Cox did not like his see despoiled, and resisted this encroachment, though backed by the queen's private orders. This refusal produced the following unique epistle from her maiden majesty:- "'PROUD PRELATE: " ' You know what you were before I made you what you are now. If you do not immediately comply with my request, I will unfrock you, by G-d. " ' ELIZABETH.' -Queens of England, vi. 234. Never, since the world began, had Roman Pope issued such a bull as this! The Anglican popess had also another habit, happily never indulged in by the Roman Pontiffs whom she had supplanted in England. She swore worse than her father-which is saying a great deal! Miss Strickland tells us as much, in the following graceful satire on a fulsome eulogy of the queen delivered or written by the crouching lord Bacon, who had, among other things, extolled her piety and the reverence with which she pronounced the name of God!!- " This observation is evidently urged in contradistinction to Elizabeth's well known habit of profane swearing, in which she outdid her father, bluff King Hal, from whom she probably acquired that evil propensity. "Her favorite expletive was, however, certainly derived from her first NEW PENAL LAWS-IIALLAM. "1st, to the members of the house of commons, to school- masters, private tutors, and attorneys; 2d, to all persons who had ever held office in the church, or in any ecclesiastical court, during the present or the last three reigns, or who should openly disapprove of the established worship, or should celebrate, or hear others celebrate any private Mass; that is, in one word, to the whole Catholic population of the realm." The penalties for refusal were those of prwmunire (confisca- tion of property, imprisonment, etc.) for the first offense, and the death of a traitor for the second! Some exceptions were indeed made, but they did not regard the mass of the Catho- lic population. The Catholic lords were exempted, and those included in the first class above named could have the oath tendered to them but once. The exemption of the lords was secured by the energetic resistance which the bill encountered in their house. The Viscount Montague asked, in bold and eloquent language: "Where was the necessity for such a law ' It was known to all men that Catholics had created no disturbance in the realm. They disputed not; they preached not; they disobeyed not the queen; theybrought in no novelities in doctrine or religion.' Then, could there be conceived a greater tyranny, than to compel a man, under the penalty of death, to swear to that as true, which in his conscience he believed to be doubtful Now, that the right of the queen to ecclesiastical supremacy must appear to many men doubtful, was evident from this, that, though enforced by law in England, it was con- tradicted by the practice and opinion of every other nation, whether reformed or unreformed, in Christendom. Let, then, their lordships beware, how they placed men under the necessity of forswearing themselves, or of suffiering death, lest instead of submitting, they should arm in their own defense; and lover, the lord admiral, with whom it was in fearfully familiar use, as those who have read the state papers collected by Haynes, and also by Tytler, must be aware; but expressions which startle us, even from the lips of a bad man, appear to the last degree revolting when used in common parlance by a female, especially a princess whose virtue is still a favorite theme with many writers. In illustration of Elizabeth's inconsiderate habit in this respect, we give the evidence of a contemporary, who appears neither shocked nor surprised at the coarse manners of the maiden monarch" Queens of England, vi, 336. 187 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABET11. let not the house in making laws permit itself to be led by the passions and rapacity of those 'who looked to wax mighty and of power by the confisca, tion, spoil, and ruin of the houses of noble and ancient men.' " 2. If this sweeping and barbarous law had been fully carried out, it would have drenched the land in Catholic blood. That it was not-at least immediately and to the full- est extent-was not owing to the clemency, but to the policy of Elizabeth and her counselors. It was solely because it was simply impossible to execute such a law against the property and lives of the great majority of the nation, which was still Catholic. "There are not,"-exclaimed Sad- ler, a contemporary-" in all this country ten gentlemen that do favor and allow of her majesty's proceedings in the cause of religion."t Still, the awful penalties hung, by a single thread, over the devoted heads of the Catholic population, who were thus kept in a state of constant apprehension and alarm; and they might fall on and crush them at any mo- ment;-as they did, in fact, a little later.: Strype, i, 259-273. Lingard, ibid., p. 316-7. Hallam gives a more lengthy report of Montague's speech in the lords, and he also refers to one delivered in the commons by Mr. Atkinson, quot- ing Foxe as his authority. In his account of the penal laws passed in this parliament, he agrees with Lingard, but omits "schoolmasters, private tutors, and attorneys,," as well as those "who should celebrate, or hear others celebrate, any private Mass" from the list of those on whom the oath was made obligatory. This omission seems culpable, as he should have given the whole substance of the act, if he chose to refer to it at all. It was passed March 3, 1563-not in 1562, as he would seem to indicate in the margin. (Constit. History, p. 75.) t St iser, ii, 55, quoted ibid., viii, 46. This was at a somewhat later period, during the northern insurrection. Sadler was Elizabeth's envoy in the northern counties of England. t That the penal acts against Catholics passed during the early years of Elizabeth, including that of this parliament, were not a dead letter, is freely admitted by Hallam, who gives several examples of their vexatious execu- tion. "Thus Sir Edward Waldgrave and his lady were sent to the tower in 1561, for hearing Mass and having a priest in their house. Many oTwrs, 188 TERRIBLE CODE 189 3. After the suppression of the formidable insurrection in the North, headed by the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, late in the year 1569, the queen and her par- liament waxed still fiercer and fiercer in their thirst for Cath- olic blood. Proclamation followed proclamation, and penal statute followed penal statute, each one stronger and more bloody than its predecessor. The insurgents had stated in their manifesto, among their reasons for taking up arms, that her majesty is surrounded "by divers newe sett-upp nobles, who not onlie go aboute to overthrow and put downe the ancient nobilitie of the realme, but also have misused the queene's majestie's owne personne, and also have by the space of twelve yeares nowe paste sett upp and mayntayned a new- found religion and heresie contrary to God's worde." The in- surrection was put down by the strong arm; and it is stated, about the same time, were punished for the like offense. Two bishops, one of whom I regret to say was Grindal, write to the council in 1562 concern- ing a priest apprehended in a lady's house, that neither he nor the servant would be sworn in answer to articles, saying they could not accuse them- selves; and after a wise remark on this, saying that 'papistry is likely to end in anabaptistry, proceed to hint that 'acme think that if this priest might be put to some kind of torment, and so driven to confess what he knoweth, he might gain the queen's majesty a good mass of money by the Masses that he hath said; but this we refer to your lordship's wisdom."' -(Constit. fist., p. 74.) This last fact speaks volumes for the mercenary heartlessness and wanton cruelty of Queen Elizabeth and her bishops. He also refutes, by unanswerable evidence, the reckless assertion of the court-writer Camden, that Catholics were connived at and scarcely mo- lested during the first fourteen years of Elizabeth ! "But this is not reconcilable to (with) many passages in Strype's col- lections. We find abufzdance of persons harassed for recusancy, that is, for not attending the Protestant church, and driven to insincere promises of con- formity. Others were dragged before ecclesiastical commissioners for harbor- ing priests, or for sending money to those who had fled beyond sea."- (Ibid., p. 77.) Of Strype, another court-writer, he says elsewhere: "Honest old Strype, who thinks church and state never in the wrong."-(P. 89. note.) Ibid., viii, 46. 190 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. that, after it had been crushed, no less than eight hundred Catholics in the northern counties perished on the scaflold. 4. Then followed the terrible code of persecution, surpassed only by the still more dreadful penalties which were to follow later in the same reign. Our limits will not permit us to furnish an account of all the cruel enactments against Cath- olics which were passed in the parliament of 1571; and we must be content with giving a few of the principal. 1. The penalties of imprisonment for the first offense, and of prwmu- nire for the second, were enacted against all persons, who should, by writing or printing, say that any particular per- son is the heir of the queen, except the same were "the natural issue of her body."t 2. Another act made it high treason to receive or use any bull or instrument from the bishop of Rome; and annexed the penalties of pronmunire to TLingard, ibid., p. 56. The insurgent earls did not agree or unhappily stand to their colors, like brave men, but quarrelled, and fled before the queen's army. t Camden, 241. Digges, 208. Ibid., p. 70. Hallam (Ibid., p. 94, note) grows indignant against those who would put a sinister construction on this expression employed by the parliament, no doubt at the bidding of Elizabeth. He speaks of "papistical libelers," and impeaches the candor of even Dr. Lingard, who was "not ashamed to in- sinuate the same suspicion." Now, Dr. Lingard's only offense consisted in quoting, in a note, the very words of Elizabeth's flatterer, Camden, and an extract from the letter of Leicester to Walsingham, as given by Digges. One would think that such authority was unexceptionable. Lingard does not add a single word of comment. Camden says: " Incredibile est quos jocos improbi verborum aucupes sibi fecerunt ex clausula illa, praeter natu- ralem ex ipsius corpore sobolem-It is incredible what jokes the wicked catchers at words made to themselves out of that clause the natural issue of her body." Leicester speaks much more broadly, and he surely was a competent witness. Hallam's explanation is this: "This, probably, was adopted by the queen out of prudery, as if the usual term implied the posvibility of her having unlawful issue."-One would think that "prudery" should have induced the "virgin queen" to adopt a different phrase altogether, especially as she was strongly opposed to marriage, and still was notorious for her intrigues with a succession of favorites. ELIZABETH'S INQUSITMON. 191 the crime of aiding and abetting the traitors just nanted, oi of introducing or receiving beads, crosses, Agnus Dei's, or pictures blessed by the Pope. 3. A third act enjoined for- feiture of all their property to the queen upon all persons who had left England, " either with or without license," un- less they returned within six months. 4. Finally, another act required, under heavy penalties, that all persons, above a certain age, should attend the established service. 5. By a subsequent statute, passed ten years later, the fine for non-attendance at the new service was fixed at twenty pounds per month-an enormous sum, equal to more than twelve hundred dollars of our present money! In this same parliament, it was declared high treason for any one to claim or exercise the power of absolving or withdrawing others from the established religion, or to be so withdrawn; which penalty was incurred also by their "procurers and counsel- ors." The penalty for saying Mass was increased to the payment of two hundred marks, and one year's imprisonment, and that of simply hearing it to the same term of imprison- ment and one hundred marks fine. Still further, to prevent priests being concealed in houses, as tutors or schoolmasters, " every person acting in such capacity, without the approba- tion of the ordinary (Protestant bishop) should be liable to a year's imprisonment, and the person who employed him to a fine of ten pounds per month."t Statutes of Realm, iv, 528. Ibid., p. 70-1. A clause requiring, besides attendance, communion in the new form, waw Iropped after strong remon- strance from the lords. t Stat. 23 Elizabeth, ch. 1. Ibid., p. 143. Hallam replies as follows to the court poet Southey, who had asserted that the English church was not fairly chargeable with the persecution of Catholics under its "re-founder" Elizabeth: " ' That church and the queen (Elizabeth,) its re-founder, are clear of per- secution, as regards the Catholics. No church, no sect, no individual even, had yet professed the principle of toleration.'-Southey's Beok of the Church, vol. ii, p. 285.) If the second of these sentences is intended as a proof of the first, I must say it is little to the purpose. But it is not true 192 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELTZABETIH. Finally, in order to execute these barbarous statutes with the more expedition and certainty, the queen established the famous-or rather infapious-ecelesiastical court of High Commission, before which the Spanish Inquisition itself loses its terrors. This High Court of Inquisition was armed with the most ample and formidable powers. Its members, with Archbishop Parker at their head, were the delegates, and represented the dread person, of the queen, "tthe supreme governor in spirituals and temporals " of the Anglican church. "They were authorized to inquire, on the oath of the person accused, and on the oaths of witnesses, of a: heretical, erroneous, and dangerous opinions; of absence from the established service, and the frequentation of private conventicles; of seditious books and libels against the queen, her magistrates and ministers; and of adulteries, for- nications, and all other offenses cognizable by the ecclesiasti- cal law; and to punish the offenders by spiritual censures, by fine, imprisonment, and deprivation."- These inquisitors were authorized to employ the rack, and they did frequently employ it in a most wanton manner, to in this broad way of assertion. Not to mention Sir Thomas More's Eutopia, the principle of toleration had been avowed by the chancellor L'Hopital, and many others in France. I mention him as on the strongest side; for, in fact, the weaker had always professed the general principle, and could demand toleration from those of different sentiments on no other plea."- Constitutional History, p. 79, note. Speaking of the intolerant spirit exhibited by the first Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Hallam says: "Even Parker, by no means tainted with Puritan bigotry, and who had been reckoned moderate in his proceedings towards Catholics, complained of what he called the 'Machiavel government;' that is of the queen's (Elizabeth's) lenity in not absolutely rooting them out."-rbid., p. 89. The same Anglican dignitary was among the loudest and most ferocious in clam- oring for the blood of the unhappy Mary, queen of Scots. He wrote to Cecil: "If that only (one) desperate person were taken away, as by justice soon it might be, the queen's majesty's good subjects would be in better hope, and the papists' daily expectation vanquished."-Ibid., p. 88. Jbid., p. 72. Rymer, xvi 291, 564. HER "PUJRSUIVANTS." extort confessions from their victims, especially if these were supposed to be priests. "The Catholic prisoner was hardly lodged in the tower before he was placed on the rack; and if he was supposed to be a priest was interrogated, why he had come to England, where he resided, whom he had reconciled what he had learned from the confession of others, and in what places his colleagues were concealed." Wo to him, if, in the agony of torture, he let a word slip by which lhe might be himself even indirectly incriminated; wo to his friends and entertainers, if even a hint was dropped which might serve as a clue to the officials of this inquisito- rial court to trace out their abode! Though the rack was used more or less throughout Europe in the sixteenth century, nowhere was it brought into requisition with as IlCl frequency or as wanton barbarity, as in England under Eliza- beth. Her ingenuity even invented new and exquisite in- struments of torturet The numerous and well trained officials, orpurmuivant8, of the court of High Commission were authorized and enabled to penetrate everywhere in the kingdom, wherever "popery" was even suspected to lie concealed, and they were allowed by law to enter any house, whether by day or by night, wherein they suspected a priest to lie hidden, or the imple- ments of Catholic worship to be kept; or wherever a wealthy Catholic suspected of recusancy,-that is, non-attendance at the new worship-was supposed to dwell, wherever, con- sequently, heavy fines could be levied. Like birds of prey, they hovered over, the residences of the Catholic noblemen and gentlemen of property, ready to pounce down upon their victims, whenever recusanlts were to be denounced, or booty was to be secured. These merciless minions and their mas- ters, even up to the queen herself, actually became rich on the spoils of recusancy reaped so abundantly in the Court of High Bridgwater, 27, 197, 296, quoted Ibid., p. 145-6. f See note C. at the end of this volume, for a fuller account of these in- strnments of torture. VOL. II-1 193 194 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELZABETI. Commission. No Catholic was safe in his house, no mattez how retired. The Catholics were thus impoverished, the Protestants en- riched by the operation of this cruel law; the ancient houses were brought down, and the new houses sprang up amidst their ruins. Scarcely a month passed, that the scaffolds were not crimnsoned with Catholic blood. The prisons were kept almost continually filled with the recusants; to such an ex- tent, indeed, that the counties complained often and bitterly. not of the outrageous laws, but of the heavy expense incurred for their maintenance; and the magistrates were subsequently authorized to discharge them from prison at discretion. They seldom did this, however, so long as any fines were to be collected; but when the poor prisoners could no longer pay, they were turned loose on the country, some of them, how- ever, with their ears bored with a hot iron, others after hav- ing been publicly whipped.t At length, to complete the horror, the number of persons thus ruined became so great, that an act was passed, that "all recusants not possessing twenty marks a year, should conform within three months after conviction, or abjure the realm, under the penalty of felony without benefit of clergy, if they were afterwards found at large.": The very atrocity of this act rendered its execution impracticable, and the magis- trates contented themselves with extracting from the poor wretches as much money as they could, in the shape of fines levied on whole districts, and then allowed them their liberty! During the last fourteen years only of Elizabeth's reign, "s ixty-one clergymen, forty-seven laymen, and two gentlewo- men suffered capital punishment for some or other of the spirit- ual felonies and treasons which had been lately created." Dur- During the three years preceding 1585, no less than twenty-five prom- inent Catholics had so suffered. Challoner, 60, 163.-Ibid., p. 176. f Bridgwater, 375; Strype, iii, 169. Ibid., p. 297. t Statutes of Realm, iv, 844. Ibid. NUMBER OF VICTIMS. ing her entire reign, it is ascertained from contemporary lists, that one hundred and twenty-four clergymen suffered the cruel death of traitors, of whom one hundred and fourteen were secular priests, eight Jesuits, one monk, and one friar. "Generally the court dispensed with the examination of wit- nesses. By artful and ensnaring questions anl avowal was drawn from the prisoner, that lie had been reconciled, or bad harbored a priest, or had been ordained beyond the sea, or that he admitted the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Pope, or rejected that of the queen. Any one of these crimes was sufficient to consign him to the scaffold. Life, indeed, was always offered, on the condition of conformity to the estab- lished worship; but the offer was generally refused; the refu- sal was followed by death; and the butchery, with very few exceptions, was performed on the victim while he was yet in the perfect possession of his senses." The number of Catholic noblemen and gentlemen who were ruined by this iniquitous system of higL-handed robbery in the name of religion, cannot be estimated; while probably only the day of judgment will reveal the vast number of Catholics who lost their health or perished in the crowded and infected prisons during the long reign of Elizabeth. They no doubt amounted to thousands, probably to tells of thousands.t When we read of the internal prosperity of England under Elizabeth, it is to be, and can be understood See Lingard, p. 295, and note for authorities. f As almost every jail in the kingdom was often filled with prisoners, many of whom were Catholic recusants, infectious diseases frequently broke out from the crowd and foul air. Thus, as we learn from Bridgwater, (quoted Ibid., p. 141,) not fewer than twenty Catholics of family and fortune perished on one single oceasion in the castle of York. A similar fate befell the Catholics in Newgate in July, 1580, from the infectious air common to the prisons. (Strype, iii, App. 141.) Some idea of the number of the recusants who were imprisoned may be formed from the fact, that at one of the sessions in Hampshire four hundred, and at one of the assises in Lancashire, six hundred were presented. Strype, quoted Ibid., 299, note. 195 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-LBABUSH. only of the prosperity of the new houses on the ruins of the old, and of one portion of England at the expense, and through the protracted legal robbery of the other. The greater portion of these barbarous executions, as well as of the cases of fines and imprisonment, probably occurred, indeed, after the papal bull had been issued in 1570, excom- municating Elizabeth and declaring that she had forfeited the crown. But many of them took place long before. The laws requiring these cruel punishments were passed as early as the beginning of 1563, about seven years before the issuing of the bull; and the germ of this entire code of penal legis- lation had existed from the very first year of Elizabeth's reign. This has been already sufflcient]y shown on satisfac- tory evidence. The severe and perhaps impolitic act of the Pontiff had the effect of hastening more severe legislation; thus proving highly injurious, instead of beneficial, to the English Catholics whom it was no doubt honestly meant to serve. Still, from the American stand-point, we cannot view the action of the Pope in the same odious light in which it has been usually regarded by English monarchists. The blow aimed at Elizabeth, whatever else we may think or say of it, was certainly a blow aimed at a most grinding tyranny both in church and state, and one struck for the rights of all op- pressed people, the cup of whose wrongs, religious and politi- cal, was full and running over. Mr. Hallam fully confirms all the more important state- ments of fact which we have heretofore made. Of the bloody statute passed after the suppression of the Northern insurrec- tion, he says: "This statute exposed the Catholic priesthood, and in great measure tho laity, to the continual risk of martyrdom."t Again: Hallam says of this bull: " This is, perhaps, with the exception of that issued by Sixtus V. against Henry IV. of France, the latest blhst of that trumpet which thrilled the hearts of monarchs."-Constit Hist., p. 86. t Constitutional History, p. 87. HALLAM S TESTBIMCNY-TTE RACK. 1it is worthy to be repeatedly inculcated on the reader, since so false a color has been often employed to disguise the ecclesiastical tyranny of this reign, that the most clandestine exercise of the Romish worship was severely punished. Thus we read in the life of Whitgift, that on information given, that some ladies and gentlemen heard Mass in the house of one Edwards by night, in the county of Denbigh, he being then bishop of Worcester and vice-president of Wales, was directed to make inquiry into the facts; and finally was instructed to commit Edwards to close prison; and as for an- other person implicated, named Morice, 'if he remained obstinate, he might cause some kind of torture to be used upon him; and the like order they prayed him to use with the others.' But this is one of many instances, the events of every day, forgotten on the morrow, and of which no general his- torian takes account. Nothing but the minute and patient diligence or such a compiler as Strype, who thinks no fact below his regard, could have pre- served this from oblivion."` Speaking of the parliament of 1581, he says: "Here an act was passed, which, after repeating the former provisions that had made it high treason to reconcile any of her majesty's subjects, or to be reconciled to the Church of Rome, imposes a penalty of twenty pounds a month on all persons absenting themselves from church, unless they shall hear the English service at home: such as could not pay the same within three months after judgment, were to be imprisoned until they should con- form. The queen, by a subsequent act, had the power of seizing twvo-thirds of the party'8 land, and all his goods, for default of payment. These grievous penalties on recusancy, as the willful absence of Catholics from church came now to be denominated, were doubtless founded on the extreme difficulty of proving an actual celebration of their own rites.t But they established a Constit. History, p. 90-91. The dreadful severity with which the priests were hunted down, and the prohibition of all ecclesiasticaleducation in England, compelled the founding of foreign colleges to prevent the race of English Catholic priests from becoming extinct That of Douay was astablished in 1568 or 1569. Dissolved by Rcquesens, it was revived at Rheims in 1575, and removed back to Douay in 1593. Similar colleges were founded at Rome in 1579, Valladolid in 1596, and at Louvain in 1606.-Ibid., p. 87, note. t We have no doubt that filthy lucre, or the desire to rob better men than themselves, had much also to do with this atrocious legislation, imposing enormous fines on recusants. We have seen from the letter of Archbishop Grindal and another bishop to the queen's council, that this very motive was urged as likely to prove most weighty with the queen. 44 197 198 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. persecution which fell not at all short in principle of that for which the In- quisition had become so odious. Nor were the statutes merely designed for terror's sake, to keep a check over the disaffected, as some would pretend; they were executed in the most sweeping and indiscriminating manner, unless perhaps a few families of high rank might enjoy a connivance." Hc elsewhere freely admits that the rack was constantly plied to extort confessions from the accused, and he refers to Lingard for an account of the different instruments of torture, which the satanic ingenuity of Elizabeth and Cecil had in- vented for this purpose: " The rack seldom stood idle in the tower for all the latter part of Eliza- beth's reign. To those who remember the annals of their ciuntry, that dark and gloomy pile affords associations not quite so numerous and recent as the Bastile once did, yet enough to excite our hatred and horror . S... . Such excessive severities, under the pretext of treason, but sustained by very little evidence of any other offense than the exercise of the Catholic min- istry, excited indignation throughout a great part of Europe."1f The public indignation of Europe swelled to such dimen- sions, that Cecil, now Lord Burleigh, found it necessary to defend himself and the government of his royal mistress. Two pamphlets, ascribed to his pen, were accordingly issued, in which he openly defended the horrid system of persecu- tion, as necessary to the peace and security of the kingdom ! He boldly advocated the employment of the rack, and main- tained, in mitigation, that it was used with as much gentle- ness as the case admitted! Ile wrote: " The queen's servants, the warders, whose office it is to handle the rack, were ever by those that attended the examination, specially charged to use it in so charitable a manner as such a thing might be."-Well may Hallam indignantly exclaim: "Such miserable excuses serve only to mingle con- tempt with our execration: I and "T Those who revere the memory of Lord Burleigth must blush for this pitiful apology." Mr. Hallam has the candor to record the well known fact, that the great body of the Catholics remained loyal to Eliza- beth, notwithstanding the fiery ordeal through which her Constit. History, p. 91. t Ibid., p. 94A f Ibid., p. 93. POPE PAUL IV.-NOTHING SOFTENS ELIZABETH. wanton cruelty caused them to pass; and that the charge made by their enemies, with Cecil at their head, that they were punished as traitors, and not for conscience' sake, was a miserable calumny adding insult to injury. He admits, moreover, that their noble loyalty availed them nothing with the hard-hearted queen, for whom they were willing to lay down their lives, and that the penalties against them were rather increased than diminished after they had generously flocked to her standard to aid in repelling the Spanish Armada. He writes: "It was then that the Catholics in every country repaired to the standard of the lord-lieutenant, imploring that they might not be suspected of barter- ing the national independence for their religion itself It was then that the venerable Lord Montague brought a troop of horse to the queen at Tilbury, commanded by himself, his son, and grand-son. It would have been a sign of gratitude, if the laws depriving them of the free exercise of their religion had been, if not repealed, yet suffered to sleep, after these proofs of loyalty. But the execution of priests, and of other Catholics, became, on the contrary, more frequent, and the fines for recusancy were exacted as rigorously as before. A statute was passed, restraining popish recusants, a distinctive name now first imposed by law, to particular places of residence, and sub- jecting them to other vexatious provisions. All persons were forbidden by proclamation to harbor any of whose conformity they were not assured."' Constit. Hist., p. 101. Nothing could soften the steeled heart of Elizabeth. Thus, early in her reign-in May, 1560-Pope Pius IV., who had succeeded Paul IV., sent her a very conciliatory letter by a special nuncio: "but Elizabeth had taken her line as to the court of Rome; the nuncio received a message at Brussels that he must not enter the kingdom, etc.,-(Ibid., p. 75.) According to Mackintosh, the Pontiff tried the experiment even a second time.-(History of England, p. 316-7.) Miss Strickland relates this circumstance in her own graceful way: "In May, 1560, the new Pope Pius IV., a prince of the house of Medici, made an attempt to win back England through her queen, to the obedience of the Roman See, by sending Parpaglia, abbot of St. Saviour, to the queen, with letters written in the conciliatory style, and beginning, 'dear daughter in Christ,' inviting her 'to return into the bosom of the Church,' and pro- fessing his readiness to do all things needful for the health of her soul, and the firm establishment of her royal dignity, and requesting her to give due 199 200 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. This is fully confirmed by another candid Protestant writer Agnes Strickland, who says: "It is ever to be lamented that Elizabeth stained the glorious year of the Armada with a series of cruel persecutions on the score of religion. January 14th, 1588, a wretched deist, named Francis Wright, alias Kil of Wymond- ham, was burned alive, in the castle ditch at Norwich. He was the fourth who had suffered, in the same place, within the last five years, for promul- gating erroneous opinions. The same year, six Catholic priests were hanged, drawn, and quartered; four laymen, who had embraced Protestantism, for returning to their old belief; four others, and a gentlewoman of the name of Ward, for concealing Catholic priests, besides fifteen of their companions, who were arraigned fbr no other offense than their theological opinions. Very heavy and repeated fines were levied on those whom it was not con- sidered expedient to put to death. The fines of recasants formed a considerable item in the crown revenues of that period, and they were, of course, hunted out with keen rapacity by an odious swarm of informers, who attention to the matters which would be communicated by his dear son Vincent Parpaglia. What the papal concessions were, on which this spirit- ual treaty was to be based, can only be matter of conjecture, for Elizabeth declined receiving the nuncio, and the separation became final and com- plete."-Queens of England, vi, 144. She quotes Camden's Annals. Thus again, moved with sympathy at the sufferings of the English Cath- olics, the emperor Ferdinand of Austria,-whom Mr. Hallam himself rep- resents as a most just and liberal prince-wrote two letters to Elizabeth, begging her to show some indulgence to her Catholic subjects; "suggesting that it might be reasonable to allow them the use of one church in every city; S and concluding "with an expression, which might possibly be de- signed to intimate that his own conduct towards the Protestants in his own dominions would be influenced by her concurrence in his request.-All in vain; Elizabeth's resolution was taken and she would not swerve from it one iota, to save all the Protestants and Catholics in the world. "In her answer to Ferdinand, the queen declares that she can not grant churches to those who disagree from her religion, being against the laws of her parliament, and highly dangerous to the state of her kingdom; as it would sow various opinions in the nation to distract the minds of honest men, and would cherish parties and factions that might disturb the present tranquillity of the commonwealth."-(Constit. History, p. 77.)-This, too, occurred long before the issuing of the bull of Pope Pius V. upon which some Anglican writers pretend to ground all the persecutions of her reign. Of course, she had sown no "various opinions to distract the minds of honest men!" THE HUNTED PRIESTS-CAMPAN. 201 earned a base living by augmenting the miseries of their unfortunate fellow creatures." Nero himself raged not more cruelly sgainst the Roman Christians of the first century, than did the English Jezabel against the English Catholics of the sixteenth! Of the num ber of Catholic martyrs, Hallam writes as follows: "The Catholic martyrs under Elizabeth amounted to no inconsiderable number. Dodd reckons them at one hundred and ninety-one; Milner has raised the list to two hundred and fourt Fifteen of them, according to him, suffered for denying the queen's supremacy, one hundred and twenty-six for exercising their ministry, and the rest for being reconciled to the lnomishi Church. Many others died of hardships in prison, and many were deprived of their property4 Even long before the issuing of the papal bull, and before Catholics had given any pretext whatsoever for the persecu- tion, their priests were hunted down like wolves; and they had to conceal themselves, as best they might, in order to be able privately to minister to their flocks, and escape the awful penalty of high treason therefor. Referring to the period which followed the second parliament of Elizabeth in 1562-3, Hallam says: "Priests therefore traveled the country in various disguises, to keep alive the flame which the practice of outward conformity was likely to extinguish. There was not a county throughout England, says a Catholic historians where several of Mary's clergy did not reside, and were commonly called the old priests. By stealth, at the dead of night, in private chambers, in the secret lurking-places of an ill-peopled country, with all the mystery that subdues the imagination, with all the mutual trust that invigorates con- stancy, these proscribed ecclesiastics celebrated their solemn rites, more Queens of England, vii, 100-101. She quotes Bloomfield's Norwich, Stowe, and Lingard. t Challoner and others have shown that nearly two hundred priests alone were executed during this barbarous reign. Many probably also perished of whom no record has been preserved. t Ibid. He refers to Dodd's Church History, vol. ii, p. 8. No doubt the num- ber of those who conformed externally, in order to escape the ruinous fines and other penalties, was considerable; yet not so great probably as Hallam supposes. 202 ANGLICAN LEFORMATION-FLZABETH. impressive in such concealment than if surrounded by all their formei splendor." All honor to the heroic "old priests" of Mary, who thus braved death in its most terrible forms in order to discharge their duty, and succor their afflicted brethren. Again, are we forcibly reminded of the sufferings of the early Christians, and of the sacred mysteries performed amidst the solemn silence and impressive gloom of the Roman catacombs! All honor to Dr. Allen for the happy thought of establishing for- Dodd's Church History, vol. ii, p. 78. Among the zealous priests who were hunted down to death, especially during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, "the most eminent was Campian, formerly a Protestanu, but long tile boast of Douay for his learning and virtues. (Strype's Parker, 373.) This man, so justly respected, was put to the rack, and revealed through torture the names of some Catholic gentlemen with whom he had conversed. (Strype's Annals, ii, 644.) He appears to have been indicted along with several other priests, not on the recent statutes, but on that of 25th Edward III., for compassing and imagining the queen's death. Nothing that I have read affords the slightet proof of Campian's concern in treasonable practices, though his connections, and profession as a Jesuit, render it by no means unlikely." (Such is modern historic justice! No proof is brought, but a man is considered to be "not unlikely," to be guilty, merely because he hap- pens to be a Jesuit!) "If we may confide in the published trial, the prose- cution was as unfairly conducted, and supported by as slender evidence, as any, perhaps, which can be found in our books." (State Trials, i, 1050; from the Phoenix Britannicus.)-Hallam, Constit. History, p. 92. Of Edmund Campian, who excited the interest of even the steel-hearted Eli7abeth, Miss Strickland writes as follows: "Edmund Campian was the first great scholar produced by Christ's Church Hospital as a Protestant foundation. At thirteen, he pronounced a Latin oration to Quecn Mary on her accession. He became Master of Arts at Oxford, in 1564, where his beautiful Latin address to Queen Elizabeth. when she visited that city, was never forgotten. He went to Ireland, to convert the Irish to the doctrines of the church of England, and wrote an excellent history of that country. Revolted and disgusted with the horrors exercised in Ireland by the govern- ment of his royal mistress, he became an ardent proselyte to the Church of Rome. He was admitted into the Order of the Jesuits in 1573, returned to England as a zealous missionary, and was executed, August,1581."- 'Queens of England, vi, p. 346, note. RETRIBUTION OF SACRILEGE. eign colleges, to keep up the supply of such heroes of the cross ! We have already had occasion to see, on the authority of Hallam, how Hatton, one of Elizabeth's favorites, at the insti- gation of his mistress, robbed Dr. Cox, Anglican bishop of Ely, of his garden; and how her prime minister Cecil seized on certain estates of the bishop of Peterborough. These are but specimens of that mania for church spoliation which had seized on the hungry minions of the court ever since the days of Henry VIII. Not content with the wholesale confiscation of Catholic church property, and the general robbery of the Catholics, these men robbed the new Anglican bishops, who sought, but could not obtain redress from the royal head of their church. Says Hallam: "The prelates of the English church, while they inflicted so many severi- ties on others, had not always cause to exult in their own condition. From the time when Henry taught his courtiers to revel in the spoil of monaster- ies, there had been a perpetual appetite for ecclesiastical possessions." l-ishop Short, however much lhe seeks to palliate the atro- cious persecution of Catholics under Elizabeth, takes no pains to conceal his indignation at her rapacity and tyranny. We can make room for only a few extracts. " The ravage which was committed by Henry was the wasteful prodigality of a tyrant; . . . under Edward, the monarch was too weak to resist the avarice of those who governed; and Mary rather enricied than robbed the establishment; but Elizabeth laid her hands on all that she could grasp, though; for the sake of keeping up appearances, she restored some small portion in foundations connected with education."f-" The poverty of the church, in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, was excessive; not only among the higher clergy, who were exposed to these attacks from the court; but among the lower and laborious individuals who possess no dignified sta- tion, and have no further worldly prospect than to provide bread for them- selves and their famili3s.'fl It is rather amusing to hear the Anglican bishop lamenting over the poverty of the church of England, and consoling Dodd's Church History, ii, p. 134. Ibid. t History of the Church of England, p. 137 t Ibid., p. 138. 203 ANGLICAN REFORMATION-ELIZABETH. himself with the Scriptural declaration, "how hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven !" One is almost reminded of another passage of the New Testament: "My house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thievcs."-In effect, under Elizabeth, the Anglican church was, if not a den of thieves, at least a stock-jobbing estab- lishinert, in which every one grasped whatever he could; the queen and the nobles, however, coming in for the lion's share of the sacrilegious spoils. This Bishop Short himself substantially admits. Speaking of the unjust proceedings against the Catholics, he consoles them by stating that they were as well treated as others, as there was no justice for any under Elizabeth's reign! "The unjust method in which the trials of Roman Catholics were conducted is sometimes brought forward as a charge against Elizabeth by those who advocate their cause; but it must not be forgotten, that justice was never s8usbtan- tiall1y administered during thi8 reign. The influence of the powerful was frequently exercised against all right; and it is not to be wondered, if the Roman Catholics in this respect were not more fortunate than their Protestant neighbors."t- "There are some persons so ignorant as to wish for the good days of Queen Bess !"T He states that many evils have resulted from the union of church and state, so firmly established by Elizabeth: "All the power which was exercised in ecclesiastical matters during this and the following reigns, was in reality a civil power, and was often exerted unfortunately for civil purposes. So that the church firequently formed a rallying point in political differences; and as the spirit of civil liberty by degrees emancipated the church from the tyranny to which it had been reduced, it left us without effectual ecclesiastical discipline."d Avarice, indeed, seemed to be the besetting sin of England during the sixteenth century; and it appeared to possess a special and almost witching fascination when seasoned with History of the Church of England, p. 127. t Ibid, p. 148. t Ibid., note. Ibid., p. 127. 204A OTHER PROT ITANT WITNMSSE5. the condiment of sacrilege. It became a real mania;-but the malediction of heaven fell heavily on the sacrilegious spoilers, and on their children 1 The principal actors in this great work of English sacrilege-Cromwell, Somerset, Cran- mer, and Northumberland-all perished by violent deaths; while Henry VIII. and Elizabeth both died miserably, and Edward was cut off in the first bloom of boyhood. All of Henry's children were childless, and with them ceased for- ever the royal line of him who had sacrificed the faith of England to procure a male heir to his throne I Thus are God's awful judgments, tardily it may be, but none the less surely executed on his enemies, even in this world.-"The desire of sinners shall perish-Desiderium peccatorum per- ibit I" We conclude our quotations from iHallam with his own closing remarks on the reign of Elizabeth, in its relation to the treatment of her Catholic subjects. After having referred to several grades of persecution, which he ranges in the following ascending scale; of a test of religious conformity for holding civil offices, of restraining the free promulgation of opinions especially through the press, of prohibiting the open exercise of worship, of forbidding all acts of even private devotions and all expressions of even private opinion, and finally, of enforcing conformity to an established church and the abjuration of heterodox tenets by pains and penalties; he adds: "The statutes of Elizabeth's reign comprehend every one of these pro- gressive degrees of restraint and persecution. And it is much to be regretted, that any writers worthy of respect should, either through undue prejudice against an adverse religion, or through timid acquiescence in whatever has been enacted, have offered for this odious code the false pretext of political necessity. The necessity, I am persuaded, can never be made out; the statutes were, in many instances, absolutely unjust; in others, not demanded by circumstances; in almost all, prompted by religious bigotry, by excessive For the terrible retribution which overtook, even in this life, many of the church spoilers, according to that honest Protestant Sir Henry Spelman, see note D. at the end of the present volume. 205 206 ANGLICAN REFORNIATION-ELIZABErH. apprchenrion, or by the arbitrary spirit with which our government was ad ministered under Elizabeth." We add to the testimony of Ilallam on Elizabeth's Perse- cutions, that of three other Protestant historians: AMiss Strick- land, Macaulay, and Prescott. Miss Strickland testifies as follows: "It would not only be a painful task, but incompatible with the plan of this work, to enter into the details of the persecutions on the score of non- consormity, which stain the annals of this period of Elizabeth's life and reign. Stuffice it to say, that the upsparing use of the rack, the gibbet, and the quartering knife, failed either to silence the zeal of the Puritans, or to deter the seminary priests from performing their perilous missions as teach- ers of their proscribed doctrines."t Says Macaulay: "Elizabeth, it is true, often spoke to her parliament in language as haughty and imperious as that which the Great Turk would use to his divan. She punished with great severity members of the house of com- mons, who, in her opinion, carried the freedom of debate too far. She assumed the power of legislating by means, of proclamation. She imprisoned her subjects without bringing them to a legal trial. Torture was often em- ployed, in defiance of the laws of England, for the purpose of extorting confessions from those who were shut up in her dungeons. The authority of the Star Chamber and the Ecclesiastical Commission was at its highest point. Severe restraints were imposed on political and religious discussion. The number of presses was at one time limited. No nan could print with- out a license; and every work had to undergo the scrutiny of the primate or the bishop of London. Persons whose writings were displeasing to the court were cruelly mutilated like Stubbs, or put to death, like Penry. Non- conformity was severely punished. The queen prescribed the exact rule of religious faith and discipline; and whoever departed from that rule, either to the right or to the left, was in danger of severe penalties."1t Our own Prescott writes as follows: "Her conduct was certainly not controlled by religious principle; and, though the bulwark of the Protestant faith, it might be difficult to say whether she were at heart most a Protestant or a Catholic. She viewed Constit. History, p. 104 Queens of England, vi, 346. I Review of Nares, Memoirs of Lord Burghley.-His name was written both Yarghley and Burleigh. g Ferdinand and Isabella, ii, 202. THE VERDICT. 207 religion in its connection with the state, in other words, with herself; and she took measures for enforcing conformity to her own views, not a whit less despotic, and scarcely less sanguinary, than those countenanced for con- science' sake by her more bigoted rival." But we sicken of all these, alas! too well attested atrocities, and we must conclude our remarks on this disagreeable sub- ject. Need we ask any candid man who has read this brief and imperfect summary of facts, resting for their evidence on acts of parliament and the statements of accredited historians, both Protestant and Catholic, whether the means employed to establish the Anglican church were conformable with the letter and spirit of the gospel, or whether they were such as to indicate a change for the better, or a reformation properly 8o, called We leave the answer to the calm judgment and upright conscience of our readers. We will confidently abide by their verdict. This is very unjust to the famous Isabella of Spain, with whom he is comparing Elizabeth. In a note, he thus humorously answers one of Eliza- beth's hypocritical declarations: "Queen Elizabeth, indeed, in a declaration to her people, proclaims, 'We know not, nor have any meaning to allow, that any of our subjects should be molested, either by examination or inquisition, in any matter of faith, as long as they shall profess the Christian faith.'-(Turner's Elizabeth. vol. ii p. 241, note.) One is reminded of Parson Thwackum's definition in Tom Jones, 'When I mention religion, I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the church of England., It would be difficult to say which fired worst, Puritans or Catholics, under this system of tolera- togL" REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. CHAPTER IV. MARY AND ELIZABETH COMPARED. Relative length of their reigns-Their respect for their mothers--Their religious feelings and conscience-Plautus in the church on Sunday- Their respective relations to the Church-Their comparative moral char- acter - Their disinterestedness and selfishness- Hallam. on Lingard's authorities -The one merciful, the other cruel-The one liberal in government, the other a tyrant-Testimony of Miss Strickland and of Macaulay-Their restoring and crushing English liberty-Their foreign policy-That of Mary single and honest-That of Elizabeth tortuous and insincere-Her motto, "Divide and conquer "-The success of Elizabeth the chief element of her popularity-But no evidence of the Divine ap- proval-Her ministers compared with those of Mary, and particularly Gardiner-Their respective persecutions compared-Hallam answered- Macaulay's statement-Their deaths-Awful death of Elizabeth, the real foundress of modern Anglicanism. Tnus comparison need not detain us long. Mary reigned but a little over five years-from July, 1553, to November, 1558; Elizabeth over forty-four-from November, 1558, to March, 1603. Of course, the former had, comparatively, but a short time in which to display her character or to work out ner policy. Still she did enough in those few years, to enable us to form an enlightened opinion of her reign; and to serve, at the same time, as the basis of a comparison between her and her more fortunate sister. 1. As we have already intimated, Mary copied more after her mother, Elizabeth more after her father. The former al ways looked up with affection and reverence to that vener- ated and noble mother, whose sufferings and disgrace she had shared, whose memory she warmly cherished, and whose virtues she sought to imitate; the latter seldom spoke, or (208) RESPECT FOR THEIR MOTrHERS. seemed even to think, of her mother, but she always loved to proclaim herself the daughter of her father. One of the first cares of Mary, on ascending the throne, was to have blotted out from the statute book the bills divorcing her mother and stigmatizing her own birth; and she could not rest tranquil, while even a shadow, which she could remove, rested on the fair character of Catharine ; Elizabeth, on the contrary, contented herself, in her first parliament, with having herself declared the sovereign by hereditary right, and she suffered the attainder of her mother,Anne Boleyn, together with the bills proclaiming her divorced from Henry, and guilty of incest and adultery-though declared at the same time never to have been validly married to him-and herself conse- quently illegitimate, to remain unrepealed on the statute book, to the very hour of her death !t What motive could have induced 11er to adopt this strange line of conduct, unless she felt heartily ashamed of her mother, and could not bear, or did not think it prudent, to have even her name recalled, we are at a loss to understand; but the fact itself, however explained, is little creditable to 1e1r feelings as a daughter, or to her delicacy and self-respect as a woman. 2. Mary was deeply religious and scrupulously conscien- tious; she valued her salvation more than "ten such crowns as that of England;" she adhered firmly to her faith in spite of obloquy, annoyance, and persecution under her father's, and especially under her brother's reign ;j she did this, too, when her religious firmness seemed likely to deprive her of all hopes of ever ascending the throne; and she never once wavered in the faith of her venerated mother, and that of This was done in her first parliament. t An act was, indeed, passed in her first parliament restoring Elizabeth in blood notwithstanding the attainder of her mother, and inheritable to her mother's property; but the attainder itself was not repealed, nor the act declaring her mother's marriage with Henry void from the beginning.-See Statutes, as quoted by Lingard; vii, 259. t All this we have shown, in the previous chapters. VOL. n.-18 209 210 MARY AND ELIZABETH COMPARED. her ancestors, from the first dawn of reason to the last moment of her life. Elizabeth, on the contrary, had little religion and less conscience; her conscience was so elastic as to bend with every change of circumstances, and to induce her to conform backwards and forwards according to the times and the promptings of her own interest or policy. She was of her father's faith during his lifetime; she adopted that of her youthful brother after her fathers death; she became a zealous Catholic under her sister; and immediately after Mary's death, she became again a zealous Protestant! At her coronation, she solemnly swore to maintain the Cath- olic religion; within a month thereafter, if not ht or even before her coronation, she firmly determined to destroy it in Our modern Puritans will be shocked to know that Elizabeth went to the theatre on Sunday; and all true Christians will be grievously scandal- ized to find, that she had one of the not very moral or even very decent pagan plays of Plautus performed in her presence in a Christian Church on a Sunday at Cambridge! Miss Strickland furnishes a lengthy account of this scandalous affiair, from which we extract the following;-we doubt much, whether it was ever a practice, as she intimates, in Catholic tines or countries, to begin the Sunday celebration on Saturday evening: "She went to see one of Plautus' plays-the 'Aulularia '-for the hear- ing and playing of which, at her expense a vast platform was erected in King s College church. The performance of a pagan play in a Christian church, on the Sunday evening, was no great improvement on the ancient moralities and mysteries, which in retrospective review, are so revolting to modern taste. Those who glance over the Mysteries must feel displeased at finding that sacred subjects could be so absurdly dramatized, yet these Mysteries were listened to with reverential awe by a demi-savage people, who saw nothing ridiculous or profane in the manner of showing the Crea- tion, the history of Noah, or of Joseph, the intention being to make them comprehensible to the eye, when the untaught ear refused to follow the thread of sacred history. But Elizabeth and Cambridge had more knowl- edge, if not more wisdom, and ought to have banished their pagan play from the walls of a Christian temple."-Queens of England, iii, 164. She adds, in a note: "The stage was first erected in King's College Hall, but was not con- sidered large enough, and therefore taken down, and erected in the church by the queen's orders." THEIR RELIGION AND MORALS. 211 England; and her entire life was afterwards devoted to cat- rying out this stern and cruel purpose. 3. Mlary willingly and promptly resigned the ambitious title and immense patronage of head of the church in Eng- land, bequeathed to her by her father and brother; Elizabeth immediately resumed the title, stretched its prerogatives and powers to the very utmost limits, and waxed strong on its patronage. -Mary, against the advice of her council, restored the property of the Church, which her father and brother had seized on and annexed to the crown; Elizabeth, immnedi- ately after her accession, took it all buck, and she continued to pursue, almost to outdo, the sacrilegious policy of church spoliation, which had been inaugurated by Henry and Ed- ward. 4. Alary's moral character was so pure and unsullied, that not even her most bitter enemies seem ever to have breathed a word casting a shadow of taint on her chastity.t Oin the contrary, Elizabeth was notorious for her dissoluteness, which In her very first parliament, two acts were passed: the first re-annex- ing to the crown the church property restored by Mary; the second author- izing the queen, on the vacancy of any bishopric, to seize on the lands be- longing to it, " with the exception of the chief mansion-house and domain, on condition that she gave in return an equivalent in tithes and parsonages appropriate." In vain did the new bishops protest against a measure, the true drift of which they clearly saw; it was passed in spite of them. See Lingard, vii, 264. t The ancient Protestant. historians speak strongly in favor of Mary's moral character. Camden says of her: "Princeps apud omnes ob mores sanctissimos, pietatem in pauperes, liberalitatem in nobiles atque ecclesiasti- cos nunquam satis laudata-A princess never sufficiently to be praised among all, for her most holy morals, her mercy to the poor, and her liberal- ity to nobles and ecclesiastics."-(In apparat., 23.) And Godwin: "Mulier sane pia, clemens, moribusque castissimis, et usque quaque laudanda, si reli- gionis errorem non spectes-A woman truly pious, merciful, and of most chaste morals, and every way worthy of praise, if you look not at her reli- gion."1-P. 123. Ibid., vii, 243. note. The vile anonymous libels and caricatures of her, referred to in a previous chapter, are simply beneath con- tempt. 2MARY AND ELIZABETH COMPARED. survived her youth, and. even her advanced age. Besides Dudley, earl of Leicester, her first principal lover, IHatton and Raleigh, Oxford and Blount, Simier and Anjou, were numbered among her successive favorites. T7he two courts imitated the examples of their respective mistresses. That of Mary was decorous and proper; that of Elizabeth. accord- ing to Faunt, Walsingham's secretary, was, on the contrary, a place, "where all enormities were practiced, where sin reigned in the highest degree; " and where, says Harrington, another Protestant contemporary, " the only discontent I have, is to live where there is so little godliness and exercise of religion, so dissolute manners and corrupt conversation generally, which I find to be worse than when I knew the place first.'"t 5. Mary has been styled "the bloody;" Elizabeth has been viewed as the stern, indeed, and imperious, but not cruel woman or tyrannical sovereign. How little either deserves the character which the prejudice or partiality of English history assigns her, we think we have already sufficiently August 6, 1583. Birch, i, 39. See also MS. life of the duchess of Feria, quoted ibid. Hallam, in his Constit. History, (p. 94, note) sneers at Dr. Lingard for saying that her court was dissolute, "on the authority of one Faunt, an austere Puritan."1-A sneer is no argument. Faunt was a Protestant, and secretary of Walsingham, one of her principal ministers; and he was surely a competent witness. Hallam forgot to mention Hlarring- ton and the duchess of Feria, other contemporaries, who say the same. thing. He admits that Elizabeth "certainly went strange lengths of indeli- cacy." He adds: "But if she might sacrifice herself to the queen of Cnidus and Paphos, she was unmercifully severe to those about her, of both sexes, who showed any inclination to that worship, though under the escort of Hymen. Miss Aikin, in her well-written and interesting Memoirs of the court of Elizabeth, has collected several instances from Harrington and Birch."-Was it candid in him to mention only Faunt, as Lingard's author- ity, when he himself refers to Birch and Harrington, both of whom Lingard quotes t August 1, 1582. Birch, i, 25. Ibid., viii, 467, note. Harrington says also, that at this court "there was no love but that f the lusty god of gal- .antry-Asmodeus. Nugae aniquin, 161. Ibid. 212 MERCY AND CRUELTY-LOvy OF LfBERTY. shown. In regard to Mary we need add no.thinig; of Eliza- beth's natural jealousy and wanton cruelty, we will quote the following additional specimens, from her life by Miss Strick- land; who, in the first of them at least, is fully confirmed by Mackintosh and Hallam. Her merciless treatment of Cath- arine and Mary Gray, sisters of the late unfortunate Lady Jane Gray, is in strong contrast with that of Mary, whose feelings would naturally have been more strongly enlisted against them; they being sisters of her first rival, and not far removed from the line of succession to her throne, which their sister had sought to grasp. Yet Mary was merciful, Elizabeth relentless. Says Miss Strickland: "Elizabeth was obdurate in her resentment to her unfortunate cousin, Lady Katharine Gray; and, disregarding all her pathetic letters for pardon and pity, kept her in durance apart from her husband and children, till she was released by death, after seven years of doleful captivity. 11er real crime was being the sister of Lady Jane Gray, which Queen Mary had overlooked, but Elizabeth could not; yet Lady Katharine was a Protestant." Again: "Both the meek inoffensive sisters of Lady Jane Gray were thus torn from their husbands, and doomed to life-long imprisonment by the inexor- able queen. Their piteous appeals to her compassion, may be seen in Ellis's Royal Letters. Can any one suppose, that she would have scrupled to shed the blood of either or both of these broken-hearted victims, if their names had been used to excite an insurrection in her metropolis " t Of her wanton cruelty to Archbishop Heath, our fair authoress speaks as follows: "A few of the less pleasing traits of Elizabeth's character developed themselves this year, among which may be reckoned her unkind treatment of the venerable Dr. Heath, the non-juring archbishop of York, and formerly lord chancellor. It has been shown that he performed good and loyal service for Elizabeth, whose doubtful title was established beyond dispute, by his making her first proclamation a solemn act of both houses of parlia- ment. Subsequently, in 1560, he was ordered into confinement in the tower, because he would not acknowledge Elizabeth's supremacy over the Queens of England, vi, 151. She quotes Ellis, Camden, and Mackin- tosh. See Am. Edit. of Mackintosh. p. 319. , Ibid, p. 175. 45 2 1 5 214 MARY AND ELIZABETH CONIPARED. church. Hie remained there till he was sent into a sort of prison restraint at one of the houses belonging to his see in Yorkshire. "lis mode of imprisonment permitted him to take walks for exercise. These rambles could not have been very far, for he was turned of eighty. They were regarded with jealousy, and the following order of council ex- ists, in answer to a letter from Lord Scrope, relative to the examination by him to be taken of Nicholas Heath, with whom his lordship is required to proceed somewhat sharply withal 'to the end, that he should declare the full truth why he wandereth abroad; and if he will not be plain, to use some kind of torture to him, so as to be without any great bodily hurt, and to advertise his (Lord Scrope's) goings herein., "The old man had been on terms of friendship with the queen, had done her worthy service, he had been considered an opponent of persecution; yet could Elizabeth, then little turned of thirty, sit in her conclave, and order the unfortunate prisoner to be pinched with the torture, to reveal some vague and indefinite crime, which, perhaps, only existed in the suspicions of his enemies." 6. As we have also seen, Marv, so far as her short reign permitted her to carry out her polic, exhibited a disposition to restore the legitimate rights of parliament, and the ancient Catholic liberties guarantied by the British Constitution; nor could she be induced, like her father and sister, to trample them under foot, and to make roval prerogative paramount. The very first act of her first parliament was the abolition of all the treasons and felonies of Henry VIII.t Not so Elizabeth. She again crushed out the constitutional liberties of England, and made her own will the law of the land. Nothing can be more certain than this fact, singular as it may appear to some readers. We have already seen from Macaulay how Elizabeth had "assumed the power of legislating by means of proclama- tion." and with what severitv she punished those members of her parliaments who dared to express opinions opposed to her own. The same writer says: "The immediate effect of the Reformation in England was by no mears favorable to political liberty. The authority which had been exercised by Queens of England, vi, 180. She quotes Council Register. t Mackintosh, History of England, p. 279, American Edit., Philadelphi' 1834. See also p. 286, ibid. THEIR STATE POLICY. the Popes was transferred almost entire to the king. Two formidable powers which had often served to check each other, were united in a single despot. If the system on which the founders of the church of England acted could have been permanent, the Reformation would have been, in a political sense, the greatestcurse that ever fell on our country. But that system carried within it the seeds of its own death. It was possible to transfer the name of head of the church from Clement to Henry; but it was impossible to transfer to the new establishment the veneration which the old establishment had inspired. Mankind had not broken one yoke in pieces only to put on another. The supremacy of the Bishop of Rome had been for ages considered as a fundamental principle of Christianity. It had for it every thing that could make a prejudice deep and strong-venerable antiquity, high authority, general consent. It had been taught in the first lessons of the nurse. It was taken for granted in all the exhortations of the priest. To remove it was to break innumerable associations, and to give a great and perilous shock to the mind. Yet this prejudice, strong as it was, could not stand in the great day of che deliverance of the human reason. And as it was not to be expected that the public mind, just after freeing it- self, by an unexampled effort, from a bondage which it had endured for ages, would patiently submit to a tyranny which could plead no ancient title. Rome had at least prescription on its side. But Protestant intolerance, despotism in an upstart sect, infallibility claimed by guides who acknowl- edged that they had passed the greater part of their lives in error, restraints imposed on the liberty of private judgment by rulers who could vindicate their own proceedings only by asserting the liberty of private judgment- these things could not long be borne. Those who had pulled down the crucifix could not long continue to persecute for the surplice. It required no great sagacity to perceive the inconsistency and dishonesty of men who, dissenting from almost all Christendom, would suffer none to dissent from themselves; who demanded freedom of conscience, yet refused to grant it; who execrated persecution, yet persecuted; who urged reason against the authority of one opponent, and authority against the reasons of another. Bonner at least acted in accordance with his own principles. Cranmercould vindicate himself from the charge of being a heretic, only by arguments which made him out to be a murderer." 7. Mary's foreign policy was straight-forward, truth-loving, and honest; Elizabeth's was tortuous, deceitful, and dis- honest, whenever and wherever her interest prompted.t Review of Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, Miscellan is. Amer- scan Edit., p. 153-4. f Witness, for instance, her high-handed seizure of the Spanish treasures 2)15 21MARY AND FLIZABETM COMPARED. Mary never had one language for foreign governments, and another quite contradictory for their disaffected or insurgent subjects; and she was never at peace and war with the same nation or kingdom at the same time: the contrary policy precisely, was that so constantly pursued by Elizabeth, as to be quite characteristic of her government. Throughout her long reign, she persisted in playing off this double and un- principled policy in Scotland, in France, and in the Neth- erlands, in spite of all remonstrance, of all threats, and of actual wars. Her maxim, or that of her advisers, seems to have been, "Divide and conquer;" and though honesty is said to be the best policy, and dishonesty the worst, the maxim did not appear to hold good-in her particular case. She both divided and conquered. Her dishonest policy proved apparently successful for the time being. She weak- ened her enemies by divisions sown by the encouragment, through her active agents, of disaffection and rebellion in their dominions; and she thus gave temporarily to England a commanding influence among the European nations. But we must not forget, that if the commercial and naval prosperity of England were greatly developed during her long reign, the first impulses towards the development were given, and the foundations of both were laid in that of Mary; and the shortness of her reign prevented her from fully car- rying out her great design for the advancement of England; whose temporal and political prospects, supposing that Mary would be blessed with an heir, had, in fact, never at any previous period been brighter than they became, when her escutcheon was blazoned with that of the heir apparent to the most powerful dynasty of the sixteenth century. 8. If Elizabeth was more able and adroit as a politician, and more winning in her manners as a woman, Mary was more sincere and more honest, even if less popular and less going to the Netherlands, when she was nominally at peace with Spain ' It was little better than highway robbery or piracy- This; we will have occasion to show more fillly in the following chapters 216 THEIR PERSECUTIONS. successful. Much of Elizabeth's sRccess in government and in foreign negotiation is due to the consummate cunning and signal talent of her ministers, who were as able as they were unscrupulous, and as untiring as they were skillful. Few of the continental politicians of the sixteenth century were a match for Cecil and Walsingham; the former of whom may be called the Talleyrand of that century,-if the comparison do not involve injustice to the character of the more modern diplomatist. So long, indeed, as Gardiner lived, Mary was not at a loss for an able manager of state affairs; but Gardi- ner was already aged, and Gardiner soon left her to less skill- ful guidance. His state paper, containing the agreement for the Spanish marriage, was a master-piece, which Elizabeth herself adopted in substance, when she contemplated a for eign matrimonial alliance. 9. Both Mary and Elizabeth persecuted, and both of theme did so chiefly, if not wholly, from motives of state policy. But there are important differences in the two cases. Mary persecuted during less than four years, Elizabeth for more than forty-four. Mary's persecution originated in a treason- able conspiracy, concocted at the instigation of the leaders of the reformed party, to exclude her from the throne; Eliza- beth's was commenced without any such provocation, in fact, without any provocation whatever, on the part of her Catho- lic subjects. Mary was urged by her counselors to persecute, through strong motives of state policy connected with the security of her throne; and she began the persecution reluct- antly, and only after a delay of more than a year, notwith- standing reiterated provocations and two rebellions: Elizabeth needed no urging on the subject, and she entered at once and with seeming alacrity on her bloody work. Mary perse- Macaulay, in his Review of Hallam's Constitutional History, fully con- firms this statement. He writes: "In the first place, the arguments which are urged in favor of Elizabeth apply with much greater force to the case of her sister Mary. The Catho- lics did not, at the time of Elizabeth's accession, rise in arms to seat a Pro VOL. IL-19 217 218 MARY AND ELIZABETH COMPARED. cuted a small minority of her subjects, who sought violently to upset the ancient order of things both in Church and State, and to rob, or continue to rob, both the Church and the an- cient families of the kingdom, of the property and religious rights which had been secured to them, with slight interrup- tion, by a peacable tenure of nearly a thousand years; Eliza- beth persecuted the vast majority of her subjects, with a view to force them to give up those cherished rights, and by fine and confiscation to rob many of them of property so long and so peacefully held. Mary's persecution was, it may be, more sharp and bloody in the same space of time; Elizabeth's, be- sides being tenfold longer, was far more inquisitorial, search- ing, and general. It aimed even more at the liberties and property than at the lives of her subjects; it was as torturing to both body and soul, as it was destructive to personal free- dom and to the rights of property.t It contemplated and tender on her throne. But before Mary had given, or could give provocation, the most distinguished Protestants attempted to set aside her rights in favoi of the Lady Jane. That attempt and the subsequent insurrection of Wyat furnished at least as good a plea for the burning of Protestants, as the con- spiracies against Elizabeth furnish for the hanging and embowelling of Papists."-Miscellan. American Ed., p. 69. Towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, after all her bloody persecutions had done their work of destruction, the number of Catholics was estimated to be at least equal to that of the Protestants; while Cardinal Allen, who was a good judge, constantly asserted that it was fully two thirds of the entire population. t Bishop Short, whose testimony will scarcely be impeached, freOly ad- mits the total unsettledness of property during Elizabeth's reign; and he moreover traces it to its right cause, the wholesale system of confiscation inaugurated by Henry VIII. He says: "The wholesale alienation of church property which had taken place in the reign of Henry VIII. had unsettled the minds of the nation with regard to all lenures; might had legally been converted into right, and all men were ready to take advantage of the change. The court invaded the wealth of the higher clergy; and they in their turn were often little careful of the in- terests of their successors, and sometimes raised a revenue by appropriating to themselves the income which was originally granted for the officiating incumbent."-History of the Church of England, p. 138. MACAULAY 'S TESTIONY. 219 carried out a wholesale system of confiscation and imprison- ment. The pestilent and crowded prisons, and the enormous fines for recusancy induced more wide-spread torture and ruin, than even the sharper pangs of the rack and the " Scav- enger's daughter," which she kept almost constantly plying; while the horrible butchery for treason was even worse than the death by fire at the stake. Both persecutions were lam- entable enough; but all candid men must allow that that of Elizabeth as far exceeded in atrocity, as it did in duration, that of Mary, and that the the former had far less to palliate or excuse it than the latter. We must again quote Macaulay :t "That which is, as we have said, the great stain on the character of Burghley, is also the great stain on the character of Elizabeth. Beiii,, her- self an Adiaphorist, having no scruple about conforming to the Romish Church, when conformity was necessary to her own safety, retaining to the last moment of her life a fondness for much of the doctrine and much of the ceremonial of that Church, she yet subjected that Church to a persecu- tion even more odious than the persecution with which her sister had har- assed the Protestants. We say more odious. For Mary had at least the plea of fanaticism. She did nothing for her religion which she was not pre- In answer to Hallam, Waterworth has the following: "'No woman,' says Hallam, ' was put to death under the penal code, so far as I remember; which of itself distinguishes the persecution from that of Mary, and of the house of Austria in Spain and the Netherlands.' (Con- stit. History.) The fact is, that besides the one mentioned, who suffered in 1586, Mrs. Ward was hanged, drawn, and quartered, for assisting a Catholic priest to escape; Mrs. Lyne suffered the same punishment in 1601, for the same offense; and Mrs. Wells received sentence of death in 1591, and died in prison." The "one mentioned above" was "a lady of good fiamily named Cithero. Her crime was relieving and harboring priests; her death was barbarous indeed. The worse than savages stripped her; two sergeants parted her hands and bound them to two posts in the ground, and in the same manner her feet; a sharp stone was put under her back; upon her were laid a dout and huge weights, which, breaking her ribs, caused them to burst through the iskii "-Lectures on the Reformation, p. 401 and note. t Review of Nares' Memoirs of Lore Burghley; Miscell., p. 179, Am. FE. Mackintosh announces similar views.-History of England, p. 215-6 American Edition. 220 MARY AND ELIZABETH COMPARED. pared to suffer for it. She had held it firmly under persecution. She azlly believed it to be essential to salvation. If she burned the bodies of her sub. jects, it was in order to rescue their souls. Elizabeth had no such pretext. In opinion, she was little more than half a Protestant. She ha(l professed, when it suited her, to be wholly a Catholic. There is an excuse, a wretche(l excuse, for the massacre of Piedmont and the autos-da-fe of Spain. But what can be said in defense of a ruler who is at once indiffeirent and intoierant it the great queen, whose memory is still held in just veneration by Engrlishlmnen, had possessed sufficient virtue and sufficient enlargement of mind to adopt those principles which 3More, wiser in speculation than in ac- tion, had avowed in the preceding generation, and by which the excellent IlHospital regulated his conduct in her own time, how different would be the color of the whole history of the last two hundred and fifty years! She had the happiest opportunity ever vouchsafed to any soverc-gn, of establish- ing perfect freedom of conscience throughout her dominions, without danger to her government, or scandal to any large party among her subjects. The nation, as it was clearly ready to profess either religion, would, beyond all doubt, have been ready to tolerate both. Unhappily for her own glory and for the public peace, she adopted a policy, from the effects of which the em- pire is still suffering. The yoke of the Established church was pressed down on the people till they would bear it no longer. Then a reaction came. Another reaction followed. To the tyranny of the establishment succeeded the tumultuous conflict of sects, infuriated by manifold wrongs, and drunk with unwonted freedom. To the conflict of sects succeeded again the cruel domination of one persecuting church. At length oppression put off its most horrible form, and took a milder aspect. The penal laws against dissenters were abolished. But exclusions and disabilities still re- mained. These exclusions and disabilities, after having generated the most fearful discontents, after having rendered all government in one part of the kingdom impossible, after having brought the state to the very brink of ruin, have, in our times, been removed; but, though removed, have left behind them a rankling which may last for many years. It is melancholy to think with what ease Elizabeth might have united all the conflicting sects under the shelter of the same impartial laws and the same paternal throne; and thus have placed the nation in the same situation, as far as the rights of con- science are concerned, in which we at length stand, after all the heart-burn- ings, the persecutions, the conspiracies, the seditions, the revolutions, the judicial murders, the civil wars, of ten generations." 10. The fact that Mary's reign was short, disturbed by civil commotions, and clouded with personal illness, while PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY-AWFUL DEATH. 221 that of Elizabeth was long, less troubled by conspiracy, and more prosperous, presents no valid argument against the for- mer nor in favor of the latter. Much less can this circum- stance be alleged as a divine indication in favor of the new religion, which was forcibly introduced by Elizabeth. Tem- poral prosperity is surely no evidence of divine truth, but often the contrary; else the pagan Romans, prosperous and wealthy, would have triumphed through this very argument -which they were in the habit of constantly alleging- against the religion of the Christians; because, as the former argued, this religion did not render the material condition of the latter more prosperous, but seemingly the reverse. Yet the Roman pagans with all their wealth were clearly in the wrong, and their victims, the poor, down-trodden, perse- cuted Christians, were as clearly in the right-as all Chris- tians freely admit. The way of truth and virtue is often beset by trials and strewn with thorns; while that of vice is not unfrequently rendered attractive by worldly comforts and temporal advan- tages. With nations, as with individuals, God often rewards merely temporal virtues with merely temporal rewards; while He disciplines with tribulations and chastens with the cross those favorite ones who look much higher than this world for their reward; and the most terrible punishment which He can inflict on a nation, as on an individual, is that which His Son referred to, when He said of the pharisees: They have received their reward ! The "Invincible Armada" was but the expression of indig nant Europe at the enormous tyranny and oppression with which Elizabeth ground down a very large portion of her sub- jects. God permitted the Armada to be scattered; and Eliz- abeth was jubilant in her triumph. This result was highly gratifying to English patriotism; it was certainly no evidence that Elizabeth was right in introducing a new religion. Finally, their deaths were as unlike as had been their lives. Mary died full of patriotic feeling, with the lost Calais graven 222 MARY AND ElIZABETI COMPARED. on her heart; Elizabeth died, selfishly and sullenly refusing to the very last moment to name her successor,-if she did it even then. Mary's last agony was soothed with the conso- lations of religion; Elizabeth positively refused to avail her- self of the comforts which religion brings to the dying hour! M ary died tranquilly and in hope of a blessed immortality; Elizabeth in sullen agony and moody despair. Says Miss Strickland : "It is almost a fearful task to trace the passage of the mighty Elizabeth through the ' dark valley of the shadow of death.' Many have been dazzled with the splendor of her life, but few, even of her most ardent admirers, would wish their last end might be like hers." Again, quoting Lady Southwell: " I The queen kept her bed fifteen days,' continues Lady Southwell, ' be- sides the three days she sat upon a stool; and one day, when, being pulled up by force, she obstinately sto6d on her feet for fifteen hours. When she was near her end, the council sent to her the archbishop of Canterbury and other prelates, at the sight of whom she was much offended, cholerickly rating them, bidding them 'be packing,' saying 'she was no atheist, but she knew full well they were but hedge-priests.' "t So passed away from earth the spirit of the great Elizabeth, the mighty bulwark and consolidator, if she may not even be viewed as the real foundress, of the Anglican church as established by law! That she said any thing definite even then seems rather doubtfuL Cecil and her other ministers so understood her, or professed to have so un- derstood her through motives of self-interest or state-policy. At any rate, she delayed the important declaration to the very last moment, and even then seems to have made it as obscurely as she did it reluctantly. For some additional testimony on the Anglican Reformation from the work of the contemporary Sanders on the English Schism, see Note E. at the end of this volume. f Queens of England, vii, p. 218-223. HISTORY OF TIHE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. CHAPTER V. REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND-JOHN KNOX. Distinctive characteristic of the Scottish Reformation, compared with that of England-It works its way from low to high-Condition of the Catholic Church in Scotland in the sixteenth century-Abuse of patronage-McCrie's statement reviewed-Exaggeration-The real secret of the degeneracy- John Knox-His motto-Compared with Calvin-His life sketched-The fearful struggle-Ancient Catholic glories scattered-What we propose to prove-The Scottish Reformation the work of violence-Assassination of Cardinal Beatoun-Previous negotiations with Henry VIII.-The Scottish proto-martyr Wishart concerned-Knox approves the deed-His horrible "vein of humor"-The Scottish nobles seek plunder-The "Lords of the Congregation "-Two Solemn Leagues and Covenants-Knox's ideas of religious liberty and toleration-Conciliation thrown away-Burning and destructive zeal-Reformation at Perth-At St. Andrew's-And else- where-Horrible destruction and desolation-McCrie defends it all, as removing the monuments of idolatry-The queen recent otfers religious liberty-Her offer spurned-Knox's idea of religious liberty-Two armies in the field-Elizabeth of England meddling-The queen regent deposed -Treaty of peace-How the Kirk was established by law-Mary of Scots arrives-Her reception and treatment-John Knox her relentless enemy-He clamors for her blood-She is imprisoned at Lochleven- Glance at her subsequent history and death-How she was treated in Scotland-Her first reception-Miss Strickland and Mackintosh-She is hated by Knox-Her marriage with Darnley-Sermon of Knox-Who approves of the assassination of Rizzio-He flies from Edinburgh-Mary innocent-A cluster of wicked men-Murray the worst-Mackintosh re- viewed-" The end justifies the means "s-Forgery-Whitaker on Knox and Buchanan-Moral Character of Knox-His death-Quotations from Miss Strickland confirmatory of the above narrative of facts-Mary's reception in Edinburgh-The "Rebels of the Crafts -Tumult on her first attend- ance at Mass-Her chaplain narrowly escapes death-Mary's firmness in her faith-Knox abhors her music and joyousity-Malignant intolerance -Cruel hard-heartedness of the Scottish nobles-Who will not wear (223) SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. mourning on the anniversary of the death of Mary's husband-C'. ch property-Greediness of lay Protestant impropriators-Knox's "hLmor. ous " lament over the destitution of the ministers-The queen danting- Sermon of Knox thereupon-His interview with the queen-Another interview-Still fiercer intolerance-Another interview of Knox with the queen-He opposes her marriage-Still another interview-Knox's ac- count-He mocks at the queen's tears-Signs and wonders against her- She is blamed for the weather !-Knox calls her a slave of Satan-Is ar- raigned before the Kirk assembly-His answer and behaviour-Protests again against Mary's freedom of conscience-Tumult at her marriage- Mary promises and asks for freedom of conscience - Her eloquent speech-Darnley-'Horrid plot-Butchery. THE Reformation in Scotland presents a marked contrast with that in England. While the latter worked from high to low, the former worked from low to high. The English Ref- ormation, as we have seen, was an affatir of state policy and of state coercion, from its first inception under Henry VJII. to its firm establishment under Elizabeth; the state was throughout its main stay, its very life and soul; and hence, very appropriately, the head of the state was likewise the head of the new church. In Scotland, the Reformation worked its way up from the people, through the aid of the nobles, through political combinations and civil commotions, to the foot of the throne itself; and after having gained the supreme civil power, and deposed first the queen regent and then the queen herself, it dictated its own terms to the new regents and the new sovereign: and thus, by the strong arm, it firmly established itself on the ruins of the old religion of the country. All this, we believe, will clearly appear from the sequel of this chapter. During the first half of the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church in Scotland seems to have been in a most unhappy condition. The same sad causes,which had elsewhere con- tributed to the relaxation of discipline and the multiplication of abuses, had operated here with still greater force. The freedom of ecclesiastical elections had been violated, the rights of the Sovereign Pontiffs had been wantonly trampled 224 ORIGIN OF ABUSES. upon, and the kings had often arrogated to themselves the power to thrust their own creatures into the vacant bishoprics and benefices. Thus, King James V. had provided for his illegitimate children by making them abbots and priors of Holyrood House, Kelso, Melrose, Coldingham, and St. Andrew's. The lives of men, who were thus intruded by the civil power into the high places of the Church, were often openly scandalous; and though the picture drawn by McCrie of clerical morals in Scotland at this period is no doubt greatly exaggerated by his zeal as a violent partisan of the Reformation, yet the statement which the sober truth of his- tory requires us to make renders it still dark enough. McCrie says: "The lives of the clergy, exempted from secular juris- diction, and corrupted by wealth and idleness, were become a scandal on religion, and an outrage on decency."t It was certainly not on account of the clergy being "ex- empted from secular jurisdiction," but precisely because they were not, that their morals degenerated. Had they not been wholly dependent for their appointment on the secular power, how could the latter have succeeded in thrusting its own crea- tures into the highest church dignities, and maintaining them therein, in spite of the sacred canons of the Church But They received the incomes of benefices, committing the duties of their charge to others; and though they seldom took orders, they ranked as clergymen, and by their vices brought disgrace upon the clerical body. See Lingard, History of England, vii, p. 269, note. t Life of John Knox, containing illustrations of the history of the Refor- mation in Scotland, etc. By Thomas McCrie, minister of the gospel, Edin- burgh: in one volume, 8vo pp. 582. New York, 1813. Page 16. As we shall have occasion frequently to refer to this work, in fiact to review its statements, in the course of the present chapter, we may remark, that he is a standard author of the Scottish Kirk, and, at the same time, a man of n uch learning and considerable accutenesq, but a thorough partisan, who defends Knox and the Kirk throughout; whose testimony, therefore, when stating faicts which may be construed as favorable to the Catholic side is wholly unexceptionable. We were fortunate in procuring an old American edition of this work, which probably truly reflects the originaL 226' 2COTTIH REFORMATION-ANOX. for this usurpation, how, for instance, could scenes like the following-related by McCrie himself on the authority of Buchanan-have been enacted-"During the minority of James V., the celebrated Gawin Douglas was recommended by the queen to the archbishopric of St. Andrew's; but John Hepburn, prior of the regular canons, opposed the nomination, and took the archiepiscopal palace by storm. Douglas after- wards laid siege to the cathedral of Dunkeld, and carried it, more by the thunder of his cannon, than the dread of the excommunication which he threatened to fulminate against his antagonist. How else could the state of things de- scribed by him in the following passage have been even pos- sible -" Bishops and abbots rivaled the firstt nobility in magnificence and preceded them in honors; they were privy counselors and lords of session, as well as of parliament, and had long engrossed the principal offices of state. A vacant bishopric or abbacy called forth powerful competitors, who contended for it, as for a principality or petty kingdom; it was obtained by similar arts, and not unfrequently taken pos- session of by the same weapons. Inferior benefices were openly put up to sale, or bestowed on the illiterate and un- worthy minions of courtiers, etc."t Such being the open contempt for the canorical freedom of election displayed in Scotland during the period in ques- tion, and such being the flagitious character of the men thus sacrilegiously thrust by the hand of the civil power or by open violence into the high places of the Church, we can no longer wonder at the sad degeneracy of clerical morals; and we are rather surprised that some of the clergy were not even worse than they really were. Perhaps, the real secret of the matter is unconsciously disclosed by the biographer of Knox in the following passage: " Scotland, from her local situation, had been less exposed to disturbance from the encroaching ambition, vexatious exactions, and fulminating anathemas of MeCrie, p. 14, note. 226 f Ibid., p. 1. THE REAL BECRKr-T OTIO OF KNOX. the Vatican court (!), than the countries in the immediate vicinity of Rome." This is, no doubt, the key to the moral darkness which then partially overspread Scotland. In all our readings of medieval history, we have been able to find few, if any exceptions to the general rule: that nations have become corrupt, precisely in proportion to their alienation from or opposition to the Holy See. The usual sequel to this alienation was precisely that which occurred in Scotland: a gradual neglect growing into an open violation of the wise provisions of the canon law, which secure freedom of election to benefices and bishoprics, and forbid the undue influence therein of secular princes. This, we think, has been suffi- ciently shown in our Introductory Essays to these volumes. The vices of the higher Scottish clergy, originating chiefly in this fruitful source, greatly facilitated the success of the Reformation. The new gospelers had a never failing popular theme for invective in the scandalous lives, ostentatious pomp, and occasional exactions of the unworthy men who had been thus unlawfully foisted into the bishoprics and abbeys. Ridi- cule of the clergy proved a far more powerful weapon with the masses, than sober argument against their religious doc- trines.-" Poetry contributed her powerful aid to the opposers of ignorance and superstition (!), and contributed greatly to the advancement of the Reformation, in this as well as in other countries. Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, a favorite of James V. and an excellent poet, lashed the vices of the clergy, and exposed to ridicule miany of the absurdities and superstitions of popery(!), in the most popular and poignant satires."t-Just so. It was by such weapons precisely, but more highly polished, that Voltaire succeeded so fatally, two and a half centuries later, in striking so deadly a blow at Chris- tianity itself! He, too, ridiculed, "in popular and poignant satires, the absurdities and superstitions of popery; "-with McCrie, p. 18. t Ibid., p. 27 227 228 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-NOX. what results, the Christian world has seen and felt with a shudder ! Before we proceed to state the principal facts in the history of the Scottish Reformation, it may be well to furnish a bxief outline sketch of the life and character of the principal actor therein-JoHN Ksox. He was the very life and soul of the entire movement, which, without his untiring energy, adroit management, and coarse, but popular eloquence, might have utterly failed of success. It received the impression of his own character, and was, in fact, moulded to his own likeness. The motto which he wore on his standard-"Spare zOo ar- 1'OW8"t-is the key to his character, and marks every.move- ment and phase of his restless and imbittered career. He "spared no arrows" against his enemies, nor even against his own friends, if these were unfortunate enough to provoke his wrath. He was a Calvinist of the very straitest sect. An intimate friend and disciple of John Calvin, he caught the vindictive spirit, while he adopted the predestinarian doc- trines of his master. Less polished and more coarse than Calvin, he possessed even more restless energy of character; and what he wanted in the learning of the latter, lie made up in greatly superior boldness and effectiveness as a popular declaimer. The ignorant masses hung on his lips, and he wielded them almost at will. John Knox was born in Scotland in 1505. He studied for the priesthood in the university of St. Andrew's, under the famous professor John Mair-or Major,-and he was ordained priest before the year 1530. He received the new gospel light as early as 1535, but he did not openly profess himself There is scarcely a modern sarcasm, or argument against "popery," which Voltaire did not employ, and much better, too, than his imitators in more recent times. f McCrie, p. 66. t Ibid., p. 12. McCrie proves, in a note, that Knox was really a priest. Among other evidence, he alleges a stanza from what he calls a " scurriloui poem" printed at the end of Nichol Burne's "Disputation concerning the controversit Headdis of Religion": "- That fils apostat pri(t, Enemie to Christ and mannis salvatioun, Your Maist-r Knoz." [ LIE 8KETCHEM. a Protestant until seven years after-in 1542. A few years afterwards-in 1549 or 1550,-in spite of huis solemn vows taken at the foot of the holy altar, he was solemnly betrothed, or married, at Berwick on the Scottish borders, to Miss Mar- jory Bowes.t A year after the assassination of Cardinal Beatoun in 1546-of which we will speak presently-lie was taken prisoner byr the French who stormed the castle of St. Andrew's, and was carried into France, where he was de- tained for nearly two years.: After a brief stay in Scotland, not coveting the crown of martyrdom, he fled to England, where he remained for several years, as traveling missionary and chaplain of Edward VI. The Anglican authorities and bishops of that period openly fraternized with him, employed him in important offices of trust, even consulting with him in regard-to doctrine and the new Prayer Book; and this not- withstanding his undisguised opposition to the doctrine of episcopacy. To judge from multiplied examples of the fact, John Knox seems to have made it a general rule, to fly whenever danger threatened his person. If naturally courageous, he was cer- tainly boldest where there was least peril. Thus, lie fled from England in 1554, some months after the accession of Mary. Geneva was his more usual place of retreat, while abroad; though he dwelled for a time at Frankfort on the Maine in Germany, where, with characteristic restlessness, he warmly participated in the schism which had there sprung up between the Episcopal and Calvinistic sections of the church recently established in that city by the English Protestant refugees. 11 McCrie, p. 13. t Ibid., p. 70, and note, where the testimony of Knox is given. t He was liberated in February, 1549. Ibid., p. 59. This is filly proved by McCrie, p. 61, seqq.; also in a learned note, p. 42-3, where he accumulates evidence to show that Archbishops Cranmer and Grindal, and the other "fathers of the English Reformation" fully recognized the ordination of Knox and other foreign Calvinistic preachers. We have already given this note in our chapter on Elizabeth of England. Ibid., p. 109, seqq. McCrie gives a long account of this singular schism 46 229 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. After an absence of "nearly two years" on the continent, Knox, "in his anxiety to see his wife," returned to Berwick n 1555, and then penetrated secretly into Scotland, where ne remained for nearly a year, preaching in private houses and encouraging his co-religionists not only to relinquish, but to pull down the synagogue of Satan-by which polite name he designated the Catholic Church; until at length waxing bolder and bolder, danger again threatened his person, and he again fled to Geneva-in July, 1556. Ile remained here for about three years, by his frequent letters encouraging his disciples in Scotland; whither he finally returned in 1559, when the lords of the congregation were ready to take up arms, and all things were reported ripe for setting up and establishing the new kirk.t Now began in earnest the fearful struggle, which terminated in the complete success of the Scottish Reformation, and in the building up of the Scottish kirk with the spoils and oln the ruins of the Catholic Church, to whose ministrations Scotland had been indebted for her conversion from pagan- ism, and for all the consequent blessings of Christian civiliza- tion which she had enjoyed for ten centuries. All these memories of benefits received were now forgotten, and all her ancient Catholic glories, in which the patriotic names of Wallace and Bruce, together with those of her canonized saints, had so gloriously figured, were scattered to the winds, or obscured by partial oblivion, in a few short years. It is verv interesting and useful to inquire how this revo- lution was accomplished, and in so short a time. Of course, different persons will look upon it from different points of view, according to their preconceived opinions; but we think that few sober-minded men will deny, that the facts, even as and quarrel among the English Protestant refugees; in which Knox seems to have got the worst of it. Dr. Cox, his opponent, remained in posses- sion of the field, and Knox retired to Geneva. McCrie, p. 128-9. f Ibid., p. 178, seqq. See also Lingard, vii, 270-1. We will see his other flights a little further on. 230 ASSASSINATION OF CARDINAL BEATOUN. they are stated or virtually admitted by the learned but partial biographer of Knox, all point in one direction: namely, to prove that the revolution was commenced and continued with the carnal weapons of violence, treachery, and spolia- tion; and that it was consummated by openly avowed intol- erance and downright persecution for conscience' sake of all opponents of every grade. This we are prepared to show by facts, which can not be gainsaid, and which will scarcely be even denied by the friends of the Scottish Reformation. But we must go back to the year 1546, the date of the horrible assassination of Cardinal Beatoun. 1. This barbarous assassination was concocted two years before in England by the brutal Henry VIII., who was en- raged with the cardinal for having foiled him in his attempt to get possession of the person of Mary Stuart, tile infant queen of the Scots. The famous reformed Scottish preacher and martyr, George Wishart-the religious teacher of Knox -came to England the bearer of a proposition from certain Scottish lords " to apprehend and slee the cardinal." Henry would not directly commit himself, but probably answered, as he did a year later to a similar proposal, that the parties had better do the deed and trust to his gratitude for the This proposal was by the earl of Cassilis to Sadler, Henry's Scottish ambassador, after the return of the former from a visit to the king in Eng- land. It was, that he and his friends would engage to assassinate the cardinal "for a reward proportioned to their services." Whether the pre- vious offer from Kirkaldy and John Charteris, of which the Scottish proto- martyr George Wishart was the bearer, was likewise a business-transaction based on a pecuniary consideration, we are not informed; but this was certainly the case with the one made subsequently by Crighton, laird of Brunston, and money seems to have been at the bottom of the entire nego- tiation with Henry on the subject: though it would appear, that the bluff old king and the shrewd Scots could not strike a satisfactory bargain! Lin- gard says, that the bearer of the first proposition was perhaps George Wishart, the great Scottish proto-martyr. We have no doubt of it, from the remarkable confirmation of the fact furnished by McCrie himself; quoted infra. 231 SCOISH REFORMATION-KNOX. reward. The "deed" was done on the 29th of May, 1546, by assassins who, according to Foxe, " were stirred up by the Lord."t The government of Edward VI. approved of it, and entered into a regular treaty with the assassins. Two months previously, Wishart, who had been the bearer of the infamous message to Henry, and who had stirred up riots and seditions wherever he preached, had unfortunately fallen into the hands of the cardinal, and had been first hanged for sedition, and then burned for heresy.1 What part did Knox and the reformers take in this treach- erous and bloody deed, with which the Scottish Reformation was inaugurated The answer is easily given. They openly approved of it, if they were not even accessory to it before the fact! Knox, to mark his approbation of "the godly deed," immediately threw one hundred and forty of his fol- lowers into the castle of St. Andrew's, to aid the assassins; and they all resolved together to resist the Scottish authorities to the last extremity, and to throw themselves on the protec- tion of England! Here is what McCrie writes on the sub- ject: "Writers unfriendly to our reformer have endeavored to fix an accusation upon him, respecting the assassination of Cardinal Beatoun. Some have ignorantly asserted that he was one of the conspirators. Others better in- formed have argued that he made himself accessory to the crime, by taking shelter among them. With more plausibility, others have appealed to his writings, as a proof that he vindicated the deed of the conspirators as laud- able, or at least innocent." Lingard, vii, 12. He quotes Keith and Tytler. McCrie impliedly ad- mits, that the George Wishart who bore the infamous message to Henry, was the famous preacher whom he so much extols. He says that he re- turned from England in 1544, with the commissioners " who had been sent to negotiate a treaty with Henry VIIL of England.--P. 32. And such a treaty! t McCrie, 12. Foxe, 526. The cardinal was assassinated in his own bed-chamber. I Ibid. & Ibid., p. 36-7. He enters into an elaborate defense of Knox, chiefly or, the ground that Beatoun was a persecutor! 232 KNOX SANCTIONS THE DEED. Knox not only defended the "godly deed," but he spoke of it in a tone of levity and even of mockery, which betokened great hardness of heart-to use the sc est expression. His biographer, indeed, endeavors to excuse him for this, on tleo ground that he waa not able to restrain " his vein of humor;" though he admits that " the pleasantry which Knox mingles with his narrative of his (Beatoun's) death and burial is Aun- seasonable and unbecoming." Knox evidently thought that this assassination-as some of his friends said afterwards of his own famous sermon to prove that the Pope was antichrist -was going at once to the very root of the matter! t 2. That the Scottish nobles who joined the Reformation were impelled to do so by the hope of plunder, and that they were instigated and aided to achieve their ends by the En- glish government, there can be little doubt. Some of them, as we have already seen, had been intruded into the riclhest and most influential benefices of the Church; others hoped to build up their fortunes in a similar way. The former joined the reformers in order to secure to themselves and their posterity their ill-gotten goods; the latter with the well- grounded hope to better their condition in the new order of things which was to arise on the ruins of the old. McCrie himself admits this in regard to the later movements of the Scottish Reformation, that is, when the struggle really began in earnest. Speaking of what occurred about the.year 1540, he says:1 McCrie, note H., p. 417, in which he tries to answer Hume who had written: "It is very horrid, but at the same time somewahat amusing, to con- sider the joy, alacrity, and pleasure, which that historian (Knox) discovers in his narrative of this assassination."-A very humorous man surely was John Knox! Almost as humorous as his master, John Calvin, who smiled while Servetus was writhing in the flames! t "Sum said, utheris hued the branches of papistry, bot he (Knox) straiketh at the rute."-Knox, Historie, etc., p. 70. Apud McCrie, p. 47, note. t Ibid, p. 28. His argument to show that this was not the case at an earlier period is very ffeble and unsatisfactory. Vol. IL-20 233 234 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. "It has often been alleged, that the desire of sharing in the rich spoils of the popish Church, together with the intrigues of the court of England, en- gaged the Scottish nobles on the side of the Reformation. It is reasonable to think that, at a later period, this was so far true." 3. While Knox was in Scotland in 1555, the chief among the reformers met, on his suggestion, at Mearns, and there entered into the first Solemn League and Covenant, by which they bound themselves to renounce forever the communion of the old Church, and to defend to the last the doctrines of the new gospel.t When the "lords of the congregation - as the reformed nobles were thenceforth called-learned of the marriage of their young queen Mary to Francis, dauphin of France, they met again, and entered into another covenant still more solemn and more stringent in its obligation than the first, by which they bound themselves to renounce forever "the synagogue of Satan,"-the Catholic Church-and de- clared themselves sworn enemies to " its abominations and its idolatry." This occurred in December, 1557.t What this covenant really meant, we shall hereafter see more in detail; when it became known, it was regarded by the Catholic party as a declaration of war. Mackintosh, a very prejudiced witness, cautiously admits this, even in regard to the Highland qhiefs, whom we would suppose least accessible to motives so sordid and so foreign to their usually generous and chivalrous character: "They (the Highlanders) without difficulty followed the fashion of their chiefs, who were themselves partly tempted to assume the name of Protestants by the lure of a share in the spoil, of the Church, and were pos ibly also influenced by the example of the southern barons, from whom the greater part of the Highland chiefs professed to derive their pedigree." -History of England, p. 323, Amer. Edit. f McCrie says that "this seems to have been the first of those religious bonds or covenants, by which the confederation of the Protestants in Scot- land was so frequently ratified."1-P. 130. He quotes Knox, Historie, p. 92. t See Knox, Historie, 98-100, apud Lingard, vii, 272; and also McCrie in loco. M The new archbishop of St. Andrew's urged stringent measures against the new religionists, and called for the execution of the laws which had been revived under the late regency of his brother. Walter Milne, an RELAGIOUS TOLERATION-BURNING ZEAL. 235 The dowager queen mother had returned from France in 1551, and she was now regent of the kingdom for her daugh- ter Mary. Finding the Protestant and Catholic parties arrayed against each other in deadly hostility, she interposed her authority, and endeavored, but ineffectually, to conciliate them. By her direction, the archbishop of St. Andrew's convened a council, in which the canons lately made for the reformation of abuses were confirmed, and those doctrines of the Catholic Church which had been most grievously mis- represented by the reformers were correctly but temperately stated. But conciliation was wholly thrown away upon the fiery Knox and his associates. Not only religious toleration, but the fullest religious liberty was promised them, over and over again; still they spoke in bitter mockery of the " syren song of toleration," and by religious liberty they meant the right to pull down the Catholic Church, to banish it forever from the kingdom, and to establish Calvinism, as the only form of religion which should be even tolerated in Scotland! The following facts will place it beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Scottish reformers did not want religious liberty, but the privilege of religious domination; that they wanted either all or nothing! 5. Rejecting all conciliation, and not even waiting for the result of the council, the lords of the congregation, led on by Knox, established the Reformation at Perth on the 11th of May, 1559. How they did it, McCrie shall inform us: "Knox, who remained at Perth, preached a sermon in which he exposed the idolatry of the Mass, and of image-worship. Sermon being ended, the audience quietly dismissed; a few idle persons only loitered in the church: when an imprudent priest, wishing either to try the disposition of the people, or to show his contempt of the doctrine which had been just delivered, uncovered a rich altar piece decorated with images, and prepared to celebrate Mass. A boy having uttered some expressions of disapproba- tion was struck by the priest. He retaliated by throwing a stone at the aggressor, which filling on the altar broke one of the images. This operated apostate friar, was thereupon seized and executed for heresy. This was La unfortunate as it was lamentable. See McCrie, p. 235. SCOVIISH REFORMATION-KNOX. like a signal upon the people present, who had taken part with the boy; and in the course of a few minutes the altar, images, and all the ornaments of the church were torn down, and trampled under foot. The noise soon col- lected a mob, who finding no employment in the church, by a sudden and irresistible(!) impulse, flew upon the monasteries; nor could they be rc- strained by the authority of the magistrates and the persuasions of the preachers (!), (who assembled as soon as they heard of the riot,) until the houses of the grey and black friars, with the costly edifice of the Carthusian monks, were laid in ruins. None of the gentlemen or sober part of the congreogation were concerned in this unpremeditated tumult; it was wholly confined to the baser inhabitants, or (as Knox designs them) 'the rascall multitude.' i This was not the first, as it did not prove to be the last, of those wonderful exhibitions, by which the Scottish re- formers signalized their burning zeal. Before the wanton riot and destruction of property at Perth, and before Knox had returned from Geneva, many such scenes had been en- acted.t Now, these acts of violence and sacrilegious destruc- tion of all that had been held most sacred were of almost daily occurrence. "With the gospel in one hand, and the firebrand in the other," Knox and his brother preachers marched through Scotland, everywhere establishing the R1f- ormation in the light of burning churches and monasteries, with the noble monuments of art and learning which they contained. It will not do for McCrie to attempt to palliate the atrocious conduct of the mob at Perth and to excuse Knox. Who but heTaised the storm, which, it i8 said, the preachers and magistrates could not calm Who but he aroused " the rascall multitude" to do their sacrilegious work Were they not doing his own work, and complying with the solemn injunction of the Calvinistic creed-till retained in the Presbyterian confession of faith-by forcibly "removing all false worship and all monuments of idolatry " I1zCrie, p. 182. t The burning and pillage of churches and monasteries is complained of in the acts of the Council of Edinburgh, which was dissolved before Knox's return to Scotland. See Wilkins, Conc., iv, 208, seqq., apud Lingard, vii, 271. 236 MCCRIE DEFENDING KNOX. According to his biographer, the following is the method adopted by Knox and his coadjutors for reforming the Church at St. Andrew's, and in other places;-Knox had been dis- suaded by his friends from preaching in the Cathedral of St. Andrew's against the solemn prohibition of the archbishop, but he had persisted in his purpose in spite of all advice:- "This intrepid reply silenced all further remonstrance; and next day Knox appeared in the pulpit and preached to a numerous assembly, without meeting with the slightest opposition or interruption. He discoursed on the subject of our Saviour's ejecting the profane traffickers from the temple of Jerusalem; from which he took occasion to expose the enormous corruptions which had been introduced into the Church under the Papacy, and to point out what was incumbent upon Christians, in their different spheres, for re- moving them. On the three following days, he preached in the same Jlace (St. Andrew's); and such was .the influence of his doctrine, that the provost, baillies, and inhabitants harmoniously agreed to set up the reformed wor- ship in the town: the church was stripped of images and pictures, and the monasteries pulled down. The texample of St. Andrew's was quickly fol- lowed in other parts of the kingdom; and in the course of a few weeks, at Crail, at Cupar, at Lindores, at Stirling, at Linlithgow, and at Edinburgh, the houses of the monks were overthrown, and all the instruments, which had been employed to foster idolatry and image-worship, were destroyed." 6. In thus defacing or wholly destroying churches, and in razing to the ground the venerable monastic structures, with all their rich contents of paintings, and libraries, and archi- tectural ornaments, the Scottish reformers did an irreparable injury to the country, whose noblest ancient monuments they thus left masses of smoking ruins, and to mediaeval art and learning, whose invaluable productions they demolished, or ruthlessly consigned to the flames. The monasteries were, at the same time, the great public libraries of Scotland, as they were everywhere also in Europe. And yet,-would it be believed -the biographer of Knox, true to the spirit of his hero and of early Calvinism, not only defends this hor- rible Vandalism, but he seems even to rejoice and triumph ' McCrie, p. 188. He quotes Knox, Historie, and a letter of the reformer written fiom St. Andrew's, June 23, 1559. The deniolition began there on the 14th of June. 237 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. over the ruins with which Scotland was strewn by Knox and his ruthless myrmidons! le says: "I will go further, and say that I look upon the destruction of these monuments as a piece of good policy, which contributed materially to the overthrow of the Roman Catholic religion, and the prevention of its re-es- tablishment. It was chiefly by the magnificence of temples, and the splendid apparatus of its worship, that the Popish Church fascinated the senses and imaginations of the people. There could not, therefore, have been a more successful method of attacking it than the demolition of these. There is more wisdom.than many seem to perceive in the maxim. which Knox is said to have inculcated, ' that the best way to keep the rooks from returning, was to pull down their nests.' "f It may have been good " policy" and it was "s uccessful;" but was it right On the same principle, it v ould be right for a robber to slay his victim, lest he should return after- wards and slay him! Does "the end justify the means" Catholics are falsely charged with adopting this abominable maxim; the early Protestants certainly acted upon it; and .McCrie defends their action! Again he says: "Scarcely any thing in the progress of the Scottish Reformation has been more frequently or more loudly condemned than the demolition of those edifices upon which superstition(!) had lavished all the ornaments of the chisel and pencil. To the Roman Catholics, who anathematized all who were engaged in this work of inexpiable sacrilege, and represented it as in- volving the overthrow of all religion, have succeeded another race of writers (Protestant), who, although they do not, in general, make high pretensions to devotion, have not scrupled at times to borrow the language of their pre- decessors, and have bewailed the wreck of so many precious monuments, in as bitter strains as ever idolater did the loss of his gods. These are the warm admirers of Gothic architecture, and other reliques of ancient art; some of whom, if we may judge from their language, would welcome back the reign of superstition, with all its ignorance and bigotry, if they could recover the objects of their adoration.f Among these Protestant writers, he mentions in a note Hutchinson, whose energetic language on the subject be quotes, as one out of many of a similar kind, though not the strongest:-" This abbey (Kelso) was demolished 1569, in _cre .13 Ii. .10 238 McCrie, p. 193. t Ibid., p. 190. TWO ARMIES IN THE FIELD. consequence of the enthusiastic Reformation, which in its 'violence was a greater disgrace to religion than all the errors it was intended to subvert. Reformation has hitherto always appeared in the form of a zealot, full of fanatic fury, with violence subduing, but through madness creating almost as many mischiefs in its oversights, as it overthrows errors in its pursuits. Religion has received a greater shock from the present struggle to suppress some formularies and save some scruples, than it ever did by the growth of superstition." 7. The queen regent complained, and most justly, of all these sacrilegious outrages, so destructive to the rights of the great majority of the nation who were still Catholics. She as- sembled the nobility, and laid before them the sad state of affairs. "To the Catholics she dwelt upon the sacrilegious overthrow of those venerable structures which their ancestors had dedicated to the service of God. To the Protestants, who had not joined those at Perth, she complained of the destruction of the royal foundation of the Charter House, protested that she had no intention to qfl'er violence to their coneciences, and promised her protection, provided they as- sisted her in the punishment of those who had been guilty of this violation of public order. Having inflamed the minds of all against them, she advanced to Perth with an army, threatening to lay waste the town by fire and sword, and to inflict the most exemplary vengeance on those who had been instrumental in producing the riot."t The lords of the congregation armed also on their side, and then began, first before the walls of Perth, and subse- quently in other places, a series of skirmishes, manoeuvrings, truces, parleys, reconciliations, and ruptures, the details of which are much too long for our limits.: The party of the regent again repeatedly promised to the Protestants entire Hutchinson, History of Northumberland, etc., i, 265. Quoted ibid, p.190. t McCrie, p. 183. t Those who wish to read a clear and succinct statement of the facts are referred to Lingard, vii, 273, seqq. 239 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. freedom of religion, and these as often rejected the offer, and demanded that they should have, in addition, the right to remove "false worship and the monuments of idolatry" What kind of religious liberty Knox demanded at this pro cise juncture-as well as befire and afterwards-is apparent from a letter which he -then addressed to Mrs. Anne Locke: "At length they (the regent's party) were content to take assurance for eight days, permitting unto us freedom of religion in the mean time. In the whilk (which) the abbey of Lindores, a place of black monkes, distant from St. Andrew's twelve miles, we reformed: their altars overthrew we, their idols, vestments of idolatric, and mass-books we burnt in their presence, and commanded them to cast away their monkish habits." 8. The result of the eventful struggle betwen the two parties was, that after the lords of the congregation had quailed more than once before the "synagogue of Satan," and "the uncircumcised Philistines," and had been driven in disgrace from Edinburgh, England came to their aid; while the queen regent in her turn received re-inforcements from France. Though Elizabeth had entered into a solemn treaty of peace with Mary, queen of Scots, who was still in France, she did not scruple to aid the Scottish insurgents with both encouragement and money. She sent two agents-Sadler and Croft-into Scotland to keep up their hopes of aid from England; and she subsequently despatched an English army and fleet to the Scottish borders and to the mouth of the Frith. To the remonstrances of the French ambassador, Nouailles, Elizabeth "assured him of her determination to maintain the peace of Cateau, and as a proof of her sincerity, wished that the curse of heaven might light on the head of that prince who should be the first to violate it !"t-It must Quoted from McCrie by Lingard, vii, 274, note. The letter was written Juue 23, 1559; it is given in full, with this passage, by McCrie from Calder- wood's Collection, in the Appendix, p. 544. The passage, however, which we have already quoted above, concerning the reforming process at St. Andrew's and in its vicinity, contains in substance all that Knox declares in this letter. t See Lingard, vii, 284-5, and his authorities. In this peace, which settled the affairs of Europe, E1ngland and Scotland were included. 240 KIRK ESTABLISHED. 241 be remembered that the lords of the congregation, urged on by Knox, had already deposed the queen regent (Oct. 22, 1559), and were now in open rebellion. The assistance of England gave the superiority to the lords of the congregation. and they were thus enabled fully to carry out their purpose for establishing the Reformation in Scotland. Mr. McCrie tells the final issue of the struggle as follows: "The disaster which caused the Protestant army to leave Edinburgh, turned out to the advantage of their cause. It obliged the English court to abandon the line of cautious policy which they had hitherto pursued. On the 27th of February, 1560, they concluded a formal treaty with the lords of the congregation; and in the beginning of April the English army entered Scotland. The French troops retired within the fortifications of Leith, and were invested by sea and land; the queen regent died in the castle of Edin- burgh during the siege; and the ambassadors of France were forced to agree to a treaty, by which it was provided that the French troops should be removed from Scotland, an amnesty granted to all who had been engaged in the late resistance to the measures of the regent, their principal grievances redressed, and a free parliament called to settle the other affairs of the ringdom." A little further on, he says: "The treatyt which put an end to hostilities, made no settlement respecting McCrie, p. 218. t Mackintosh tells us that, among the stipulations of this treaty, one was, that "the most Christian king and queen, Francis and Mary, should fulfill- all they had promised to the Scottish nation, so long as the nobles and peo- ple of Scotland fulfilled the terms to which they on their parts had agreed." (Mackintosh, Ibid., p. 324.) The cardinal of Lorraine, the French prime minister, often accused the Scots of not having observed their part of the treaty, being instigated to break it by the influence of Elizabeth. He said openly to Throckmorton, the English minister: "The Scots, I will tell you frankly, perform no part of their duties; the king and the queen have the name of their sovereigns, and your mistress (Elizabeth) hath the obedience. They would bring the realm to a republic. Though you say your mistress has in all things per- formed the treaty; we say the Scots, by her countenance, perform no part of the treaty."-Mackintosh, Ibid., p. 325. The continual intermeddling of Elizabeth in the affairs of Scotland was a constant source of annoyance and anguish to poor Mary, after her arrival in VOL. rt.-21 242 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. religious diffierences; but on that very account it was fatal to popery. The power was in the hands of the Protestants... . . The parliament, when it met, had little to do but to sanction what the nation had previously adoptedI.- 9. How neatlv and how delicately told ! The regent had repeatedly offered them not only toleration, but religious liberty; they had spurned her offer with scorn. How the nation had been previously led to "adopt" the Reformation, we have already seen. And now these men of violeiice and blood. whose principal grievances had been already redressed, coolly meet in parliament, without waiting for a legal com- mission from their sovereign, and having secured a najority by previous dextrous management and manarn-. ring, establier by law the new religion on the destmetion of the old, the profession or exercise of which they undertake boldly to pro- hibit ! They thus proved to all the world that they had not been seeking after religious freedom, but rather religious domriination and ascendency. The proceedings of this famous assembly may be summed up as tfdloss: "1. An act was passed to abolish the papal jurisdiction in Scotland, and to provide punishment for any man who should presume to act under it.t the country, which the English queen really ruled much more than she her- self. Thus, to select one out of many examples of the kind, the English envoy "Thornworth was also instructed to expostulate with Mary on her displeasure against the earl of Moray: (more commonly written Murray); which was answered bv a desire that there might be no meddling in the internal affairs of Scotland." (Mackintosh, Ibid., p. 335.) McCrie, p. 220. t Mackintosh, a very prejudiced and therefore unexceptionable witness, says in substance as much, though he was too cautious to enter into details: "A statute was passed to abolish the papal authority in Scotland." (P. 325.) This parliament was convened on the first of August, 1560. "The session began with a debate on the legality of the assembly, which was questioned on the account of the absence of any representative of the sovereigns, and of any commission from them. The express words of the commission justi- fied the majority in overruling the objection." (Ibid.)-If the sovereigns had issued no commission, how could "its express words" justify the ma- jority It would appear that the alleged promise of Monluc, the French INTOLERANT ACTS. 2)43 "2. The administration of baptism after the Catholic rite, and the cele- bration of Mass in public or in private, were prohibited under the ixenalty, both to the minister who should officiate, and to the persons who should be present, of forfeiture for the first offense, of banishment for the second, and of death for the third. "3. A confession of faith, framed by Knox and his associates after the Geneva model, was approved, and every existing law incompatible with the profession of it was repealed. " 4. Every member of the convention who refused to subscribe to the new treed, was inslaontly expelled: an ingenious device to refuse justice to those Catholics, who under the late pacification claimed compensation for their losses during the war. After the exclusion, the names of the complainants were twice called ; neither they nor their attorneys were present to support their claims; and it was declared that 'the lordis and nobilitic had don thair duetie conform to the articles of the peax (peace)., ".5. The earls of Morton and Glencairn with Secretary Lethington, were commissioned to wait on the English queen, and to propose to her, in the name of the estates, a marriage with the earl of Arran, son to the presump- tive heir to the Scottish crown." That this was substantially the action of the parliament of 1560), is apparent from the proceedings of that convened in 1567, seven years later, according to iM1cCrie's own account: "On the 15th of December, Knox preached at the opening of the parlia- ment, and exhorted them to begin with the affairs of religion, in which case they would find better success in their other business. The parliament ratified all the acts which had been passed in 1560, in favor of the Protestant ambassador at the treaty, is here referred to; but it does not appear that the sovereigns had ratified this promise, if it was really given. The legality of the assembly was often questioned in the sequel. The abolition of the papal authority carried with it the utter prohibition of the Catholic religion, and the forcible establishment of the Calvinistic Kirk as that of Scotland, to the exclusion of all religious liberty on the part of Catholics. Such was the freedom of religion which Knox coveted! Lingard, History of England, vii, p. 294-5. He quotes Keith, 151, 488; Haynes, 356; Knox, 239, 254-5; Spottiswood, 150; and Act. Parl. Scot. ii. 525, App. 605. Cecil seems to have been the main intriguer in ar- ranging the preliminaries of the convention, and especially in suggesting the unworthy artifice by which the Catholics were defrauded of their claims. He had already prophecied, that "the reparation would be light enough." Ibid. SCOTTISh REFORMNATION-KNOX. religion, and against popery. New statutes of a similar ki'z'1 were added. It was provided that no prince should be afterwards admitted to the exercise of authority in the kingdom, without taking an oath to maintain the Prot. estait religion; and that none but Protestants should be admitted to any office, not hereditary nor held for life. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction, exer- cised by the different assemblies of the church was formally ratified, and commissioners appointed to define more exactly the causes which properly came within the sphere of their judgmcnt." 10. This occurred after poor Mary, queen of Scots, had been driven from Edinburgh, and while she was detained a prisoner at Lochleverv . Knox now clamored for her blood, as he had been the chief cause of all her troubles and mis- fortunes. "Throckmorton, the English ambassador, had a conference with him, with the view of mitigating the rigor of this judgment; but though he (Knox) acquiesced in the resolhtion adopted by the lords to detain her in prison, he retained his sentiment in favor of her trial and execution which would certainly have followed; and after the civil war was kindled by her escape, repeatedly said. that he considered the nation as suffering for their criminal lenity."t 11. Throckmorton's royal mistress -the Jezabel of England -was destined to become the executioner of her unhappy cousin of Scotland. How the latter was induced by her forlorn condition to seek shelter in England, or was decoyed thither with the hope of a hospitable welcomle; how she was then treacher- ouslv seized and forced to wear away her gentle heart in prison for nineteen long years; how she was tortured with slanderous accusations against her virtue, and haunted with phantoms of rebellion devised by her eneimies to be laid to her charge,- of rebellion against her " dear cousin" Elizabeth-to whom she certainly owed no allegiance whatsoever; how she was at length cruelty executed bv order of Elizabeth who had previously tried to have her privately assassinated:-the, whole sad history, with all its startling and harrowing inci- dents, is well known, and need not be here repeated in detail. 244 Life of Knox, p. 319. t Ibid., 318. MARY'S RECEPTION IN SCOTLAND. 24.5 It may be more to our present purpose, to refer to what happened pr evioiusly, in her brief but unhappy career in Scotland. 12. From the moment she had first entered Scotland, on the express invitation of the Protestant nobles, she was tor- tured day and night by the lords of the congregation, insti- gated thereto by John Knox.t This holy man pursued the McCrie, Ibid., p. 231. She arrived in Scotland on the 19th of August, 1561. Ibid. t Of her singular reception on the first night after her arrival in Scotland, Mackintosh says: 'In the evening, however, they were annoyed i)) a inltitu(le of 5OOor G60persons, wlhosung Psalms under the winclows-ane.arly anri of ein- sive badge of their Calvinism-playing on sorry rebecks and unstrung fiddles, with such neglect of all harmony, that the Parisian connoisseurs thought it worth their while to criticize their performance. Next morning, the queen's chaplain narrowly escaped with his life from the hands of the Ilinatical rabble, who viewed him with horror 'as a priest of Baal. ' Such,' said the queen, 'is the beginning of welcome and allegiance from my subjects; what may be the end, I know not; but I venture to foretell that it will be verv bad.' "-(1-fist. England, p. 330.)-The poor queen was not mistaken in her sad presentiment! Those religious people were much too holy to have any regard to vulgar politeness or common humanity! Mary had applied to Elizabeth for permission to pass through England on her way to Scotland, which request Elizabeth rudely rVfused, addressing her refusal to Mary's envoy "in a crowded court, with a loud voice, and in a tone of emotion ;" whereupon Mary, taking the English ambassador Throck- morton aside, addressed him as follows: "My lord ambassador, I know not how far I may be transported by pas- sion, but I like not to have so many witnesses of my passion, as the queen your mistress was content to have when she talked to M. D'Oysell (tier own envoy). There is nothing that doth more grieve me, than that I did so for- get myself as to desire of the queen a favor that I had no need to ailk. You know that, both here and eisevhere, I have friends and allies. It will be thought strange among all princes and countries, that she should first ani- mate my subjects against me; and now that I am a widow, hinder my re- turn to my own country. I ask her nothing bht friendship. I do not trouble her state, or practice with her subjects; yet I know there be in her realm that be inclined enough to hear offers. I know also that they bfe not of the same mind as she is, neither in religion nor in other things. Your queen says, I an: young and lack experience. I confess I am younger than 47 SCOTTISH REFORNIATION-KNOX. youthful, accomplished, and but lately widowed queen, with a persistent malignity which seems almost too monstrous to be credible. Oil the first Sunday after her arrival, she had preIparatiols made for the celebration of Mass in 1lolyrood house: whereupon violent murmurs were excited, "which would hlave burst into an open tumult, had not the leaders interfered, and by their authority epressed the zeal (!) of the multitude." Knox seemed to acquiesce in this wish of "the leadens" to prevent an open breach of the public I)eace; but "having exposed the evil of idolatry in his sermon on the fol- lowing sabbath, he said that one Mess (Mass) was more fear- full unto him, than if ten thousand armed enemies wer landed in ony parte of the realme, of purpose to suppres the hole religioun.' " The godly man! He could claim religious liberty for him- self, but he had no idea of allowing it to others, even to his own youthful queen! And yet lie and his associates were the very men who were forever ringing the cry of religious liberty and of "popish inytolerance" throughout Scotland; and wllo, with this very cry on their lips, destroyed the Cath- olic churches and monasteries, and after first slandering, sup- pressed the Catholic worship !t she is. During my late lord and husband's time, I was subject to him; and now my uncles, who are counselors of the crown of France, deem it unmeet to offer advice on the affairs between England and Scotland. I can- not proceed in this matter, till I have the counsel of the nobles and states of mine own realm, which I cannot have till I come among them. I never meant harm to the queen, my sister. I should be loth either to do wrong to others, or to suffer so much wrong to myself."-Apud Mackintosh, Ibid., p. 328. The whole heart and soul of Mary of Scots are in this speech. For queenly dignity, for delicate but telling satire, and for genuine eloquence both of the head and heart, as well as for noble simplicity, it is scarcely sur- passed by any thing we have ever heard or read. McCrie, p. 234. t Even Mackintosh bears evidence to the moderation and justice of Mary's government of Scotland during the first years after her arrival. "Notwith- 246 KNOX'S IMPLACABLE HATRED. 13. When poor Mary sent for Knox, after he had coarsely attacked from the pulpit lher contemplated marriage with Darnley, lie was unmoved by her tears, and lie relentlessly mocked at her acute sufferings. If not directly privy to the brutal assassination of her faithful secretary, Rizzio, perpe- trated in her own chamber and before her very eyes, and when she was near her confinement, Knox openly expressed his satisfaction at the horrid deed of blood, describing it as "an event which contributed to the safety of religion and tile commonwealth, if not also his approbation of the conduct of the conspirators."t So implacable in his hatred was this3 newly modeled saint, that he persistently refused "to pray for her welfare and conversion, representing her as a repro- bate whose repentance was hopeless, and uttering impreca- tions against her." Such was the charge formally made against him in the General Assembly of the Kirk, which met in March, 1571 ; and his accuser promised to sustain it at the next Assembly, " if the accused continued his offensive speeches, and was then 'law-byding, and not fugitive accord- ing to his accustomed manner."'; Knox repelled with scorn the last imputation-which his whole life had nevertheless standing the forebodings of Mary on her arrival, her administration was for several years prudent and prosperous. The Presbytefian establishment con- tinued inviolate, without any inquiry into the irregularities of its origin. The revolts against legal authority were overlooked; and an act of oblivion was passed in the parliament of 1564.-l-Hist. England, p. 330. She was in the sixth month of her pregnancy. t McCrie, p. 309 and note. In consequence,." it was deemed prudent for him to withdraw.-Ibid., 310. McCrie adds: "It does not appear that he (Knox) returned to Edinburgh, or, at leash that he resumed his ministry in it, until the queen was deprived of the government.-(Ibid., p. 310.) This is another of his flights when danger threatened his precious person! In reply to King James VI, who denounced Knox for approving the assassination of Rizzio, "one of the min- isters said, 'that the slaughter of David (Rizzio). so far as it was the work of God, was allowed by Mr. Knox, and not otherwise.' Knox does not, however, make this qualification.-Ibid., p. 309, note. I _McCrie, ibid., p. 338. 247 248 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. proved true-but he still persisted in his determination not to pray for the queen. 14. That Mary was innocent of the wicked charges made against her by unscrupulous and treacherous men; that, like a lamb in the midst of wolves, she was the victim of their horrible and almost fiendish machinations; that after having first murdered her favorite secretary, and next her husband, then forced her into a marriage with the infamous Bothwell, they finally forged a correspondence between her and Both- well, with a view to ruin her character, and deprive her of her throne and of her life: all this has, we think, been con- clusively demonstrated by many able writers, both Catholic and Protestant. This being the case, what are we to think of such men as were implicated in those horrid scenes of treachery and blood !t If history, at any rate in Christian times, any where presents a group of men as thoroughly wicked as Ruthven, Lindsay, Buchanan, Morton, Bothwell, Maitland, Murray, and Knox, we have nowhere become Life of Knox, p. 339. "'IHe (Knox) had learned plainly and boldly to call wickedness by its own terms, a fig, a fig, and a spade, a spade.' He had never called her reprobate, nor said that her repentance was impossible; but he had affirmed that pride and repentance could not long remain in one heart. He had prayed that God, for the comfort of his church, would oppose his power to her pride, and confound her and her assistants in their impiety: this prayer, let them call it imprecation or execration, as they pleased, had stricken and would yet strike whoever supported her. To the charge of not praying for her, he answered: 'I am not bound to pray for her in this place, for sovereign to me she is not! and I let them understand, that I am not a mran of law that has my tongue to sell for silver or favor of the world."' f Even after Mary was securely lodged in Elizabeth's English prison, her ,ood cousin of England and her envoys were in constant dread of her queenly influence. Thus "White, a gentleman of Elizabeth's household, warned Cecil against permitting many to have conference with her. 'For besides,' said he, 'that she has a goodly personage, she hath withal an allur- ing grace, a pretty Scottish speech, and a searching wit, clouded (softened) with mildness.'"-Mackintosh, p. 362. A beautiful tribute, coming from an enemy! Were these the reasons of Elizabeth's unquenchable jealousy and undying hatred MARY INNOCENT-MURRAY AND MAITLAND. 249 acquainted with the fact. There may have been particular cases of "total depravity" equaling single ones in this hor- Speaking of Murray and the other Scottish lords who had fled to Eng- land, Mackintosh says: "These gentlemen, the best of their time, were joined by the interest of the Reformation in unnatural union with the worst offspring of civil confusion,-with Morton, a profligate though able man- with Ruthven, distinguished even then for the brutal energy with which he executed wicked designs; and with the brilliant and inconstant Lethington (Maitland) admired by all parties but scarcely trusted by any."-(P. 337.) He closes his account of Rizzio's assassination, with the following: "To complete the narrative of an event sufficient to dishonor a nation, and to characterize an age, it may be added that the earl of Morton, lord chancel- lor of Scotland, commanded the guard who were posted at the entrance of the palace to protect the murderers from interruption."-(P. 338.) This Scottish historian of England labors hard to incriminate poor Mary, and to excuse or extenuate the conduct of her enemies and murderers. His texture of the facts and circumstances in her life is an ingeniously drawn but most unjust lawyer's brief, to make out her enormous guilt, and to exonerate the bad men by whom she was surrounded and ruined. Of Murray, particularly, he speaks in the highest terms of eulogy. We con- sider him by far the worst man of them all, even where the wickedness of his as ociates was so gigantic. The half-brother of the unfortunate queen, and wielding great influence, he might easily have protected her from out- rage and danger, and it was plainly his duty to do so, in her forlorn condi- tion. But, on the contrary, he was ever on the side of her enemies, secretly when there was danger, openly when aU was safe. He seems to have been the master intriguer against her character and her throne, and to have set the others on to do the work, keeping himself meantime cautiously out of view. Whenever any great deed of treachery or blood was about to be per- formed, he generally absented himself; but he was sure soon to return, to reap the profits of the adventure! He was almost as bad as Cecil and Eliz- abeth of England. He met a bloody death from the private vengeance of one of the Hamiltons. McCrie, too, as was natural, defends Murray against "the cold manner in which Mr. Hume has spoken of him," and he is particularly pained "to think of the manner in which Dr. Robertson has drawn his character. The faint praise which he has bestowed upon him, the doubt which he has thrown over his moral qualities, and the unqualified censures which he has pronounced upon some parts of his conduct, have, I am afraid, done more injury to the regent's memory, than the exaggerated accounts of his adver 250 SCOTTISH REFOR3lATION-KN0X. rible cluster; but as a whole they stand forth unrivaled in fiendish wickedness! Cecil and Walsinglham in England may have equaled the Scottish Murray and Maitland in cun- ning duplicity and in well-planned treachery; but where shall we find the parallels to the others saries." Note xx, p. 503-4.-Hume and Robertson were right; aDd SO are Miss Strickland, and other Protestant writers, who have had the candor to rescue this portion of history from the calumny which had clouded it. Instances of Murray's duplicity and treachery abound. Thus, when Mary was preparing to leave France for Scotland, "Maitland promised to betray to Cecil the plans and motions of Mary and her friends; and the Lord James (Murray), having proceeded to France to assure his sister of his attachment and obedience, on his return through England advised Eliza- beth to intercept her on the sea and to make her a prisoner."-Camden, i, 83. Keith, 163. Chalmers, from Letters in the State Paper office, ii, 288, apud Lingard, vii, 296.) This is fully confirmed by Agnes Strickland, in her interesting details of the whole treacherous affair. (Queens of Scotland, vol. iii, chap. vi, p. 167, seqq.) A new light has been thrown on the sad history of Mary by the recent publication, in seven octavo volumes, of nearly five hundred new letters and state papers regarding her times, collected by the indefatigable industry of a Russian nobleman, the Prince Alexander Labanoff de Rostoff. Mr. Donald Mac Cleod, in his late highly interesting "Life of Mary, Queezi of Scotst" (1 vol. 12mo, 1857,) has availed himself of these new documents, and has fully vindicated the unfortunate queen from all the foul charges mnlde against her by certain writers, among whom we regret to mention the great popular favorites Charles Dickens and W. M. Thackeray. This same writer has done justice to the character of her accusers, among whom, besides Knox, Murray and Buchanan stood forth pre-eminent. For full details, we refer our readers to this fresh and vigorous work. The indefatigable, excellent, and attractive Protestant authoress, Agnes Strickland, has made the exploration of this field, and the vindication of Mary a labor of love. Her extensive work on "the Queens of Scotland," may, in fact, be said to have exhausted the subject, and to have rendered palpable and undeniable both Mary's innocence and the horrible and almost .endish guilt of her accusers; both that of the Scottish lords of the Con- gregation who harassed, betrayed, and hunted her down, and that of her pitiless cousin Elizabeth, who welcomed her into England with a life-long prison and a bloody death. It is well that there is a great day of Gods judgment, to revise and reverse the judgments of men on earth ! KNOX THE INSTIGATOR-FORGERY. 251 15. But towering above all these secretly plotting or boldly acting bad men stands forth John. Knox, alternately their agent and their tool, but never their dupe; instigating them to almost every deed of treachery and blood; aiding thiem to carry out their wicked designs,by stirring up the lowest pas- sions of the populace through his rugged but overpowering eloquence in the pulpit; and encouraging them with his secret applause or open eulogy whenever they had succeeded in accomplishing their bloody work! Thus, as we have seen, he approved, even if he did not instigate the assassination of Beatoun and of poor Rizzio; while lie certainly was the prime mover in all the atrocious acts of cruelty towards the unhappy Mary herself. Sometimes, indeed, he rebuked the religious indifference, or lashed the vices of the lords of the congrega- tion, especially when the latter did not choose to be restrained by the rigid formalities and outward observances exacted by the newly established discipline of the Kirk: but, if they attended the kirk regularly and observed the rules of deco- rum in their public walk; if they were fiery in their zeal for the new religion; they were held up by him for imitation as saints, though their hearts were full of malice, their tongues of treachery, and their hands of blood. In the eyes of Knox, hatred of the Pope, like the mantle of charity, "covered a multitude of Bins"; and if a man proved himself a good hater, he had already gone far towards attaining to his stand- ard of Christian perfection. 16. It could scarcely be expected that a man of Knox's principles would be very scrupulous as to the means which he deemed necessary for carrying out his cherished ends. He seems, in fact, to have acted almost habitually on the principle, that "the end justifies the means." He scrupled not habitually to misrepresent the doctrines of the Cath- olic Church and to slander the character of the Catholic clergy; and this, too, when he must have known better, ft r he had full opportunity to be well informed on the subject. There is nothing, for instance, more sublimely hypocritical SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. than the pious horror with which he was wont to denounce the "i'(olalry of the Mass ;" for he knew well, that whatever else there might be that was objectionable in this tinme-hal- lowed service of the Church, there could certainly be no idolatry; inasmuch as the adoration was plainly paid only to Christ the Man-God, believed to be really present on the altar. So far, in fact, did he carry his recklessness of truth, that he seems to have resorted occasionally even to forgery to secure his fixed purpose. Thus, when James Stuart, half- brother of Queen Mary-afterwards Earl of Murray-eemed to be tardy in joining the lords of the congregation in 1559, he scrupled not to forge a letter to him, in order to hasten his movements! "At least Randall, the English agent, believed it a forgery: 'which '-Randall says-'I geese to savor to muche of Knox stile to come from Fraunce, though it will serve to good purpose.' The Englishman was evidently not more scrupulous than the Scot; both seem to have acted on the belief that any means were good enough, provided they "'served to good purpose." Speaking of forgery reminds us of the well known and often quoted testimony of the can- did old Anglican parson-Whitaker-one of the earliest de- fenders of Mary of Scots, who in his Vindication of the character of this unhappy queen, says: "Forgery-I blush for the honor of Protestantism while I write-seems to have been peculiar to the reformed. I look in vain for one of these accursed outrages of imposition among the disciples of Popery.- The same Protestant writer draws the following not very flattering picture of the Scottish reformer, whom lie calls "a fanatical incendiary, a holy savage, the son of violence and barbarism, the religious Sachem of religious Mohawks;" while he very aptly designates Knox's contemporary and dear friend-Buclhanan-' a serpent,-daring calumniator,-Levi- athan of slander,-the second of all human forgers,-and the Sadler, i, 499, apud Lingard, vii, 280, note. Vindication of Queen Mary, p. 65. 2-52 CONFIRMATORY EVIDENCE. 253 first of all human slanderers." It is well known that the famous Dr. Johnson was wont to call Knox " the ruffian of the Reformation."t He died at Edinburgh on the 24th of November, 1572, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. B:y IMcCrie and other partial writers, his death is painted as that of a saint; by others who were his contemporaries, but were opposed to his new creed, it is represented as that of the hardened reprobate. 17. The facts hitherto alleged rest chiefly on the authority of McCrie, who in many important particulars is corroborated by Mackintosh. In order not to cumber the narrative or in- terrupt the current of events, we have hitherto abstained from making any considerable quotations from the latest and probably the most interesting and reliable writer on all that is connected with the history of Mary, queen of Scots; we refer to Agnes Strickland. We now proceed to furnish from her lately published Lives of the Queens of Scotland such quotations as may be deemed most appropriate to illustrate this interesting period of Scottish history, and the character of Knox and his associate reformers, as well as of the people upon whom they brought to bear their powerful influence, for good or for evil. It is needless to repeat that Miss Strick- land is a Protestant, and that she has availed herself with singular industry and ability of the ample materials which were thrown in her way. Her candor and truthfulness few Quoted by McCrie, p. 380-1 and note. He believes that Whitaker is not to be relied on, because he was a Jacobite-or warm friend of the Stuarts. Buchanan's picture is drawn to the life in the above sketch. In regard to the moral character of Knox widely different opinions have beean expressed by different writers, according to their respective creeds. Bv McCrie and writers of his class, who openly defend, or at least palliate all his actions, no matter how atrocious these often were, he is represented as a saint, guiltless of all moral delinquency. By contemporary Catholic writers, he is charged with almost every moral turpitude. We propose to discuss this question in Note F. at the end of this volume; in which we shall republish McCrie's answer to the accusers of Knox, with our com- ments thereon. 254 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. impartial men will dispute. The minuteness of her details, and the graphic character of her descriptions throw miiuch additional light on what may be called the inner life of the Scots, and particularly of John Knox and his colleagues during the period in question. 18. As in Geneva, so in Edinburgh, the early Calvinistic reformers enacted a series of most vexatious Blue Laws, under the effects of which the people were suffering on the arrival of their queen on the 20th of August, 1561. We will let our authoress tell what occurred in consequence: " On her way to the abbey the queen was met by a company of distressed supplicants, called 'the rebels of the crafts of Edinburgh,"f who knelt to implore her grace for the misdemeanor of which they brd been guilty, by raising an insurrectionary tumult on the 21st of July, about a month before her majesty's return-not against her authority, but to resist the arbitrary proceedings of the Kirk, and the provost and bailies of Edinburgh. The gloomy spirit of fanaticism had done much to deprive the working classes of their sports and pastimes. The May games and the flower-crowned queen had been clean banished; but the more frolicsome portion of the com- munity, the craftsmen's servants and prentices, clung to the popular panto- mine of Robin Hood with unconquerable tenacity. It was to no purpose that the annual commemoration of the tameless Southron outlaw was de- nounced from the pulpit, and rendered contraband by the session. A com- pany of merry varlets, in the spring of 1561, determined to revive the old observance, by dressing up a Robin Hood, and performing the play so called in Edinburgh, on his anniversary, which, unfortunately, this year befell on a Sunday. This was an offense so serious, that James Kellone, the graceless shoemaker who enacted Robin, being arrested, was by the provost, Archi- bald Douglas of Kilspindie, and the bailies, condemned to be hanged. The craftsmen made great solicitation to John Knox and the bailies to get him reprieved; but the reply was: They would do nothing but have him han-ed.'1 When the time of the poor man's hanging arrived, and the gib- bet was set up, and the ladder in readiness for his execution, the craftsmen, prentices, and servants flew to arms, seized the provost and bailies, and shut them up in Alexander Guthrie's writing-booth, dang (tore) down the gibbet, and broke it to pieces, then rushed to the Tolbooth, which, being fastened For the satisfaction of the reader who may desire to investigate the subject still further, we will exhibit her authorities as we proceed. f Knox's History of the Reformation. I Diurnal of Occurrent. TUMULT AT THE FIRST MASS. 255 from within, they brought hammers, burst in and delivered the condemned Robin Hood, and not him alone, but all the other prisoners there, in despite of magistrates and ministers. " One of the bailies, imprisoned in the writing-booth, shot a dag or a horse pistol at the insurgents, and grievously wounded a servant of a craftsman. whereupon a fierce conflict ensued, which lasted from three in the afternoon till eight in the evening, during which time never a man in the town stirred to defend their provost and bailies. The insurgents were so far victoriou., that the magistrates, in order to procure their release, were fain to promi.,c an amnesty to them, being the only condition on which they would be allowed to come out of their booth. Notwithstanding the amnesty, the offenders knew themselves to be in evil case, and took this opportunity ot suing, in very humble wise, for grace from their bonny liege lady, for their daring resistance to a most despotic and barbarous act of civic authority. The young queen was probably not sorry to have an opportunity of endear- ing herself to the operatives of her metropolis, by commemorating her return to her realm by an act of mercy, and frankly accorded her grace, on which Knox makes this comment: 'But, because she was sufficiently in- structed that all they did was done in despite of the religion, they weru easily pardoned., "t 19. On the first Sunday after her arrival, the queen had the Mass celebrated in her chapel at Holyrood; wliereupcn those holy men who had been so long clamoring for liberty of conscience enacted the following scandalous scene: "All things went on peacefully in Holyrood till the 24th of August. On that morning, being Sunday, Mary ordered Mass to be said in the Chapet Royal; resolutely claiming for herself, and the Roman Catholic members of her household, the same liberty of conscience and freedom of worship which she had frankly guarantied to her subjects in general, without reservation or exceptions. The hearts of the leaders of the Congregation were wonder- fully commoved, when they learned that the queen, though she refrained from persecuting interference with their mode of worship, meant to go to heaven her own way. Patrick, Lord Lindsay, braced on his armor, and. rushing into the close at the head of a party of the church militant, brand- ished his sword, and shouted, 'The idolater priest shall die the death !'t They attacked the queen's almoner as he was proceeding to the chapel, and would have slain him, if he had not fled for refuge into the presence of has Diurnal of Occurrents, printed for the Banatyne Club, p. 66. t Lives of the Queens of Scotland, iii, 208-9. Edition of Harper and Brothers, New York, 1855. t Tytler. SCOTTISH REFORMATION -KNOX. royal rukt-ess. Mary, greatly offended and distressed at the occurrente1 exclaimed. 'This is a fine con:mencenent of what I have to expect. What will be tue end I know not, but I foresee it in;Lt 1) very bad.' She was resolute in her purpose, nevertheless. Hlerl brotdwii, the Lord James, when he visite.l her in France as the t3eigate of the lords of the Congregation, hadl cvif.ied that she should enjoy tha privilege of worshiping after her own f.islior. a. l nothing could shake l her determination. She was, to use the emi,hatic -words of Lethington respecting her religious opinions, 'an unper- suaded princess.' 'The Lord James, the man whom the godly did most revererne. undertook to keep the chapel door,' while the queen was engaged in her devotions, which included an office of thanksgiving for her preserva- tion durinz the perils of her voyagg-e, and her safe arrival in her own realm. The conduc(t of the Lord James, on this occasion, gave great scandal to the less liberally disposed of the Congregation. He excused himself by saying, what lie did was to prevent any Scotchman from entering the chapel. ' But,' says Knox. 'it was and is well known that the door was kept that none should have entress to trouble the priest ;'t who, after he had performed his office, was )rotected to his chamber by Lord Robert, the commendator of Holvrooxl and Lord John of Coldingham, both illegitimate sons of James V., and Protestants. ' And so the godly departed with great grief of heart, and thit afternoon repaired to the abbey in great companies, and gave plain signfiw.ui that they could not abide that the land which God had by his poweil purged from idolatry should be polluted again.' w wsLs ready to sacrifice both crown and life, rather than swerve fiom her principles in time of persecution. Few persons of her tender age could have acted, however, with greater courage and moderation, in the dif- ficult pre licament in which she found herself placed, than she did. By the advice of her privy council she caused proclamation to be made at the market cross, stating that she was most desirous to take order, with the ad- vice of her Estates, to compose the distractions unhappily existing in her realm; 'that she intended not to interrupt the form of religion which, at her return, she found established in her realm, and that any attempt on the part of others to do so would be punished with death; and that she, on the other hand, commanded her subjects not to molest or trouble any of her domestic servants, or any of the persons who accompanied her from France, either within her palace or without, or to make any derision or invasion of them under the same penalty.' No one objected to this proclamation ex- cept the earl of Arran, who entered a protest against ' the liberty it afforded to the queen's servants to commit idolatry., Robert Campbell of Kinyean- cleugh complained, indeed, that the zeal of men against Popery was strangely Brantt'me. f Knox list. Reformation, ii, 271. t Ibid. MALIGNANT INTOLERANCE. 257 abated since the return of the queen. ' I have been here now five day,' observed he, 'and at the first I heard every man say, Let us hang the priest ! -but after they had been twice or thrice to the abbey, all that fervency was past. I think there be some enchantment whereby men are bewitched.' ' And in verray deed,' continues Knox, ' so it came to pass; for the queen's flattering words upon the ane part-ever still crying, Conscience ! Con- science! it is a sore thing to constrain the conscience !-and the subtle per- suasions of her supports on the other part, blinded all men, and put them in the opinion she will be content to hear the preachings, and so no doubt but she may be won; and thus of all it was concluded to suffer her for a time.' I 20. As was naturally to be expected, Knox strongly ob- jected to the cheerfulness and "'Joyouvdty"7 of the youthful queen. According to his gloomy theology, a smile was almost Knox's History of the Rebrmation in Scotland, vol. ii, 271. Ibid., p. 212-34. This was not the only time that Mary was cruelly annoyed on account of the practice of the ancient worship in her own household. McCrie him- self tells us, that "during her residence in Stirling, in the month of August, the domestics whom she left behind her in Holyrood house celebrated the popish(!) worship with greater publicity than had been usual when she herself was present; and at the time when the sacrament of the supper was dispensed in Edinburgh, they revived certain superstitious practices (!) which had been laid aside by the Catholics since the establishment of the Reformation. This boldness offended the Protestants, and some of them went down to the palace to mark the inhabitants who repaired to the service. Perceiving numbers entering, they burst into the chapel, and presenting themselves at the altar, which was prepared for Mass, asked the priest how he durst be so malapert as to proceed in that manner, when the queen was absent "-Ibid., p. 284. The queen, justly indignant at this outrage, resolved to indict the prin- cipal participators therein. But Knox wrote an exciting circular letter to his co-religionists, "requesting their presence on the day of triaL"-(Ihid., P. 285.) They accordingly assembled in great numbers, and, as a tumult- uous mob, surrounded the palace while the trial was going on. Knox, of course, was acquitted. The heart-broken queen was subsequently very ill. See the whole detailed account of the outrage and trial in Miss Strickland's Queens of Scotland, vol. iv, p. 12, seqq. She discredits the partial account of Knox, which McCrie follows, and also refutes the statement of Randolph, the English ambassador. VOL. iI.-22 SCOTTISH REFORMNATION-KNOX. equivalent to a sin; and as for certain musical instruments which are provocative of mirth, and tended to induce "skip- ping," they were clearly an abomination before the Lord! Savs Miss Strickland: " Mary entered the council chamber in her regal capacity, but she never forgot the delicacy of her sex while there. ' In the presence of her council,' observes Knox, in whose opinion it was impossible for Mary to do right, 'she kept herself very grave ; for, under the deuil (mourning) weed, she could play the hypocrite in full perfection. But how soon,' continues he, 'that ever her French fillocks, fiddlers, and others of that band, gatt the house alone, there might be seen skipping not very comely for honest women. Her common talk was, in secret, she saw nothing in Scotland but gravity, which repugned altogether to her nature, for she was brought up in joyous- ity-so termed she her dancing, and other things thereto belonging' "It 21. Of the fiercely intolerant spirit which the reformers had introduced into Scotland, and of the almost fiendish malignity with which Knox and his associates pursued the accomplished young queen on the ground of her religion, the following is one among a hundred instances which might be alleged. The holy men of the Kirk seem to have suddenly become so enamored of religious liberty as to wish to keep it all to themselves, and to allow no one else, not even their youthful sovereign, a share in the precious boon! ' Scarcely had Quen 'I .ry returned to her metropolis, when the re-elected provost Douglas of Kilspindie, and his brethren in office, attempted a most despotic and illegal act of persecution agaiust some of their fellow-subjects, by issuing a proclamation imperatively enjoining 'all Papists,' whom they designated by the offensive appellation of idolaters, and classed with the most depraved offenders against the moral law, to depart the town, under the penalties of being set on the market cross for six hours, subjected to all the insults and indignities which the rabble might think proper to inflict, carted round the town, and burned on both cheeks, and for the third offense to be punished with death.I ,- If the fair cheeks of the Papist queen blanched not with alarm at the pain and disfigurement with which, in common with those of the obstinate adherents to her proscribed faith, they were threatened by her barbarous History of the Reformation, vol. ii. t Queens of Scotland, ibid., p. 231. t Town Council Register, 1561. 258 HARD-HEARTEDNESS. 259 provost and bailies, it was haply because they tingled with indignation at the insulting manner in which she found herself classed with the vilest of criminals. Instead, however, of taking up the matter as a personal grnev- ance, by insisting, like Esther, that she was included in this sweeping denunciation against the people of her own denomination, she treated it as an infringement of the liberties of the realm, and addressed her royal letter to the town council, complaining of this oppressive and illegal edict. She must, even had she been a memberof the reformed congregation, have done the same, as a duty incumbent upon a just ruler of the people committed to her charge. Her remonstrance produced no other effect. than a reitera- tion of the same proclamation, couched, if possible, in grosser and more offensive language. Mary responded to this act of contumely by an order to the town council to supersede those magistrates by electing others. The town council, on this indication of the spirit of her forefathers on the part -f their youthful sovereign in her teens, yielded obedience to her mandate. Mary then issued her royal proclamation, granting permission 'to all good and faithful subjects to repair to or leave Edinburgh, according to their pleasure or convenience.'-' And so,' says Knox, 'got the devil freedom again, whereas before he durst not have been seen in daylight upon the common streets.' 22. When Knox had heard of the premature death of Mary's first husband, he had openly expressed his joy and thankful- ness to God for the sad occurrence, which he viewed as a righteous judgment on "idolatry." His "zeal against pa- pistry pleads his excuse with the majority of his readers, for sentiments and expressions which, if proceeding from a pa- pist, would be justly reprobated for coarseness and intolerance." The following is Knox's account of the young king's death: "For as the said king sat at Mass, he was suddenly stricken with an im- posthume in that deaf ear that would never hear the truth of God, and so was he carried to ane void house, laid upon a palliasse, unto such time as a cannobie was set up unto him, where he lay till the 15th day of December, (John reckons by old style) in the year of God 1560, when his glory perished, and the pride of the stubborn heart evanished in smoke. The godlie in France," pursues Knox, "upon this sudden death, set forth in these verses ane admonition to kings.") The elegant verses to which he alludes refer, with much taste Queens of Scotland, iii, 237-8. Knox, History, etc., p. 293. Arnot's Edinburgh. t Queens of Scotland, iii, p. 125. She quotes Knox, ii, 132. 260 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. and (lelicacy, to the young king being afflicted with " ane rotten ear." Yet the object of this ghastly humnor of Knox wi-s a mere boy, being only sixteen years, ten months, and fifteen days old.' It wound appear from the following, that his Calviniistic co-religionists, even the Scottish nobility who were ilk mime- diate attendance on the queen's court, shared in his cruel hllard-lieartedness. Says Miss Strickland: "Mfary requested her nobles to pay, at least, the trifling tribute of respect to her of wearing black on an anniversary attended with such painful recol- lections to her as the death of Francis; but they churlishly refused to accord that conventional mark of sympathy to her grief. 'She could not persuade nor get one lord of her own to wear the dead for that day,' notes Randolph-' not so much as the earl of Bothwell.' We shall have occasion to specify other instances of Bothwell's non-compliance with Mary's desire for the customs of her Church to bc observed in her palace. Immediately after the service was over, Mary caused a proclamation to be nmade at the Mereat Cross by a herald, 'that no man, on pain of his life, should trouble or do any injury to the chaplains that were at the Mass :'t-and this time they got off in whole skins. Great exception was taken at her majesty's boldness in issuing such a proclamation on her own responsibility, some of her subjects considering it a grievous infringement on their liberty to be denied the sport of breaking the heads of the said ecclesiastics. 293. It would appear, that the greedy Scottish nobles who had espoused the cause of the Reformation in order to rob the Church, wished to retain all or nearly all the sacrilegious spoil in their own hands, and not to allow a fair proportion thereof to Knox and his reverend coadjutors in the ministry. The queen incurred additional odium with these ministers, in consequence of having given her sanction-probably she could not help it-to a measure adopted by the convention, which assembled in December, 1561, to settle the vexed question of church property. We will let our authoress relate the occurrence ;-Knox's irrepressible "vein of humor" was now turned in another direction:- " Business of great importance occupied the attention of Queen Mary and her cabinet at the close of the year 1561. The convention appointed for the Knox, ii, 132. t Keith, 207. Queensof Scotland, ibid., p. 250. CHURCH PROPERTY-KNOX ON DANCING. 261 settlement of the church property met, December 15; and, after disputes which are too lengthy to be recorded here, consented to vest a third of the lands belonging to the Roman Catholic hierarchy and incumbents in the crown, out of which the queen was to pay the stipends of the Protestant ministers. So little had the maintenance of these been cared for by these greedy lay impropriators, the lords of the Congregation, that they were, for the most part, in a state of miserable destitution, under the necessity of working with their hands for their daily bread, or soliciting the alms of those to whom it was their duty to dispense spiritual instruction. 'Two- thirds of the church property,' Knox sarcastically observed, 'had already been given to the devil, and the remaining third was by this new arrange- ment to be divided between God and the devil, and he expected to see the devil get two-thirds even of that remnant.'t The ministers being sustained, the queen will not get at the year's end wherewithal to buy her a new pair of shoes,' said Lethington, with reference to the surplus calculated to remain to the crown. The most eminent of the political leaders of the reformed party were appointed by the queen to the office of apportioning the stipends of the ministers. The paymaster named by her was no other than Wishart, laird of Pitarrow, brother of the martyr. Three hundred marks was the highest stipend their calculation offered to any minister; but the average quota was one hundred only. Great was the lamentation and bitter the disappointment this arrangement created; but, instead of blaming the wholesale plunderers who had applied the lion's share of the spoil to their own behoot they raised an outcry against the queen and the paymaster. To the latter this reproachful proverb was applied, 'The good laird of Pitarrow was an earnest professor of Christ; but the muckle devil receive the comp- troller, for he and his collectors are become greedy factors.' "I 24. We have already seen how grievously the cheerful temperament and gaiety of the youthful queen offelnded Keith, Tytler, Robertson, Knox. t Queens of Scot. and Knox, ii, 310. t Knox, ii, 310.-Quoted ibid., p. 256-7. McCrie mentions the same oc- currence, in very much the same way. He gives the disinterested and amusing lament of Knox as follows: " Weall ! (exclaimed Knox, when he heard of this disgraceful arrangement), if the end of this ordour, pretendit to be takin for sustentatioun of the ministers, be happie, my jugement failes me. I sie twa pairties freely gevin to the devill, and the third mon be devyded betwix God and the devill. Quho wald have thocht, that qjuhen Joseph reulled in Egypt, his brethren sould have travellit for victualles; and have returned with emptie sakes into their families 0 happie servands of the devill, and miserable servants of Jesus Christ, if efter this lyf thair wer no hell and heavin ! "-Ibid, p. 249-50. 48 262 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. Knox. When, in spite of him, she ventured to dance occa- sionally in her own palace, which was for her a species of prison beset by the prying spies of the Kirk, Knox kept no longer any bounds in his public denunciation of her from the pulpit. The following is a specimen of one of his pulpit tirades, and of the spirit which lhe exhibited in his subsequent interview with the queen: "Mary completed her twentieth year in the beginning of December, 1563, and although she had attained that mature age, she continued to enjoy the exercise of dancing, a pastime to which her Scottish blood and her French education naturally disposed her. Unfortunately there were ill-natured spies and busy-bodies in her household, who were wont to report her sayings and doings to her formidable adversary, Knox, in a manner calculated to increase the prejudice with which his zeal against Popery taught him to regard her. Here is convincing evidence, from his own pen, of the manner in which he was irritated by those base tattlers: 'The queen returned to Edinburgh, and then began dancing to grow hot, for her friends began to triumph in France. The certainty thereof came to the ears of John Knox, for there were some that showed to him from time to time the estate of things, and, among others, he was assured that the queen had danced excessively till after midnight, because that she had received letters that persecution was began again in France, and that her uncles were beginning to stir their tails.' Thus the young queen could not enjoy the recreation of a ball in her own palace without its being reported to Knox that she danced out of malignant glee, to celebrate a Protestant discomfiture in France. He was provoked to preach a sermon 'inveighing sore against the queen's dancing, and little exercise of herself in virtue and godliness.'t Mischief-making tongues there were in that court, to the full as actively employed in carrying aggravated and aggravating versions of Knox's sermon to the queen, as there had been in abusing his credulity with those absurd misrepresentations of the motives of her dancing which had excited his wrath. The result was, that Mary the next day summoned him into her presence, to answer for the disrespect with which he had spoken of her in his pulpit.1 She received him, however, not in the council-room, surrounded by the stern formalities of offended majesty, with threats of racks and dungeons, as did her royal sister of England her contumacious preachers under similar provocations, but in her own bed-chamber, among her ladies, and in the presence of several Knox, History of the Reformation, ii, 331. t Randolph to Cecil, December, 15, 1562-State Paper Office MS. t Knox, History of the Ileformation, ii, 331. HIS INTERVIEW WITH MARY 263 of his intimate friends and congregational brethren, the earls of Moray and Morton, and Lord Lethington, her Protestant ministers, and addressed a personal remonstrance to him on the impropriety of which hie had been guilty 'in travailing to bring her into the hatred and contempt of her people ' -adding 'that he had exceeded the bounds of his text. If she had not used the mildest language, John Knox would have been too happy to have quoted her own words in recording the story, we may rest assured. But Mary, whose desire was conciliation, reasoned with him gently and offered him an opportunity of explanation in the presence of his friends as well as his accusers. Whereupon the said Master John Knox favored her majesty with an extempore abridgment of his sermon. Now, although in his revised edition, it contained insinuated comparisons of herself to the daughter of Herodias and Herod both, with stern censure against 'princes who spent their time among fiddlers and flatterers, in flinging rather than hearing or reading God's word,' Mary prudently took none of these reproaches to herself She listened with imperturbable placidity, and appeared not to consider herself in the slightest degree referred to, in cases which her own conscience told her were irrelevant to her conduct and character." 25. Notwithstanding the coarse rudeness of Knox, thei queen still sought to win him by kindness; and in order to prevent his fiercely inveighing against her in public, she con- descended to beg him to become her monitor in private, whenever he might have any thing to find fault with in her conduct. Knox refused the office, so gently and so delicately offered. The interview on the subject is thus graphically described by Miss Strickland: "1 It is not often that feminine gentleness is resisted by man, or queenly condescension rudely repulsed by a subject; but Knox was a woman-hater by nature, and a defier of female authority from principle; instead, there- fore, of obeying the meekly expressed desire of his youthful sovereign, to become her private monitor-a privilege few Christian ministers would have rejected-he told her, first, 'that her uncles were enemies to God and his son Jesus Christ; and as to hersell if she pleased to frequent the public sermons, she need not doubt of hearing both what he liked and misliked in her and others. Or if it would please her to appoint any day and hour in which it would please her to hear him explain the doctrines taught publicly in the churches, he would gladly wait upon her. But,'t added he, 'to wait upon your chamber door or elsewhere, and then to have no further liberty but to whisper my mind in your grace's ear, or to tell you what others think Queens of Scotland, ibid; and Knox, list., ii, 301, seqq. f Ibid., p. 334 264 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. or speak of you, neither will my conscience nor the vocation whereto fiod bath called me suffer it. For, albeit at your graces commandment I am here now, yet can not I tell what other men shall judge of me, that at this time of day I am absent from my book, and waiting upon the court.'- You will not (can not) always be at your book., was Mary's brief rejoinder to this burst of spiritual pride, and so turned away. ' Knox departed wkh a reasonable merry countenance, whereat some Papists exclaimed, as if aur- prised, 'le is not efrayed ! -'Why should the pleasing face of a ge.atle- woman eifray me , he with unwonted gallantry replied; 'I have lookhd to the faces of many angry men, and have not been effrayed beyond measure.' "I 26. Nothing could mitigate, much less quench the fit ree intolerance of Knox and the Kirk. Here is another specimen: " Fresh troubles and mortifications beset Mary in April, 1563, in ccose- quence of the attempts of her Roman Catholic subjects to celebrate trieir Raster festival. Triumphantly as the Reformation had been established in Scotland, a third at least of the people remained obstinate in their attach- ment to the ancient faith. It had not, therefore, been considered desirable by the queen's Protestant cabinet to inflict the penalty of death denounced in the proclamations issued in her name against those who assisted at the Mass. The brethren of the Congregation, offended at this moderation, de- termined to take the law into their own hands, and having apprehended several priests in the west country, declared their intention 'of inflicting upon them the vengeance appointed by God's law against idolaters, without regard either to the queen or her council.'I 'The queen stormed at such freedom of speaking,' says Knox, ' but she could not amend it.' Her authority being too weak to interfere with the liberty of persecution, Mary condescended to try the powers of her persuasive eloquence on John Knox, whom, on the 13th of April, she required to come to her at Lochleven, where she then was. 'She travailed with him earnestly two hours before her supper, that he would be the instrument to persuade the people, and principally the gentlemen of the west, not to proceed to extremities with their fellow-subjects for the exercise of their religion.' He replied with an exhortation for her to punish malefactors, adding, 'that if she thought to Jelude the laws enacted for that object, he feared that some would let the Papists understand that without punishment they should not be suffered to offend God's majesty so manifestly. ' Will ye allow that they shall take my sword in their hand asked Mary. Knox cited, in reply, the facts of Samuel slaying Agag, and Elijah Jezebel's false prophets and the priests of Queens of Scotland, iii; and Knox, History of the Reformation, ii, 334. t Ibid., p. 304. 1 Ibid., p. 371. ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH MARY. 265 Bani, to justify the sanguinary proceedings in contemplation. At this per- version of Scripture history into a warrant for cruelty and oppression Mary left him in disgust, and passed to her supper, while he related the particu- lars of the conversation to her premier, the earl of Moray. "Unsatisfactory as the conference had proved to the queen, she neverthe- less sent Walter Melville and another messenger, before sunrise next morning, to summon Knox to meet her at the hawking, west of Kinross. Who of the youthful peers of Scotland did not envy the stern theologian that assignation for a private interview with their beautiful sovereign, in some secluded glen among the western Lomonds Assuredly the noblest among the princely bachelors who contended for her hand would have rejoiced to have changed places with Master John Knox on that occasion. Mary came to the trysting place, without a trace of the displeasure she had manifested, at their parting on the preceding evening, clouding the serenity of her features. Perhaps she had said her Paternoster to good purpose when she retired to rest, slept sweetly, and forgotten her wrath; her spirits might be renovated, too, and her circulation improved by riding amnong the mountains, with her followers, in the fresh morning air. Master John Knox, who never gives her credit for one good feeling, insinuates that her amiable deportment proceeded either from reflection or deep dissimulation. Even by his account, she conducted herself most graciously, made no allusion to any cause of dispute between them; took no offense at dry rejoinders and retorts uncourteous, but tried her utmost to conciliate his good-will;-lost labor, alas ! toward one who despised her sex and disallowed her authority."t 27. When the queen received advantageous offers of mar- riage from various Catholic courts of Europe, Knox and his co-religionists took the alarm,. apprehending danger to the ascendency of the Kirk, or rather fearing that such an alliance might deprive them of the luxury of persecuting all who ventured to dissent from the new church establishment. Knox on this occasion employed all his eloquence to induce the lords of the Congregation to take effectual steps to prevent any such matrimonial alliance: "'And now, my lords,' said he, 'to put an end to all, I hear of the queen's marriage.' Dickies (dukes), brethren to emperors and kings, strive all for the best game; but this, my lord, will I say, note the day and bear witness, after whensoever the nobility of Scotland, professing the Lord Tesus, consents that ane infidel-and all Papists are infidels-shall be head Knox, History, ii, 372-3. t Queens of Scotland, ibid., p. 317, seqq. VOL. iI.-23 266 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. of your sovereign, ye do so far as in ye lieth to banish Christ Jesus from this realm. Ye bring God's vengeance upon the country, a plague upon your- selves, and perchance ye shall do small comfort to your sovereign.- These words and his manner of speaking, John tells us, were 'deemed intolerable; Papists and Protestants were both offended, yea his most familiars disdained him for that speaking.' An exaggerated version of his sermon was instantly reported to her majesty, in terms calculated to offend and irritate her to the utmost; and, in spite of her repeated experience of the folly of entering into personal discussion with him, she rashly inflicted upon herself the mortification of giving him ocular demonstration of the vexation it was in his power to inflict upon her. Lord Ochiltree and divers of the faithful bore him company to the abbey, when he proceeded thither after dinner, in obe- dience to her majesty's summons; but none entered her cabinet with him but John Erskine of Dun. 'The queen, in a vehement fume,' writes Knox, 'began to cry out that never prince was handled as she was. I have,' said she, ' borne with you in all your rigorous manner of speaking, both against myself and against my uncles; yea, I have sought your favor by all pos- sible means. I offered unto you presence and audience whensoever it pleased you to admonish me, and yet I can not get quit of you; I avow to God I shall be once revenged.' And with these words," continues our historian, "4scarcely could Marnock, her secret chalmer boy, get napkins to hold her eyes dry for the tears; and the owling, besides womanly weeping, stayed her speech.'-No exaggeration, of course, is contained in this delicate picture of feminine emotion, except, perhaps, in the excessive requisition to the page for napery to staunch the floods of tears which overflowed Mary's bright eyes on this occasion. One moderately sized handkerchief-and that a lady always has at hand-might have suftlced to wipe away all she shed on this occasion, one would imagine, even if she really wept as her adversary tells us, for naught, and behaved as like a petulant spoiled child as he describes. "Mary might have had somewhat to say in her defense, if she had enjoyed the opportunity of telling her own story. 'Thus it is, Madam, your grace and I have been at diverse controversies,' observed Knox, 'into the which I never perceived your grace to be offended at me.'t And this is bearing positive testimony to the patience she had shown on former occasions, under circumstances of no slight provocation. 'But when it shall please God,, continued he, 'to deliver you from that bondage of darkness and error in the which you have been nourished, for the lack of true doctrine, your majesty will find the liberty of my tongue nothing offensive. Without the preach. ing-place, Madam, I think few have occasion to be offended at me; and there, Madam, I am not master of myself, but maun obey Him who com- History of the Reformation in Scotland, ii, 386-7. f Ibid., p. 387. KNOX 'MOCKS AT IfER TEARS. 267 mandvs me to speak plain, and to flatter no flesh upon the face of the earth.' -'But what have you to do with my marriage ' asked the queen. In. stead of answering to the point, Knox told her, 'that God had not sent hira to await upon the courts of princesses, nor upon the chambers of la dies, but to preach the evangel of Jesus Christ to such as pleased to hear it; and that it had two parts-repentance and faith; and that, in preaching repentance, it was necessary to tell people of their faults; and as her nobility were, for the most part, too affectionate to her to regard their duty to God and their country to do so, it was necessary that lie should speak as he had done.' Mary reiterated her question, 'What have you to do with my marriage ' haughtily adding 'Or what are you within this commonwealth ' And now she got her answer in plain words. 'A subject barn within the same, Madam,' said he, 'and albeit I neither be earl, lord, nor baron within it, yet has God made me (how abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profitable member within the same. Yea, Madam, to me it appertains no les.s to fore- warn of such things as may hurt it, if I foresee them, than it dloes to any of the nobility; for both my vocation and conscience crave plainness of me, and therefore, Madam, to yourself I say that which I speak in public place. Whensoever that the nobility of this realm shall consent that ye be subject to an unfaithfill husband, they do as much as in them lieth to renounce Christ, to banish his truth from them and to betray the freedom of this realm, and perchance shall, in the end, do small comfort to yourself.' "'At these words,' continues Knox, 'owling was heard, and tears might have been seen in greater abundance than the matter required. John Er- skine of Dun, a man of meek and gentle spirit, stood beside, and entreated what he could to mitigate her anger, and gave unto her many pleasing words of her beauty, of her excellence, and how all the princes of Europe would be glad to seek her favor.'t-From this it is apparent that the manly heart of that good Christian gentleman was moved by the distress of his sovereign lady, who scarcely could have lifted up her voice and wept aloud, and shed such abundance of tears as to choke her utterance, without some great cause of provocation, of which John Erskine showed his disapproval, evidently by the kindly manner in which he interposed to soothe and com- fort her. Knox stood, however, unmoved, till the queen became somewhat more composed-or, to use his own words, 'while that the queen gave place to her inordinate passion.' Some reproach had been addressed to him, either by her majesty, or more probably, as her emotion prevented her from speaking, by his friend Erskine, as appears from his considering it necessary to defend himself from the imputation of having taken pleasure in causing Knox here clearly means a Roman Catholic, which her next spouse, Darnley, was. t Knox, History of the Reformation. SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. her tears. 'Madam,' said he, 'in God's presence I speak. I never delighted in the weeping of any of God's creatures; yea, I can scarcely well abide the tears of my own boys whom my own hand corrects, much less can I re- joice in your majesty's weeping. But seeing that I have offered unto you no just occasion to be offended, but have spoken the truth as my vocation craves of me, I maun rather sustain, albiet unworthy, your majesty's tears, rather than I dare hurt my conscience or betray my commonwealth through my silence.' " 228. The position of Mary became daily more and more embarrassing. The constant intrigues of Elizabeth to stir up disaffection or civil commotions in Scotland; the treachery of her own counselors, and especially of her own illegitimate half-brother, the earl of Murray ; the thunderings from the pulpit of John Knox and the other ministers against her "idolatry:" all these things, together with the affair of her marriage and the future settlement of her kingdom, weighed heavily on her mind and heart, and the continued solicitude and anguish they induced often plunged her into serious ill- ness, so that her health and even her life was more than once endangered. In spite of the solicitations of Catherine, the queen dowager of France, she wisely decided not to embroil herself nor her kingdom in the rising quarrel between Eng- land and France. Still nothing could satisfy the discontented men of the Kirk, to whom her very existence seemed to cause intense pain. Knox even blamed her for the changes of the weather, in which his zeal or fanaticism discovered manifest signs of God's displeasure at her persistent "idolatry!" Says Miss Strickland: "Her sympathies were probably with France; but she conformed her ac- tions to the wishes of her subjects.t It was, however, impossible for her ever to do right in the eyes of the party whom she intended to please by this line of policy. Not only her most innocent actions, but things over which no mortal ever possessed the slightest control-such as the state of the weather, and the appearance of meteorological phenomena-were ingeir Queens of Scotland-Ibid. Knox, Hist. of the Ref, p. 327, seqq. Keith. Tytler. State Paper MSS. of the year 1564-Scotch Corres- pondence. 268 SIGNS AND WONDERS QUOTED AGAINST HER. 269 bously turned to her reproach, as well as allegsi marvels which never did occur. The philosophic reader of the present age of practical science can scarcely fiil of being amused at the following record of the superstition, the ignorance, and prejudice of the sixteenth century, and the manner in which the passions of the uneducated were inflamed against Queen Mary by her eloquent adversary, John Knox:- "'God from heaven,' he says, 'and upon the face of the earth, gave decla- ration that he was offended at the iniquity that was committed, even within this realm; for upon the 20th day of January there fell wet in great abund- ance, which in the falling freisit (froze) so vehemently that the earth was but one sheet of ice. The fowls, both great and small, fieisit, and might not flee. Many died; and some were taken and laid beside the fire, that their feathers might resolve. And in that same month, the sea stood still, as was clearly observed, and neither ebbed nor flowed in the space of twenty- four hours. In the month of February, the 15th and 18th days thereof; were seen in the firmament battles arrayed, spears and other weapons, as it had been the joining of two armies. These things were not only observed, but also spoken and constantly affirmed by men of judgment and credit. But the queen and our court made merry, and there was banqueting and ban- queting. The queen would banquet all the lords; and that was done upon policy, to remove the suspicion of her displeasure against them, because they would not, at her devotion, damn John Knox. To remove, we say, that jealousy, she made the banquet to the whole lords, whereat she would have the duke amongst the rest. It behoved them to banquet her again; and so did the banqueting continue till Eastren's Eve, and after. But the puir ministers were mockit, and reputed as monsters; and the guard and the officers of the kitchen were so griping, that the ministers' stipends could not be paid.' "I 29. Knox was more than once taken to task in the Assembly of the Kirk for big virulent abuse of the queen from the pulpit. In such cases, he took little pains to soften, much less to retract his harsh language of denunciation. Here is a case in point: "At the Assembly of the church, which took place June 25th 1564, Lethington, who continued a nomiial adherent of the Congregation, remon- strated with Knox, for calling the queen from the pulpit 'a slave of Satan,' and affirming 'that God's vengeance hung over the realm on account of her impiety in continuing to practice the rites of her own religion.' The loyal part of the Assembly declared ' that such violence of language could never Hist. Reformation, vol. iiI p. 417. t Ibid., quoted ibid., iv, p. 35-6. 2 7 0 SCOmSH REFORNMATION-KNOX. profit ;' and the Master of Maxwell, who was a sincere reformed Christian, said in plain words, 'If I were in the queen's majesty's place, I would not suffer such things as I hear.-Knox defended himself from the implied charge of intolerance in these words: 'The most vehement, and, as ye speak, excessive manner of prayer I use in public is this: 0 Lord, if thy pleasure be, purge the heart of the queen's majesty from the venom of idol- atry, and deliver her from the bondage of Satan, in tile which she hath been brought up, and yet remains, for lack of true doctrine, etc.- Lethington asked him 'where he found the example of such prayer as that '-Knox replied in the words, 'They will be done, in the Lord's prayer'-a strange perversion of the divine spirit of that most pure and perfect form of prayer. Lethington told him 'he was raising doubts of the queen's conversion.'- 'Not I, my Lord, replied Knox, 'but herown obstinate rebellion.' 'Wherein rebels she against God I asked Lethington. 'In every action of her life,' retorted Knox, 'but in these two heads especially-that she will not hear the preaching of the blessed evangel of Jesus Christ; and, secondly, that she maintains that idol, the Mass.-'She thinks not that rebellion, but good religion,' replied Lethington. "'This was the simple fact as regarded Mary's unpopular and impolitic adhesion to the fiith in which she had, unfortunately(!) for herself, been educated; and that she did so against her worldly interests ought not to be imputed to her as a crime. 'Why say ye that she refuses admonition ' Asked Lethington; 'she will gladly hear any man.'-'When will she be seen to give her presence to the public preachings ' asked Knox. 'I think never,' replied Lethington, 'as long as she is thus entreated.'-A lengthened Disputation followed, on the question whether the queen should be still per- mitted to enjoy the liberty of her private worship, against which Knox strenuously protested. The Assembly, being much divided in opinion, desired to refer the decision to Calvin; but as Knox objected to that manner of set- tding the dispute, the Assembly broke up unresolved 30. On the queen's marriage with Darnley, instead of popular acclamations, a tumult ensued, which lasted the whole night. This was evidently caused by the virulent invectives of Knox against her marriage with a Catholic prince, as Darnley pro- fessed to be; though, in his case, there appears to have been little of religion beyond the mere profession. The morning after this popular commotion, she felt compelled to convene the burgesses and magistrates of the city, and she addressed See the whole in Knox, History Reformation, vol. ii, p. 428. t Queens of Scotland; r, 50-1-Knox, Hist. Reformation, vol. ii, p. 461. TUMULT AT HER MARRIAGE 271 them in a strain of eloquence which appears, for the time at least, to have soothed even their fierce intolerancec. She frankly promised to others what she boldly demanded for her- self-freedom of conscience. Says Miss Strickland: "Instead of the acclamations usual on such occasions, a tumult took place, which lasted all night; and the royal bride found herself under the neces- sity, at an early hour the next morning, of summoning the principal bur- gesses and magistrates into her presence, to inquire the cause of the riot. She exhibited no signs of anger, but wisely endeavored to soothe the irrita- tion which she suspectc d to arise from the natural apprehensions excited by her marriage with a Roman Catholic prince. She took that opportunity of repeating to them her reply to the demands which had been made to her by her Protestant subjects, and this she did in the mildest and most persuasive words she could devise. 'I cannot,' said she, 'comply with your desire that I should abandon the Mass, having been brought up in the Catholic faith, which I esteem to be a thing so holy and pleasing in the sight of God that I could not leave it without great scruples of conscience; nor ought my con- science to be forced in such matter, any more than yours. I therelbre en- treat you, as you have full liberty for the exercise of your religion, to be content with that, and allow me the same privilege. And again, as you have full security for your lives and properties without any vexation from me, why should you not grant me the like As for the other things you demand of me, they are not in my power to accord, but must be submitted to the decision of the Estates of Scotland, which I propose shortly to con- vene. In the mean time, you may be assured I will be advised on whatever is requisite for your weal, and that of my realm; and, as far as in me lies, I will strive to do whatever appears for the best.'-With this assurance they all declared themselves satisfied, and the tumult was appeased. So true it is that a soft answer turneth away wrath." 31. Darnley had a much easier and a much more pliant conscience than his noble consort. To conciliate Knox and the Kirkers, he went to the kirk-preaching the Sunday fol- lowing the marriage; and he there heard-what he richly deserved to hear-a fierce and coarse personal invective against himself from the implacable reformer! The incident is somewhat amusing, while it is eminently characteristic of Knox: Queens of Scotland; iv, 155-6. 272 SCOTTISH REFORMATION-KNOX. "Darnley, who, like his father, and probably acting by his advice, occa. sionally made his Popish principles bend to his political interests, and was minded to play the popular, went in state on the following Sunday, August 19, to the High Kirk of Edinburgh to hear John Knox preach, a throne having been erected on purpose for his accommodation. Knox could not resist the opportunity of making a most offensive personal attack on his majesty in the face of the whole congregation, coupled with still coarser and more inszulting language of the queen-taken for his text these words from the six-and-twentieth chapter of Isaiah: '0 Lord, our God, other lords than Thou have ruled over us.' By way of illustrating this portion of Scripture, Knox took occasion to speak of the government of wicked princes, 'who for the sins of the people, are sent as tyrants and scourges to plague them.' Among other things, he said 'that God set in that room, for the offenses and sins of the people, boys and women,' and some other ' words which appeared bitter in the king's ears, as that God justly punished Ahab and his poster- ity, because he would not take order with that harlot Jezabel.' Darnley must have been less than man to hear such expressions applied to his queen and wife without indignation. The length of the sermon, which detained him an hour and more longer than the time appointed aggravated his dis- pleasure, and so commoved him that he would not dine; and being troubled with great fury, he past in the afternoon to the hawking.."t 32. As we have already shown, the chief enemy of Mary and the arch-intriguer against her peace in Scotland was her own "dear cousin" Elizabeth of England.: The "virgin Knox, Hist. Ref, voL ii, p. 497. t Queens of Scotland, Ibid., p. 163-4. t Though Elizabeth had a personal feeling of hostility against Knox, yet she not unfrequently used him, as a fit instrument for carrying out her in- trigues against Mary in Scotland. Says Miss Strickland, speaking of the cause of Elizabeth's repugnance to Knox:- "The reformed party in Scotland were in her pay, and subservient to her will, although her dislike to John Knox was unconquerable, having been provoked by his abuse of the English Liturgy, in the first place, and in the second, by his work, entitled, 'First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment (meaning the government) of Women.' It is true that this fulmination was published during her sister's reign, and was more especially aimed against the queen-regent of Scotland, and her daughter, the Youthful sovereign of that realm, but Elizabeth considered, that the honor of the whole sex was touched in his book, and that all female monarchs were insulted and aggrieved by it. It was in vain, that he endeavored, by personal flattery to herself to excuse his attack upon the folly and incapacity of womankind in general. He assured her, 'that she was an exception to A DARK PLOT-THE VICTIM HUNTED TO DEATH. 273 queen" pursued her with a malignity, which if we had not positive evidence to prove its human source, we should be in dined to ascribe to a 8atanical origin. Among numerous instances of this atrocious plotting, we present the followXving, -and if the plot herein referred to and triumphantly proved by Miss Strickland can be paralleled, for cold-blooded treachery and baseness, in all previous history, we are not aware of the fact. It will be seen that the infamous plot was atclled not long after the northern insurrection, while poor Mary was a close prisoner in England, and that the state paper on which the evidence of it rests is in Cecil's own handwriting. "The Scotch had sold her (Elizabeth's) fugitive rebel, the earl of North- umberland, into her hands, that she might execute her vengeance upon him; and Elizabeth, in return, proposed, not to sell, but to resign their injured sovereign into the cruel hands of Morton and the regent Marr, to be dealt with in the way of justice-words which were tantamount to Cromwell's private memorandum 'to send such and such persons to London, to be tried and executed.' There was, indeed, to be the mockery of a trial; but then the children or near kinsfolk of Morton and Marr were to be put into the hands of the English queen, as hostages, that, trial or not, the execution of Mary was to take place within fbur hours after she was given up to their tender mercies. "1 The details of this iniquitous pact, are clearly and succinctly related by Mr. Tytler. and the actual documents may be seen in the State Paper office. The instructions for Killigrew, to whom the arrangement of 'the great matter,' as it was significantly termed by the diplomatic accomplices, was committed, are in Burleigh's own hand. The monuments of history afford not a more disgraceful document; nor has the light of truth ever unveiled a the sweeping rule he had laid down, that her whole life had been a miracle, which proved, that she hadbeen chosen by God, that the office which was unlawful to other women, was lawful to her, and that he was ready to obey her authority;' but the queen was nauseated with the insincerity of adula- tion from such a quarter, and notwithstanding the persuasions of Cecil and Throckmorton, refused to permit him to set a foot in England on any pre- tense.,-Queens of England, vi, 146. She quotes Strype, Tytler, and LiIn gard. MS. State Papers in September, October, November, December, 1572, and in 1573 274 SCOTTISH REFORMATION--KNOX. blacker mass of evidence, than the correspondence between Killigiew and Burleigh and Leicester, during the negotiation Mary had however, ceased to be an object of alarm to the rebel lords; and even her deadly fbe, Mor- ton, the wily accomplice in Darnley's murder, would not undertake the office of the queen of England's hangman without a fee. Why should he and the regent Marr sell their souls for nought They demanded money of the parsimonious Elizabeth-a yearly stipend withal, no less than the amount of the sum it cost her majesty for the safe-keeping of her royal prisoner. The dark treaty was negotiated in the sick-chamber of the guilty Morton, with the ardent approbation of the dying Knox; and, after nearly six week-l demur, the regent Marr gave consent, but was immediately stricken with a mortal illness, and died at the end of twenty-four hours. Morton insisted on higher terms, and, more than that, an advantageous treaty and the present of three thousand English troops, under the com- mand of the earls of Huntington, Essex, and Bedford, to assist at the ex- ecution, otherwise he would not undertake it" Finally, the poor victim of persecution and tyranny, after lingering for nineteen years in an English prison, to whicil she was driven by tile relentless persecution and unnianly intrigues of John Knox and ills religious colleagues in Scot- land, was put to death in a manner so very barbarous, that the recital excites a siudder of horror in every generous heart, even after the lapse of nearly three centuries. Our limits will not permit us to go into tile details. A careful modern writer sums up the tragedy in the following brief sentences: "That one leading cause of her condemnation and death was her religion, is undeniable. Evidence has already been adduced, implicating an arch- bishop of the new church.f Camden acknowledges this to have been one of the prevailing motives in the council, (p. 485); and the same cause was assigned by Lord Buckhurst, who had been deputed to announce to her her doom. What an insight into the character of the men who brought about the Reformation at this period, does Mary's history present. Leicester re- commended that the queen of Scots should be despatched by poison; and finding Walsingham demur,sent a divine to convince him of its Christian Queens of England, vi, 283. She quotes Tytler's Scotland, State Paper MSS., etc. t Archbishop Parker of Canterbury. See Hallam's Constitutional His tory, in loco, where the same fact is stated. BUTCHERY OF MARY OF SCOTS. 275 lawfulness. (Camd. p. 485.) 'It appears, that Elizabeth really wished to be relieved from killing her victim by her sign manual and warrant; but she sought relief in the alternative of secret assassination. She caused the two Secretaries, Walsingham and Davison, to write to Paulet and Drury, to send them on the subject of privately despatching their prisoner. The two jail- ors, from integnity or prudence, rejected the suggestion. '-Mackintosh, iii, p. 322. The frantic bigotry of the times is also horribly exhibited, in the conduct of the Protestant dean of Peterborough to the queen when on the scaffold. He preached, threatened, denounced eternal death, pursued her round the scaffold; a monster, the very incarnation of that fiendish fana- ticism which, as much as policy, had pursued her to the death. The earl of Kent observing that she prayed with a crucifix in her hand, exclaimed, 'Madam, you had better leave such popish trumperies, and bear him in your heart.' She replied, 'I can not hold in my hand the representation of his sufferings, but I must at the same time bear him in my heart.' When her head was severed from her body-'So perish all her enemies,' subjoined the dean of Peterborough, to the usual words of the executioner; 'So perish all the enemies of the gospel,' replied the fanatical earl of Kent. This scene is a miniature picture of the glorious Reformation." Waterworth, Lectures on the Reformation, p. 401-2, note. 0() For more on the subject of Mary's innocence of the charges brought against her, see Note G. at the end of the present volume. This page in the original text is blank. HISTORY OF THE PitOTEsTrANT REFORMATI ON. CHAPTER VI. REFORM1ATION IN IRELAND. Ireland a noble exception-England labors in vain to destroy her faith- Ireland compared with England, Scotland, IFrance, Bavaria, and Austria- Progressive cruelty of English government-Successive stcps taken to reform Ireland-Under Henry VIII.-Under Edward Vl.-Attenipts to thrust the new service on Ireland-Its failure-lleyfin's testimony- Glaring inconsistency-Elizabeth trying to reform freland-Extracts from McGee-The terrible contests under Elizabeth's reign-The Ne 1e-The revolt of Desmond-And of Tyrone-Wholesale confiscation--Cr ,nfisca- tion of Ulster, Munster, and Connaught-The Deputy Mfountjoy-Miss Strickland's testimony-McGee on martyred Irish bishops-The English Jezabel-The system of colonization-Rather one of extermination- Elizabeth's land partnership with Essex-The English penal laws en- forced in Ireland-Another more formidable code established-Its details furnished by Bancroft-A horrible picture-Other Protestant op)inon and testimony-'North American Review-Sidney Smith and Junius-Ire- land faithful to the last-The result summed up-Intolerance nobly rebuked-Conclusion. AMiONG the nations of Europe in which the attempt was made to introduce the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Ireland stands forth a brilliant exception to what may be regarded as the ordinary course of events elsewhere under similar circumstances. She was probably much more sorely tempted, and for a much longer time, than any other Euro- pean country; but she remained firn and unshaken in her loyalty to the venerable Church of her fathers, while several other nations tinder much less grievous pressure, fell away either partially or wholly from the ancient faith. In England, as we have already shown, the governmnent forced the Ref)rmnation on a reluctant clergy arid people; iii Scotland, the people, after havirlg b en laihe]l int) fury by 49 (277) 278 REFORMATION IN IREIAND. the mad invectives of the preachers, marched tumultuously to Holyrood house, and forced the Reformation on the reluctant government: and in both cases the Reformation, introduced and sustained by such means, fully succeeded. Not so in Ireland. T'he English government sought to thrust the Reformation on the Irish people by horrible penal enactments, and by systematic spoliation and violence for centuries, but it utterly failed to accomplish its purpose. While the church of England was established by system- atic terrorism and violence, and, as if mindful of its state origin, has ever since, with the instinct of self-preservation, been whollv subservient to the government which first awakened it into life; while " the fiery cross " of Calvin, which John Knox carried amidst tumult and bloodshed over the bills and valleys of Scotland, was upheld by the violence and sacrilege which originally reared it: Ireland, to her eternal honor be it said, stood firm as the rock amid perils and sufferings, in comparison with which those of the English and Scottish Catholics, though protracted and grievous enough, counted almost as nothing. France, Austria, and Bavaria, indeed, stood firm also; but it must be remembered, that in all these countries, the weight of the government was thrown into the scale of Catholicity and against rising Prot- estantism: whereas in Ireland every thing was brought to bear, and continued to be arrayed for centuries, against the fidelity of the people, who had no protection but in the vigor of their faith, and in the shield which heaven interposed between their weakness and the enormous power of their tormentors. Deprived of all human resources and succor, the Irish Catholics nevertheless triumphed, and the IReform3- tion in Ireland proved an utter and signal failure. From an early period, Ireland was looked upon by Eng- land, not so much as an integral portion of the British em- pire, as a conquered province to be kept down by force, and to be plundered at will by its foreign rulers. Each successive English dynasty stought to outstrip its predecessor in measures IRELAND STANDS FIRM.2 of severity against Ireland. The Tudors surpassed ti c, Plan- tagenets in cruelty, and the Stuarts-if possible-the Tudors; while Cromwell, bearing aloft his bloody banner, far surpassed them all, and, under the mask of religion, pushed his cruel- ties to the very climax of atrocity. At the head of his ferocious troopers-who were all 8aint as well as soldiers- this holy man, carried out Calvin's doctrine of the eternal and immutable "decree," by ruthlessly sacking the houses and towns, desecrating and destroying the churches, and butchering and burning the persons of the Irish people, in- cluding men, women, and children ! He imagined that this was the most effectual, as it certainly was the most thorough method, for " removing the monuments of idolatry. "-What right had those senseless Irish " Papists" to taint, with their idolatrous breath, the air breathed by men so holy as Crom- well's godly troopers! Still, even Cromwell could not suc- ceed in shaking the fidelity of Ireland. He might possibly annihilate her people, he could destroy their faith in no) other way. The history of the wrongs and persecutions of Ireland for conscience' sake is too well known, and its facts are too generally admitted on all hands, to require any very lengthy exposition. Besides, the details are so very sad, that we do not willingly dwell upon them. Hence our sketch shall be rapid, embracing only the principal points in the successive attempts to thrust the Reformation on Ireland.t From first to last, the English government employed force and violence to induce the Irish clergy and people to accept the various phases of the Reformation, as these successively appeared in England; and from first to last, the Irish clergy At Drogheda, for instance, the terror-stricken people, chiefly women and children, were burnt up in the church to which they had fled for shelter! t Those who may wish to see a fuller account are referred to the late ex- cellent publication of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, entitled: A History of the Attempts to establish the Protestant Reformation in Ireland, etc. Boston. Donahoe, 1853 We shall occasionally refer to this work in the sequel. 279 )So REFORMATION IN IRELAND. and the people in a body resisted, and finally triumphed in their determined opposition. This is the cardinal fact run- nling through the entire history of the efforts made by England to bring about the success of the Reformation in Ireland. 1. Henry VIII. deteriuined to force the royal supremacy and his new religious system on Ireland. But it is certain that " hIis innovations in religion were viewed with equal abhorrence by the in- digenotus Irish, and the descendants of the English colonists ;, that the par- liament which abolished the jurisdiction of the Pope was not the true rep- resentative of Irish opinion, but the mere echo of English feelings,-a miser- able body of mere creatures of the English court, which"one day con- firmed the marriage of the king with Anne Boleyn, and the next, in con- sequence of the arrival of a courier, declared it to have been invalid from the beginning;" that it was impossible to enforce among the Irish people this parliamentary enactment; and that" the two races combined in defense of their common faith," causing "repeated insurrections." "A parliament was summoned by Lord Gray, who had succeeded Skef- fington; and, to elude the opposition of the clergy, their proctors, who had hitherto voted in the Irish parliaments, were by a declaratory act pro- nounced to be nothing more than assistants, whose advice might be received, but whose assent was not required. The statutes which were now passed were copied from the proceedings in England. The papal authority was abolished; Henry was declared head of the Irish church; and the first fruits of all ecclesiastical livings were given to the king.'It Of all the Irish Catholic bishops, only one, and lie a mere creature of Henry, who had been appointed on account of his mean subserviency to the policy of Henry's vicar general Cromwell,: gave his vote for the change of religion. This was Brown of Dublin, and he was a royal tool, more than a true Catholic bisliop. The other bishops, in a body, with Cromer, archbishop of Armagh at their head, unanimously resisted the innovation; which was so very odious to the Irish people See Lingard, History of England; vi, 323, seqq., for the authorities. t Irish Statutes, 28 Henry VIII. 12. Lingard, vi, 325-6. t Ibid. H He was an Englishman, and he had ingratiated himself with Henry and Cromwell by the ready and ardent zeal with which he sought to pro- mote the cause of the divorce. He was appointed in- 1535. See McGee sup. cit. p. 37 PROCESS FOR REFORMING IRELAND. that they boldly took the field under Fitzgerald in defense of the ancient faith. In 1541, Henry succeeded by dextrous management in having himself declared king of Ireland; and he very soon afterwards began that system of confiscation which was to be followed up by his successors, until little remained to be con- fiscated, whether in church or state. "Confiscation and Prot- estantism were born at a birth in the fertile mind of the newly elected king of Ireland." Archbishop Brown of DUb- lin and four others were appointed as commissioners of in- spection and examination, and armed men attended them from church to church, hewing down the crucifix with their swords, and defacing the monuments of the dead. "There was not," says a contemporary annalist, " a holy cross, nor an image of Mlary, nor other celebrated image in Ireland," with- in the reach of the reformers or near their fortresses, " that they did not burn." Say the Four Masters in their Annals: " They also made archbishops and subbishops for themselves; and although great was the persecution of the Roman em- perors against the Church, it is not probable that so great a persecution as this ever came from Rome hither. So that it is impossible to tell or narrate its description, unless it should be told by him who saw it." It were tedious to go into the details of that wholesale system of sacrilege and confiscation which the eighth Henry inaugurated in Ireland; besides that the subject will recur in the sequel. We may, however, here mention, that during this and the following reigns nearly six hundred Irish mon- asteries were confiscated; to say nothing of churches violated McGee, sup. cit. p. 37. Fitzgerald was apprehended and imprisoned, but his place was taken by the O'Neill, who was, however, defeated by Gray at Bellahoe. The father of Fitzgerald had been perfidiously committed to the London tower and beheaded, after having voluntarily surrendered on the promise of pardon; and along with him were beheaded his five uncles, who had been treacherously seized at a banquet by this same lort lieuten- ant Gray! Ibid. VOL. ii.-24 281 REFORMATION IN IRELAND. and seized on for the new worship, and of shrines and sanc- tuaries sacrilegiously pillaged and destroyed. That the first attempt to introduce the Reformation into Ireland was a work of mere brute force, which was wholly unsuccessful, is ap- parent from the fact attested by Agard, an official of the English government, in a letter to the vicar general Crom- well: "Except the archbishop of Dublin, only Lord Butler, the master of the rolls, Mr. Treasurer, and one or two more of small reputations, none may abide the hearing of it (thle king's supremacy), spiritual, as they call them, or temporal." Such being the undoubted facts of history, as they stand recorded on the Irish Statute book and on the pages of con- temporaneous historians, we might well marvel at the coolness with which the Anglican writer Palmer relates the transac- tion, if we were not persuaded that a plain statement of the facts, as they really occurred, would have proved utterly fatal to his favorite theory, that the English and even the Irish Church reformed itself! He says :t " Henry VIII. caused the papal jurisdiction to be abolished in 1537 by the parliament (Irish). The bishops and clergy generally assented, and several reforms took place during this and the next reign." 2. When the new book of Common Prayer was adopted by statute as the law of the land under Edward VI., in the parliament of 1552, it was done with the provision that it should be introduced by force, in place of the Mass, into every diocese of the kingdom, including those of Ireland. The great majority of the Irish people could not, indeed, un- derstand English, and Cranmer and his brother reformers had been perpetually inveighing against what they designated the absurdity of having the service in an unknown tongue. But men who were determined to carry their point at all The authorities for the quotations in this and the preceding paragraph, may be seen in McGee's work, sup. cit. p. 39, seqq. In his Monasticon, Archdall "gives an incomplete list of five hundred and sixty-three Irish houses confiscate&'-Ibid., p. 44, note. f Compendious Ecclesiastical History, p. 167. 282 THE NEW SERVICE IN IRELAND. hazards, were not to be stopped in their headlong course by any inconsistency, no matter how glaring. They had trans- lated the service into French for the benefit of their subjects of Jersey and Guernsey; but they meant to do nothing of the kind for the Irish, whose language they hated and sought to abolish. Referring to this remarkable inconsistency of the Anglican reformers, the Protestant historian Heylin employs the following strong language-lie is speaking of what oc- curred in the subsequent reign of Elizabeth: I There also passed an act for the uniformity of common prayer, etc., with the permission for saying the same in Latine, in such church or place, where the minister had not the knowledge of the English tongue. But for trans- lating it into Irish (as afterwards into Welsh in the fifth year of this queen) there was no care taken, either in this parliament, or in any following. For want whereof, as also by not having the Scriptures in their native language, most of the natural Irish have retained hitherto their old barbarous customes, or pertinaciously adhere to the corruptions of the Church of Rome. The people are required by that statute, under several penalties, to frequent their churches, and to be present at the reading of the English Liturgy, which they understand no more than they do the Mass. By which means the Irish were not only kept in continual ignorance as to the doctrines and devotions of the church of England, but we have furnished the papists with an excellent argument against ourselves, for having the divine service cele- brated in such a language as the people do not understand. Was this attempt to thrust the new fangled Anglican service on the Irish people successful "1 By Brown, the archbishop of Dublin, and four of his brethren, the order was cheerfully obeyed; Dowdal, archbishop of Armagh, and the other pre- lates rejected it with scorn. The consequence was, that the ancient service was generally maintained; the new was adopted in those places only where an armed force compelled its introduction. The lords of the council, to punish the disobedience of Dowdal, took from him the title of primate of all Ireland, and transferred it to his more obsequious brother the archbishop of Dublin."f Quoted by Waterworth, Historical Lectures on the Reformation, p. 352-3, note. t Lingard. History of England, vii, 90. He quotes Leland, lib. iii. c. 8. Archbishop Dowdal left the country, but he was re-instated under Mary. The instruction to the lord deputy to have the service translated into Irish, 283 REFORMATION IN IRELAND. Thus was the new service introduced, or rather attempted to be introduced into Ireland. The new bishops whom Cran- mer sent over were Englishmen, and they were "providently accmnpanied by six hundred horse and four hundred foot, under Sir Edward Bellingham." But one of all the original Catholic bishops of Ireland, Myler Magrath archbishop of Cashel, was found to stain his soul with the awful guilt of apostasy from the faith of his fathers; and so great was the indignation of his people thereat, that they rose in a tumult and compelled him. to leave Cashel and fly into England. The new bishops were able to officiate only in those places in which they could be escorted and guarded by English soldiers, who amused themselves during intervals of leisure in pillaging the neighboring churches and sanctuaries. Thus, to give one specimen, they plundered the famous shrifie of St. Kiaran at Clonmacnoise: 1' They took the large bells out of the steeple, and left neither large nor small bell, image, altar, book, gem, nor even glass in a window in the walls of the church, that they did not carry with them; and that truly was a lamentable deed to plunder the city of St. Kiaran, the patron saint."f 3. Under Mary, the old service was re-established amidst the general rejoicings of the Irish people, including even the obsequious courtiers of the English pale; though during the two previous reigns these men had dared breathe only the language of servile compliance with the biddings of the En- glish court, which had lately become apparently the only fountain of divine inspiration! But subsequently, the same lord deputy Sussex, who had with seeming alacrity restored the Catholic worship under Mary, called another parliament to abolish it under Elizabeth, and to re-instate in its place the second edition, revised and amended, of the new Anglican service. What else soever the English monarchs may have until the natives could learn English, was never complied with, and it remained, as it was probably intended, a dead letter. For more details, see McGee, sup. cit. p. 47, seqq. f Annals of the Four Masters, ibid., p. 49, note. 284 ELIZABETH REFORMING IRELAND. had to complain of in Ireland, they surely had no reason to blame the tardiness of their officials, whether lay or clerical, who dwelt under the shadowing protection of the Dublin castle; for these and their dependents of the English pale were certainly compliant enough. But, fortunately, the great body of the Irish clergy and people were not to be changed backwards and forwards so easily. In this new Irish parliament, the second of Elizabeth, "It was enacted that the Irish should be reformed after the model of the English church: but both the nobility and the people abhorred the change; and the-new statutes were carried into execution in those places only where they could be enforced at the point of the bayonet." 4. The opposition was not confined to mere words; it exhib- ited itself in bold deeds. For now commenced, in earnest, that memorable struggle between Irish right and English might, between the Irish champions of civil and religious freedom and the English hosts sustaining a most glaring op- pression, which continued with little intermission until the close of Elizabeth's long reign, and which cast a dark shadow on the sorrowful days which preceded her melancholy death.t English might finally conquered Irish right; and Ireland, by the permission of an inscrutable Providence, was left a desert; but in the midst of this desert, there still bloomed, Lingard, History of England, vii, 125-6. Irish Statutes, 2 Elizabeth, 1, 2, 3. Such being the indisputable facts of history, we can scarcely have patience with such men as Palmer, who coolly writes as follows:-"When Elizabeth succeeded, the former laws were revived, the papal power again rejected, and the royal supremacy and the English ritual again introduced. These regulations were approved by seventeen out of nineteen Irish bishops in the parliament of 1560, and by the rest of the bishops and clergy who took the oath of supremacy, and remained in the possession of their bene- fices. The people also generally acquiesced, and continued to attend on divine service for several years."-Sup. cit. p. 167. t What most troubled Elizabeth during her last hours, was the thought of Ireland and of the failure of Essex, her last deputy there, together with that of her own waning popularity on account of the execution of her favorite. 285 REFORMATION IN IRELAND. by the side of the shamrock, the perennial tree of that blessed faith which St. Patrick had planted and watered with his tears. 5. We can not go into the details of this melancholy con- test. Suffice it to say, that Shane O'Neill, the heir of Tyrone, first stood up valiantly for his rights, and proclaimed himself the champion of the ancient faith. His impetuous nature, or the goadings of the English, drove him into rebellion, to secure his rightful heritage, for which he had pleaded in vain at the court of Elizabeth: but his army was defeated by the more disciplined English troops; and having in his affliction sought refuge among the Scots of Ulster, he was basely assassinated by them, at the instigation of Piers, an English officer in the pay of the deputy.t His lands and those of his numerous adherents, comprising one half of Ulster, were declared confiscated to the crown; and by an act of parlia- ment the name and dignity of the O'Neill were declared abolished forever.1 6. The rebellion of the OUNeill was the signal for the breaking out of insurrections all over Ireland. The local As had been the case under Edward, so now under Elizabeth a batch of new parliamentary bishops was appointed; who, however, now as then, were not able to enter their sees or exercise their functions outside the boundaries of the English pale, unless they were escorted by English troops! The Irish chieftains who headed the various insurrections stood forth the champions of the old and legitimate Catholic bishops and clergy, whom the government sought to oust. Thus the new hierarchy was able to gain a foothold nowhere, except at the point of the bayonet For the names of Elizabeth's bishops, and details of their curious proceedings, see McGee, p. 57, seqq. t Mr. McGee says that " the deputy employed Piers, a spy, to assassinate him. Under pretense of peace, the assassin met him at McDonnell's of An- trim, procured a quarrel, stabbed him, and brought his head, 'pickled in a pipkin,' to Dublin castle. For this service Piers had 'a thousand marks' from the queen." P. 57-8. We follow the statement of Lingard. I See Lingard, ibid. He quotes Camden, Rymer, and the Irish Statutes, 2 Elizabeth. 286 WHOLESALE CONFISCATION. chieftains, both of the English and the Irish pale, successively raised the banner of revolt; but as, unhappily, they did not act in concert, and were more impetuous than well-disci- plined, they were subdued in detail. The usual sequel to every suppression of rebellion was a wholesale confiscatior of the property of the refractory chieftain and of his adherents. and before the end of Elizabeth's reign perhaps half the lands of Ireland had been already declared forfeited to the crown ! After the suppression of the revolt of Desmond-in 1586- he was attainted by parliament, and all the lands of his earl- dom, comprising nearly six hundred thousand acres, were confiscated, nominally for the benefit of the crown, really for that of Elizabeth's courtiers. The rebellion-as it was called-of the gallant Tyrone, was probably the most formidable of all those which occurred under her disastrous reign. It continued, with various vicis- situdes of failure and success, for ten years, from 1593 until the queen's death in 1603; and it was then terminated only by a treacherous accommodation.t Throughout the whole period of the terrible struggle, Tyrone had pleaded in vain for religious toleration for himself and his co-religionists; which shows that liberty of conscience was a main element in the contest.. See Lingard, Ibid., p. 349. t Ibid., p. 383. This accommodation, which promised pardon to Tyrone and his followers, and a partial restoration of his lands, was hastily entered into by the deputy Mountjoy, after he had secretly learned-what was as yet unknown to Tyrone-that the queen was dying. Tyrone had previously -in 1599-agreed to an armistice with Essex, who promised to intercede in his behalf with Elizabeth, not only for his pardon, but that his demand of religious toleration might be granted.-(Ibid., p. 355.) Elizabeth was so much displeased with this equitable action of her former favorite, that it was one chief reason of his subsequent execution. t It is a remarkable faict, that the only two Irish lord deputies under Elizabeth, who showed any disposition to conciliate the Irish people, to deal impartially with the native Irish and those of the pale, and to do any thing like even handed justice in their administration-Perrot and Essex-both 287 288 REFORMATION R1i IRELAND. 7. Of Elizabeth's treatment if Ireland, especially under the administration of her favorite deputy Mountjoy, the candid and excellent English Protestant lady, Agnes Strickland, writes as follows: "'Ireland,' says Naunton, 'cost her more vexation than any thing else. The expense of it pinched her; the ill success of her officers wearied her, and in that service she grew hard to please.' The barbarity with which she caused that country to be devastated is unprecedented, excepting in the extermination of the Caribs by the Spaniards. Henry VIII. had given him- self little concern with the state of religion in Ireland; it remained virtually a Catholic country; the monasteries and their inhabitants were not uprooted, as in En-land; and the whole country persistently acknowledged the su- premacy of the Pope, through all the Tudor reigns, till Elizabeth ascended the throne..... "Ireland, which had acknowledged the English monarchs as suzerains, or lords paramount over their petty kings and chiefs, for several centuries, had scarcely allowed them as kings of Ireland for a score of years, now flamed out into rebellion against the English lord-deputy; and this functionary, by the queen's orders, governed despotically, by mere orders of council, and endeavored to dispense with the Irish parliament. The taxes were forth- with cessed at the will of the lord deputy. The earl of Desmond, the head of the Fitzgeralds, and possessed at that time of an estate of six hundred thousand acres,aided by Lord Baltinglas, head of the Eustaces, whose family had for four generations filled the office of lords-treasurer or lords-deputy, and were ever closely allied with the Geraldines, resisted the payment of this illegal tax, and required that a parliament might be called, as usual, to fix the demands on the subject; for which measure, these gallant precursors of Hlampden were forthwith immured in a tower of Dublin castle. They sent messengers to Elizabeth, to complain of the conduct of her lord deputy; for which presumption, as she called it, she transferred them to the more alarming prison of the Tower of London..... "The lord deputy Mountjoy (the Irish sayby the advice of Spencer, the poet), the commander of the English forces, commenced that horrid war of extermination which the natives call 'the Hag's Wars.' The houses and standing corn of the wretched natives were burnt, and the cattle killed, wherever the English came, which starved the people into temporary sub- suffered the death of traitors at her hands ! The case of Perrot is particu- larly striking in this respect, as it was his punishment of the guilty within the English pale which first excited the royal anger that resulted in his ac- cusation and death as a traitor. EXTERMINATION-MARTYRED CATHOLIC BISHOPLS. 2 8 9 mission. When some of the horrors of the case were represented to the queen, and she found the state to which the sister Island was reduced, she was heard to exclaim, 'that she found she had sent wolves, not shepherds, to govern Ireland, for they had left nothing but ashes and carcasses for her to reign over.' "ce 8. That the desire of forcibly suppressing the Catholic religion in Ireland was one of the principal motives, which instigated the atrocities that marked the civil wars of this reign, is sufficiently apparent from the whole tenor of the facts. We content ourselves with the following extracted summary, which will also serve to show "how the Church reformed itself " in Ireland: "While the war against the Desmonds was raging in the South, under pretense of suppressing rebellion, no one could help seeing that in reality it was directed against the Catholic religion. If any had doubted the real objects, events which quickly followed Elizabeth's victory soon convinced them. Dermid O'Hurley, archbishop of Cashel, being taken by the victors,was brought to Dublin in 1582. Ilere the Protestant primate Loftus besieged him in vain for nearly a year to deny the Pope's supremacy, and acknowledge the queen's. Finding him of unshaken faith, he was brought out for martyrdom on Stephen's Green, adjoining the city; there he was tied to a tree, his boots filled with combustibles, and his limbs stripped and smeared with oil and alcohol. Alternately they lighted and quenched the flame which en- veloped him, prolonging his torture through four successive days. Still re- maining firm, before dawn of the fifth day they finally consumed his last remains of life, and left his calcined bones among the ashes at the foot of his stake. The relics, gathered in secret by some pious friends, were hidden away in the half-ruined church of St. Kevin, near that outlet of I)ublin called Kevinsport. In Desmond's town of Kilmallock were then taken Patrick O'Hely, bishop of Mayo, Father Cornelius, a Franciscan, and some others. To extort from them confessions of the new faith, their thighs were broken with hammers, and their arms crushed by levers. They died with- out yielding, and the instruments of their torture were buried with them in the Franciscan Convent of Askeaton. The Most Reverend Richard Creagh, primate of all Ireland, was the next victim. Failing to convict him in Ire- land of the imputed crime of violating a young woman, who herself exposed the calumny, and suffered for so doing they brought him to London, where he is said to have died of poison on the 14th of October, 1585."t Queens of England, vi, p. 353-4. For lengthy details of MountJoy's atrocities, see McGee, sup. cit., p. 71, seqq. t McGee, sup. cit., p. 64. VOL. II.-25 REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 9. The results of all these desolating wars were most disam. trous. Ireland was made a desert; her fields lay unculti- vated, and her people were starving. The attempt to force upon them a new religion, unheard of until it had been con- ceived in the brain of the corrupt tyrant Henry and of his still more mischievous and more wicked daughter Elizabeth, was now bearing its legitimate fruits. The new liturgy might, indeed, be read, wherever there were English bayonets enough to enforce the reading; but the people would not listen to it, and at the rate at which extermination was now progressing, there would soon be likely to remain few if any people to hear it read, even on compulsion! The poet Spenser was in Ireland at the close of Desmond's "rebellion," and lhe draws the following sad picture of the general popular misery by which its suppression was followed : "Out of every corner of the woods and glynns they (the Catholic people) came creeping forth on their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat dead carrions; happy were they who could find them. In a short space there was none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful couniry was suddenly void of man and beast."t 10. What was now to be done for Ireland How were her fertile but now desolate lands to be again cultivated, and her famine-stricken and perishing people to be relieved, or In his Report on the State of Ireland, p. 165, quoted by Lester (Protes- tant) in his Condition and State of England, in 2 vols., New York, 1843- vol. ii, p. 92. t In the distribution of the confiscated lands in Munster among her cour- tiers, after the suppression of Desmond's rebellion, this same Edmund Spenser the poet received over three thousand acres; but the man who re- ceived the largest share bore the very appropriate name of Butcher. To Francis Butcher and Hugh Wirth were assigned no less than twenty-four thousand acres !-See the list apud McGee, p. 63. This was called the confiscation of Munster, which occurred, together with that of about one half of Ulster, during Elizabeth's reign. It was followed by that of the rest of Ulster, under her successor James I., and by that of Connaught under Charles L The instigator of this last was the despotic Stafford. Thus almost all Ireland was successively confiscated! 290 ATROCIOUS SCHEME OF COLONIZATION. rather replaced The remedy was well worthy the wicked heart of the English Jezabel, and, like all her other remedies for the ills of Ireland, it was even worse than the disease itself. The wholesale confiscation was followed by a whole- sale system of colonization, as it was called. It would have been much more appropriately designated a system of or- ganized extermination. It consisted in parceling out among her greedy favorites the confiscated lands, on condition that they would colonize them with Bngli8h tenants, so as to have one family for every two hundred and forty acres.4 This furnishes the key of that thoroughly wicked policy which Elizabeth inaugurated, which the Stuarts and Cromwell more fully carried out, and which has resulted in evils so wide- spread, so terrible, and so protracted for Ireland.t Tile idea, at least in its practical bearings and develop- ment, seems to have originated with the secretary Sir Thomas Smith, shortly after the suppression of Shane O'Neill's "re- bellion," in 1569.t But though the experiment was made in 1572, by an ample grant of the confiscated lands to the bas- tard son of the projector, it appears to have failed, chiefly on account of the stern opposition of the native proprietors, This is probably the origin of that phrase, now become fashionable in sertain quarters in this free country: "No Irish need apply." f The result of the system was, that fully three-fourths-some say seven- tighths-of the landed property in Ireland passed into the hands of the in- significant Protestant minority, who lorded it over their Irish tenants with a rod of iron, and who have continued to do so to a great extent even down to the present day. The Irish landlord system is probably the most oppres- sive of all those that exist in the civilized world, hardly excepting even that of Russia. The recent commission for encumbered estates has considerably modified the above result, but the evil still remains. T Others suppose that to Elizabeth herself belongs the merit of having originated this atrocious scheme of wholesale spoliation; and that she encour- aged her officers and soldiers to put down the rebellion, with the prospect of having abundant lands distributed amongst them in case of success. At any rate, it was well worthy her heartless character, and she fully acted on the plan, whoever was its originator. 291 292 REFORMATION IN IRELAND. who very naturally objected to being thus summarily ousted from their ancient possessions. It was subsequently tried again, on a much larger scale, by Elizabeth's favorite, Walter Dev'ereux, earl of Essex, with whom she had entered into a regular business partnership. The contract between Essex and his mistress provided, " that each should furnish an equal share of the expense, and that the colony should be equally divided between them, so soon as it had been planted with two thousand settlers." But the natives again very properly objected; Essex was thwarted by the lord deputy who dis- puted his powers; lie was not sustained by his royal partner in the concern; and the result was, that, after ruining him- self by the preliminary expenses necessary for so brilliant a speculation, lie utterly failed to establish his colony. A third experiment was tried on a still more extensive scale, after the confiscation of Desmond's estates; and this time it partially succeeded, the natives being now sufficiently humbled and famine-stricken to consent, in considerable numbers, " rather than abandon the place of their birth, to hold of for- eigners the lands which had descended to them from their progenitors."t 11. While attempts were thus successively made to thrust the new religion on Ireland by force, the English penal sta- tutes against non-conformists were, as a matter of course, ex- tended to the sister kingdomn.1 The Irish parliaments of those days, as we have already seen, were generally composed of the merest creatures of the English court, none others be- ing permitted to hold a seat therein, at least to have a voice in controlling the deliberations. The Irish parliament thus be- came a mere echo of the English. Under such atrocious ty- rants as Henry and Elizabeth, it could scarcely have been See Lingard, viii, 127-8, for all the details, with the authorities. t Ibid., p. 350. Ireland, previously regarded by England as a province, eras declared to have risen to the dignity of a kingdom under Henry VIII., who, as we have seen, was chosen king. IRISH PENAL CODE. any thing else; as these rulers had succeeded in reducing to the most abject servitude even those sturdy parlianments of England, which in the good old Catholic days of Magna Charta had made the English monarchs tremble on their thrones. But now all had changed; the blessed Reformation had emancipated the English people from " popish " thralldom, and given to them instead the priceless boon of abject and crouching political slavery! Of course, the Irish Catholics could not expect any immunity from the operation of the mer- ciless code of pains and penalties, with which the right of private judgment-the boasted heir-loom of the Reformation -was so amply guarded and protected in the sister kingdom! And they neither expected nor received it, however much they might have desired the boon of exemption. The penal laws of England were enforced in Ireland, whenever and wherever it was possible to secure their execution. 12. But besides the penal code of England, another one much more galling and atrocious in its provisions was fastened upon Ireland. Its details are so very ferocious and horrible, as almost to stagger belief; yet there they are, in all their hideousness, glaring at us from the pages of the English and Irish statute books! No one can dispute them; and the fact that most of them have been since repealed- though not all-is indeed a relief for the present, but no in- demnity for the past. They are a sequel to the earlier penal enactments already referred to, and they surpass even these in atrocity. They belong to the history of the attempted Reformation in Ireland, which would be wholly incomplete, in fact scarcely intelligible, without them. We might fill a volume, were we to enter into minute details in regard to this atrocious system of legislation. We must content our- selves with the following summary, which we believe to be entirely accurate, and to contain most of its enactments. We are indebted for it to our excellent American historian Ban- croft. We will be pardoned the length of the extract, on ac- count of the interest of the matter, and the unimpeachable 50 293 294 REFORMATION IN IRELAND. character of the witness, who furnishes his authorities as he proceeds. "In addition to this, an act of the English parliament rehearsed the dan- gers to be apprehended from the presence of popish recusants in the Irish parliament, and required of every member the new oaths of allegiance and supremacy and the declaration against transubstantiation. But not only were Roman Catholics excluded from seats in both branches of the legisla- ture; a series of enactments, the fruit of relentless perseverance, gradually excluded 'papists I from having any votes in the election of members to serve in parliament. "The Catholic Irish, being disfranchised, one enactment pursued them after another, till they suffered under a universal, unmitigated, indispensable, exceptionless disqualification. In the courts of law, they could not gain a place on the bench, nor act as a barrister, or attorney, or solicitor, nor be employed even as a hired clerk, nor sit on a grand jury, nor serve as a sheriff or a justice of the peace, nor hold even the lowest civil office of trust and profit, nor have any privilege in a town corporate, nor be a freeman of such corporation, nor vote at a vestry. If papists would trade and work, they must do it, even in their native towns, as aliens. They were expressly for- bidden to take more than two apprentices in whatever employment, except in the linen manufacture only. A Catholic might not marry a Protestant- the priest who should celebrate such a marriage was to be hanged; nor be Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. v, p. 66, seqq. It will be seen that many of these laws were enacted at a comparatively recent period. Edmund Burke in his Fragment of a Tract on the Popery Laws, and in his other writingns, furnishes substantially the same facts, but in a more ex- tended form and in a more technical style. He views the Irish penal code from the stand-point of the lawyer, rather than from that of the historian.- See Burke's Works, American Edit. in three volumes, 8vo, vol. ii, p. 402, seqq. In his Constitutional History of England, Hallam treats at considerable length the various penal enactments against Ireland, which were passed in the successive English reigns from Elizabeth to the Georges. He fuilly con- firms the statements of Bancroft and Burke. It is a remarkable fact, that probably the worst portion of the Irish penal code was enacted after the revolution in 1688. Under William of Orange and his successors, Ireland was scourged with greater ferocity than she had been under the Tudors or the Stuarts. With the cry of liberty forever on their lips, the whigs, who had expelled James IL, because he sought to establish religious liberty in England, practiced themselves the most atrocious tyranny over Ireland. Hallam gives the odious details. IRISH PENiAL LAWS. 295 a guardian to any child, nor educate his own child, if the mother declared nerself a Protestant; or even if his own child, however young, should pro- fess to be a Protestant. None but those who conformed to the established church were admitted to study at the universities, nor could degrees be ob- tained but by those who had taken all the tests, oaths, and declarations. "No Protestant in Ireland might instruct a papist. Papists could not supply their want by academies and schools of their own; for a Catholic to teach, even in a private family or as usher to a Protestant, was a felony, punishable by imprisonment, exile, or death. Thus 'papists' were excluded from all opportunity of education at home, except by stealth and in violation of law. It might be thought that schools abroad were open to them; but, by a statute of King William, to be educated in any foreign Catholic school was an unalterable and perpetual outlawry. The child sent abroad for edu- cation, no matter of how tender an age, or himself how innocent, could never after sue in law or equity, or be guardian, executor, or administrator, or receive any legacy or deed of gift; he forfeited all his goods and chattels, and forfeited for his life all his lands. Whoever sent him abroad, or main- tained him there, or assisted him with money or otherwise, incurred the same liabilities and penalties. The crown divided the forfeiture with the informer; and when a person was proved to have sent abroad a bill of ex- change or money, on him rested the burden of proving that the remittance was innocent, and he mustdo so before justices without the benefit of a jury. "The Irish Catholics were not only deprived of their liberties, but even of the opportunity of worship, except by connivance. Their clergy, taken from the humbler classes of the people, could not be taught at home nor be sent for education beyond seas, nor be recruited by learned ecclesiastics from abroad. Such priests as were permitted to reside in Ireland were required to be registered, and were kept like prisoners at large within prescribed limits. All 'papists' exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, all monks, friars, and regular priests, and all priests not then actually in parishes and to be registered, were banished from Ireland under pain of transportation, and, on a return, of being hanged, drawn and quartered. Avarice was stimulated to apprehend them by the promise of a reward; he that should harbor or conceal them was to be stripped of all his property. "When the registered priests were dead, the law, which was made per- petual, applied to every popish priest. By the laws of William and of Anne, St. Patrick, in Ireland, in the eighteenth crntury, would have been a felon. Any two justices of the peace might call before them any Catholic, and make inquisition as to when he heard Mass, who were present, and what Catholic schoolmaster or priest he knew of; and the penalty for refusal to This law was probably meant to show Protestant love of religious liberty! 296 REFORMATION IN IRELAND. answer was a fine or a year's imprisonment. The Catholic priest, abjuring his religion, received a pension of thirty, and afterwards of forty pounds. And in spite of these laws, there were, it is said, four thousand Catholic clergymen in Ireland; and the Catholic worship gained upon the Protestant, so attractive is sincerity when ennobled by persecution, even though the laws did not presume a papist to exist there, and did not allow them to breathe but by the connivance of the government! " The Catholic Irish had been plundered of six-sevenths of the land by iniquitous confiscations; every acre of the remaining seventh was grudged them by the Protestants. No non-conforming Catholic could buy land, or receive it by descent, devise, or settlement; or lend money on it, as the security; or hold an interest in it through a Protestant trustee; or take a lease of ground for more than thirty-one years. 1f under such, a lease, he brought his farm to produce more than one-third beyond the rent, the first Protestant discoverer might sue for the lease before known Protestants, making the defendant answer all interrogatories on oath; so that the Catho- lic farmer dared not drain his fields, nor inclose them, nor build solid houses on them. If in any way he improved their productiveness, his lease was forfeited. It was his interest rather to deteriorate the country, lest envy should prompt some one to turn him out of doors. In all these cases the forfeitures were in favor of Protestants. Even if a Catholic owned a horse worth more than five pounds, any Protestant might take it away. Nor was natural affection or parental authority respected. "The son of a Catholic landholder, however dissolute or however young, if he would but join the English church, could revolt against his father, and turn his father's estate in fee simple into a tenancy for life, becoming himself the owner, and annulling every agreement made by the father, even before his son's conversion. " The dominion of the child over the property of the Popish parent was universal. The Catholic father could not in any degree disinherit his apos- tatizing son; but the child, in declaring himself a Protestant, might com- pel his father to confess upon oath the value of his substance, real aLd per- sonal, on which the Protestant court might out of it award the son imme- diate maintenance, and after the father's death, any establishment it pleased. A new bill might at any time be brought by one or all of the children, for a further discovery. If the parent, by his industry, improved his property, the son might compel a new account of the value of the estate, in order to a new disposition. The father bad no security against the persecution of his children, but by abandoning all acquisition or improvement."+ This was a striking illustration of the command: " Thou shalt not steal ! " For every statement above given, he quotes the acts of the several par- IRTSH PENAL LAWS. 297 13. This atrocious penal legislation was mainly based on the hatred of the Catholic religion, and the wish to eradicate it front the minds and hearts of the Irish people. Its entire tenor and drift clearly establish this fact. And now we may ask with confidence of any impartial-we do not say Christian-but man, what is to be thought of a religious Reformation attelmp)ted to be enforced by such means as these What are we to think of the sincerity of the men, who, while boasting that they were shedding abroad the blessed light of religious liberty, adopted such a code as this to induce religious conformity liaments which passed these odious laws; besides Burke on the Penal Laws, and other authorities. These we have omitted in order not to cum- ber our pages. Moreover any one of our readers who wishes to pursue the investigation may easily procure and consult Bancroft. In another place Bancroft adds: "The inhabitants of Ireland were four parts in five, certainly more than two parts in there, Roman Catholics.... In settling the government, En- gland intrusted it exclusively to those of the ' English Colony,' who were members of its own church; so that the little minority ruled the island. To facilitate this, new boroughs were created; and wretched tenants, where not disfranchised, were so coerced in their votes at elections, that two-thirds of the Irish house of commons were the nominees of the large Protestant proprietors of the land."-Bancroft's History, vi, 66. In an elaborate article on Ireland, published in the Metropolitan Record for March 12, 1859, we find the following condensed epitome of the Irish penal laws; which from the foregoing more extended account will be found to be, in the main, accurate. We republish it in a note, for the benefit of those who may wish to see the principal of these atrocious laws at a single glance. "ON EDUCATION. 'If a Catholic schoolmaster, taught any person, Protestant or Catholic, any species of literature or science, such teacher was, for the crime of teach- ing, punishable by banishment; and if he returned from banishment he was subject to be hanged as a felon. 'If a Catholic, whether a child or adult, attended in Ireland a school kept by a Catholic, or was privately instructed by a Catholic, such person, although a child in its early infancy, incurred a forfeiture of all its property, present or future. 'If a Catholic child, however young, was sent to any foreign country for 298 REFORMATION IN IRELAND. TI ere can evidently be but one opinion among all reason able and lonest men, in regard both to the Reformation itself education, such infant incurred a similar penalty-that is, a forfeiture of all right to property present or prospective. 'If any person in Ireland made remittance of any money or goods for the maintenance of any Irish child educated in a foreign country, such person incurred similar forfeiture.' "' With respect to the Catholic church, which had shed so much lustre OD the land, the reforming civilizers enacted: 'To teach the Catholic religion is declared a felony, punished by trans- portation. 'To be a Catholic, monk, or friar, punishable by banishment, and to re- turn from the banishment an act of high treason, to be punished by death. 'To exercise the functions of a Catholic bishop or archbishop, in Ireland, a transportable offense, and to return from banishment, as such, an act of high treason, punished by being hanged and afterwards quartered by the executioner.' "Domestic happiness, family union, and fraternal love would, it was thought, by Ireland's English rulers, be promoted by a code such as this: 'If a Catholic wife declared herself a Prostestant, she was immediately entitled to a separate maintenance and the custody of all the children. ' If the eldest son of a Catholic, no matter of what age, became a Protest- ant, he at once made his father a tenant for life of his own estate, and such son became absolute master of such estate. ' If any other child, younger than the eldest son, declared itself a Prot- estant, it at once became free from all control of the parent. "Thus the wife, the heir at law, and all the other children, were, by stat- ute law, openly encouraged to rebel against the husband and father, and vio- late every principle of a Christian life. "CATHOLICS EXCLUDED FROM THE GOVERNMENT SERVICE, AND EDMUND BURKE'S OPINION OF ENGLAND'S LAWS. "After an acquaintance of about five hundred years, the EnglLh govern- ment thought that her military, naval, and civil service, both in Ireland and abroad, could be best promoted by legislation, such as the following: 'Catholics were declared incapable of holding any commission in the army or navy, or serving even as private soldiers, unless they abjured that religion. ' Catholics were universally excluded from all offices under the state, and deprived of the right of voting at any election. 'Catholics were excluded from Parliament. OTHER PROTESTANT TESTIMONY. and the means adopted to enforce it upon an unwilling and resisting population in Ireland. This opinion necessarily grows out of the facts themselves, contrasting as they do so glaringly with the professions of the men who unblushingly enacted those bloody laws. 14. It is not to be denied that, in England's treatment of Ireland, there was another element of bitterness infused into the cup of religious intolerance; we refer to that which re- sulted from difference of race. This feeling, indeed, long preceded the sixteenth century; but it was very greatly in- creased by the subsequent attempt to enforce the new religion in Ireland. If the Irish were scourged with rods before, they were scourged with scorpions after the Reformation-so called. An able American writer of the day places this matter in so clear a light, and confirms his views with so many apposite Protestant authorities, that we can not prob- ably do better than to furnish some extracts from his well- written paper. Speaking of a statute passed under Henry VIII., he says: "In the twenty-eighth year of Henry VIII., a law was passed restraining the Irish from having themselves shorn or shaven above the ears, and from wearing coulins (long locks) on their heads, or hair on their upper lips, and prescribing for them a particular kind of rude dress, so that they should not presume under heavy penalties to dress like the English."tf Of what took place after the Reformation, he writes as fol- lows: "After the Reformation, it did not require so much effort to keep the in- 'If any Catholic purchased for money an estate in land, any Protestant may take it from him without paying a farthing of the purchase money.' "Edmund Burke, speaking of the code, said: 'It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverish- ment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man., " In the North American Review, for January, 1858, art. Ireland, Past and Present. t The writer quotes Walker's Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards, p. 134 299 300 REFORMATION IN IREI AND. digenous and the English inhabitants of Ireland in mutual enmity. Sectarian animosity now proved a most useful auxiliary to British rule; for the hatred of race had already grown too feeble. Hitherto the English inhab- itants of Ireland had been taught to hate the natives as an antagonistic, in- ferior race; now they were taught to hate them as believers in a false creed. The title 'wild Irish' was not sufficiently repulsive, till reinforced by the still more obnoxious stigma attached to the term 'Papist.' This was ac- cordingly adopted; and among the first fruits of the Reformation for Ireland Was a new set of penal laws against the Irish 'Papists.' In reference to these laws Secretary Hutchinson wrote, in his Account of Ireland, in 1773: "'The Papists incur penalties for foreign education, yet are not allowed education at home: they can not be physicians, lawyers, soldiers. If they become traders and mechanics, they scarcely enjoy the rights of citizens. If farmers, they shall not improve, being discouraged by short limitation of tenure; and yet there is complaint of the dullness and laziness of a people whose spirit is restrained from exertion, and whose industry has no reward to excite it.' "It was made a capital offense for the Irish to have schools or schoolmas- masters. If a schoolmaster was convicted of having taught, or attempted to teach any Irish person, young or old, the punishment for the first offense was transportation; and if he ever returned from penal servitude, and re- peated the crime, the penalty was death! Yet the people thus treated were abused for not being intelligent and enlightened! Irish commerce was also placed under severe restrictions.' " Burke was right in calling such a code "a horrible and im- pious system of servitude."t 15. With such feelings, followed by such legislation on the part of England, we do not at all wonder that gifted Prot- North American Review, for January, 1858, art. Ireland, Past and Present. The writer quotes De Rebus Hibernicis, voL ii, p. 366-71, and adds: "General Desgriny, who accompagnied Lauzun to Ireland in 1670, wrote to the French minister of war, as follows: 'La politique des Anglois a ete de tenir ces peuples cy comme des esclaves, et si bas, qu' il ne leur ctoit permis d' apprendre a lire et a ecrire '-The policy of the English has been to keep these people here like slaves, and so low that it is not permitted to them to learn to read and write.' "-This was no doubt by way of con- clusively proving to the world the wonderful efficacy of Protestantism in emancipating the human mind from the degrading ignorance and thralldom of popery' f Quoted ibid. IRELAND FAITHFUL TO THE LAST. estant Irishmen, like Burke, Swift, Grattan, Curran, and Goldsmith, should have lashed English oppression, and pleaded earnestly and eloquently the cause of oppressed Ire- land; or that this feeling of just indignation should have extended to generous minded English Protestants themselves; to such men, for instance, as Sydney Smith and the caustic writer of the Junius Letters. The former, in his famous Plimley Letters, clearly, eloquently, and wittily exhibited the atrocious injustice of England towards Ireland, and urged, not in vain, the necessity of an at least partial redress of her grievances, through the passage of the Catholic emancipation bill; while the latter broke forth into the following character- istic strain of indignant invective, in his celebrated Letter to the King: "The people of Ireland have been uniformly plundered and oppressed. In return they give you every day fresh marks of their resentment. They despise the miserable governor you have sent them, because he is a creature of Lord Bute; nor is it from any natural confusion in their ideas that they' are so ready to confound the original of a king with the disgraceful repre- sentation of him." 16. Of the subsequent history and sufferings of Ireland under the penal laws; of her impatience under the galling yoke of the English Protestant ascendency, and her repeated efforts to free' herself from its terrible pressure; of its having been still more firmly riveted on her neck at each successive failure of insurrection; of her partially successful struggles to stand erect, and to prosper temporally, in spite of all these long continued and terrible obstacles; and of the circum- stances under which the grasp of oppression was finally somewhat relaxed by the action of the British parliament, reluctantly and at the eleventh hour sweeping away some of the more odious features of the terrible penal code under which she had groaned for centuries: of these and of other things our present scope does not allow, hor indeed require us to treat. Suffice it to refer to the general result, which North American Review, for January, 1858, sup. cit. 301 REFORMATION mN IRELAND. may be summed up in two words: that in the political rela tion, the national spirit of Ireland has never been entirely broken, and in the religious one, her faith has nevcr been im- paired. After all the violkt and protracted vfirhts of En- gland to pervert her from the ancient religion, seven-eighths of her children still cling to it with undying love. Faithful Catholic Ireland might be deprived of all else-of lands, of personal comforts, of political liberty; but the hand of the spoiler and oppressor could never tear fronm her heart the jewel of faith, which she prized far above all earthly considerations. They might, and they did destroy her mon- asteries and seize upon her churches; they might, and they did despoil her of all her church property, and imllpose upon her people the odious tithe-tax to support the clergy of a new- fingled church which she abhorred in her very soul; they might, and they did slander her faith and endeavor to ruin her character by systematic denunciation of her alleged de- moralization; they might, and they did banish her priests and schoolmasters and hunt them down, if they dared return, like so many wild beasts; they might, and they did commit these and a thousand other indignities too tedious and too horrible to dwell on; they never could seduce her from her allegiance to "the faith once delivered to the saints!" To this she clung in life and in death, and she loved it the more dearly, precisely in proportion to the amount of privation and suffering her children were made to endure on its account. Never, perhaps, in the history of mankind, has so wither- ing a rebuke been administered to all powerful and bitterly intolerant tyranny, as that which the unshaken constancy of It has generally been stated by English Protestant writers, with a view to present an unfavorable impression of the influence of Catholicity on the Irish people, that crime has always been much more rife in Ireland than in Eng- land The subject is ably discussed in a late number of the Dublin Review; and the result is by no means disparaging to Ireland, or flattering to Eng- land. See also Joseph Kay's (Protestant) Report to the University of Cam- bridge, on the present utterly degraded moral condition of the masses of the English and Welsh population. 302 CONCLUSION. 303 Ireland has administered to Protestant England. ITle only parallel to it, with which we are acquainted, is that presented by the heroic attitude of the early Christians towards per- secuting pagan Rome, during three centuries of patient mar- tyrdom, and of brilliant victory in the midst of the excruciat- ing tortures of death. We conclude thisChapter with the following eloquent pas- sage from the pen of an American Protestant writer : "Ireland still has an existence as a nation. She has her universities and her literature. She is still the 'Emerald Isle of the ocean.' An air of romance and chivalry is around her. The traditionary tales that live in her literature invest her history with heroic beauty. But she has no need of these. Real heroes, the O'Neills, the O'Briens, and the Emmetts, will be remembered as long as self-denying patriotism and unconquerable valor are honored among men. In every department of literature she still takes her place. Where is the wreath her shamrock does not adorn Where the muse that has not visited her hills Her harp has ever kindled the soul of the warrior, and soothed the sorrows of the broken-hearted. It has sounded every strain that can move the human heart to greatness, or to love. What- ever vices may stain her people, they are free from the crime of voluntary servitude. The Irishman is the man last to be subdued. Possessing an elasticity of character that will rise under the heaviest oppression, he wants only a favorable opportunity and a single spark to set him in a blaze." Lester, Condition and Mate of England, sup. cit. ii, 73-4 : For more on the church of England, as established by law, and as firmly riveted on the necks of the people by the CORONATION OATH of the kings and queens of England and Ireland, see Note HL at the end of this volume HISTORY OF THE PROrESTANT REFORMATION. CHAPTER Vi1. REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. Interest which attaches to the subject-Prescott's Philip II.-His prejudices glanced at-The Netherlands in the sixteenth century-Their highly prosperous condition in commerce and manufactures-The new doctrines penetrate into the Netherlands-Policy of the emperor Charles V.-His edicts-He does not establish the Inquisition-His repressive policy fails -The Netherlands continue to flourish-Accession of Philip II.-View of the religious condition of Europe in the middle of the sixteenth cen- tury-The "fiery cross" of the Reformation-It everywhere brings about a union of church and state-Results in civil commotions-Which weaken the cause of liberty-Guizot's testimony-Character of Philip IL -The hereditary Spanish feeling beautifully portrayed by Prescott- Sublime sternness of Philip-We have no mission to defend him-Much less Alva-Philip's war with the Pope-Prescott's position reviewed- Church not responsible for Philip's policy-Case of Caranza-Philip defies the Council of Trent-His opposition to the Pope in matters trenching on the spiritual order-Nomination of bishops-The Pope and despotism- Good qualities in Philip's character-The Catholic liberties of the Neth- erlanders-The struggle begins-Catholics and Protestants at first com- bine against Philip-The war-cry Vivent les Gueux !-Matters precipitated by violence-Horrible excesses committed by the Protestant party fully related by Prescott-The Iconoclasts and church spoilers-The preachers take the field-And stir up the people to violence-Churches and convents sacked-Awful riot at Antwerp-The Cathedral plundered-The "two thieves "f presiding over the work-Its beautiful ornaments in ruins-The sacrilegious fury spreads over all Flanders-Four hundred churches de- molished or sacked in Flanders alone-Awful desolation-Irreparable injury to the fine arts-What the "beggars "s really meant and wanted- Their idea of religious liberty-Reaction-Tumults stopped-And an insurrection quelled-Impression made by these outrages on Philip- Duke of Alva the embodiment of his stern resolve-Execution of the Catholic Counts Egmont and Hoorne, and of Montigny-William of' Orange prudently flies-Menzel's account-Two inferences drawn- Glance at the subsequent events of the struggle-Queen Elizabeth med- (304) PRESCOTT AS AN HISTORIAN. iling-Treasures of Alva seized by her-A general gloom in consequence of the troops being quartered on the people-And of the imposition of new taxes by Alva-A calin before a storm-The struggle begins in earnest.-Privateers scour the British chainel-Alva recalled and Re- quesens appointed-Elizabeth coquetting with the insurgents-Requesens succeeded by Don John of Austria-The Spanish soldiery break through all restraint, and sack Antwerp-General indignation-The Pacification of Ghent-Approved by Don John in the Perpetual Edict-Discontent of Orange-The Spanish troops dismissed and recalled-The war recom- mences-The Netherlands become the battle ground of Europe-The Catholic provinces compelled to separate from the Protestant-Outrages on their churches and themselves committed by Casimir, the ally of Or- ange-An army of Lutheran Huns-Alexander Farnese-Brilliant in the cabinet as in the field-Renews the Perpetual Edict-And attaches the Catholic Provinces to his government - Philip issues his ban against Orange-Who replies with a declaration of independence-Ile is assassi- nated-Atrocities committed against the Catholics-Menzel and Motley- Dutch Catholics exterminated - Horrid excesses - "Better Turks than Papists"-Lutherans do not sympathize with their Dutch brethren-The Catholic religion suppressed-Diplomacy of Orange-His character-The Dutcher Sonoy-His horrible barbarities-Orange screens him from pun- nishment-Van der Marck, his predecessor in the butchery-lie slays more than Alva-Testimony of Kerroux-The subsequent history of the Dutch Republic-Final result of the struggle-Gomarists and Arminians -King Jambs I. of England intermeddling-Synod of Dort-Grotius persecuted-The patriot Barnavelt beheaded-Many Protestants banished -Recapitulation-Four conclusions reached-Religious liberty, as under- stood by the Dutch Calvinists-And as exhibited in their acts. PUBLIC attention to the history of the Netherlands in the sixteenth century has been lately awakened in this country, y)v the publication of what has proved to be the last work of our great historian Prescott, who, alas! lived not to complete his task. Many of the most graphic and interesting scenes of his " History of the Reign of Philip the Second " are laid in the Netherlands; while the very nature of the combat which raged there is such, as to appeal strongly to our feel- ings both as patriots as religionists. The work is in three volumes 8vo, published by Philips, Sampson, and Company, Boston, in 1855 and 1858. VOL. u.-26 3 0 u REFORMATION IN THE NETItERLAN1S. As we shall frequently have occasion to quote this work in the co)urse of the present chapter, it may be well for the reader to bear in mind, that Prescott, though a man of enlarged mind and generous principles, does not always rise superior to the religious prejudices almost inseparable from a New England education,--so far at least as the Catholic Chlurch is concerned. He occasionally grievously misrepresents our religious principles and practices, and in things, too, which are so very simple and obvious, and so generally known, that a much worse-informed man should have felt ashamed of making mistakes in regard to them. Thius, lhe seriously re- produces, as an unquestioned Catholic principle, the absurd and abominable maxim which has been already refuted a thousand times; "No faith to be kept with heretics! " Again, lie gravely imputes to Catholics the absurd idolatry of "adorin- images!"t Finally-for we need not multiply e- amples-lie absurdly enough confounds the years of inrdul- gence with years of remission "of the pains of purgatory."I In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Nethferlands embraced all the countries bordering on the lower Rhine, and comprehended seventeen provinces, which occupied the whole of the territory now included in the kingdoms of Holland and Belgium; besides Luxemburg. and what was formerly called French Flanders, comprising the two provinces of Artois and Hainault since annexed to France. These provinces were at that time probably in a more flourishing condition than almost any other portion of Europe. They teemed with the products of agricultural and mechanical industry. Man- Prescott, list. Philip II., ii, 49. Of the sainted Pontiff Pius V. he says, that he "doubtless held to the orthodox maxim 'of no faith to be kept with heretics.' " t Ibid., p. 55. The priests deposited the image in the chapel .... "sto re- ceive there duiring the coining week the adoration of the faithful." t Ibid., iii, 311. "The legate, after preaching a discourse, grantel alL present a full remission of the pains of purgatory for two hundred years." Protestants should reaC our catechism at least, if nothing more ! 306 THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. ufactories were everywhere in successful operation; and Bruges, Liege, and Valenciennes were then,wlhat Manchester, Birminghalll, and Leeds now are. Commerce also flourished; every sea was whitened with the sails of the adventurous Netherlanders, whose soil was too confined for their industry and enterprise. "Their fleets were to be found on every sea. In the Euixine and in the Mediterranean they were rivals of the Venetians and the Genoese, and they contended with the English, and even with the Spaniards, for superiority on 'the narrow seas' and the great ocean." Antwerp was then the great commercial and banking cap- ital of Europe. Merchants from all nations, even from Turkey, flocked thither for purposes of commerce. The city had one hundred thousand inhabitants, while London had only one hundred and fifty thousand at the same time. " Antwerp, in short, became the banking-house of Europe; and capitalists, the Rothschilds of their day, whose dealings were with sov- ereign princes, fixed their abode in Antwerp, which was to the rest of Europe in the sixteenth century what London is in the nineteenth,-the great heart of commercial circula- tion."t In manufactures particularly, the Flemings long preceded the English; for in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the great woollen factories were located at Bruges and other Flemish towns, and the Flemings, who emigrated at that early period to England, laid the foundations of the present great English manufactories.t This flourishing condition of commerce and manufactures necessarily brought into the Netherlands strangers from Ger- many and other adjoining countries, into which the doctrines of the " new gospel" had already penetrated. The inimi- grants brought with them their newly conceived religious notions; and the infection was still further spread in these provinces through the custom which had prevailed, of send- ing the Flemish youth to the colleges of Germany and t Ibid., p. 371. t Ibid., Is 369. 307 Prescot4 Philip 11., i, 369-370. 308 REFORMATION 'IN THE NETHERLANDS. Geneva for the purpose of receiving a higher education. The result was that the new doctrines were introduced exten- sively into the country, at an early period of the sixteenth century. The emperor Charles V., himself a native of the Nether- lands, then held the sovereignty. He was specially attached to his countrymen, who warmly reciprocated the feeling. He rightly viewed the Netherlands as the most choice Portion of his vast domains, and lie spared no pains to develop the industry, and to stimulate the commerce of his dear Flem- ings. At this period of his career, particularly, lie was a very worldly-minded prince, and he was generally prompted more by political than by religious motives. It was chiefly in the light of sound political policy, that lie viewed the rise of the new doctrines among this people with distrust and un- eaisiness; and that lie accordingly determined to adopt at once measures of severity, to check or prevent the further spread of the new opinions, which had already obtained a strong foothold in French Flanders, as well as in the more northern provinces. Valenciennes, the capital of Hainault, was a favorite re- sort of the French Huguenots, whenever they desired to escape the difficulties in which their habitual turbulence involved them in their own country. "Thus the seeds of the Reformation, whether in the Lutheran or in the Calvinistic form, were scattered wide over the land, and took root in a congenial soil. The phlegmatic temperament of the northern provinces, particularly, disposed them to receive a religion which addressed itself so exclusively to. the reason; while they were less open to the influences of Catholicism, which, with its gorgeous accessories, appealing to the passions (!), is better suited to the lively sensibilities and kindling imagina- tions of the South." Clharles V., dreading " this innovation no less in a temporal Prescott, Philipp II., ; 374. HIS POLICY OF REPRESSION. than in a religious point of view," resolved to adopt a severe policy of repression. From March, 1520, to September, 1550, he issued edict after edict against the professors and preachers of the new gospel, until the whole number of such edicts reached eleven. The frequent renewal of the edicts proved how very feebly they were executed, or rather that they were scarcely executed at all; as Prescott himself freely ad- mits.t The odious name of inqutisiton was given by the indignant Flemings, both Protestant and Catholic, to the tribunal established by the emperor for the checking of the growing heresy; though Prescott himself proves that it was totally different from the odious Spanish Inquisition, and that the severities to which it gave rise were very greatly ex- aggerated.: The measures adopted were in themselves, in- deed, arbitrary enough; but not being enforced, they proved entirely ineffectual towards arresting the progress of the new opinions. During the last year of his reign, Charles V. con- fessed with regret "the total failure of his endeavors to stay the progress of heresy in the Netherlands." His edicts were intended more to frighten, than really to coerce by actual punishment the propagators of the new gospel. At any rate, in spite of them, the Netherlands continued to flourish under the administration of Charles. "His edicts in the name of religion were, indeed, written in blood. But Prescott, Ibid., i, p. 375; yet p. 381, he says that these edicts were re- newed nine times. t Ibid., p. 381. t Ibid., p. 379-380. Some violent partisan historians have asserted, that no less than fifty thousand persons perished in the Netherlands for conscience' sake.under the reign of Charles V.! " This monstrous statement," says our historian, "has beer repeated by one historian after another, with apparently as little distrust es examination. It affords one among many examples of the facility with w hich men adopt the most startling results, when conveyed in the form of numerical estirates. 'There is something which strikes thle imagination ,i a numerical estimate, which settles a question so suwanatily. in a form so precise and so portable. Yet whoever has had occasion to make researches into the past-that land of uncertainty-will agree that there is nothling less entitled to conddence." Ibid., p. 383. 51 309 310 REFORMATION IN THE NE'IERLANDS. the frequency of their repetition shows, as already remarked, the imperfect manner in which they were executedi. This was still further proved by the prosperous condition of the people, the flourishing aspect of the various branches of in- duistry, and the great enterprises to facilitate commercial in- tercourse and foster the activity of the country. , At the close of Charles' reign, or rather at the commencement of his Fuc- cessor's, in 1560, was completed the great canal extending from Antwerp to Brussels, the construction of which had con- sumed thirty years, and one million eight hundred thousand florins.' On thee accession of Philip II., the Reformation had already made considerable progress in the Netherlands, while in more than a third of Europe it had boasted of having achieved triumphs which seemed to augur the coming downfall of the old Church. Prescott thus graphically describes the reli- gious attitude of Europe at this period: "The middle of the sixteenth century presented one of those crises, which have occurred at long intervals in the history of Europe, when the course of events has had a permaner.t influence on the destiny of nations. Scarcely forty years had elapsed since Luther had thrown down the gauntlet to the Vatican, by publicly burning the Papal bull at Wittenberg. Since that time his doctrines had been received in Denmark and Sweden. In England, after a vacillation for three reigns, Protestantism, in the peculiar form which it still wears, was become the established religion of the state. The fiery crosst had gone over the hills and valleys of Scotland, and thousands and tens of thousands had gathered to hear the word of life from the lips of Knox. The doctrines of Luther were spread over the northern parts of Germany, and freedom of worship was finally guarantied there by the treaty of Passau. The Low Countries were the 'debatable land,' on which the various sects of reformers, the Lutheran, the Calvinist, the English Protestant, contended for mastery with the established Church. Calvinism was embraced by some of the cantons of Switzerland, and at Geneva its apostle had fixed his head- quarters. His doctrines were widely circulated through France, till the Prescott, Philip II., i, p. 474-5. t As we have already seen, it was surely "fiery" enough, though it was scarcely the "cross," unless, perhaps, in the sense of the corresponding ad- jectixe! THE REFORMATION AND IBFRTY. divided nation was prepared to plunge into that worst of all wars, in which the hand of brother is raised against brother. The cry of reform had passed even over the Alps, and was heard under the walls of the Vatican. It had crossed the Pyrenees. The king of Navarre declared himself a Protestant and the spirit of the Reformation had insinuated itself secretly into Spain, and had taken hold, as we have seen, of the middle and southerrn provinces of the kingdom." Wheresoever the Reformation had penetrated, and had up- lifted its "fiery cross," popular tumults and riots, resulting often in protracted civil wars, had everywhere marked its progress, and blood shed by brother armed against brother, in fratricidal strife, had everywhere stained the soil of Europe. Its career might have been traced by the dismantled or burning churches, the ruined monasteries, and the smoking libraries, which it usually left behind it,-the dismal trophies of its victory over the old religion. It had unsettled society, and it threatened the change or destruction of existing dynasties. No government any longer rested on a secure foundation; what was strong to-day, might be tottering to its fall on to- morrow. And the new political order which was to rise on the ruins of the old, how flattering soever to popular liberty were its promises, did not really result, at least in the vast majority of cases, in any greater extension of popular freedom. The political tendency was rather, on the contrary, in the opposite direction. To strengthen their pai ty, the reformers almost everywhere threw themselves, body and soul. into the arms, or rather under the feet of the new kings and princes who had acquired riches by the spoliation of the old Church, and had obtained increased political consequence and power by the protection of the new gospelers. This protection generally consisted in that utter enslavement of religion, which so often results from the union of church and state, and which is almost always a necessary result whenever the spiritual as well as the temporal power is lodged in the same Prescott, Ibid., i, p. 469, 470. 311 REFORMATION IN THE NETHIERLANDS. han(ls. This was invariably the case wherever the Refor mation triumphed in Europe ! t As the learned Guizot- himn elf a son of the Huguenots and a Calvinist, so far as he has ally religions opinions-tersely observes: "The emanci- pationl of the human mind (through the Reformation!) and aI)si ltte monarchy triumphed at the same moment over Eu.urope in general."l 'lihere can be but little doubt, for instance, that the assump- tion of absolute power by Philip II. himself; was owing to the progcress of the Reformation, and the apprehensions which its turbulence everywhere generated in the public mind. The Spanish cortes, so remarkable for their independent spirit and their resistance to tyranny in the gooa old Catholic times, would scarcely have so readily laid down their beloved and time-honored privileges-or Fueros-at the foot of his throne, had they not been led to believe that the arm of the executive should be strengthened, on account of the unsettled condition of Europe in the sixteenth century. They feared that unless strong measures of prevention against the entrance of the new doctrines were adopted in Spain, it would become, like We know of but one exception to this remark; and this is in the case of the mild sway which the Roman Pontiffs have held over their small territory for more than a thousand years. The chief fault of the papal government is, that it is generally too lenient and paternal. This is so well understood, that a ihere handfiil of fiery revolutionists, stimulated by foreign influence, and encouraged by the hope of impunity or pardon, can there so easily succeed in stirring up civil commotions; as the events of the last ten years strikingly prove. The lenity of the Pontiff is abused by the wicked. t It was the case in England, Ireland, Germany, as we think we have already sufficiently shown, and it was so afterwards in the Netherlands them- selves, as we shall see. Nor can Switzerland and Scotland, where the new gospelers boasted most of their freedom, be pleaded as exceptions to the general rule. As we have already proved, the freedom which the Swiss and Scottish Protestants claimed, was that to persecute and crush out all religious opponents by the aid of the secular arm, to which they were them- selves wholly subservient. t Lectures on Civilization, etc., lect. xiii, p. 300, American edition, in one volume 12mo. 312 CHARACTsER OF PHILIP II. many other European countries, a prey to internal dissensions; in the midst of which the monarchy, towards which they cherished feelings of filial reverence and veneration, might be weakened, if not destroyed. Accordingly, we find that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while other European governments declined in power, because distracted and divided by civil wars originating in religious dissensions, Spain, united under one strong government and professing but one religion, became the greatest power in the civilized world. It can scarcely be thought that so sagacious a prince as Philip II. was not fully aware of this obvious political tend- ency of the Reformation; and it could hardly be expected that a sovereign so stern and despotic in his disposition would look with unconcern upon the inroads which the new gospelers were making into his wide-spread dominions. He was the most powerful monarch of his time, and, unlike his fathers he was a Spaniard, with all the hereditary feelings of his race, both religious and political, strong in his bosom. " The Romish (!) faith may be said to have entered into the being of the Spaniard. It was not merely cherished as a form of religion, but as a prin- ciple of honor. It was part of the national history. For eight centuries the Spaniard had been fighting at home the battles of the Church. Nearly every inch of soil in his own country was won by arms from the infideL His wars, as I have often had occasion to remark, were all wars of religion. He carried the same spirit across the waters. There he was still fighting the infideL His life was one long crusade. How could this champion of the Church (Philip II.) desert her in her utmost need " Regardless of the lesson taught him by the utter failure of his father to repress by strong measures the growth of the new doctrines in the Netherlands, Philip II. decided at once to become the determined and uncompromising opponent of the Reformation, and even to stake his crown on the result. He came to this resolution, as much at least from political as from religious motives; the two sets of motives seeim, in fact, Presoott, Philip II., i, 472. 313 VIOL. ii.-27 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. to have been blended into one in his mind. Accoidingly, he revived the edicts of his father fur the suppression and pun. ishment of heresy, and for the re-establishment of the inqui- sition; and lhe ordered that henceforth those laws, which had been so long inoperative, should be strictly executed. When his Flemish subjects subsequently rose up in arms in conse- quence of this severity, he, while consenting that the inquisi- tion should be abolished in the Netherlands, and that their other chief grievances should be redressed, disclosed his stern sentiments as follows-according to our historian: " le de- precated force, as that would involve the ruin of the country. Still, (if after his concessions they would not submit) he would march in person, without regard to his own peril, and employ force, though it should cost the ruin of the provinces, but he would bring his vassals to submission. For he would sooner lose a hundred lives, and every rood of empire, than reign a lord over heretics. Again, when the emperor Maximilian ventured to expostu- late with him on the horrid cruelties perpetrated in the Nether'lands by his lieutenant, the stern duke of Alva, he furnished the probable key to his entire policy in the reply he made to his imperial relative: " What I have done has been for the repose of the provinces, and for the defense of the Catholic faith. If I had respected justice less, I should have dispatched the whole business in a single day. No one acquainted with the state of affairs will find reason to censure Prescott tells us that he revived the Edicts as nearly as possible in the language of his father, and that the inquisition which he re-established was that tribunal which Charles had established, not the dreaded Spanish Inqui- sition, the terrible phantom of which so long haunted the minds and imagi- nations ofthe Netherlanders: "Notwithstanding the name of "inquisitors," the new establishment bore faint resemblance to the dread tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition with which it has been often confounded." Vol. i, p. 377. + Prescott, Philip H., vol. ii, p. 49. Prescott labors to prove, that Philip was not sincere in making these concessions, but only granted them as a temporary expedient. 314 HIS WAR WITH THE POPE. ny severity. Nor would I do otherwise than I have done, though I should risk the sovereignty of the Netherlands-no, though the world should fall in ruins around me!" We certainly have no mission to defend the stern policy of Philip II., much less the barbarous atrocities of Alva. But it -would not be fair or just, to hold the Church responsible for the lharsh despotism or cruel measures of Catholic sover eigns, even though these should set themselves up as hei chosen champions, and should proffer their aid for the extir- pation of heresy. Philip II., though a strong Catholic, and though hle occasionally consulted with the Pontiffs, neverthe- less seems to have followed the advice of the latter, only when it tallied with his own humor, or forwarded his own interests. His political ambition often carried it over his religious ortlho- doxy. He was an obedient child of the Church, only, or chiefly, when obedience comported with his inclinations, or seemed likely to promote his stern and despotic policy. His very first war was declared and waged with fierceness against the Pope.t In this, he seems to have inherited the spirit of Prescott, Philip II., vol. ii, p. 235.-There was a touch of the sublime in this stern attitude. Prescott gives us, as usual, the original Spanish of the dispatch, which he remarks is almost a literal version from Horace's "justum et tenacem :"- " Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae." t See a full account of it in Prescott's first volume. He thinks that the Pontiff was the aggressor, and that the war was forced on Philip. The facts and authorities, however, which he alleges, scarcely prove this. Speak- ing of Philip, he says: "From his position, Philip stood at the head of the Roman Catholic princes. He was in temporal matters what the Pope was in spiritual. In the existing state of Christendom, he had the same interest as the Pope in putting down that spirit of religious reform which had begun to show itself; in public or in private, in every corner of Europe. lie was the natural ally of the Pope. He understood this well, and would have acted on it. Yet, strange to say, his very first war, after his aceession, was unth the Pope himself. It was a war notof Philip's seeking."-Vol. i, p. 146. Now, it appears from the facts, even as alleged by Prescott himself, that Pope Paul IV.-formerly Carada, not a Venitian, as Mackintosh mistakes 315 316 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. his fathers who had not only gone to war with the Pope, but had sent a b.)dy of fierce Lutherans under the command of the reckless Constable De Bourbon, to storm Rome, to des- poil and sack it worse than it had ever been sacked by Goth or Vandal, and to scatter its religious and classic glories to the winids. Nay more, lie had seized on the venerable person of the Pontiff himself, and held him a close prisoner, until lie was compelled by political nm)tives to release him Still less is the Church fairly responsible for the alleged horrors of the Spanish Inquisition under Philip 11. in Spain, (in his History of England). but a Neapolitan-really wished to have the Spaniards driven from Naples, and entered into an alliance with France for this purpose; but that Alva, Philip's lieutenant in Naples, actually began hostilities.-Ibid., p. 166. The desire of the Pontiff to have the Spaniards driven out of Italy, where they clearly bad little or rather no right to hold sway, was natural enough. Foreigners to the Italian soil, whether Spaniards, French, or Austrians, have always been the bane of Italy; and the Pontiffs, as the oldest and most influential of the Italian princes, were naturally op- posed to all this foreign domination; and they had struggled against it for centuries. Paul IV., though a very austere and holy man, as Prescott does not deny, was still an Italian prince, of the fiery Neapolitan temperament- somewhat Vesurian; and it is barely possible, that he may have spoken words to indicate a strong wish-not " sworn "s as Prescott says-" to drive the barbarian., from Italy." Alva's manifesto, before beginning the war, was a piece of dignified bravado and sham; and his procedure after capturing the Papal towns-putting up a scutcheon " with a placard announcing that he held it only for the college (of cardinals), until the election of a new Pon- tiff"-was evidently a political manceuver for "exciting feelings of distrust be- tween the Pope and the cardinaLs."-(See Ibid., p. 168.) Philip had previously threatened to have a general council convened, in order to have the Pontiff deposed, and a new one, more pliant to his stern policy, elected. All honor, say we, as Americans, to the aged, yet "fiery," but certainly patriotic Caraffa, (he was overeighty), for seeking to drive the "barbarians" outof Italy; whether these were Spaniards, French, or Germans! All honor to him, especially, for daring openly to brave the mighty Philip II., the most powerful sover- eign of Europe. The warfare, as it was conducted, was almost all on one side. Alva's veterans overran the Papal territory with little or very slight opposition. It was the war of a giant with a feeble old man, whose soul was, however, much greater than that of his adversary. CASE OF CARANZA. or for the stern purpose which was attributed to him, of in. troducing this dread tribunal into the Nether]ands. How little the imperious monarch really cared for the opposition of the Pope, or even for that of the whole Catholic Church, was rendered quite apparent to the world in the meni'rable case of Caranza, archbishop of Toledo and primate of Spain. On the 22d of August, 1559, this venerable man was dragged from his bed, at the hour of midnight, by the emissaries of the Inquisition, who conducted him to the prisons of the ter- rible tribunal at Valladolid. There he was kept in close con- finement for two years, under the suspicion of heresy. At first, he was afraid to appeal to the Pope, with whom Philip had been so lately at war; and this apprehension continued even after lhe had learned the news of the death of Paul IV., Philip's late antagonist.t So little safety was there in Spain, at this particular epoch, even for the highest dignitaries of the Church, and even for men who, like Caranza, bad before stood highest in the royal confidence, if the mere imputa- tion of heresy happened to be fastened on them by the officials of the Inquisition ! Says Prescott: " At length the Council of Trent (then in session) sharing in the indigna- tion of the rest of Christendom, called on Philip to interfere in his behalf and to remove the cause to another tribunaL But the king gave little heed to the remonstrance, which the inquisitors treated as a presumptuous inter- ference (!) with their authority."t Philip, during the early part of his reign-in 1561-after having fiat sought and obtained the sanction of the Pontiff, carried out his measure-"in itself a good one, and demanded by the situation of the country "-of ad- ding thirteen new bishoprics to the four previously existing in the Nether- lands. The change was, however, regarded with suspicion, "as part of a great scheme for introducing the Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands." "However erroneous these conclusions," Prescott continues, "there is little reason to doubt they were encouraged by those who knew their fallacy."- Vol. i, p. 4i6-7.-There were politicians, it would seem, in those days very similar to our own. t This Pontiff died on the 18th of August, 1559, four days before the arrest of Caranza. t Prescott, Philip II., vol. i, p. 441. 317 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLAND& And it was only after a rigid confinement of seven years, and after Pope St. IPius V.-himself a Dominican like Ca- ranza-had "menaced both king and inquisitor with excom- munication," that the prisoner was at length released and sent under a guard to Rome! Though an obedient son of the Church, when it suited his purpose, Philip made no scruple of warring with the Pope, even in matters which seemed clearly to belong to the sphere of the papal prerogative. In Spain, as well as in his Italian dominions,t he claimed and exercised the right of nominating to the vacant bishoprics and benefices in spite of the papal protest. He evidently wished to keep the bishops and clergy wholly subservient to himself; and thus, without encroaching precisely on the domain of faith or denying the Primiacy of the Holy See, to rule supreme both in Church and State. "There was no more effectual way to secure hiis favor, than to show a steady resistance to the usurpations(!) of Rome. It was owing, in part at least, to the refusal of Quiroga, the bishop of Cuenqa, to publish a papal bull without the royal assent, that he was raised to the highest dignity in the kingdom, as archbishop of Toledo. Philip chose to have a suitable acknowledgment from the person on whom he bestowed a favor; and once when an ecclesiastic, whom he had made a bishop, went to take possession of his see without first expressing his gratitude, the king sent for him back, to remind him of his duty. Such an acknowledgment was in the nature of an homage rendered to his master on his preferment. Thus gratitude for the past and hopes for the future were the strong ties which bound every prelate to his sovereign. In a difference with the Roman See, the Castilian churchman was sure to be found on the side of his sovereign, rather than on that of the Pontiff. In his own troubles, in like manner, it was to the king, and not to the Pope, that he was to turn for relief. The king, on the other hand, when pressed by those embarrassments with which Philip yielded with great reluctance; while the grand inquisitor Val- dez, "loth to lose his prey, would have defied the power of Rome, as he ha 1 done that of the Council of Trent."-Prescott, Philip II., vol. i, p. 442. t He held the duchy of Milan in the north, as well as the kingdom of Naples and Sicily in the south. His claim to nominate to vacant benefices in his Italian possessions was strongly but vainly resisted by Pope St. Pius V., who seems to have yielded only for fear of greater evils.-Ibid., voL iii, page 445. 318 CHU: CH NOT RESPONSIBLE. 319 he was too often surrounded, looked for aid to the clergy, who for the most part rendered it cheerfully and in liberal measure. Nowhere were the clergy so heavily burdened as in Spain. It was computed that at least one- third of their revenues was given to the king.-Thus completely were the different orders, both spiritual and temporal, throughout the monarchy, under the control of the sovereign." This is another remarkable instance of a great truth, which strikes us in all modern history; that royal encroachnment on the liberty of the Church is usually accompanied With or fol- lowed by the weakening, if not the destruction of political freedom, which generally marches hand in hand with its twin-sister, religious liberty. The most despotic monarchs of Europe were those precisely, who resisted most persistently and successfully the authority of the Popes and of the Church. Philip II. was a man of far more steady morals and of much better principles than Henry VIII., but if he was not so ruthless a tyrant as his English brother, it was mainly be- cause he did not so fully enslave the Church of God, and because he still retained, along with the belief in the Primacy of the Pope, some wholesome apprehension of the dread thunders of the Vatican.t And yet this is the man, who is constantly held up to our view by a certain class of modern popular historians, as the fittest representative of the Catholic principle, and as the Church's chosen champion in the sixteenth century! And the Church which he enslaved, and the Popes with whom he Prescott, Philip II., vol. iii, pp. 446-7. In thus usurping the right to control the nominations to Church dignities, Philip did but follow the example set him by his father, Charles V., of whom Prescott writes: " Thus in time the sovereign claimed the right of nominating all the higher clergy."'- Ibid., vol. i, page 365. t We do not wish to be understood, as here instituting a comparison between these two sovereigns in any thing else except in their absolutism. Both as a man and a sovereign, and particularly in his moral character, Philip was a saint when compared with the English monster;-vicwing the former even in the unfavorable light in which our great American historian presents him. 320 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. warred, are still to be held responsible for his despotic, if not cruel administration! This is historic justice, after the modern Protestant type! We confess that we have never entertained any partiality for the political character of Philip II. We loathe despotism wherever we find it, whether the despot be Catholic or Prot- estant. And in the long contest between the Netherlands and the Spanish monarch, our sympathies have always been enlisted in favor of the former. Philip had succeeded in destroying all political liberty in Spain; he signally failed in the attempt to destroy it in the Netherlands. The sturdy and prosperous burghers, who inhabited the wealthy provinces composing this portion of his dominions, could illy brook the violation of those ancient liberties, which had come down to them unimpaired from the good old Catholic middle tages; a period when people were fortunately not yet sufficiently enlightened, to relish the more modern luxury of absolute monarchies upheld by vast standing armies! Each province of the Netherlands had its own special franchises and its own local deliberative assemblies; while With all his despotism, Philip had some great and noble qualities. He was grand in his views, sober in victory, and imperturbable in misfor- tune. When intelligence of the miscarriage and almost total loss of the Invincible Armada reached him, he changed not a muscle nor twitched a nerve, but calmly thanked God that he was able with his resources to equip another! He seems to have generally acted, with stern tenacity, on what he believed to be principle. As the consort of Mary of England, he appears to have complied faithfully with the stipulations of the treaty drawn up by Gardiner for securing English independence. Throughout his life, in fact, he seems to have been habitually governed by conscience. As monarchs went, in his days, he was probably more than ordinarily moral and religious in his conduct and deportment. The most poignant grief of his heart was no doubt the imbecility or raging insanity of his son and presumptive heir, Don Carlos; but there is no satisfactory evidence that he had any, at least direct agency in the early death of Carlos. He was naturally reserved and stern, but it does not appear that he was wantonly cruel. His enemies generally exaggerated or fabricated his faults, and concealed his virtues; thus deepening the shades and striking out the lights of his portrait. THE STRUGGLE BEGINS. the whole confederation was controlled by a general congress, called that of the States Geiieral. Centralization of power, with merely nominal and down-trodden parliaments, were hitherto happily almost unknown to them. Throughout the reion of their beloved Charles V., they had struggled steadily for, and had substantially maintained their original rights. The contest waxed fiercer still under his successor. Philip II.; until it finally broke out into actual rebellion, and resulted, after many vicissitudes, in a part of the provinces throwing off entirely the Spanish yoke, and securing their independence from all foreign control. And but for the truculent fanaticism of the Protestant party, the whole of the country would have become independentof Spain. This we shlall show in the sequel. During the earlier period of this memorable struggle the Catholics took as active a part against Philip, as did the Protestants. Thie Catholic nobles stood shoulder to shoulder in the contest with those who were suspected to be favorable to the new opinions, or were open advocates of them; and the former heartily joined with the latter in protesting against the execution of the renewed edicts against the new religion- ists, as well as against the re-establishment of the Flemish inquisition. In the general objects of the successive popular movements, designated respectively as the Compromise and the Confederacy, they heartily sympathized with their non- Catholic brethren; though they did not go to the extremes into which Brederode and the more radical leaders of the movement were precipitated, nor did they choose to join in the maddening popular shout of this faction-" VivENT LEB GuEux!" "Long live the beggars!" Prescott gives us an interesting account of the origin of this celebrated party-cry (vol. ii, p. 12, seqq.). It arose from the circumstance, that when Margaret of Parma, the regent of the Nether- lands, expressed her apprehensions at the meeting of the Confederates, Bar- laimont, her prime minister, re-assured her, and declared that no danger was to be apprehended, as "they were nothing but beggars.." This remark was overheard, and hence what was meant as a reproach was taken up by the leaders as a stirring motto for rallying the multitude. 321 REFORMATION IN THE NEThERLANDS. If their patriotic feelings in favor of what they considered the national cause were subsequently greatly cooled down, it was owing to the horrible excesses in which the radical section of the Protestant party indulged; even after the excellent and able regent-Margaret of Parma-had already favorably received the petition for redress of grievances which the Confederates had presented, and after she had promised to use her influence with her royal brother to have all their reasonable demands granted. Whether there was hope or not, that Philip would finally acquiesce in the earnestly ex- pressed wishes of the regent, they should surely have had a little patience and awaited his decision. But they did not choose to wait. They temporarily injured their own cause by precipitating matters, and by a course of disgraceful vio- lence, the particulars of which we shall be pardoned for borrowing, at some length, from our American historian, who furnishes the details with his usual graphic elegance.t It will be seen that he tells the whole story of the rise and early progress of the Reformation in the Netherlands, with its various agencies, its violence, and its popular tumults:- "While Philip was thus tardily coming to concessions, which even thorn were not sincere,: an important crisis had arrived in the affairs of the Neth- erlands. In the earlier stages of the troubles, all orders, the nobles, the com- mons, even the regent, had united in the desire to obtain the removal of certain abuses, especially the inquisition and edicts. But this movement, in which the Catholic joined with the Protestant, had far less reference to the interests of religion than to the personal rights of the individual. Under the protection thus afforded, however, the Reformation struck deep root in the soil. It flourished still more under the favor shown to it by the confed- erates, who, as we have seen, did not scruple to guaranty security of religious worship to some of the sectaries who demanded it. " But the element which contributed most to the success of the new re- ligion was the public preachings. These in the Netherlands were what the Jacobin clubs were in France, or the secret societies in Germany and Italy,- By a curious mistake, Alzog in his Church History calls Margaret the sister of Charles V. (p. 585, sup. cit.) She was his natural daughter by a noble Flemish mother, and was therefore the half-sister of Philip II. t Prescott, Philip II., vol. ii p. 52, seqq. t So he thinks 322 THE ICONOCLASTS. 323 an obvious means for bringing together such as were pledged to a common hostility to existing institutions, and thus affording them an opportunity for consulting on their grievances, and for concerting the best means of redress. The direct object of these meetings, it is true, was to listen to the teachings of the minister. But that functionary, far from confining himself to spiritual exercises, usually wandered to more exciting themes, as the corruptions of the Church and the condition of the land. He rarely failed to descant on the forlorn circumstances of himself and his flock, condemned thus stealthily to herd together like a band of outlaws, with ropes, as it were, about their necks, and to seek out some solitary spot in which to glorify the Lord, while their enemies, in all the pride of a dominant religion, could offer up their devotions openly and without fear, in magnificent temples. " The preacher inveighed bitterly against the richly beneficed clergy of the rival Church, whose lives of pampered ease too often furnished an indifferent commentary on the doctrines they inculcated. His wrath was kindled by the pompous ceremonial of the Church of Rome, so dazzling and attractive to its votaries, but which the reformer sourly contrasted with the naked sim- plicity of the Protestant services. Of all abominations, however, the greatest in his eyes was the worship (!) of images, which he compared to the idolatry that in ancient times had so often brought down the vengeance of Jehovah on the nations of Palestine; and he called on his hearers, not merely to re- move idolatry from their hearts, but the idols from their sight. It was not wonderful that, thus stimulated by their spiritual leaders, the people should be prepared for scenes similar to those enacted by the reformers in France and Scotland; or that Margaret, aware of the popular feeling, should have predicted such an outbreak. At length it came, and on a scale and with a degree of violence not surpassed either by the Huguenots or the disciples of Knox. "On the fourteenth of August, the day before the festival of the Assump- tion of the Virgin, a mob some three hundred in number, armed with clubs, axes, and other implements of destruction, broke into the churches around St. Omer, in the province of Flanders, overturned the images, defaced the ornaments, and in a short time demolished whatever had any value or beauty in the buildings. Growing bolder from the impunity which attended their movements, they next proceeded to Ypres, and had the audacity to break into the cathedral, and deal with it in the same ruthless manner. Strengthened by the accession of other miscreants from the various towns, they proceeded along the banks of the Lys, and fell upon the churches of Menin, Comines, and other places on its borders. The excitement now spread over the country. Everywhere the populace was in arms. Churches, chapels, and convents were involved in indiscriminate ruin. The storm, after sweeping over Flanders, and desolating the flourishing cities of Valenciennes 324 REFORMATION IN THE NEThIIl RLANDS. and Tournay, descended on Brabant. Antwerp, the great commercial capi- tal of the country, was its first mark. " The usual population of the town happened to be swelled at this time by the influx of strangers from the neighboring country, who had conme up to celebrate the great festival of the Assumption of the Virgin. Fortunately, the Prince of Orange was in the place, and by his presence prevented any molestation to the procession, except what arose from the occasional groans and hisses of the more zealous spectators among the Protestants. The priest.s, however, on their return, had the discretion to deposit the iiunage in the chapel, instead of the conspicuous station usually assigned to it in the cathedral, to receive there during the coming week the adoration (!) of the faithful. " On the following day, unluckily, the prince was recalled to Brussels. In the evening some boys, who had found their way into the church, called out to the Virgin, demanding 'why little Mary had gone so early to her nest, and whether she were afraid to show her face in public' (!!). This was fol- lowed by one of the party mounting into the pulpit, and there mimicking the tones and gestures of the Catholic preacher. An honest waterman who was present, a zealous son of the Church, scandalized by this insult to his religion, sprang into the pulpit, and endeavored to dislodge the usurper. The lad resisted. His comrades came to his rescue: and a struggle ensued, which ended in both parties being expelled from the building by the officers. This scandalous proceeding, it may be thought, should have put the magis- trates of the city on their guard, and warned them to take some measures of defense for the cathedral. But the admonition was not heeded. "On the following day, a considerable number of the reformed party entered the building, and were allowed to continue there after vespers, when the rest of the congregation had withdrawn. Left in possession, their first act was to break forth into one of the Psalms of David. The sound of their own voices seemed to rouse them to fury. Before the chant had died away, they rushed forward, as by a common impulse, broke open the doors of the chapel, and dragged forth the image of the Virgin. Some called on her to cry '1ivent lee Gaeux!' while others tore off her embroidered robes, and rolled the dumb idol in the dust, amidst the shouts of the spectators. "I This was the signal for havoc. The rioters dispersed in all directions on the work of destruction. Nothing escaped their rage. High above the great altar was an image of the Saviour, curiously carved in wood, and placed between the effigies of the two thieves crucified with him. The mob contrived to get a rope round the neck of the statue of Christ, and dragged it to the ground. They then fell upon it with hatchets and hammers, and it was soon broken into a hundred fragments. The two thieves, it was remarked, were spared, as if to preside over the work of rapine AWFUL DESOLATION. 325 below!"-(An admirable satire, this, on the destructive zeal of these new gospelers !) "Their fury now turned against the other statues, which were quickly overthrown froin their pedestals. The paintings that lined the walls of the cathedral were cut into shreds. Many of these were the choicest specimens of Flemish art, even then, in its dawn, giving promise of the glorious day, which was to shed a luster over the land. "But the pride of the cathedral, and of Antwerp, was the great organ, renowned throughout the Netherlands, not more for its dimensions than its perfect workmanship. With their ladders the rioters scaled the lofty fabric, and with their implements soon converted it, like all else they laid their hands on, into a heap of rubbish. "The ruin was now universal. Nothing beautiful, nothing holy, was spared. The altars-and there were no less than seventy in the vast edi- fice-were overthrown one after another; their richly-embroidered coverings rudely rent away; their gold and silver vessels appropriated by the plunder- ers. The sacramental bread was trodden under foot; the wine was quaffed by the miscreants, in golden chalices, to the health of one another, or or the Gueux; and the holy oil was profanely used to anoint their shoes and san- dals. The sculptured tracery on the walls, the costly offerings that enriched the shrines, the screens of gilded bronze, the delicately carved wood-work of the pulpit, the marble and alabaster ornaments, all went down under the fierce blows of the Iconoclasts. The pavement was strewed with the ruined splendors of a church, which in size and magnificence was perhaps second only to St. Peter's among the churches of Christendom. "As the light of day faded, the assailants supplied its place with such light as they could obtain from the candles which they snatched from the altars. It was midnight before the work of destruction was completed. Thus toiling in darkness, feebly dispelled by tapers, the rays of which could scarcely penetrate the vaulted distances of the cathedral, it is a curious circumstance-if true-that no one was injured by the heavy masses of tim- ber, stone, and metal that were everywhere falling around them. The whole number engaged in this work is said not to have exceeded a hundred men, women, and boys-women of the lowest description, dressed in men's attire. "When their task was completed, they sallied forth in a body lirm the doors of the cathedral, some singing the Psalms of David, others roaring out the fanatical war-cry of 'VIVENT LES GUEUX!' Flushed with success and joined on the way by stragglers like themselves. they burst open the doors of one church after another; and by the time morning broke, the principal temples iA the city had been dealt with in the same ruthless man- ner as the cathedral "No attempt all this time was made to stop these proceedings, on the 52 326 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. part of magistrates or citizens. As they beheld from their windows the bodies of armed men hurrying to and fro by the gleam of their torches, and listened to the sounds of violence in the distance, they seem to have been struck with a panic. The Catholics remained within doors, fearing a general rising of the Protestants. The Protestants feared to move abroad, lest they should be confounded with the rioters. Some imagined their own turn might come next, and appeared in arms at the entrance of their houses, prepared to defend them against the enemy. " When gorged with the plunder of the city, the.insurgents poured out at the gates, and fell with the same violence on the churches, convents, and other religious edifices in the suburbs. For three days these dismal scenes continued, without resistance on the part of the inhabitants. Amidst the ruin in the cathedral, the mob had alone spared the royal arms and the escutcheons of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, emblazoned on the walls. Calling this to mind, they now returned into the city to complete the work. But some of the knights, who were at Antwerp, collected a handful of their followers, and, with a few of the citizens, forced their way into the cathe- dral, arrested ten or twelve of the rioters, and easily dispersed the remainder; while a gallows erected on an eminence admonished the offenders of the fate that awaited them. The facility with which the disorders were repressed by a few resolute men naturally suggests the inference, that many of the citizens had too much sympathy with the authors of the outrages to care to check them, still less to bring the culprits to punishment. An orthodox chronicler of the time vents his indignation against a people who were so much more ready to stand by their hearths than by their altars. "The fate of Antwerp had its effect on the country. The flames of fianaticism, burning fiercer than ever, quickly spread over the northern, as they had done over the western provinces. In Holland, Utrecht, Friesland, -everywhere, in short, with a few exceptions on the southern borders,- mobs rose against the churches. In some places, as Rotterdam, Dort, Haar- lem, the magistrates were wary enough to avert the storm by delivering up the images, or at least by removing them from the buildings. It was rare that any attempt was made at resistance. Yet on one or two occasions this so far succeeded that a handful of troops sufficed to rout the Iconoclasts. At Auchyn, four hundred of the rabble were left dead on the field. But the soldiers had no relish for their duty, and on other occasions, when called on to perform it, refused to bear arms against their countrymen. The leaven of heresy was too widely spread among the people. "Thus the work of plunder and devastation went on vigorously through- out the land. Cathedral and chapel, monastery and nunnery, religious houses of every description, even hospitals, were delivered up to the tender mercies of the reformers. The monks fled, leaving behind them treasures FOUR HUNDRED CHURCHES SACKED. 327 of manuscripts and well-stored cellars, which latter the inv: lers soon emptied of their contents, while they consigned the former to the flames. The terrified nuns, escaping half naked, at dead of night, from their Con- vents, were too happy to find a retreat among their friends and kinsmen in the city. Neither monk nor nun ventured to go abroad in the conventual garb. Priests might sometimes be seen hurrying away with some relic or sacred treasure under their robes, which they were eager to save from the spoilers. In the general sack not even the abode of the dead was respected; and the sepulchres of the counts of Flanders were violated, and laid open to the rublic gaze. "The deeds of violence perpetrated by the Iconoclasts were accompanied by such indignities as might express their contempt for the ancient faith. They snatched the wafer, says an eye-witness, from the altar, and put it into the mouth of a parrot. Some huddled the images of the saints to- gether, and set them on fire, or covered them with bits of armor, and, shouting ' Vivent les Guetix,' tilted rudely against them. Some put on the vestments stolen from the churches, and ran about the streets with them in mockery. Some basted the books with butter, that they might burn the more briskly. By the scholar, this last enormity will not be held light among their transgressions. It answered their purpose, to judge by the number of volumes that were consumed. Among the rest, the great library of Vicogne, one of the noblest collections in the Netherlands, perished in the flames kindled by these fanatics. "The amount of injury inflicted during this dismal period it is not possible to estimate. Four hundred churches were sacked by the insurgents in Flanders alone. The damage to the Cathedral of Antwerp, including its precious contents, was said to amount to not less than four hundred thou- sand ducats. The loss occasioned by the plunder of gold and silver plate might be computed. The structures so cruelly defaced might be repaired by the skill of the architect. But who can estimate the irreparable loss occasioned by the destruction of manuscripts, statuary, and paintings It is a melancholy fact, that the earliest efforts of the reformers were every- where directed against those monuments of genius, which had been created and cherished by the generous patronage of Catholicism. But if the first step of the Reformation was on the ruins of art, it can not be denied that a compensation has been found in the good which it has done by breaking the fetters of the intellect, and opening a free range in those domains of science to which all access had been hitherto denied(!). "The wide extent of the devastation was not more remarkable than the time in which it was accomplished. The whole work occupied less than a fortnight. It seemed as if the destroying angel had passed over the land, and at a blow had consigned its noblest edifices to ruin! The method and REFORMATION IN TIHE NETHERLANDS. discipline, if I may so say, in the movements of the Iconoclasts, were as 'xtraordinarv as their celerity. They would seem to have been directed ty some other hands than those which meet the eye. The quantity of gol I and silver plate purloined from the churches and convents was immense. Though doubtless sometimes appropriated by individuals, it seems not unfrequently to have been gathered in a heap, and delivered to the minister, who, either of himself, or by direction of the consistory, caused it to bD melted down, and distributed among the most needy of the sectaries. We may sympathize with the indignation of a Catholic writer of the time, who exclaims, that in this way the poor churchmen were made to pay for the scourges with which they had been beaten." This account of the sacrilegious enormities perpetrated by the first champions of the Reformation in the Netherlands is so very graphic and complete, that we could not consent to its abridgment. The immediate and natural result of all this sacrilegious violence was, to alienate the Catholic nobles from the Confederation, to cool down the zeal of William of Orange himself, as well as that of his associate Protestant princes, and to produce a general reaction in favor of the regent, and even of Philip, whose tardy concessions had been thus cruelly requited. While horrible sacrilege was thus running riot throughout the Netherlands under the mask of religion, and while all social and civil order was thus openly threatened with destruction by an anarchy growing out of the fiercest religious fanaticism, it was obviously no suitable time to dis- cuss the nice questions of civil and religious rights. The nobles, both Catholic and Protestant, rallied at once to the standard of the regent; and not only were the religious tu- mults stopped, and the leading rioters arrested and punished, but a formidable insurrection which soon afterwards broke out was successfully quelled. The arm of the executive was thus strengthened by the fanatical excesses committed under the alleged auspices of Margaret's opponents; the edicts were renewed; and the tavorable solution of the great political difficulty in the Neth erlands seemed now further off than ever. People could no, see, at a glance, wl at was the real aim of the new gospelere 3S28 THE SEQUEL-ALVA. and what was the real meaning they attached to the magic cry-"VIVENT LES. GuiEux!"-and to that religious freedont concerning which they declaimed with so mnuch impassioned eloquence. The "beggars" wished to ruin every thiing that had been previously held dear, buth in Church and State; and the religious freedom so loudly claimed consisted, in reality, in the liberty to insult the religion, demolish the churches, an(1 trample down tile sacred rights of better men than them- selves! It was precisely the sanie species of liberty, which John Knox claimned in Scotland, and the IHuguenots in France. Onl the stern mind of Plhilip tie intelligence of tiese hor- rible excesses produced an impression, which may he readily imagined. He had tried-tardily indeed, and insincerely if you will-the way of concession, and lhe now saw to what concessions were likely to lead. Ile did not work himself into a passion-he never didhbut lie quietly, yet sternly resolved to act. His whole action may be stated in one short but terrible word-ALVA! Margaret of Parma was super- seded in the regency, and Alva appointed, with a strong vet- eran force to sustain him in the government. And if any thing can excuse or palliate the horrible atrocities committed by this man, it would be the still more horrible atrocities which had been previously perpetrated by those whom he came to put down and to punish with the strong arm. And it is this view of the case-as one of retributive justice-which Philip no doubt took, when he replied to the expostulations of the emperor Maximilian in the decided language which we have already quoted. But there was one atrocity committed bv Alva, and fully sanctioned, if not expressly commanded by Philip, which no consideration can ever excuse or even palliate in the slightest Prescott is inclined to discredit the statement, that when the news reached him, be exclaimed: "It shall cost them dear; by the soul of my father I swear it, it shall cost them dear "-Ibid., vol. ii, p. 80. VOL. II.-28 329 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. degree; and which, at the same time, goes further, perhaps, towards explaining the real nature and the true motives of Philip's stern policy, than any thing else in the entire history of this memorable struggle in the Netherlands. We refer to the judicial murder of the brilliant, the noble, the chivalric Catholic Count Egmont, and of the two noble Catholic broth- ers of the honored family of Montmorency, Counts Hoorne and Montigny. The two former, the very first Catholic nobles of the Netherlands, were executed at Brussels under Alva; while Montigny, who had been sent by Margaret on an important embassy to Spain, was there detained for sev- eral years by Philip, and was finally secretly executed by or- der of the implacable monarch, on his hearing of the outbreak of the religious fanatics. It is a remarkable fact, that the only nobles of the Nether- lands who were executed at this time of fearful reaction in popular feeling, and of still more fearful retribution on the part of the government, should have been zealous and devoted Catholics. William of Orange and his brother Louis would probably have shared the same fate, had they coveted the crown of political martyrdom. But William wisely judged, that vulgar discretion was far better, at least safer, than heroic but unprofitable valor. Accordingly, the "Silent One," to- gether with his brother, fled at the first apprehension of dan- ger, thus leaving his noble Catholic associates to bear the brunt of the king's indignation and that of his lieutenant who was approaching. This was prudent, it was certainly not very generous or even creditable conduct. The modern Protestant historian of Germany-Wolfgang Menzel-tells us the incident of the flight of Orange in the following words: " He vainly warned his fiiends of the danger they incurred. The Counts Egmnont and Hoorne remained incredulous, and William, unable to persuade the States to make a resolute opposition, before the mask was openly dropped A fill and highly interesting account of these executions is furnished by Prescott, who throws a new and somewhat romantic light over the hith- erto mysterious fate of Montigny. VoL ii 330 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. by the king, resolved to secure his safety by flight. On taking leave of Eg- mont he said, 'I fear you will be the first over whose corpse the Spaniards will march!' Some of the nobles mockingly calling after him, as he turned away, 'Adieu, Prince Lackland !-he rejoined, 'Adieu, headless Sits !' " These facts clearly establish two things: First, that the Catholics of the Netherlands were fully as much opposed to the encroachments of Philip on Flemish rights and franchises as were the Protestants, and that in the first stage of the struggle at least, the Catholic nobility and influential men suffered fully as much for the cause of national liberty, if not even much more, than their brethren who favored the new gospel; and second, that the contest was regarded by Philip in a political, fully as much at least as in a religious light. He could never pardon Egmont and Hoorne the crime of hav- ing contended so stoutly for the ancient Catholic liberties of the Netherlands, against his attempt to destroy them. Hence their tragical death, as traitors to the country-that is, to him- self. Neither our limits nor our purpose in this chapter permit or demand, that we should enter into lengthy details in re- gard to the great subsequent struggle for independence in the Netherlands. This struggle began in earnest soon after the bloody career of Alva, and it continued, with occasional inter- ruptions, for about forty years. We can merely glance at some of the principal events in the contest, and we will then close with some general remarks on its religious aspect and bearing.t 1. As we have elsewhere stated, Elizabeth of England, in time of profound peace with Philip II., seized on the Spanish ships which were bearing treasure and supplies to Alva in the Netherlands. This was of a piece with her usual tortuous 4 History of Germany, ii, 291. Bohn's Edition, sup. cit. t So far as the Netherlands are concerned, Prescott's history terminates with Alva's administration. This is deeply to be regretted, as the world would have been much interested in an account, from his graphic pen, of one among the most important struggles for independence in the annals of history 331 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLADS. and dishonest policy; and as the end cannot justify the means, it was really but little better than highway robbery, or rather piracy. Its immediate result was not merely em- barrassing to Alva, but highli injurious and oppressive to the Flemings themselves. The troops naturally mnurmiured at aot receiving their pay, and Ail-a felt constrained to quarter them on the people, who were thus compelled not only to bear the burden of supporting the Spanish soldiers, but also to endure their rudeness and insults. General popular dis- content miecessarily ensued; which was still further aggrava- ted by the arbitrary imposition of new taxes by Alva, without obtaining the previous consent of the States General. A sullen humor seized upon all classes, Catholic no less than Protest- ant; the shops were closed in the principal cities and towns; and the Netherlands were shrouded in the darkness, and hushed in the silence of the t'linb! It was an ominous calm, preceding a dreadful storm. Meantime privateers, fitted out by the Flemish malcontents, cruise-d in the British channel against Spanish ships, armed with commissions from the prince of Orange. The count La Marqne directed their operations from his headquarters at Dover in England, though Elizabeth was still a friend, of P'- ip! She subsequently, however, "on the remonstrance of Philip, or in connivance with La Marque, ordered this officer to quit her dominions.Y In 1572, the privateers made a descent on the Belgian Island of Hom, and surprised the fortress of Brille; on the battlements of which the standard of Flemish independence was unfurled. TIle inhabitants of Flushing shortly afterwards expelled the Spanish garrison, and sought and obtained aid from the French Huguenots and from the English government. The former sent them a large body of troops, the latter ten thousand pounds in money; which seasonable succor was soon followed by a large body of English volunteers, with a goodly supply of ammunition Lingard History )f England, vol. viii, p. 107.-He quotes Murdin, 210. 332 NETHERLANDS AN EUROPEAN BATTLE GROUND. 333 and cannon. Many of the neighboring towns, under this cn- couragement, soon threw off the Spanish yoke; and the war of independence was now fairly begun. 2. Alva was recalled in 1573, and he was succeeded by Requesens, Commendator of Castile, and a veteran diplomat- ist. The new governor, after having first checked the insur- gents, entered upon a new line of policy, widely different from that which had been pursued by his cruel predecessor. Ile sought to conciliate the malcontents, and he secured the kindly offices of Elizabeth to accomplish this purpose. But it was too late. The war had commenced, and Orange would heed neither the advice nor the remonstrances-real or feigned -of the English queen; so long at least as the civil war con- tinued to rage in France, and he could nourish a reasonable hope of obtaining succor from the French Huguenots. After his hope of aid from this quarter had become faint from the untoward course of events in France, he sought to conciliate Elizabeth, and even promised to confer upon her the protec- torship of Holland and Zealand; an offer which, after suitable deliberation, she deemed it impolitic to accept. On the other hand, in a communication to the Dutch deputies, she promised them her good offices, to reconcile them with their offended sovereign.t 3. Requesens died in 1576, and he was succeeded, in the following year, by the brilliant Don John of Austria, the hero of Lepanto, and natural son of Philip's father. In the interval between the death of Requesens and the arrival of Don John, great events occurred in the Netherlands. The badly paid and discontented Spanish army broke through all bounds of discipline, and sacked Antwerp. Whereupon all classes of the outraged people determined to adopt at once effectual measures to provide for their own safety. Catholics and Protestants combined as one man in the common cause. Lingard, Ibid., vol. viii, p. 107. t. Camden, Murdin, and Lodge, apud Lingard, viii, 110. REFORMATON IN TH NrRANS. "Representatives from the clergy, nobility, cities, and districts of all the Catholic provinces, but Luxemburg, met the depu ties of the two Protestant states of Holland and Zealand; and a confederacy, called the Pacification of Ghent, was formed, by which, without renouncing their allegiance to Philip, they bound themselves to expel all foreign soldiers, to preserve the public peace, to aid each other against every opponent, and to restore to its pristine vigor the constitution enjoyed by their fathers." Don John, with the full approbation of Philip, subsequently ratified the Pacification, and dismissed the Spanish soldiery. But the prince of Orange was not satisfied with this ratifica- tion, which was known by the name of " the Perpetual Edict:" it clashed with the dream of ambition which " the Silent One" had long indulged, of being called to rule as sovereign over an independent people. In consequence of this and of other symptoms of disaffection, the governor recalled his troops, and the war recommenced. 4. The contest now increased in dimensions and swelled in importance, and the soil of the. Netherlands became, what it has frequently been since, the battle-ground of Europe. Hitherto the struggle had been mainly political, and Catho- lies and Protestants had cheerfully united in the cause of national freedom against Spanish oppression. The Catholics were still vastly in the majority; and, as we have seen, fif- teen Catholic and only- two Protestant provinces were repre- sented at the meeting which ratified the Pacification of Ghent. Now the lines between the two religious denominations were to be drawn, and Catholicity and Protestantism were to strug- gle for the mastery. Elizabeth, though she still wore the mask of friendship to Spain, secretly promised a large loan and an army of six thousand troops to the insurgents. The duke of Anjou, though a Catholic, brought -to the aid of the States an Camden, Murdin, and Lodge, apud Lingard, Ibid., voL viii, p. 110. Du Mont, v, 279. 334 ALEXANDER BARNE5 army of ten thousand men, under the promise that, if success- ful, he would be permitted to carve out for himself an inde- pendent state in French Flanders. He, however, failed to accomplish any thing, and his army was soon disbanded. But the most formidable auxiliary of the prince of Orange was Casimir, brother of the elector Palatine. He crossed the Rhine with twelve thousand German troops, mostly Luther- ans, who marched, like an army of Huns, over the Catholic provinces, striking terror into the hearts of the inhabitants, filling the country with desolation and carnage, and leaving burning churches, ruined altars, and wailing widows and orphans in the track of their barbarous invasion. The native Protestants united heartily with this ruthless foreign soldiery in discharging what their ministers had taught them was their sacred duty-putting down "popish" idolatry, and thereby securing to themselves the precious boon of religious liberty I By the side of the barbarities committed against the Catholics at this time and during subsequent periods of the great strug- gle, those of Alva himself, which were committed with rare impartiality upon Catholics and Protestants alike, are almost forgotten, or they are at least fairly counterpoised. This we hope to establish by incontestable evidence, a little further on. 5. John of Austria died in 1578, and he was succeeded by the great Alexander Farnese, son of Margaret of Parma, the first regent of the Netherlands under Philip. He was as able in the cabinet as he was brilliant in the field. He adroitly availed himself of the loud complaints of the outraged Catho- lic provinces, and solemnly renewed the Perpetual Edict approving the Pacification of Ghent, in May, 1579. This, it will be remembered, secured to them full religious liberty, together with the preservation of the ancient constitution of the States; while the foreign troops were to be replaced by a native army. The Walloon or French provinces gladly These ruthless soldiers were in the pay of England, and this was the manner in which Elizabeth served her good brother of Spain ! See Lingard, Ibid., viii, p. 113. 335 336 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. accepted the boon, and became thencef)rtl firmly attached to Spain. Meantime William of Orange now detached the north- ern from the southern provinces, through a meeting of the States convened at Utretcht. 6. The war still went on with but slight interruption. In 1580, under the able leadership of Farnese, the fortunes of Philip were once more in the ascendant, and the latter pub lished his famous ban against William of Orange, denouiicing him as a traitor, and offering a large reward for his head, or forthe possession of his person. Orange replied by openly re- nouncing his allegiance, and inducing the Northern States to issue a formal declaration of independence. Four years later he was assassinated at Delft bv Girard, a Burgundian adventurer, who was impelled to the atrocious deed by the hope of the promised reward, as well as by a certain fanati- cism of royalty, which caused him, even amidst the most excruciating tortures of the rack, to glory in having thus sum- marily executed one whom he deemed a traitor.t 7. We will here pause in our rapid narrative, in order to make good our assertion that the atrocities committed against the Catholics during this memorable contest fully equaled, if they did not greatly overbalance the cruelties of Alva per- petrated, as we have already shown, upon Catholics as well as Protestants. We will for this purpose allege in evidence the testimony of two Protestant historians, the one German, the other American; both of whom are bitterly opposed to the Catholic Church, and take little pains to conceal their prejudice. We refer to Menzel and Motley.4 Their testi- Du Mont, p. 322, 350. Lingard, ibid., p. 114-5. t Philip seems to have shed some tears over the man who had sacrificed his life in his service. Lingard, ibid., p. 125. 1 In his late work, " The Rise of the Dutch Republic." As an historan, though not wantmg in industry and research, Motley is immeasurably behind Prescott. He is a partisan of the most decided character. He writes, it would seem, more to sustain a favorite thesis than to vindicate the sober truth of history. His readers have very little opportunity to see the DUTCH CATHOLICS EXTERMINATED. 337 mony will scarcely be impeached; the less so, as it appears to be given only incidentally, and with apparent reluctance. We begin with the German historian. Speaking of the rise of the Dutch Republic, after the relief of Leyden in 1575, Menzel says: "Holland was henceforth free. William was elected stadtholder by the people, but still in the name of their obnoxious monarch; and the Calvin- istic tenets and form of worship were re-established, to the ezclusion of tiose of the Catholics and Lutherans. As early as 1574, the reformed preachers had, in the midst of danger, opened their first church assembly at Dordrecht. The cruelties practiced by the Catholics were equale-1 by those inflictel on the opposing party by the reformers. William of Orange endeavored to repress these excesses, threw William Van der Mark, his lawless rival, into prison, where he shortly afterwards died, it is said, by poison, and occupied the wild soldiery, during the short peace that ensued, in the re-erection of the dikes torn down in defense of Leyden. The most horrid atrocities were, nevertheless, perpetrated by Sonoi, by whom the few Catholics remaiting in Holland were exterrminatedt A. D. 1577. A violent commotion also took place in Utrecht, but ceased on the death of the last of her archbishops, Frederick Schenck (cup-bearer) Van Tautemburg, A. D. 1580.." After mentioning the defeat of the Dutch army under 3Mathias and Orange at Gemblours in 1578, by the bravery and skill of Alexander Farnese, Menzel adds: other side, though every one knows that most historical questions have two aspects, which the professed historian should give, or at least refer to. With Prescott prejudice is the exception; with Motley it is the rule. The works of the latter may have an ephemeral reputation; those of the former are probably destined to immortality in our literature. Who had him poisoned Was it owing to his cruelties against the Catholics, or to the fact of his being William's "rival," that he was im- prisoned and poisoned We strongly suspect that the latter was the real motive. t The infamous Sonoi or Sonoy was a far more cruel and a much worse man than Alva; the atrocities of the Spaniard pale before those of the Dutchman. The number of Catholics "exterminated" in Holland by Sonoi was not small, but immense, for the Protestants had opened their "first church assembly" but three years before; unless, indeed, Van der Mark, the predecessor of Sonoi, had already well-nigh completed the cruel butchery, leaving only a gleaning of the bloody harvest to his successor. t History of Germany, sup. cit., vol. ii, p. 296. VOL. xi.-29 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. " This misfortune again bred dissension and disunion among the Dutch; Mathias lost courage, and endeavored by his promises to induce the Catho- lics to abandon the Spaniards, whilst the citizens of Ghent, with increased ira7tence, again attacked monasteries and cdutrcies, committed crucifixes and pictures of the saints to the flames, and burnt six Minorites (Catholic friars) acuse of favoring the enemy alive." Again: "The return of the Catholic priests to Ghent was a signal for a fresh popular outbreak, and the treaty so lately concluded was infringed." Vain were all the efforts of William of Orange to tame the ferocity of the Protestants at Ghent, Bruges, and other cities of the southern provinces; they claimed it as their in- defeasible right, and as one of the essential elements of religious liberty according to the new gospel light, to murder Catholic priests on sight, to destroy churches and monas- teries, and forcibly to put down Catholic worship. Of course, this persistent cruelty and persecution compelled the Catholics to throw themselves, against their inclination, under the pro- tection of Farnese, Philip's governor, under whose govern- ment they could hope to enjoy the boon of life and of religious freedom. But for this ferocious bigotry of the Protestant faction, William might, in all probability, have accomplished his darling object of seeing all the thrifty provinces of the Netherlands again united in stern opposition to Spanish despotism. To show the spirit which animated the Dutch during the struggle, we may remark, on Menzel's authority, that Wil- liam's sailors-or, as they were called, Water Geu8es or Grueuat-wore on their broad-brimmed hats "a half moon with the inscription: ' Liever Turcx dan Pausch '-Better Turkish than Popish! " The Lutheran Protestants of Germany were not, it would History of Germany, sup. cit., vol. ii, p. 299. t "Water-Beggars "-corresponding with the Gueux on land; the Dutch seemed specially fond of the name. t Ibid., p. 296.-The acts of these men and of those whom they served were often accordingly more Turkish than Christian. 838 THJE CATHOLIC RELIGION SUPPREN8D. seem, very enthusiastic in their sympathy with their Calvin- istic brethren in Holland. Says Menzel: "The rest of Germany beheld the great struggle in the Netherlands with almost supine indifference. The destruction of the Calvinistic Dutch was not unwillingly beheld by the Lutherans. The demand for assistance addressed (A. D. 1570) by the Dutch to the diet at Worms received for reply, that Spain justly punished them as rebels against the principle, CUJUS REG10, WUS RELIGio-' The religion belmgs to him who owns the territory.' " What kind of religious liberty the reformers of the Neth- erlands really sought after, is apparent from the entire reli- gioso-political struggle which resulted in the establishment of the Dutch republic. Whenever and wherever the new gos- pelers were able to gain the ascendency, even partially and for a time only, they invariably established Calvinism as the law of the land, and suppressed, first by violence, and then by legislation, the ancient worship. Thus, according to Motley, in April, 1575, even before the declaration of independence, "certain articles of union be- tween Holland and Zealand were proposed, and six commis- sioners appointed to draw up an ordinance for the govern- ment of the two provinces. This ordinance was accepted in general assembly of both. It was in twenty articles." The prince of Orange was invited to assume the government in the king's name, as count of Holland, and he was invested by the Estates with ample.powers for this purpose. Among the twenty articles of the confederated provinces one provided that " he was to protect the exercise of the Evangelical Re- formed religion, and to suppress the exercise of the Roman Religion, without permitting, however, that search should be made into the creed of any person."t With the exercise of the "Roman Religion" suppressed by law, the last clause was evidently of no benefit whatever to Catholics, and it was at ' History of Germany, sup. cit., voL ii, p. 308. f Motley, Rise of the Dulth Republic, in three volumes, 8vo, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1859. VoL iii, p. 19-20. 339 4RR.ORMATION IN THE NETHERIANIA. best a mere idle form, strongly tinctured with hypocrisy. So also was the amended clause, cunningly introduced by Or- ange on accepting the office of governor, in which he sub- stituted for the "Roman Religion" "the Religion at variance with the gospel;" which practically meant the same thing, and was so understood. Thus again, he tells us, that in 1581 "Edicts were pub- lished in Antwerp, in Utrecht, and in different cities of Hol- land, suspending the exercise of the Roman worship.... They were excited to these stringent measures by the noisy zeal of certain Dominican monks in Brussels, whose extra- vagant discourses were daily inflaming the passions of the Catholics to a dangerous degree. The authorities of the city accordingly thought it necessary to suspend, by proclamation, the public exercise of the ancient religion, assigning as their principal reason for this prohibition, the shocking jug- glery (!) by which simple-minded people were constantly deceived."t It is rare, indeed, that persecutors do not find some motive for their atrocious proceedings. In the present case, gross insult and glaring calumny were wantonly superadded to the violation of the most sacred rights, which the Catholics had inherited unchallenged from their forefathers for nearly a thousand years. The pretext that the "prince of Orange lamented the intolerant spirit thus showing itself," is all a mere sham. If his lamentation wds sincere, why did he not use his all powerful influence with his co-religionists to pre- vent these systematic outbreaks of intolerant fanaticism Why did he confine his pretended opposition to mere idle words, which savored more strongly of hypocritical cant than of honest intent We are in the habit of judging of men mote by their acts than by their words. Estimated by this unerring standard, we fear that the prince of Orange will not appear to have been so much the Motley, Ibid., iii, p. 20. 340 f Ibid, p- 503-4 t 1bkL THE BUTCHER BONOY. 341 immaculate hero and noble champion of civil and religious liberty, as Motley delights to paint him. His ' Rise of the Dutch Republic" is, in fact, little more than an expanded biography and an elaborate eulogy of Orange; though he says, "this history is not the eulogy of Orange, although in describing his character it is difficult to avoid the monotony of panegyric." Where he can not praise his hero without qualification, he takes special pains to excuse his conduct or his motives, even when the former is disgraceful and the lat- ter are transparent. Thus, he excuses, as a pardonable strata- gem of war, the conduct of this prince in suborning John de Castillo, private secretary of Philip II., to send him copies of the most secret letters of the Spanish monarch !t Thus again, he openly defends the atrocious conduct of Orange in marry- ing Charlotte of Bourbon, an ex-nun and ex-abbess of Jouarrs, while his lawful wife, Anne of Saxony, was still living !t Orange was, in many respects, a great man, and he has in the main our sympathies in his protracted struggle for the independence of his country of Spanish domination. But that he was a man of tortuous policy, and of little moral or religious principle, we believe can be established by the acts of his life. As to his religion, it was moulded to the political exigencies of his situation. If he finally became a zealous Calvinist, it seems to have been, because the Dutch had embraced that particular form of the new gospel, and he could not hope to rule them without professing their religious opinions, which brooked no dissent. Bentivoglio paints his religious character in very few but graphic words: " He ap- Motley, Ibid., p. 623. t Ibid. I Ibid., p. 21, seqq. The unfortinate Anne of Saxony was imprisoned for two years in the electoral palace of Saxony, " in a chamber where the windows "re walled up and a small grating let into tile upper part of the door. Through this wicket came her food, as well as the words of the holy man appointed to preach daily for her edification."-(Ibid.) This "holy man"ws &,a good Protestant minister! No wonder she died a raving man- iac. two years after Orange had repudiated her! 58 REFORMATION IN THE NWEHERLANDS. pears to change his religion according to the fluctuations or interest. From a child he was a Lutheran in Germany. Having passed into Flanders he exhibited himself as a Cath- olic. At the beginning of the insurrection he declared him- self a favorer of the new sects, without becoming an open professor of any; until at length he thought it best to follow that of the Calvinists, as being the one most op)posed to the Catholic religion sustained by the king of Spain." Motley furnishes us an account of some of the barbar- ous atrocities, perpetrated in 1575, against the Catholics of North Holland by the Protestant governor, Diedrich Sonoy.t But, as usual, he seeks to exonerate the prince of Orange, who, he says condemned these cruelties, and could not be "omnipresent." But when some of the remaining victims of Sonoy's barbarity were released by the Pacification of Ghent, and thereupon instituted legal proceedings against the monster, why did they fail to secure justice Let our American historian give us the reason of this strange denial of justice. " The process languished, however, and was finally abandoned, for the powerful governor had rendered such eminent services in the cause of liberty, that it was thought unwise to push him to extremity." We will furnish an extract showing in what these unpunished cruelties consisted: "Sonoy, to his eternal shame, was disposed to prove that human ingenuity to inflict torture had not been exhausted in the chambers or the blood coun- cil (of Alva), for it was to be shown that reformers were capable of giving a lesson even to inquisitors in this diabolical science. Kopp, a man advanced in years, was tortured during a whole day. On the following morning he was again brought to the rack, but the old man was too weak to endure all the agonies which his tormentors had provided for him. Hardly had he been placed upon the bed of torture than he calmly expired, to the great Guerra di Fiandra, p. 11, 1. ii, 276, quoted by Motley, iii, 624, note. He endeavors to show that the prince's changes of religion were not prompted by interest, but his reasoning will convince no one who is not predeter- mined to regard Crange as a hero and a saint. 4 Motley, Ibid., iii, 28, seqq. I Ibid., p. 32. 342 UNHEARD OF BARBARIT. 343 indignation of the tribunal. 'The devil hai broken his neck and carried him off to hell,' cried they ferociously. ' Nevertheless that shall not prevent him from being hung and quartered.' This decree of impotent vengeance was accordingly executed. The son of Kopp, however, Nanning Koppezoon, was a man in the full vigor of his 3 ears. He bore with perfect fortitude a series of incredible tortures, after which, with his body singed from head to heel, and his feet almost entirely flayed, he was left for six weeks to crawl about his dungeon on his knees. He was then brought back to the torture- room, and again stretched upon the rack, while a large earthen vessel, made for the purpose, was placed upon his naked body. A number of rats were introduced under this cover, and hot coals were heaped upon the vessel, till the rats, rendered furious by the heat, gnawed into the very bowels of the victim, in their agony to escape. The holes thus torn in his bleeding flesh were filled with red-hot coals. Ile was afterwards subjected to other tortures too foul to relate; nor was it till he had endured all this agony, with a fortitude which seemed supernatural, that he was at last discovered to be human. Scorched, bitten, dislocated in every joint, sleepless, starving, perishing with thirst, he was at last crushed into a false confession by a promise of absolute forgiveness. Ile admitted every thing brought to his charge, confessing a catalogue of contemplated burnings and beacon-firings of which he had never dreamed, and avowing himself in league with other desperate Papists still more dangerous than himself. " Notwithstanding the promises of pardon, Nanning was then condemned to death. The sentence ordained that his heart should be torn from his living bosom and thrown in his face, after which his head was to be taken off and exposed on the church steeple of his native village. His body was then to be cut in four, and a quarter fastened upon different towers of the city of Alkmaar; for it was that city, recently so famous for its heroic resist- ance to the Spanish army, which was now sullied by all this cold-blooded atrocity. I When led to execution, the victim recanted indignantly the con- fession forced from him by weakness of body, and exonerated the persons whom he had falsely accused. A certain clergyman (Calvinist) named Jurian Epeszoon, endeavored by loud praying to drown his voice, that the people might not rise with indignation; and the dying prisoner with his last breath solemnly summoned this unworthy pastor of Christ to meet him within three days before the judgment-seat of God. It is a remarkable and authentic fact, that the clergyman thus summoned went home pensively from the place of execution, sickened immediately, and died upon the ap- pointed day."t "The rats were sent by th3 governor himself-Motley, Ibid, p. 3( note t Ibid, iii, 30-1. REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. Such were the cruelties perpetrated in the name of religion and liberty, by a monster whom Orange screened from punish- ment. Another one of his captains, the cllief of the Sea- Beggars or Gueux de Mer, William Van der Marck, if not more cruel than Sonoy, made even more victims. It is esti- mated that in a single year, 1572, this inhuman monster " killed with unheard of tortures more peaceable citizens and Catholic priests, than the duke of Alva had executed of rebels in the whole course of his administration."t He was towards the Catholics of Holland what the ferocious French Huguenot chieftain, D'Adrets, was towards the unfortunate Catholics of France, who fell into his hands during the civil wars of that kingdom. Another Protestant historian, Kerroux. in his abridged His- tory of Holland, takes a very different view from that pre- sented by Motley in regard to the responsibility for these barbarous atrocities. Speaking of the blood council estab- lished by Sonoy, he candidly says: " It is vain to seek for motives to excuse the proceedings of this horrible board of commissioners, which have left an eternal stain on the Dutch name; and though Sonoy, the principal author of these bloody tragedies, was a stranger, yet the nation which dared not oppose him or punish him for their commission, will never free itself from the reproach of barbarism with which it voluntarily covered itself in the face of all Europe. It is pretended that whatever was then done was only to take away forever from the Catholics all pretext and desire of introducing a change into the govern- ment. It was an atrocious means, which no reason of state could ever jus- tify; no more than it can excuse the unheard of cruelties perpetrated against people who were entirely innocent of the crimes of which they were accused, By the French writers his name is written De la Marck, or De la Marque. He commanded one among ', -st, if not the very first fleet of privateers, which sailed under letters ot qzte, ind modern times.-Is the term derived from his name -If so, it had a very ignoble origin. t See Feller's Historical Dictionary, article Ferdinand de Toledo. Van der Marck died afterwards from the bite of a mad dog;: "an end not inap- propriate to a man of so rabid a disposition.-Motley; ibid., ii, 4 75. Men- zel, as we have seen above, says that he died, " it is said of poison' in prison. At any rate, he died a horrible death. 344 PROSPERITY OF BELGIUM. the frightful details of which we can not read without a shudder of horror, and without feeling emotions of indignation and hatred." S. The struggle at length closed in 1609, with a twelve years' amnesty between the parties, which practically resulted in a permanent peace; thus securing the independence of the United Provinces. So far as religion is concerned, the result was only a very partial triumph for Protestantism, which, after all its boasting and all its violence, did not succeed in finally winning over to the banner of its republic probably more than one-half-if even half-of the original provinces, of the Netherlands, and not half the population. Even at the present day, considerably more than two-thirds of the population comprised within the original limits of the country still remain Catholic. Nearly half the population of the seven northern provinces themselves, now constituting the kingdom of Holland, is Catholic; while almost all the inhabitants of the remaining ten original provinces have always remained firm in their adherence to the ancient faith. And now, if we should be asked to point out, on the map of Europe, the most thrifty and flourishing population, we would instantly designate the kingdom of Belgium, and the neighboring Catholic territory which belonged to the original seventeen provinces of the Netherlands. There is more gen- eral thrift, and more widely diffused comfort among all classes of the population, and there is consequently less suffering among the masses; and we will add, there is much more real popular liberty there, than in any other kingdom in Europe. Catholic Belgium is generally admitted to be now in a far more flourishing condition than its immediate neighbor, Prot- estant Holland. The Belgians still cling tenaciously to the ancient Catholic liberties of the old Netherland Confedera- tion, of which Flanders was the center and very heart; while Holland has, more than once, resigned these liberties in favor of absolute monarchy. Abrege de 1' Histoire d' Hollande par Kerroux; a Leyden, 1778, vol. ii p. 350. Quoted by Feller, loco citato. 345 REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS. We conclude the present chapter with the following gene eral remarks on the entire struggle and its results, viewed more particularly from the religious stand-point. 1. During the greater and more important portion of the contest for independence, the Catholics cordially united and co-operated with the Protestant party; and the first and noblest victims, and the only victims of the highest rank, immolated on the shrine of national freedom, were the very brightest flowers of Catholic nobility and Catholic chivalry. This we have seen. 2. So far as Religion was concerned, the Catholic party generally stood on the defensive, while the other party as- sumed the aggressive. The Cathoslics stood up for their churches and their altars, which had been in their peaceable possession for nearly a thousand years; while the new gos- pelers sought to oust them by violence, and to suppress what they slanderously and insolently called idolatry, by destroy- ing churches and altars, or, by appropriating them to their own use, after having first purified them by pillage and fire. This too we have already sufficiently shown. 3. The atrocities, taking into account even those of the cruel Alva who raged against Catholics as well as Protestants, were, at the most moderate calculation, very nearly balanced; or if there was any difference, it was certainly in favor of the Catholic party. This also we think will be freely admitted by all who have read the facts stated-most of them on Prot- estant authority-in the foregoing sketch. 4. The result of the struggle was, that wheresoever the Protestant party gained the power, the Catholics were imme- diately robbed of their churches and church property, and were themselves generally persecuted by the intolerant ma- jority. Those who raised such a cry about religious liberty, while they were in the minority, had no sooner gained the ascendency, than they clearly proved by their act8, what kind of religious liberty they were aiming to secure. In Holland they established Calvinism, as the compulsory religion of the 346 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY ANIONG CALVINISTS. 347 government, and they waged a terrible war of persecution against all dissenters, not merely Catholic but Protestant also! All who are even slightly acquainted with the relig- ious history of Holland, since the close of the sixteenth cen- tury, know this to have been the case. All readers of history have learned the stirring incidents in the fearful contest be- tween the Gomarists and the Arminians, and know how very bitterly the former persecuted the latter, because, exer- cising. their conceded right of private judgment, these could not see the doctrine of predestination in the same strong Cal- vinistic light as their more clear-sighted Protestant brethren. The Protestant Arminians were put down, and were not only strongly denounced, but condemned to the most severe pun- ishment, by the famous Calvinistic Synod of Dort-or Dor- drecht-held in 1619. This was a sort of general council of Calvinism, which has never yet been known to tolerate dis- senters from its own rigid creed-whether these were Protest- ants or Catlholics-whersoever and whensoever it has had the power to crush out opposition by the strong arm.t This synod was attended by delegates from the Calvinistic churches of Ge- neva, the Palatinate, and Scotland, besides two Anglican bish- ops sent out by James I., " the English Solomon and Defender of the Faith !"1 The assembled ministers condemned the leading Arminians-including such men as Grotius, Vorstius, Hagerbets, and Barneveldt-and not merely their doctrines but their persons. Grotius and Hagerbets were sentenced to im- prisonment for life; and " seven hundred families of Armin- The latter, named after the distinguished Protestant theologian Armin- ius, were also called the Remonstrants; while those of the other religious faction were called anti-Remonstrants. 1 This was fully established, on incontestable Protestant evidence, in the Oral Discussion between Hughes .and Breckinridge, which see. t James took a singular part in the synod. He sided with the Gomar- ists, and even made orthodoxy a test of his political amity with the States! His two bishops must have been sadly embarrassed in an assembly, which denounced prelacy to the full as strongly as it did Arminianism. 348 REFORMATION IN THE NERHELANDS. ians were driven into exile and reduced to beggary.' Gro tius luckily escaped; but not so Barneveldt, one of the princi- pal patriots and heroes of the war of independence, and the reputed leader of the Arminians. He was arrested shortly after the council by order of his rival Maurice, prince of Orange, who aspired to the sovereignty of the Netherlands; and after a secret trial, in which lie was no doubt falsely ac- cused of treachery to his country by favoring Spanish domi- nation during the late war, le was beheaded! Such was religious liberty, as it was understood in that portion of the Netherlands in which Protestantism gained the ascendency !t See Lingard, History of England, ix, 131. f See Brandt, (Protestant) History of the Reformation in Holland. He is often quoted by Prescott and Lingard. He gives a detailed account of the terrible persecution of their brother Protestants by the Calvinists of lffland. HISTORY OF TIHE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. CHAPTER VIII. REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOTS. The whole history of the French Reformation told in two sentences-Origin of the Huguenots-Calvin the founder and father of French Protestantism -Leopold Ranke's History of the French Civil Wars reviewed in this chapter-Lefevre d'Estaples the first forerunner of Reformation-A Humanist, like Erasmus-Ranke's portraiture of him-Ranke an intense Protestant-William Briconnet, bishop of Meaux-The University of the Sorbonne-The delegation for examining matters of faith-Francis I.- His volatile character encourages the Humanists and the reformers-The Anabaptists in Paris-The state policy of Francis tortuous and unprinci- pled-His sister, Queen Margaret of Navarre, an open friend of the new gospelers-Her poetry and writings-The Concordat-And the grievous abuses which grew out of its perversion by the court-Court patronage, the real source of the evil-Ranke's testimony-Remarks on the great question of Investitures-Henry I., Francis IL, and Henry III.-The queen regent Catherine de Medicis-Henry of Navarre-Calvin intriguing from Geneva-And Elizabeth from England-The contest fairly begins- Plots, intrigues, and threatened insurrections-Tortuous and unprincipled policy of Catherine-Conspiracy of Amboise-Account of Lingard and Rank&-Calvin's agency examined-Elizabeth at the bottom of it- Throckmorton's interview with Antoine de Bourbon-Ranke's statement examined-Confirmation of Lingard's statement by Morley, in his Life of "Palissy the Potter "-Lingard's authorities-Ranke substantially con- firms Lingard and Morley-The conspiracy defeated by Guise, and the Huguenot leaders executed-Elizabeth's double policy-Singular declara- tion of peace!-Warlike attitude of Conde-The more the Huguenots gain, the more they ask-Their liberty secured, but they wish to crush that of others-Who began the war -Affair at Vassy-Ranke on the duke of Guise-The civil war breaks out-Elizabeth aids the Huguenots, who deliver up to her Havre and Dieppe-First campaign-Battle of Dreux-The two commanding generals taken prisoners-Guise and Co- ligny-Siege of Orleans-Assassination of the duke of Guise, brought (349) REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOIS. about by Coligny-Sudden pacification-Elizabeth foiled-The pacifica- tion broken by the Huguenots-Attempt to seize the king at Monjigeaux- Its failure-The English ambassador implicated-Treaty of E.tyo ine a fabrication-Lingard, Hallam, lRanke, and Mackintosh alleged-S&coud civil war-The third one-Third general pacification-Marriage concluded between the king of Navarre, and the sister of Charles IX. of France- Massacre of St. Bartholomew-Lingard's account-And Rank'`s-Dis- patches of the papal nuncio at Paris settle the question of premeditation -Number of victims-Religion had nothing to do with the massacre- The Pope-The Catholic bishops and clergy-Previous atrocities commit- ted by Huguenots-The Mi'chelarle-The ferocious Baron d'Adrets-His barbarities against Catholics-Events succeeding the massacre-The Hu- guenots seize Rochelle-Renewed pacifications-And new civil wars- The Huguenot Confederacy-And the Catholic Leaguo-Assassination of Henry Ifl.-And accession or Henry IV.- -le becomes a Catholic on the advice of the Huguenots !-Publishes the Edict of Nantes-Its revocation by Louis XIV.-Motives for the revocation-Did it inmpair the prosperity of France -Number of Huguenot exiles-Testimony of the duke of Burgundy and of Caveirac-Atrocities on both sides-Those of Hlugue- nots began at an early period-Dr. Maitland-The Wool-comber Leclerc -Recapitulation-The French Reformation and the Fiench Revolution. THE whole history of the Reformation in France may be related in two sentences: The Calvinists sought by intrigue and by force of arms to gain the ascendency and to establish their new religion on the ruins of the old; but after a long struggle they signally failed, and France was preserved to the Church. Long and terrible was the contest between the turbulent Protestant minority and the determined Catholic majority, to settle the momentous question which should finally control the destinies of France; for nearly a hundred years civil war, rendered still fiercer by the infusion of the element of religious zeal and fanaticism, raged with but brief intervals of pacification throughout the country, which it dis- tracted and rendered desolate. Finally, the Catholics, meeting intrigue with intrigue and repelling force by force, remained in the ascendant, and the Protestant party, once so aspiring, dwindled down into an insignificant fraction of the popula- tion. Th)is is the whole story briefly summed up; as we 350 ORIGIN OF THE HUGUENOTS-LEFEVRE D 'ESTAPLES. 351 think will be su1iciently proved by the facts contained in the present chapter. The Calvinists of France were called IHuguenot8, probably from the name taken by their brethren in Switzerland and Geneva, when these banded together by oath against thle duke of Savoy and the Swiss Catholics, and were thence called Eidgeno88en-or bound together by oath-a name which the French changed into EguenotM or Egnot8, and later into Huguenots. The name itself thus marked the Genevan origin of the sect. Calvin, himself a Frenchman and a ref- ugee in Switzerland, may be justly regarded as the founder and father of the French Huguenots. From his home at Geneva, lie sent out his missionaries into France, eagerly watched their progress, encouraged them by frequent letters, directed and controlled their movements; in a word, his rest- less activity and over-shadowing influence was felt every- where; and he continued to be the very life and soul of French Calvinism till his death, in May, 1563. This is freely admitted by Rank6,t who, however, says that Calvin did not encourage violence, but rather recommended prudent and forbearing zeal. This may have been, and probably was the case during the earlier period of the movement, when caution was the best policy, and violence would have wholly defeated the purpose of the shrewd and calculating reform- er; it certainly was not the policy recommended and adopted after the middle of the sixteenth century, when the new re- ligionists had already become sufficiently powerful to enter the lists with their adversaries, through political intrigues in the See Lingard, History of England, vii, 308, note, and other historians passim. Other origins of the name are given, but this seems the most probable. t Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; a History of France chiefly during that period. By Leopold Rank6, translated by M. A. Garvey. One vol., l2mo, New York-, Harper and Brothers, 1853. The title is a misnomer, so far as the seventeenth cen- tury is concerned, the present volume embracing only the sixteenth. 352 REFORMATION IN FRAN-CE-TiE HUGOUEOTS. cabinet or open force in the field. This we shall see in the proper place. According to Rank6, Master Jacob Lefevre d'Estaples "may be regarded as the patriarch of the Reformation in France." He had studied in Italy, and hie belonged to the same school as Erasmus, being like him a Humanist. With this literary sect, an elegantly turned Latin or Greek sentence, or a refined classical witticism, was regarded as vastly prefer- able to an orthodox definition or a sober declaration of faith clad in homely language; and the special objects of their aversion were the barbarous Latin and the severe dialectic .method adopted by the Schoolmen. The recent revival of the ancient Latin and Greek learning it: Italy had originated this new school, and given prominence and influience to its leading spirits. The weapon which the Catholic Church had disin- terred from the rubbish of ages, and which she had burnished in her own armory, was thus eagerly seized upon by her ad- versaries, and turned against her own bosom. Even such of the men of the new learning as did not openly abandon her fold and join the ranks of her opponents, often inflicted on her more extensive injury than those who were her declared enemies. By the freedom of their writings, and by their covert or open sneers at her religious observances, couched in epigrammatic periods and elegant language, they paved the way for bolder s Grits who halted not half-way, but openly threw off her yoke, and set up a new religion for themselves. Such a forerunner of the Reformation was Erasmus, the philosopher of Rotterdam, and such also, we suppose, wais Lefevre of France. Neither seems to have formally aban- doned the Church. Says Rank6: "Lefevre was a man of insignificant, almost despicable appearance; but the extent and solidity of his acquirements, his moral probity, and the mild- ness and gentleness which breathed throughout his whole being, invested him with a higher dignity. When he looked around upon the world, it appeared to him, both near and far, to be covered with the deep gloom of supersti. Ranke, Civil Wars in France, etc., p. 132. BISHOP BRICONNET-FRANCIS I. OF FRANCE. 353 tion (!), but that with the study of the original records of the faith, there was associated a hope of reformation, which he told his most trusted pupils they would live to witness. He himself proceeded in his course with a cir- cumspection, amounting almost to hesitancy. He could not wean himself from the practice of kneeling before the figures of the saints, and sought for arguments to defend the doctrine of purgatory: in the province of learning alone had he courage; there in a critical dispute, he ventured first to re- nounce a tradition of the Latin Church in favor of the opinions of the Greek; ..... even in the most advanced age which man is permitted to attain, he commenced a translation of the Bible, which forms the basis of the French version of the Scriptures; when he wrote it, he had already passed his eightieth year." According to our historian, William Briconnet, bishop of Meaux in France, was an old friend of Lefevre, whom he wi[ lingly entertained in his episcopal palace, together with Fare], Roussel, and Aranda, Lefevre's favorite disciples. These men of the new opinions succeeded in stirring up the bishop to disembarrass himself of the regular parish priests and of " the chattering monks," and to engage instead of them their own services in the sacred ministry. This violent displacement of the old and intrusion of the new pastors created, of course, a great commotion among the people, and caused an appeal to be made to the higher ecclesiastical courts. The new opin- ions thus broached at Meaux, together with the new pastoral arrangements growing out of them, were referred to the ad- judication of the celebrated Parisian university of the Sor bonne, which had already condemned the errors of Luther, and had stood forth for more than two centuries as one of the most unflinching champions of Catholic orthodoxy. A spe- cial committee, or delegation for matters of faith, was soon appointed by the Sorbonne, to examine and report on the new opinions. " This delegation continued, with many renewals, for more than half a century, and offered to Protestantism an opposition little less important than Rank,6, Civil Wars, ete. It will be seen that Ranke is a thorough Prot- estant, which renders his testimony to facts favorable to the Church the more unexceptionable; a circumstance we beg the reader to bear in mind, as we shall have frequent occasion to quote him in this chapter. VOL. II.-30 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-TIE IJUGUENOTS. that of the Papacy at Rome itself. Their efficiency was owing to the fact that heresy was regarded as a civil crime; andl that the parliament which exerci'qed the criminal jurisdiction, held the judgmant of the S)rbonne, in relation to heretics and heretical books, as decisive and final. Lefevre, al- ready saiqpected on account of the Greckish tendency of hIis opinions, was now in addition looked upon as a Lutheran. He retired to Meaux, in order to escape being treated as a heretic; but there his activity and that of his disciples was not to be endured. The monks, who complained of the bishop, found attention to their complaints in the parliament. The Sorbonne condemned some of the articles, as connected with the innovation which had been adopted there, and demanded their recall. The society of the reform- ers could not long withstand their united power-it was totally broken up and dispersed. The bishop now bethought himself that it was time for him in some measure to re-establish his reputation as a faithful Catholic, and for the rest he took shelter in his mystic obscurity.' Notwithstanding this temporary check, the time and cir- cumstances were very prop)itious for the diffusion of the new opinions in France. During thirty-two years in the first half of the sixteenth century-from 1515 to 1547-the French throne was occupied by the gay and brilliant Francis I.; a man who blended but little religious or moral principle with that dash of mediaeval chivalry which distinguished his char- acter. A zealous patron of learning, he favored the Human- ists, and at first cared but little whether their religious senti- ments were orthodox or not. He "loved neither the parlia- ment nor the Sorbonne, with which lhe had a fierce dispute on account of his Concordat. The monks, however, hle liked least of all, and had long entertained a project of founding a philosophical institution, and placing at its head Erasmus, the most distinguished opponent of their method of thinking and their manner of teaching."t He accordingly took the men of the new opinions under his special protection ; and it Rank6, Civil Wars, etc., p. 135. The bishop of Meaux, who was a Humanist and a great encourager of learning, was probably surprised into an encouragement of the new religious opinions; but when he saw their tendency, he retraced his steps, and continued a faithful Catholic prelate to his death. f Ibid. 354 HIS POLICY UNPRINCIPLED. 355 was only after these had grown bold enough to attack the warmly cherished Catholic doctrine of the real presence in holy Eucharist, and to affiliate secretly with the Anabaptists, who had recently sprung up in Paris itself, and who aimed at nothirng less than the total subversion of the existing order of thiirgs both in Church and State, that his eyes were at length opened, and lie abandoned the new gospelers to the fate which awaited them in accordance with existing laws. The state policy of Francis I. was tortuous and unprinci- pled. lIe scrupled not at the employment of almost any means which were deemed most efficacious for securing his ends. I-le inaugurated that inischievovs French policy- which has been kept up to a greater or less extent to the present day-of forming alliances with the German Protest- ants. and even with the grand Turk himself, against Catholic sovereigns, whenever it was likely that a temporary advan- tage would be thereby secured. He would probably have had little scruple to enter into a league, offensive and defensive, with the arch-enemy himself, if lie had thought it would serve him in his life-long struggle with his great rival, Charles V.! This reckless policy of the French court did more to promote the Reformation in Germany and elsewhere, than almost any other single cause with which we are acquainted. His sister, Queen Margaret of Navarre, was a still more un- disguised friend and patroness of the men of the new doctrines. When these were compelled to abandon Paris and Meaux, she gave them shelter and protection in her own court; and under her auspices, the new gospel was rapidly propa- gated throughout the territory of Bearn. The queen was not only a patroness of the Humanists, but she was herself an authoress. She wrote poems of mystic import, and com- posed a work in prose, published only after her death, which seems to have been much more elegant in diction than chaste in language or sentiment.t Such as she was, her influence See Ranke, Civil Wars, etc., p. 137-8. f Her poetry was in the style of that of Zinzendorff and other modern 356 REFORfMATION IN FRANCE-THE JIUGUENOTS. was thrown entirely into the scale of the Reformation; thouglh it does not appear that she formally abandoned the communion of the Church. The abuses, which had unfortunately crept into the church of France at this period, afforded a fertile theme for denunciation to the new gospelers. No doubt these abuses are greatly exaggerated by Rank6, and they were still more so by the fiery preachers who clamored for reform. Still they were grievous enough, though the Church and the Papacy were certainly not fairly responsible for them. They grew out of the Concordat, which Francis had wrung from the reluctant Pontiff, and which the court abused for its own vile political purposes. The Sorbonne protested against this treaty with the Pope, and we do not at all wonder at the opposition and indignation which all good Catholics so boldly expressed, on occasion of the enormous abuses which grew out of it, if the following picture of them drawn by Rank6 be correct; as we fear it is-at least substantially:- " The Concordat which placed the presentation of the ecclesiastical bene- fices so entirely in the hands of the king, produced the most ruinous and corrupt effects. The king rewarded with them services rendered in his own house, and in court or in war, and gave them to the younger children of the nobility as means of living; many persons received them in the name of their children; an Italian is mentioned who drew from the property of the Church an annual income of ten thousand ducats in the name of his little son, and after his death his right passed to his wife. All, however, did not think it necessary to inscribe in another name the benefices which they re- ceived; there were soldiers who possessed rich abbacies in their own name, and at the same time were leading their companies of foot. Many, too, who were totally unqualified undertook themselves the administration of the offices they had obtained. Men who yesterday were engaged in mercantile affairs, or who were courtiers or soldiers, were seen to-day in the episcopal state and ornaments, or officiating as abbots. Personal merit, a good moral reputation, even mere scholarship, were not required or looked for; all de- pended upon the relation in which men stood to the court What was to German mystics, hurtful to few, because well-nigh unintelligible. Her prose -the Heptameron, or seven days-is probably as gross as even the Decam- eron of Boccaccio! Ranke very discreetly says nothing of this last productionD HENRY IL AND THE CARDINAL DE LORRAIE te said, when ever the mistress of the king the duchess of Valentinois, had in her hands the distribution of the ecclesiastical benefices." This presents another striking evidence, out of the hundreds which ecclesiastical history exhibits to our view, to establish the important fact, that most of the abuses which have at various times afflicted the Church have grown out of the usurpations of the temporal power, which, in spite of the Roman Pontiffi, persisted in thrusting its own creatures into the higher ecclesiastical dignities. And yet, it is fashionable among our modern historians to blame the Church and the Popes for evils which these not only did not sanction, but against which they protested with all their might! The proper and only effectual remedy for the abuses complained of would have been, to lay the axe at the root of this poisonous tree of royal patronage-or rather usurpation-and stoutly to uphold the Pontiffs in the exercise of their legitimate and undoubted pre- rogative, to appoint suitable persons to the principal and Inure responsible offices of the Church. But this would not have suited the policy of those fawning worshipers at the foot of the throne, who, in their blind hatred of the Papacy and their abject servility to the temporal power, seemed practically to have adopted the principle, that the king can never do wrong and the Pope can never do right. Since the Popes have be- come comparatively free and untrammelled in the nomina- tions of bishops, the Church has had few scandals of this kind to deplore, and the great body of the Catholic clergy all over the world have been generally irreproachable in their morals. This fact alone speaks whole volumes. Francis I. died March 1, 1547, and he was succeeded by his son Henry II., whose wife was the famous Catherine de Medicis. Henry took a decided stand in favor of the old Church, and lie was thronghout his reign a determined op- ponent of the new doctrines, which, however, still cuftinued Ranke, Civil Wars, etc., p. 158-9. He quotes Soran7o. This Concordat was prolbibly the successor of the Pragmatic Sanction, which was if possible, even still worse. 54 357 358 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGL iOTS. Ailently to advance, especially in the southern and western' portions of the kingdom. Calvin from Geneva became much alarmed; when suddenly his sorrow was turned into joy, by the sudden death of the king from an accident at a tourna- ment, on the 26th of July, 1559:- "The Protestants recognized in this event the almost visible judgment of God, though as far as they were concerned, they could not expect that its consequences would be favorable to them. The successor of Henry, Fran- cis II., who was still a boy, gave his entire power into the hands of a man whom they regarded as their fiercest adversary-the cardinal of Lorraine, of the house of Guise." The cardinal, however, did not long hold his responsible position. Francis 11. died suddenly at the close of the fol- lowing year.t Then came the period of intrigue, of turbu- lence, and of civil commotions, which marked the real, if not always nominal regency of Catherine, the queen mother, under the reigns of her two remaining sons Charles IX. and Henry III. The cardinal of Lorraine soon found that Cathe- rine would not brook his overshadowing influence; and the reformers, who had been busily intriguing against him at court, soon had the satisfaction to believe, or to hope, that they had achieved a triumph. Says Rank.: "But the cardinal had miscalculated still more upon the queen mother. She longed for the moment when the domination of the Guises should come to an end; it was barely tolerable, only because it was in accordance with the wishes of Francis II., and therefore not to be avoided. She intended to show the Guises that the public hatred excited by the last reign was directed, not against her, but against themselves. 'When all was lost,' said Beza, ' behold the Lord our God aroused himself.' An alteration followed in the aspect of affairs, not suddenly but by degrees, and on that account the more decided. The idea of Calvin prevailed over that of the cardinal."t Catherine now appeared before the council, "leading by the hand the eldest of her surviving sons, upon whom the succession to the throne had devolved; this was Charles IX., who was then in his eleventh year. . . . The council resolved RankW, Civil Wars, etc., p. 167. t Dec. 5th, 1560. Ibid, ,. 187. CATHERINE DE MEDICTS-HER TORTUOUS POLICY. 359 that the opinion of the first prince of the blood, the king of Navarre, ought to be heard in all matters. This was exactly what Calvin had wished for, and what lie had contemplated as the result of a great demonstration, but which now came to pass spontaneously." The king of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., was looked up to as the natural leader and protector of the Huguenots, which leadership he had inherited with the royal blood from his mother Queen Margaret. No wonder Calvin was rejoiced; but the course of subsequent events did not come up to his confident expectations. Many and intricate were the plots and counterplots, the conspiracies and civil commotions, which followed; persistent and violent were the efforts of the Huguenot chieftains to control the supreme power of the kingdom. For this purpose they resorted without scruple to treasonable intrigues and alliances with Elizabeth of Englaiid; and they gladly accepted the aid in men and money which she sent them, to enable them to come off victorious in their struggle against the sovereign and government of their own country. In the end, however, they were completely foiled, and the Catholic party remained in the ascendant. They inflicted desperate wounds on France; they could not suc- ceed, even with the aid of England and the sympathy and subsequent assistance of their brethren in Germany, in dis- membering it, in destroying its nationality, or even in per- manently revolutionizing its government. During the continuance of these contests, the queen mother Catherine pursued a tortuous and unprincipled policy. She coquetted alternately with the leaders of both parties, now favoring the king of Navarre and his associates Cond& and Coligily, now upholding the cause of the Guises who were the principal Catholic champions. Her policy seems to have been, to play off the two parties against each other, in order thereby to strengthen her own influence and to retain the supreme power in her own hands. Ranke, Civil Wars, etc., p. 188. REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOTS. Our limits will not permit us to go into lengthy details in regard to the exciting transactions which marked this period of French history. We will furnish instead the terse, succint, impartial, and accurate account of them given by the great his- torian of England, Dr. Lingard, together with his authorities; remarking as we proceed on any substantial discrepancies which may be found between his statements, and those of Ranke and of other historians favorable to the Huguenots. 1. The first movement in the politico-religious drama, which was destined to drench the French soil in the blood of its citizens, was made by the Huguenots as early as 1559, during the reign of Francis II. It is known in history as the conspiracy of Amboise. It was a treasonable attempt of the Huguenot leaders to seize on the government, under the pretense of resisting the usurpation of the Guises. It was probably con- cocted at Geneva under the eye of Calvin; it was certainly instigated by Elizabeth of England. Says Lingard: " The principal inducement of Elizabeth to intermeddle with French af- fairs was her knowledge of the projects cherished by the factions in France. Scarcely was the corpse of Henry II. laid in the grave, when Cecil under- took to excite in that country dissensions, similar to those which he had fomented in Scotland, by arming the princes of the blood, and the reform- ers, against their new monarch, Francis II. By his instructions, Throck- morton solicited a private interview with Antoine de Bourbon, the titular king of Navarre, who was known to favor the reformed doctrines. They met in the town of St. Denis at the hour of midnight. The ambassador, in general terms, stated to the king ' the esteem of the queen for his virtues, her wish to form an alliance with him for the honor of God and the advance- inent of true religion, and her hope that, by mutually assisting each other, they might prevent their enemies from taking any advantage against God, or his cause (!), or either of themselves as his ministers (!). Though Antoine understood the o1ject of this hypocritical cant, he answered with caution: 'that he should be happy to have so illustrious an ally in so sacred a cause, but that for greater security he would correspond directly with the queen Lingard goes straight to the point, and in one page he furnishes more facts, much better related and far better put together, than Ranke does in five. Rank6 is somewhat of a transcendental philosopher, and he must needs give us his often tedious reflections as he proceeds with his story. 360 CONSPIRACY OF A.MBOISE-RANKE'S VERSION. herself. In a few days the young king intrusted to the duke of Guise and the cardinal of Lorraine, the uncles of his queen, the chief offices in the government. The ambition of the princes of the blood was disappointed; and Antoine, king of Navarre, and Louis, prince of Cond&, Bourbons of the house of Vend6me, formed an association with Coligny, admiral of France, d'Andelot, colonel of the French infantry, and the cardinal of Chatillon, three nephews of the Constable Montmorency. Together they could com- mand the services of about three thousand men of family, and of the whole body of reformers in France, to whom they had long been known as friends and protectors. 'It was to inform the queen of their views and resources, that Throck- morton had come to England; and he was followed by Renaudie, a gentle- man of Perigord, the devoted partisan of the prince of Cond4, who, to save the lives of the chiefs in the event of failure, had accepted the dangerous post of appearing at first as the leader of the insurgents. That adventurer soon returned, the bearer from Elizabeth of wishes for their success, and promises of support; Calvin from Geneva sent emissaries and letters to his disciples in France; men were secretly levied among the professors of the new doctrines in every province; and a day was appointed when they should rendezvous in the vicinity of the court, surprise the king and queen, the cardinal and the duke of Guise, and place the government in the hands of the princes of the blood.-t Rank6 admits the fact of the conspiracy, and also that the subject was discussed by Renaudie and the other Huguenot exiles at Geneva : but he affects to believe that considerable obscurity rests upon the nature of the plot itself, and the pur- poses of the conspirators, and he denies that Calvin concurred in the movement. Yet he admits that Renaudie, on his return from Geneva, assured his followers, that, "according to the judgment of the German theologians and jurists, the undertaking was perfectly lawful." It is probable that Cal- Forbes, i, 174, 212. t Lingard, History of England, vii, 287-8. "In the council held at La Ferte it was deliberated whether they should entirely rid themselves of the royal family and the Guises; but the majority decided that assassination would throw too much discredit on the party, and rouse all France against them. Capefigue, ii, 107. He quotes Brulart's Journal. Vie de Coligny, 20. De Thou, i, xxiv. Matthieu, i, iv, p. 213. Le Labourer, iI 512."1 Ranke, Civil Wars, etc., p. 175, seqq. Ibid., p. 176. VOL. la.1 36i1 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HlUGUENOTS. vin's opposition was an after-thought-wlhen the conspiracy had failed,-or that he played as usual a double game. The Huguenots would scarcely have ventured on so important a step without his advice. It is well known, that they consulted him on all important occasions, and that they generally fol- lowed his counsel. He was, in fact, their real prime minister, in opposition to the one who conducted the French govern- ment at home. As Rank6 asserts roundly, that " he (Calvin) and his fol- lowers (in France) might have wished for peace," but " their antagonists (the French Catholics) needed, demanded, and began the war ;" the origin and objects of this conspiracy of Amboise, which took place more than two years before the actual breaking out of the Civil Wars in France, assume an historical importance which would not otherwise attach to them. Chance has thrown in our way an interesting and unexceptionable testimony upon this subject, which we will be pardoned for republishing in full. It is interesting, be- cause it contains a graphic picture, drawn by a friendly hand, of the principal Huguenot leaders; and unexceptionable, be- cause furnished by a warm advocate of the Huguenot cause and movements. We refer to Morley's account, in his Life of Palissy, the Potter. "Whoever might head the great party of malcontents created by what was called the usurpation of power by the House of Guise, the men to whom the Huguenots looked up as their own chiefs were the three brothers Coligny, D'Andelot, and Chatillon. Of Coligny and D'Andelot we have already spoken. Admiral Coligny was a man stubborn, taciturn and inflexible of purpose; D'Andelot was not less steadfast and intrepid and only a few de- grees less sombre and reserved. Both, says Brant6me, being so formed by nature that they moved with difficulty, and on their faces never any sudden .hange of countenance betrayed their thoughts. Very useful to them there- fore was the alliance of their brother, who possessed by nature a more pli- able surface to his character, and had increased its elasticity by education This brother Cardinal de Chatillon, bishop of Beauvais, had a mild, engaging RankW, Civil Wars, etc., p. 207. 362 PALISSY, THE POTTER. 363 way, and so much tact in addressing those with whom he had to deal that he knew how to avoid all those disagreeable collisions of opinion, which would have checked the course of his more hard-minded associates. When negotiation was required, therefore, Chatillon with his insinuating, courtly habits proved a most efficient helper to his party. "At La Ferte, on the frontier of Picardy, the malcontents assembled at a chateau belonging to the prince of Conde who was a Bourbon, brother to Anthony, king of Navarre. The prince of Conde was a man given to ease and pleasure, who did not keep one mistress the less for having adopted the reformed opinions in religion. At this meeting, Coligny showed that there were in France two millions of reformers capable of bearing arms. It was resolved to strike a great and final blow at the dominant Guise faction. Troops were to be levied secretly throughout France, captains were to be appointed over them, and they were to be brought quietly from all parts to concentrate at Blois, for there the king would rusticate in the succeeding spring and endeavor to recruit his feeble health. The exact service to be done by them and their precise destination were to be kept secret from the troops; but Calvinists were to be levied, on the understanding that they were to strike a sure blow for the freedom of their religion, political malcon- tents were to be told that they were to secure the triumph of their party. The real intention was to break out suddenly at Blois with overwhelming force, to decoy the Guises-the king's uncles and his chosen though obnoxious ministers-out of the royal presence, to imprison them, and institute against them public prosecution. The princes of the blood and the ancient officials, with Montmorency of course at their head, were thus to be placed, where they believed they had a right to be, at the head of state affairs, and the party of the Guises would be most effectually crippled. "This plot which is called the conspiracy of Amboise, was kept duly se- cret by its first promoters. None of them would venture to commit him- self by assuming the post of leader in an enterprise which, even when seen through the mists of faction in those days of enterprise, could not have appeared very noble to an honest man. An ostensible leader was required, also, who should be notoriously bold and able, while at the same time he was not provided with a set of principles too inconveniently definite. Captains and soldiers were to be tempted out of many regions of opinion, and a leader was required who should be distasteful to none. "The required chief was found in a reckless roving soldier named Re naudie, a man sprung from a good house in Perigord. Renaudie received a detailed plan of the whole enterprise, in which provisions had been made beforehand for a long series of contingencies. He was instructed to say, that, when the time should be ripe, the prince of Conde would assume the lead of the movement, to which the people were invited. The name of the queen 364 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE 1IUGUENOTS. mother was Iw some unfairly used as a consenting party to the enterprise, and she, it was said, would never have sanctioned treason. "Finally, to prop all sinking consciences, theologians and juriconsults, chosen judiciously, were requested to supply, and did supply, attestations that no law human or divine would be violated by the proposed move in the game of politics." 2. The results of the conspiracy are stated by the English historian as follows,-and the statemnent is substantially con- firmed b1 Rank6:- " In a few dlays the conspiracy in France burst forth, but was defeated at Amboise by the vigilance and rigor of the duke of Guise. Conde and Co- ligny, to escape suspicion, fought against their own party; Renaudie per- ished in the conflict, and most of the other leaders were taken and executed. At this intelligence, Elizabeth began to waver; and her hesitation was kept alive by the arrival of Montluc, the French ambassador; but Throckmorton urged her not to forfeit the golden opportunity offered by the prospect of a civil war in France; and the lords of the council solicited permission to commence hostilities on the following grounds: because it was just to repel danger, honorable to relieve the oppressed, necessary to prevent the union of Scotland with France, and profitable to risk a small sum for the attain- ment of that, which afterwards must cost a greater price.f The day after the presentation of this memorial appeared a most extraordinary state paper, entitled a declaration of peace, but intended as a justification of war. It made a distinction between the French king and queen, and their ministers. The former were the friends of Elizabeth, who strictly forbade any injury to be offered to their subjects; the latter were her enemies; and to defeat their ambitious views, she had taken up arms, and would not lay them down till she had expelled every French soldier from the realm of Scotland."t "Palissy, the Potter, by Henry Morley"; in two volumes, 12mo. Boston. Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1853. VoL i, p. 268, seqq. Palissy was one of the most zealous among the early Huguenot saints, and Morley is the willing defender of the Huguenot movements. The work is found in the select and extensive private library of Very Rev. E. S. Collins of Cin- cinnati, to whom we have been more than once indebted for valuable refer- ences and information. t Forbes', vol. i. p. 390, 396. t Lingard, History of England, vii, p. 289, 290.-Haynes', voL i, p. 268. "It is a poor revenge "t said the cardinal of Lorraine to Throckmortou "that bath been used of late by your proclamation in England against my brother and me; but we take it that it is not the queen's doing, but the persuasion WARLIKE DEMONSTRATION OF CONDE. 3. Here then we have, on the miost unexceptionable author- ity, a solution of the important question-Who instigated, and who really began the civil wars in France. Ranke6 himself admits, that the Huguenots employed the arm of the flesh by allying themselves with a political faction, and that their haughty bearing and open menaces contributed greatly to kindle the flames of civil war; and it is not a little remark- able that the passage occurs immediately before that in which he asserts that the Catholic party "needed, demanded, and began the war!" He says: "The essence of the matter is misapprehended by those who attribute the success of the Protestant movement to the political faction, thougih it is un- deniable, that the former had formed a union with the latter, and was en- couraged by it, and wore, so to speak, its colors. This was seen in the support which the prince of Cond6, the most distinguished leader of the re- formers, received at this time (before the outbreak of hostilities) in the cap- itaL The citizens were disarrned, because a tumultuary outbreak was appre- hended. The prince was surrounded with armed troops of his co-religionists, who accompanied him through the streets (of Paris) in rank and file, as he went to a preaching or returned from one. It was computed that there were twenty thousand Huguenots in the city, and it was feared that, in union with them, he would endeavor, by a sudden coup de tain, to make himself master of it, and that the same would be attempted in other cities also. In all probability he did not think of such a scheme, yet the jealousy of his antagonists was so powerfully excited, that it was believed and asserted that religious zeal and political antipathy had united themselves for a common hostility." When the Catholics were disarmed, while the Protestants were armed and paraded the streets in a menacing attitude, there was certainly some ground for the jealousy which was aroused. And be it remembered, that at this very time the religious rights and liberties of the Huguenots had been sol- of three or foure about her; and, as I trust to see shortlye that she will be better advised, so we hope that ere it be long, she will put her hand to punysh them for giving her such advice."-Forbes, i, 423.-" The original of the proclamation is in Cecil's hand writing.-Lingard, Ibid. Rank6, Civil Wars, etc., p. 206. 365 366 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HIUGUENOTS. emnly guarantied by the government, so that they had no just cause for complaint or hostility. In general, it may be remarked, that the Ilugiewots as sumed the most hostile attitude precisely at the tinme when their demands had been most fully granted by the dominant majority! Every successive pacification, which healed up for a time the nine or ten civil wars which they successively stirred up in France, was almost sure to be followed by an increase of haughtiness in the bearing of the Iluguenot fac- tion. ThPe more they received, the more they claimied. The fact is, that, like their brother Calvinists elsewhliere, they understood by religious liberty the right of seizing on or des- troying Catholic churches, "removing the motuinients of idolatry," and ruling supreme both in Church andl State ! No one can carefully read the history of France, as written by men of all shades of religious opinion, without coming to this conclusion. Writers favorable to the Huguenots usually ascribe the actual breaking out of hostilities to the affair at Vassy, which occurred on the first of March, 1562, and in which abmi t sixty of the Huguenots were slain in an affray by the follo wers of the duke of Guise. But those who maintain this position entirely forget the previous conspiracy of Amboise, as well as the men- acing attitude of Cond6 in Paris, to omit several other similar circumstances. They forget also that, in this particular affray, the accidental collision between the two parties was provoked by the Huguenots themselves. Rank6 himself tells us, that the duke of Guise, passing through the town, wished to speak with some of his own subjects who were assembled with the Huguenots in a religious meeting; but that, as he declared in his letter on the subject, his application was received by the enraged religionists with a volley of stones; whereupon the deplorable affray and loss of life ensued.t This is admitted on all hands. t Rank6, Civil Wars, etc., p. 211, and note.-In the text, he gives a diU WHO BEGAN THE WAR 367 The duke of Guise was an impulsive, but a generous and chivalric man, not disposed to wanton cruelty. " In himself this gallant soldier was not disposed to deeds of violence. Hle is represented as rather of a quiet and even phlegmatic temper- ament; he was praised for the mildness he exhibited towards conquered enemies, and for the self-control with which lie sought to rectify any injustice that might have been committed; and was thought to know, in a superior degree, the duties of man to man, and what became them." 4. The first civil war broke out in 1562. Its principal causes and incidents are accurately and summarily unfolded in the following extract, the length of which will be pardoned on account of its interest: "The failure of the attempt to surprise the court at Amboise h id broken their projects ; and the origin of the conspiracy was clearly traced to the king of Navarre and his brother the prince of Cond6. An unexpected event not only preserved these princes from punishment, but revived and invigor- ated their hopes. Francis II. died, and the queen mother Catherine of Me- dicis, being appointed regent during the minority of her son Cliarles IX., sought their aid to neutralize the ascendency of the house of Guise. The prince of Cond& was released from prison, and admitted to the council; his brother, the king of Navarre, obtained the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The queen's next object was to pacify, if she could not unite, the two great religious parties which divided the population of France. In this she was ably seconded by the chancellor de 1' Hospital; and the edict erent, but obviously inconsistent and self-refuting statement; in the note, he refers to the letter of Guise. Lingard says: "The French reformed writers generally ascribe the war to an affray, commonly called by them the Massacre of Vassy, in which about sixty men were slain by the followers of the duke of Guise. But 1st, there is every reason to believe that this affray was accidental, and provoked by the reli- gionists themselves. See La Popelin, voL iv. p. 283; and the declaration of the duke on his death-bed, preserved by Brantome, who was present, both at Vassy and at his death. 2d. The affray happened on 'March 1st; yet the Calvinists at Nismes began to arm on the 19th of February, at the sound of the drum. They were in the field ant defeated De Flassans on March 6th. See Menard, Histoire de Nismes, iv. Preuves, vi." Lingard, vol. vii, p. 310, note. Ranke. Civil Wars, etc., p. 210. 308 REFORMIATION IN FRANCE-THE IHUGUENOTS. of January, 1562, both suspended the execution of all penal laws on the score of religion, and granted to the Calvinists ample liberty for the exercise of their worship. But the minds of men were too fiercely exasperated by mutual injuries to listen to the voice of moderation. Nothing less than the extirpation of what they termed idolatry could satisfy the fanatics among the reformers: and by the zealots of the opposite party the smallest conces- sion to the new religionists was deemed an apostasy from the faith of their fathers. It was impossible to prevent these factions from coming into colli- sion in different places: riots, pillage, and bloodshed were generally the con- sequence; and the leaders on both sides began to prepare for the great con- flict which they foresaw, by associations within, and confederacies without, the realm. "On the one hand Conde, Coligny, and d'Andelot, encouraged by the ad- vice of the English ambassador Throckmorton,.who continually urged them to draw the sword against their opponents, claimed pecuniary aid of Eliza- beth, and dispatched envoys to levy reisters and lansquenets among their fellow religionists in Germany: On the other, Montmorency, the duke of Guise, and the Marshall St. Andre entered into a solemn compact to support the ancient creed by the extirpation of the new doctrines; solicited for that purpose the co-operation of the king of Spain; and sought to draw to their party the Lutheran princes of Germany. At first the queen regent, more apprehensive of the ambition of the duke of Guise than of that of the prince of Cond6, had offered to the latter the support of the royal authority; but the king of Navarre had been gained over to the Catholic cause. Cath- erine and her son were conducted by him from Fontainbleau to Paris; and from that hour they made common cause with those among whom fortune rather than inclination had thrown them. In a short time the flames of war burst out in every province in France. If the lieutenant- general secured Paris for the king, the prince of Conde fortified Orleans for the insurgents. Each party displayed that ferocious spirit, that thirst for vengeance, which distinguishes civil and religious warfare: one deed of un- justifiable severity was requited by another; and the most inhuman atroci- " Throckmorton informs us, in one of his letters, that the duke charged him to his face with being 'the author of all the troubles ;' and therefore required him to help to bring them out of trouble, as he had helped to ' bring them into it.' In his answer the ambassador did not venture to deny the charge. Forbes ii, 255-257 ..... Nos divisions, lesquelles Trockmorton avoit fomentees et entretenues longuement par la continuelle frequentation et intelligence qu'il avoit avec l'admiral et ceux de son parti ..... il fit entrer sa maitresse en cette partie, dont elle ml a souvent dit depuis, qu'elle sestoit repentie, mais trop tard. Castelnau, Mem. xliv, 50." CIVIL WAR BREAKS OUT-BATTLE OF DREUX. ties were daily perpetrated by men, who professed to serve under the ban- ners of religion, and for the honor of the Almighty. "Though the Calvinists were formidable by their union and enthusiasm, they (lid not form more than one hundredth part of the population of France. Still the prince cherished strong hopes of success. He relied on the resour- ces of his own courage, on the aid of the German and Scottish Protestants, and on the promises of Throckmorton. His envoys, the Vidame of Chartres, and De la Haye, stole over to England, visited Cecil in the darkness of the night, and solicited from the queen a reinforcement of ten thousand men, with a loan of three hundred thousand crowns." The Huguenot envoys succeeded. A formal treaty was negotiated with Elizabeth, in which she bound herself to send men and money to aid her brave allies in their struggle for the mastery in France; and these agreed to deliver uip to her the two French harbors of Havre and Dieppe, the former of which, the key of the French kingdom, she was to retain as a pledge for the restoration of Calais. This treasonable meas- ure aroused general indignation throughout France against the Huguenot leaders, and especially the prince of Cond6, who had been the principal actor in the infamous negotiation. All eyes were turned to the duke of Guise, and he was called on to save the country from foreign invasion in alliance with domestic treason. " The duke of Guise had expelled the En- glish from the last strong-hold (Calais) which they possessed in France; his opponent (Cond6) had recalled them into the realm, and given them two sea-ports in place of the one which they had lost."t The result was a general burst of patriotic enthusiasm. Nobles and people flocked with eagerness to the royal stand- ard; Rouen, the chief strong-hold of the Huguenots, was be- seiged and taken by assault; two hundred Englishmen who had hastened to its relief perished in the breach; and in an important battle fought at Dreux, the Huguenot forces were routed, and Cond6 himself was made prisoner; though, as an offset, the Constable Montmorency, and the gallant commander Lingard, History of England, vii, 308, seqq. 369 Ibid., vii, 312. 370 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOTS. in chief of the Catholic army, fell into the hands of the insur- gents. The supreme command now devolved on the duke of Guise on the one side, and on Coligny on the other; the two most decided and intractable leaders and representatives of the contending parties. Coligny retired to Orleans which was strongly fortified, and Guise immediately laid seige to that city. Meantime Normandy was ravaged by the German mercenaries, whom the Huguenots had brought into France to aid them in fighting against their own government. "While the admiral (Coligny) gave the plunder of Normandy to his Ger- man auxilliaries, the royalists formed the siege of Orleans, the great bulwark of their opponents. Its fall was confidently anticipated, when Poltrot, a deserter from the Huguenot army, and in pay of the admiral, assassinated the duke of Guise. The death of that nobleman was followed by a sudden and unexpected revolution. Condo aspired to the high station in the gov- ernment to which he was entitled as first prince of the blood; and the Catholics feared that the English, with the aid of Coligny, might make im- portant conquests in Normandy. The leaders on both sides, anxious for an accommodation, met, were reconciled, and subscribed a treaty of peace, by which the French religionists promised their services to the king, as true and loyal subjects, and obtained in return an amnesty for the past, and the public exercise of their religion for the future, in one town of every bailiwic in the kingdomt with the exception of the good city of Paris. This pacifi- cation was eagerly accepted by the gentlemen, the followers of Conde: it was loudly reprobated by d'Andelot, the ministers, and the more fanatic of the party."t The tide of war now turned, and Elizabeth of England had to pay dearly for her unworthy duplicity. The English under "The two apologies of Coligny prove, that if he did not instigate the assassin, he knew of, and connived at, the intended assassination. See Pettitot's Collection, xxxiii, 281 ." t "Forbes, 339, 350-359.-Castelnau, 233-240, 245."1 Lingard, Hist. England, vii, 320-1. Of Coligny's complicity in the base assassination of the duke of Guise Rankie says: " Coligny guarded himself from giving the fanatic any encouragement; but, on the other hand, he did not prevent him, considering it sufficient that he had warned the duke of a similar attempt formerly."L He adds: "Even in the churches (Calvinistic) the act was spoken of as a righteous judgment of God."-P. 219. TREATY OF BAYONNE, A FABRICATION. 371 the earl of Warwick were driven ignominiously from Havre, and Throckmorton, her officiating minister in France was thrown into prison; and even after his subsequent release, he was never more allowed to show himself at the French court. 5. The Pacification which had thus secured the blessing of peace to the hostile parties in France was not of long dura- tion. The Huguenots, under the leadership of Cond6, broke it by a base and unprovoked attempt, in time of peace, to seize upon the French king and court at MIonceaux, near Meaux. Luckily, the treacherous attempt was defeated by the timely discovery of the plot: " the king escaped with diffi- culty to Paris in the midst of a body of Swiss infantry, who, marhling in a square, repulsed every charge of the Huguenot cavalry. The English ambassador Norris had been deeply implicated in the arrangement of this atrocious, and in reality unprovoked attempt: but though the queen (Elizabeth), as a sovereign, condemned the outrage, Cecil required Norris to 'comfort' the insurgents, and exhort them to persevere." This occurred in September, 1567; and the pretext for the outrage was, that, as Cond6 affected to believe, a compact had been entered into more than two years previously,t at the Conference of Bayonne, between the French and Spanish courts, by which the Protestants of France were to be de- prived of their religious liberties. That it was a mere pre- text, encouraged by the intrigues of the prince of Orange and of the English ambassador, and deriving force from the recent arrival in the Netherlands of the duke of Alva, appears now to be generally admitted. The Conference of Bayonne, held in June, 1565, turns out to have been nothing more than a family meeting between Catherine, the queen mother, and her daughter Isabella, the consort of Philip II. of Spain; and the full account of it, with all the papers, furnished by Lingard, History England, vol. viii, p. 61. He quotes Cabala, Davila, and Castelnau. t In June, 1565. Ranke, Ibid., p. 226. 372 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOTS. the researches of Von Raumer, filling more than a hundred pages of printed matter, renders it certain that no 3uchc com- pact as that alleged by the Huguenot conspirators was ever even in contemplation. Even Rank6, though lie pretends that some such overtures were made by the duke of Alva, freely admits that both Catherine and her son Clharles IX. rejected them with a decision approaching to contempt, and that " both par- ties separated from each other with coolness."t Thus, by the fault of the Huguenots alone, civil war broke out for the second time in the heart of France. The insur- gents under Cond& besieged the king in Paris; but they were defeated at St. Denis by the Constable Montmorency, who however lost his life in the engagement. In the spring of 1568, another pacification was concluded; and the Hugue- nots availed themselves of it to fly to the succor of the prince of Orange, who was sorely pressed by the veteran troops of Alva in the Netherlands. Notwithstanding this timely sue- For the documents, see Lingard, History of England, viii, p. 60, note. t Ranke, Civil Wars, etc., p. 227. In his Constitutional History of England (p. 87, note; Amer. Edit.), Hal- lam says: 'I (lo not give any credit whatever to this league, as printed in Strype, (i, 502,), which seems to have been fabricated by some of the queen's (Elizabeth's) emissaries."-This is a terrible thrust at the fabrication and forgery, which seem to have been systematically pursued by Cecil and the other servants of this queen, no doubt with her connivance or countenance! Hallam goes on to say, that there had been, "not perhaps a treaty, but a verbal agreement between France and Spain at Bayonne some time before." But for this statement he gives no evidence whatever; and the testimony of Ranke proves that this too was a faibrication, so far at least as France is made a party to it. Sir James Mackintosh is more credulous than Hallam and Ranke, but Mackintosh is very strongly prejudiced. When, a little later, the French and Spanish Ambassadors openly charged Elizabeth with aiding the insurgents in France and the Netherlands, "some- times she had recourse to evasions, sometimes she justified her conduct by fairly alleging the supposed league for the extirpation of Protestantism. But when she was called upon for proof of the existence of such league, she could produce only conjecture and report." Lingard, Ibid., viii, 64, note. He quotes numerous dispatches of Fenelon, the French ambassador. MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 373 cor, Orange was, however, defeated and his army dis- persed. 6. Now ensued the third civil and religious war in France. "The princes of Orange and Cond6 had constantly acted in concert; and the former had no sooner retreated from Bel- gium, than the flames of war burst out for the third time in the heart of France." This was in the summer of 1568. Two decisive battles followed, in both of which the Hugue- nots were defeated. At Jarnac their great leader Cond6 fell; and at Montcontour, their chief hope Coligny was totally de- feated by the duke of Anjou; while another leader, I)'Ande- lot, brother of Coligny, died of an infectious fever. Such were the events of the years 1568 and 1569. In 1570, a general edict of pacification was published; and as all parties were now heartily tired of these perpetual civil wars, there seemed to be a reasonable hope that this peace would be permanent. Though the preceding details are somewhat lengthy, we have deemed them necessary for the proper understanding of the great tragedy of the St. Bartholomew massacre in 1572, to which we now come. 7. In order still further to cement the bonds of peace, a marriage was concluded, after this third pacification, between the king's sister and the king of Navarre, who was by far the most influential, though not always the most active and effi- cient of the Huguenot leaders. Coligny and the rest of the Huguenot chiefs came to Paris to assist at the auspicious wed- ding, which was forever to banish civil commotion from France. There is not a doubt, as Ranke himself freely ad- .nits, that the king Charles IX. was entirely sincere, both in the love of peace which animated him in bringing about the marriage, and in his friendly intentions in inviting the ilugue- nIot chieftains to be present at the ceremonv. There is as little doubt, that the deplorable and detestable mwas:acsare ewl ich Lingard Ibid., viii, p. 63. 374 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOTS. ensued was the result of no premeditated design on his part; that it occurred solely from the unforeseen circumstances which arose in Paris after the chiefs had been already for many days in the city; and that even then, it was mainly owing to the unprincipled mnachiinations of the queen mother, who was as unscrupulous as she was adroit in the manage- ment of.affairs. We will first give the account of the mas- sacre, as furnished by Dr. Lingard, and as triumphantly defended by him against the strictures of the Edinburgh Re- view; then we will show wherein Rank6 differs from him in the statement of the facts; and finally we will add some reflec- tions of our own. Our readers may be, perhaps, surprised to find the English and German historians agreeing in all material points. " The young king of Navarre was the nominal, the Admiral Coligny the real leader of the Huguenots. He ruled among them as an independent sovereign; and, what chiefly alarmed his opponents, seemed to obtain grad- ually the ascendency over the mind of Charles. He had come to Paris to assist at the marriage of the king of Navarre, and was wounded in two places by an assassin, as he passed through the streets. The public voice attributed the attempt to the duke of Guise, in revenge of the murder of his father at the siege of Orleans; it had proceeded, in reality (and was so sus- pected by Coligny himself), from Catherine, the queen mother. The wounds were not dangerous; but the Huguenot chieftains crowded to his hotel; their threats of vengeance terrified the queen; and in a secret council the king was persuaded to anticipate the bloody and traitorous designs attributed to the friends of the admiral. The next morning, by the royal order, the hotel was forced: Coligny and his principal counselors perished; the popu- lace joined in the work of blood; and every Huguenot, or suspected Hugue- not, who fell in their way, was murdered. Several days elapsed before order was finally restored in the capital: in the provinces the governors, though instructed to prevent similar excesses, had not always the power or the will to check the fury of the people, and the massacre of Paris was imitated in several towns, principally those in which the passions of the inhabitants were inflamed by the recollection of the barbarities exercised amongst them by the Huguenots during the late wars. "This bloody tragedy had been planned and executed in Paris with so much expedition, that its authors had not determined on what ground to justify or palliate their conduct. In the letters written the same evening LINGARD 'S ACCOUNT. 375 to the governors of the provinces, and to the ambassadors of foreign courts, it was attributed to the ancient quarrel i&nd insatiate hatred which existed between he princes of Lorraine and the house of (oligny. But as the duke of Guise refused to take the infamy on himself the king was obliged to ac- knowledge in parliament, that he had signed the order for the death of the admiral, and sent in consequence to his ambassadors new and more detailed instructions. In a long audience, La Motte Fenelon assured Elizabeth that Charles had conceived no idea of such an event before the preceding eve- ning; when he learned, with alarm and astonishment, that the confidential advisers of the admiral had formed a plan to revenge the attempt made on his life, by surprising the Louvre, making prisoners of the king and the royal family, and p Atting to death the duke of Guise, and the leaders of' the Cath- olics; that the plot was revealed to one of the council, whose conscience re- volted from such a crime; that his deposition was confirmed in the mind of the king, by the violent and undutiful expressions uttered by Coligny in the royal presence; that, having but the interval of a few hours to deliberate, he had hastily given permission to the duke of Guise and his friends to execute justice on his and their enemies; and that if, from the excited passions of the populace, some innocent persons had perished with the guilty, it had been done contrary to his intentions, and had given him the most heartfelt sorrow. The insinuating eloquence of Fenelon made an impression on the mind of Elizabeth: she ordered her ambassador to thank Charles for the communication; trusted that he would be able to satisfy the world of the uprightness of his intentions; and recommended to his protection the persons and worship of the French Protestants. To the last point Catherine shrewdly replied, that her son could not follow a better example than that of his good sister the queen of England; that, like her, he would force no man's conscience; but, like her, he would prohibit in his dominions the ex- ercise of every other worship besides that which he practised himself"t The " violent and undutiful expressions uttered by Coligny in the royal presence," to which the French ambassador re- ferred, are probably those which Rank6 furnishes, and which are highly important as having been the immediate occasion of the attempt on the part of Catherine to have him secretly assassinated. Coligny attended regularly the king's council; and, in fact, much to the chagrin of Catherine, he seemed to have obtained almost unlimited influence over her weak- minded son. In concert with the prince of Orange. Coligny Digges, 264. t Lingard, Hist. England, viii, 96, seqq. Digges, 244-246. 376 REFORMIATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOS earnestly urged the council to declare war against Spain, towards which the French court was then hostile. The queen mother and the duke of Anjou, the king's brother, warmly opposed the project as imprudent and impolitic, and they finally defeated it; whereupon Coligny was enraged, and ex- claimed: "Madame, the king now withdraws from a war which promises him advantages; God forbid, that another should break out, from which he may not be able to with- draw!" His words were taken as implying a threat of a new civil and religious war in France. As we have said, Rank6 agrees with Lingard in all sub- stantial points. He admits, that if the attempt on Coligny's life had been successful, the whole affair would probably have ended then and there: " The majority of those who were near the event have asserted, that if Lhe admiral had been killed on this occasion, the queen would have been satisfied with the one victim; but he had escaped, and was now for the first time in a position to become truly formidable. The Huguenots crowded around him with redoubled zeal, and demanded justice: their requisitions sounded like threats proceeding from a confident knowledge of their power. The general suspicion soon fixed upon the most important and real origi- nator of the deed. Certain expressions came to her ears one evening at sup- per; they were probably exaggerated, but at any rate they gave her grounds for apprehension on her own account. The consideration of the personal and general danger, incurred by the deed already perpetrated, excited her still further to the designs of blood and violence which had lain latent in her mind. The Huguenots were in her hands; it was only necessary for her to will it, and they were all destroyed. It has always been the general opin- ion, that Catherine de Medicis had for years been preparing every thing for this catastrophe; that all her apparent favors to the Huguenots, all her treaties and conclusions of peace, were simply so many guileful pretexts in order to win their confidence, that she might then deliver them over to de- struction. Against this supposition, however, it was observed long ago, that RankW, Civil Wars, etc., p. 268. Rank6 supposes that Coligny referred to a new war about to break out in Flanders, " which, in one way or other, miqht have implicated France; "-but the supposition is too unfounded, if not absurd to merit serious attention. No doubt Catherine was right in her interpretation of the fierce admiral's threatening language. RANKE'S ACCOUNT. 377 a -stratagem laid so long beforehand was contrary to the nature of French modes of proceeding, and is, in itself, nearly impossible. We have ourselves seen, as we have proceeded, many circumstances which render it extremely improbable."4 That the massacre was wholly unpremeditated seems to be now fully settled, since the publication by -Mackintosh of the secret dispatches of Salviati, the Papal nuncio to the French courtt While substantially admitting all this, as we have seen, Rank6 still thinks that Catherine had previously contemplated the design upon the admiral, "as a possibility;" that is, that she had an old score of injuries to settle with him. and, in inviting him to the nuptials, vaguely contemplated as "possible" the contingency of her having an opportunity to wreak her vengeance on him.: This really amounts to nothing in the way of premeditation, and the alleging of a conjecture so very vague is unworthy a grave historian. Though Catherine certainly had received many grievous in- juries from Coligny and his partisans, the German historian does not prove, or even venture to assert, that she conceived any definite purpose beforehand to be avenged on him on occasion of the nuptials,-which is the very point in contro- versy. Another discrepancy consists in the statement by Ranke, that " oral orders were carried from town to town with the swiftness of the wind, authorizing the rage of fanaticism everywhere." This he does not prove, while he admits imme- ' Ranke, Civil Wars etc., p. 269, 270. f See note E. appended to Lingard's eighth volume, where the testimony is given in full. It is regarded as conclusive. t See RankW, Civil wars etc., p. 273. After saying that Charles was un- doubtedly sincere, he adds: "Catherine was different. That she had from the beginning a design against the admiral, connected with the invitation to the nuptials, is in the highest degree probable, yet the design was contem- plated rather as a possibility, and expressed rather as a justification."-This theory, besides being wholly unsustained by evidence, is s'arcely consistent with his previous statement of the facts; all of which may be, on the other hand, satisfactorily explained without it, and even better explained. VOL. n.-32 378 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOTh. diately afterwards, that " from time to time the flame broke out afresh, even after orders were issued to restrain it. Ac cording to what we believe to be the moot reliable accounts, these orders restraining the massacre were issued immedi- ately; and the partial massacres which took place in other towns were caused, in spite of them, by popular excitement and the memory of old wrongs received from the Hugue- nots.t Rank6 estimates the number of the victims at twenty thousand. This is no doubt a grievous exaggeration. There is nothing more fallacious than the attempt to estimate in such cases in round numbers. " The reformed martyrologist (Foxe) adopted a measure for ascertaining the real number, which may enable us to form a probable conjecture. He procured from the ministers in the different towns where the massacres had taken place lists of the persons who had suffered, or were supposed to have suffered. He published the result in 1582; and the reader will be surprised to learn, that in all France he could discover the names of no more than seven hundred Ranke, Civil Wars etc, p. 278. t The excellent Miss Strickland, while taking the erroneous view that the massacre was prompted by religious fanaticism, admits that the murderous spirit of intolerance in England, especially that which clamored for the blood of Mary of Scots, was equally great and detestable. She writes: " Not more atrocious, however, was the ruthless fanaticism, which prompted the butcher-work by which the day of St. Bartholomew was forever ren- dered a watchword of reproach against Catholics, than the murderous spirit of cruelty and injustice which led the professors of the reformed faith to clamor for the blood of the captive Mary Stuart as a victim to the manes of the slaughtered Protestants. Sandys, bishop of London, in a letter to Bur- leigh, inclosed a paper of measures, which he deemed expedient for the good of the realm, and the security of his royal mistress at that crisis, beginning with this startling article, 'Forthwith to cut off the Scottish queen's head.' Burleigh endeavored to prevail on Elizabeth to follow this sanguinary coun- sel, telling her 'that it was the only means of preventing her own deposi- tion and murder.' It is easy at all times to persuade hatred that ievenge is an act of justice."-Queens of England, vol. vi, p. 282.-She quotes Ellis' Royal Letters, 2d series, vol. iii, p. 25. rHE POPE AND CLERGY. 379 and eighty-tix persons. Perhaps, if we double this number, we shall not be far from the real amount." It is quite certain, that religion had little, if any thing whatever, to do with the massacre.t The queen mother had favored the Huguenot leaders, perhaps fully as much as she had the Catholic. As we have seen, her tortuous state policy inclined her t throw her influence alternately in the scale of Guise and of Cond6, accordingly as each of these lead- ers successively gained the ascendency, and threatened her own paramount control of the king and the government. At this particular period, the policy of the French court was moreover specially directed against Philip of Spain. and it strongly favored the cause of the prince of Orange and of the Dutch insurgents. Since the days of ,rancis I., the French government had repeatedly formed alliances with the German Protestants against their Catholic emperor; and if its policy was guided by religion at all-which it seldom was-it would appear from its acts that it favored the Protestant almost as often and as much as it did the Catholic party. Hence all the clamor about the massacre having originated in religious excitement and intolerance is not only without any solid foundation in the facts of history, but against all verisimilitude. The Catholic bishops and clergy did whatever was in their power to restrain popular violence during this period of ter- rible popular excitement ;j and it is not even pretended, that Lingard, Note to voL viii. Such a partisan as Foxe would scarcely have made the number less than it was. f Thuanus testifies, that on the day of the massacre the king issued an edict, in which he declared that what had been done had been ordered by himself not through hatred of religion, but to provide for his own safety: "non religionis odio, sed ut nefariae Colinii et sociorum conjurationi obviam iret." Quoted by Milner, Letter iv, to a Prebendary. I Thus, according to Maimbourg, quoted by Milner, Henuyer, a Domi- nican, bishop of Lisieux, nobly sheltered his Protestant "flock," saying: "It is the duty of the good shepherd to lay down his life for his sheep, not to let them be slaughtered before his face. These are my sheep, though they have gone astray; and I am resolved to run all hazards in protecting them." REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOTS. they had any agency whatever in bringing about the mnas6a cre. If the Pope ordered a Te Deum to be sung at Rome on first learning the intelligence, it was only because lie had received such a version of the affair as led him to believe, that the Huguenots were only anticipated in their bloody de- signs by the vigilance of the French court, which by its prompt measures of severity was thus saved from utter de- struction. Such a version of the tragedy was, in fact, imme- diately sent out to all the foreign courts; and the antecedents of Coligny and his party rendered the story not at all improb- able. It was only at a later period, that the true facts of the case came to light. Though nothing could greatly palliate, much less justify this atrocious massacre, yet there are obvious circumstances connected with it which should not be lost sight of by those who wish to form a correct and impartial judgment. There had been great provocations from the other side. Three times had the Huguenots risen in arms against their sovereign and his government, and they had fought his armies in four pitched battles; in all of which they had been indeed de- feated, but not without great effusion of blood on both sides.t They had treacherously delivered up to the inveterate and hereditary enemy of France two of her principal sea-ports, which were the keys of the kingdom. They had basely as- sassinated the noble duke of Guise, who was very dear to the French people, from the fact of his having nobly driven the English from Calais, their last foothold in France. Twice had they attempted, by base treachery, to seize upon The learned Pagi, in his Life of Gregory XIIL, the then reigning Pon- tiff, informs us that, on the representation of the French ambassador, he viewed the deed as a necessary act of self-defense of the French court against the machinations of Coligny, and therefore ordered the thanksgiving, not for the massacre, but for the preservation of the royal family: " Actis publice Deo gratiis de periculo a Colinii conjuratione evitato."-Brev. Gest. Rom.. Pont. vi, 729-apud Milner, loco citato. t The battles of Dreux, St. Denis, Jarnac, and Moncontour. 380 PROVOCAION-S GIVEN BY HUGUENOTS. and make prisoners of the French king and court, that thus they might be able to grasp the sovereign power of the state, and wield it for their own purpnses. They had, wien tempo- rarily in power, disarmed the inhabitants of Paris, and in a menacing attitude paraded the streets fully armed, under their leader Cond6; and this too in time of profound peace. They had, in the civil wars, butchered priests, desecrated churches, invaded monasteries, and slaughtered unarmed Catholics by thousands, in the various towns which they had taken by assault, or where they happened for the time to be in power. Five years before-in 1567-they had, on St. Michael's day, committed a horrible massacre on the Catholic people of Nismes.t As Davila writes, "upon the death of Francis II., when liberty of conscience was granted them, besides burning down churches and monasteries, they had massacred people in the very streets of Paris." " Heylin relates, that in the time of a profound peace, these same people taking offense at the pro- cession of Corpus Christi performed in the city of Pamiers, fell upon the whole clergy who composed it and murdered them; and that they afterwards committed the same outrages at Montauban, Rodez, Valence," and other places.: Once at Amboise, and again at Monceaux near Meaux. t This terrible massacre was called the Michdade, from the fact of its having occurred at Michaelmas. Though it is studiously lost sight of by Prosestant writers, it may be viewed as a fair off-set to the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Though this was the greatest outbreak of the Huguenots against the Catholics of Nismes, it was not the only one; for another mas- sacre of a similar kind occurred in this city two years later-1569. See Lingard's Vindication, in answer to the Edinburgh Review; vol. viii of his History of England, American Edition. To show the desperate ferocity of the Huguenots, we will mention an- other curious instance. In the third civil war which they stirred up in France in 1568, Briquemaut, the principal Huguenot chief was in the habit of wearing a necklace composed of the ears of assassinated priests!! See Alzog, Hist. Church, etc., p. 583. t Hist. Presb. l. ii, quoted by Milner, sup. cit., to whom we are also in. debted for the testimony of Davita. 381 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE H UGUENOTS. They had committed all these and many other cruel atroci. ties; and though these bloody crimes do not eertainbly excuse the lawless massacre in which some of their leaders tell, yet they considerably palliated its enormity, so far at least as to prove, that the Huguenots were not the only sufferers, iiurch less the innocent victims of an unprovoked persecution, as their partial friends sometimes chose to represent thieii.' As one out of many examples of the ferocity with which the Huguenots raged against the Catholics, during the civil wars preceding the massacre of St. Bartholomew, we will here present a brief sketch of the barbarities perpetrated by one of their most active military chieftains, the famio --s-or The injury which the violence of the Iluguenots in Framnce did to learn- ing is incalculable; and it is the more to be regretted, as the loss is irre trievable. We condense the following facts on this subject foin rmfaitland's learned work on the Dark Ages: (p. 231, seqq., London Eldition.) Martene, in his " Literary Journey An in quest of ancient manuscriptts, had occasion almost everywhere to lament the wanton destruction of the most valuable of them in the French monasteries by the illiterate and fanatical Huguenots, who, in the sixteenth century, overran and sacked a great portion of France with a destructive fury unequaled since the invasion of the bar- barians in the fifth and sixthcenturies. At the monastery of St. Theodore, near Vienne, the monks willingly communicated to the literary traveler "what the fury of the heretics had left to them of ancient monuments; for those impious men in 1.562 had burned all the chartJu."-I. Voyage Liter- aire, 252, apud Maitland, p. 231. At Tarbes, the same sad spectacle was presented, " the cathedral church and all the titles having been burnt by the Calvinists who throughout the whole of Bearn and Bigorre had left mourn- ful marks of their fury."-Ibid. In the still more ancient abbey of St. John at Thouars "the ravages made by the Calvinists during the past century have dissipated the greater part of the (literary) monuments."-Ibid. The same scene of desolation met the view of the antiquary at Grimherg, Dilig- hem, and other places. Of the desolation at the monastery of Ferte near Meaux, the learned Ruinart speaks as follows: "We hoped perhaps to find there something in the archives, .... but we were answered that the charts of the monastery had been entirely burned by the Calvinists.-Ibid., p. 232. Mabillon, the famous Benedictine, bears similar testimony in regard to the manuscripts of the monastery of Fleury, where the fury of heresy had left but a small remnant of the vast collection of ancient books.- -Ibid. 382 BARON D'ADRETS. rather infainous-Baron D'Adrets. Ile joined their ranks it the first civil war of 1562, out of hatred to the duke of Guise who had 'offended him. His career wa's signalized by the celerity and success of his movements, but still more by the horrid sufferings which lie inflicted upon the Catholic party. He took successively Valence, Vienne, Grenoble, and Lyons; and lie everywhere raged, like a wild beast, against con- quered foes. He burned, sacked, and slaughtered, with a fe- rocity which excited the disgust of even his own more humane officers. His very appearance was so ferocious, as to strike terror into the most stout-hearted. After having taken the strong fortresses of Mornas and Montbrison, it was his favorite amusement after dinner, to see his Catholic prisoners leap from the battlements into the surrounding moats, where their bodies were received on the upraised pikes of his soldiers! "He was, in regard to the Catholics, what Nero had been in regard to the early Christians. He sought out and invented the most novel punishments, which he took pleasure in seeing inflicted on those who fell into his hands. This monster, wishing to make his children as cruel as himself, forced them to bathe in the blood of the Catholics, whom he had butchered; and these barbarities met with the approbation of the chief of the party! The Admiral Coligny said, that it was necessary to employ him, as a furious lion, and that his services over- balanced his insolence." . "He died February 2, 1585, abhorred by the Catholics, and despised by the Huguenots themselves." We may as well insert here, as elsewhere, what Maitland, whom we have already quoted, further says and proves con- cerning the destructive spirit of the French Huguenots. It will be seen that their National Synod officially indorsed this Vandal-like spirit exhibited in the wanton destruction of valuable ancient manuscripts. Feller, Histor. Dict., who quotes two French lives of D'Adrets; one by Allard, Grenoble, 1675, the other by C. J. Martin, published in 1803. 383 384 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE IIUGQUENOTS. " It seems worth while to add two instances, one English and the other French, of the destruction of MSS. by those who were their guardians, and who seem to have been influenced by religious (if one ought not rather to say party) feeling. It is the more necessary, because it is hard to conceive of such things; and the circumstances of the latter case in particular lead one to apprehend that the matter was not the act of a stupid fanatical inai- vidual, but a practice encouraged by those who had it in their power to do, and certainly did, much mischief; and that not only openly, but by private means, less easily detected. "Henry Wharton, in the preface to his Anglia Sacra, after stating the impossibility of rivaling works of a similar nature which had been published respecting France and Italy, owing to the destruction of manuscripts at the suppression of monasteries etc., says: that he had met with a case in which a bishop, avowedly with the design or getting rid of Popery, had burned all the registers and documents belonging to his see. He does not name him; ind, without inquiring who he was, we will charitably hope that he acted in stupid sincerity, and was the only English prelate that ever did such a thing, or anything like it. "I But there is a French story, more surprising and pregnant, and form- ing a valuable commentary on many sad passages in Martene's Literary Tour, which might otherwise be thought to bear marks of prejudice against the Protestant party. But this fact coming as it does from themselves, is beyond suspicion; and it is briefly as follows: At the 'Quatrieme Synode National des Eglises Reformees de France, tenu a Lion le iii Aofit, 1563, l'an III. du regne de Charles IX. Roi de France, Monsieur Pierre Viret, alors ministre de l'Eglise de Lion, elu pour modera- teur et pour s6cretaire'-among the ' Faits particuliers ' which were discussed and decided, No. xlvii, is thus stated;-'Un Abbe parvenu a la connois- sance de l'Evangile aiant abatu les Idoles, brute sea Titres, pourveu aux besoins de ses moines, sans qu'il ait permis depuis six ans qu'il se soit chante Messe dans son Abbaye, ne fait aucun exercice du service de l'Eglise Ro- maine, mais au contraire slest toujours montre fidele, et a porte les arnes pour maintenir l'Evangile. On demande s'il doit 6tre recu a la Cene Reponse., Oui' " Comperi enim Episcopum quendam ante centum et quod excurrit annos avitm superstitionis delendie praetextu, omnia ecclesise suse monumenta et Registra igni tradidisse,"-Vol. i, p. 10. t Aymon, Synod. National. Tom. i, p. 45.-" At the fourth National Synod of the Reformed Churches of France, held at Lyons, the 10th of Au- gust, 1563, in the third year of the reign of Charles IX., king of France Monsieur Peter Viret, then minister of the church of Lyons having been elected moderator and secretary; among the ' particular facts' or cases SUCCEEDING EVENTS. 385 "We cannot here indulge any such charitable hopeas that which I sug- gested in the preceding case; for the point which seizes our attention is not the act of the individual, but the approbation of the National Synod. The matter is quaintly entered in the index, and in plainer terms than those in which it was submitted to the assembled divines. "Abbe requ ai la Cene pour avoir brulde ses Tetres, abatu les Images de IlEglise de son couvent, et porti les artnes pour maintenir les prelicateurs Reformees, p. 45." 8. Our summary of facts connected with the remaining his- tory of the Huguenots must be necessarily very brief. After the massacre, these religionists took shelter in the town of Ro- chelle, which they strongly fortified and held successfully against the besieging royal army under the duke of Anjou. From this important sea-port they kept up a constant communi- cation with England. The duke of Anjou having been after- wards chosen king of Poland, a new edict of Pacification was published in 1573, which held out the promise of a general peace: but the prospect was soon blighted by the plots and counterplots of the contending factions. Charles IX., whose health had been long declining, died of consumption on the 30th of May, 1574, after having appointed his mother regent of the kingdom. His death was the signal for renewed civil commotions. The Huguenots and a portion of the Catholic leaders wished to place the duke of Alencon on the throne; while the queen regent was firm in maintaining the right of the elder brother, now king of Poland. She succeeded in her purpose, and the new king took the name of Henry III. Alencon mith the which were discussed and decided, No. xlvii, is thus stated: 'An abbot having come to the knowledge of the gospel, having broken down the idols, burnt his titles (the MSS. registers of the monastery), and provided for his monks without having permitted Mass to be sung in his abbey for six years, performed no act of service of the Roman Church, but on the contrary has always shown himselffaithfu7, and has borne arms to maintain the gospel. It is asked whether he should be admitted to the Supper -Answer: Yes." "d Abbot received to the Supper, for having burnt his registers, broken the images in the church of his convent, and borne arms to sustain the re- formed preachers." VOL. Ii.-33 386 REFORMATION I FRANCE-THE HUGUENOTS. king of Navarre now joined the malcontents, and the flames of civil war were again lighted up all over France. Meantime two great confederacies were organized. The Huguenots bound themselves together by the most solemn engagements, and established a council of state at Millaud, which was vested with the most ample power "to appoint counselors, to determine the quota of men and money to be raised in each district, and to act as an independent authority in the heart of France." Having failed to secure the assist- ance of England, the malcontents shortly afterwards agreed to another Pacification in which their principal rights were satisfactorily secured; and the king of Navarre and Alengon returned to their allegiance. Like all previous ones, this Pacification was short-lived. The establishment of a sort of independent government in France by the Huguenots. through their confederacy (of Mil- laud, naturally led to counter combinations. A great Cath- olic league was formed, which pervaded almost all the provinces, and in which the subscribers pledged tllenselves " to maintain the ascendency of the ancient faith, and to pro- tect, at the hazard of their lives and fortunes, the Catholic worship, the clergy, and the churches, against the hostile attempts of their enemies." The new king placed himself at the head of the Catholic league. Another religious war ensued, followed by the usual short-lived Pacification; and the Protestants " ultimately recovered the chief of the conces- sions which had be!en revoked."t 9. Things went or. in this troubled state, until Henry III. was assassinated by a ;anatic, in 1589. Then the civil war recommenced; and it ended with firmly settling on the throne the darling of the Huguenots, the king of Navarre, who took Lingard, Hist. England, viii, p. 10t-5. The instrument is found in Daniel's History of France, x., 62. Its Drincioal clauses prove that the Cath- olic majority sought to defernd their altars and clergy from the violence of the Huguenots, who were so ardently in aove with religious libert. as to seek to have it all to themselves, and to allow none to ltheir ileighors t Ihi I HENRY IV. BECOMES CATHOLIC. I87 the narme of Henry IV., and who has been honored with the name of the Great. Henry on his accession became a Cath- olic; and, strange as it may appear, he was urged to take this step by his own leading Huguenot partisans, who repre- sented to him, that lie might have more influence and serve their cause better as a Catholic thlan as a Protestant! All the constituted authorities of the kingdom were Catholic, the excep- tions being so few as to make no essential difference. And was not the Catholic Church, after all, in reference to doctrine, order, and usage, the same ancient Church which it had ever beeh No one could deny the cor- ruption of morals and the abuses of discipline which prevailed among the clergy; these, however, it was not for the Huguenots to reform, but for him, the king, the temporal head of the Church. Perhaps God had raised him up to re-establish the general unity once more; but before he could inter- fere with the Church, he must again stand forth as the eldest son of the Church." 10. Once firmly seated on the throne, Henry IV. published in favor of his former co-religionists the famous Edict of Nantes. This was in 1598; the same year in which occurred the death of Philip II. of Spain, who had so earnestly op- posed his accession to the French throne. The Edict not only guarantied to the Huguenots the fullest religious liberty, but it gave them, moreover, extensive civil and religious pri- vileges, and even recognized them as a distinct organization and power in the state. The subsequent revocation of this Edict -nearly a hundred years later, in 1685, by another French monarch, Louis XIV., who has also been dignified with the name of Great-has given rise to a torrent of abuse and invective against the intolerance of the Catholic Church on the part of certain partisan writers, who imagine that the Church is responsible for whatever Catholic sovereigns may chance to do, even if their action should be against her own spirit and her own interests. Without defending the justice, or Ranke, Civil Wars etc., sup. cit., p. 473. It was precisely this " inter- ference with the Church" by its "eldest son," which had produced all the evils and abuses in France; as we have already shown on the authority of Ranke himself! REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOTS even the policy of the revocation, we will here state a few facts bearing on it, which, together with those already referred to, may tend to modify in a considerable degree the haish judgment formed by some in regard to this subject. 11. Henry IV., like his predecessor, fell by the dagger of an assassin, in 1610; and he was succeeded by Louis XIII.; who reigned until 1643, with the great Cardinal Richelieu as his prime minister. Immediately after the death of their great protector, the Huguenots again grew restive and tur- bulent, and not long afterwards they broke out into open war against their own government. From 1617 to 162f9, they stirred up no less than three additional civil wars in France; which, like the previous ones, were generally ended with a Pacification guarantying to them all their privileges. At each new outbreak, they, of course, as a pretext for taking up arms, charged that the Catholics had violated their legal rights secured to them by the Edict; while, on the other hand, the Catholic party maintained, that, in almost every instance, they had been the first to break the conditions under which the privileges of the Edict were accorded. Caveirac, who has made diligent and ample researches on the subject, and has published them to the world, proves that no less than two hundred decrees were issued by various sue ceeding French governments, with a view to curb the ever encroaching spirit of the Huguenots, whose demands seemed to grow with the amount of concessions made them. They greatly exaggerated their claims to importance and to influ- ence in the government, which they wished to control for their own purposes, though they were so very small a minority of the French population. They seem to have aimed, in fact, at little less than becoming an imperium in imperio-a dis- tinct and independent government in the heart of the French monarchy. They sought to secure this species of independ- ence, particularly during the bloody civil war which termi- Quoted by Fredet-Modern History; note 0. 388 EDICT OF NANTES-AND ITS REVOCATION. nated in the capture of their great strong-hold Rochelle, which was accomplished by the genius of Richelieu. They were then, as previously, in open league with England, and English troops with an English navy came openly to their assistance. After the fall of Rochelle in 1629, their power was broken, and their organization greatly weakened. Still the old spirit of disaffection and turbulence remained. Their sympathies continued to be evidently more English and Ger- man than French; and they still kept up their intrigues with foreign Protestants, with a view to subvert the constitution of their country, and thereby to regain their long coveted ascendency. Under all these circumstances, we do not so much wonder at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, as at the fact of its having continued so long in existence. The chief reason for the delay was, probably, the distracted and enfeebled condition of the kingdom in consequence of the numerous civil wars: but when the French monarchy be- came again strong under the long and able administration of Louis XIV., the hesitancy ceased, and by the severe measure of revoking the Edict, the "grande monarque" thought to unite and consolidate his government, by depriving the mal- contents of the power to provoke new civil wars.t It is, we believe, quite a mistake to suppose that the ma- terial prosperity of France was impaired by the revocation of the Edict. On the contrary, France had never been so united, so powerful, and so prosperous at any previous period of her history, as she became at this precise time, and as she This fleet ascended the Loire, and landed troops in the interior of France. t By the edict of revocation, such Huguenot ministers as refused to abjure within two months, were ordered to leave France; but the great body of the Protestants were allowed, and even encouraged to remain and enjoy their property and rights under the protection of the law, "without being troubled and vexed on account of their religion." Orders were, nmoreover, promptly issued to check the violence with which the Ifuguei:os were treated in some places; and in a special letter to the Intendants of the pro- Vincos, the king strongly urged moderation and mildness. See Ibid. 56 389 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENOT. continued to be long afterwards. By it she was delivered from the blighting curse of continual civil commotions and wars, which had distracted her government, and rendered her beautiful soil desolate for more than a hundred years. The number of the Huguenots who followed their ministers into exile has been greatly exaggerated. Hume flippantly sets it down as exceeding half a million; while other Protestant writers reduce it to two hundred thousand. The duke of Burgundy, the favorite disciple of Fenelon, after carefil research, estimates it at sixty-eight thousand ;-a less number than had probably fallen in a single one of the nine or ten civil wars which the Huguenots had provoked. The Calvin- ists of greater substance and influence, in general, remained in France. The duke of Burgundy presents the following view of the whole subject: "I do not speak of the calamities produced by the new doctrines in Ger- many, England, Scotland, Ireland, etc. I speak of France. Nor shall I enumerate one by one the evils of which it was the theatre, and which are recorded in so many authentic documents: the secret assemblies; the leagues formed with foreign enemies; the attempts against the government; the seditious threats, open revolts, conspiracies, and bloody wars; the plundering and sacking of towns; the deliberate massacres and atrocious sacrileges: suffice it to say, that from Francis I. to Louis XIV., during seven successive reigns, all these evik an I many others, with more or less violence, desolated the French monarchy. This is a point of history, which, although it may be variously related, can neither be denied nor called in question; and it is from this capital point that we should start in the poli- tical examination of this grand affair.` 12. No doubt, many atrocities were committed on both Memoires, etc., quoted ibid. Some have asserted, that Louis XIV. had no right to recall the Edict issued by his predecessor. The great Protestant jurist Grotius took a different view of this question. His words are: "No- rint illi qui reformatorum sibi imponunt vocabulum, non esse illa foedera, sed regum edicta, ob publicam facta utilititem, et remas')ailia, si aliud regi- bus publica utilitas suaserit."-Rivet. Apol. Discussio, p. 29. Quoted ibid. -" Let those who take to themselves the name of REFORmED know, that these are not rompads, but edicts issued for the public good, and revocable, if the public utility induce kings to revoke them.", 390 THE WOOL-COMBER LECLERC--D'AU-. lGNE 3 sides by the contending parties, during the protracted civil wars of France stirred up and kept alive by religious en- thusiasm or fanaticism. But it is manifestly unfair to sup- pose that the Huguenots were always the injured and per- secuted party, because they were in the minority. This is apparent from the facts already stated. For one St. Barthol- omew massacre, we have from five to ten on the other side, which if not so public or atrocious, nevertheless betray the same blood-thirsty and intolerant spirit. It is stated, for in- stance, that in the province of _Dauphin6 alone, the Hugue- nots burnt nine hundred towns and villages ! Nor should it be forgotten, that throughout the contest the Catholic party stood on the defensive, and aimed to maintain the ancient and long established order of things; while their opponents sought by violence to introduce new institutions on the ruins of the old, both in Church and State.t They Those who wish to see a full account of all these odious transactions, with the documents at length, are referred to Caveirac, Dissertation sur le St. Barthelemi; Daniel, Histoire de France ad an. 1572, and passim, quoted by Fredet, ibid., note P.; and to Lingard's note to vol. viii of the Americar edition of his History. Both sides of the discussion on the St. Bartholo- mew massacre are presented with reasonable fiirness in the London Penny Cyclopedia. t Wherever the Huguenots succeeded in gaining a foothold in France, they immediately set about the work of pulling down or desecrating the Catholic churches and monasteries, or at least in greatly disturbing the Catholic worship. That this was the case at a later period, is generally understood, and will scarcely be denied. But that it was so from the very beginning of the French Reformation, may not be so generally known. We will here present a curious instance of this ardent zeal for "removing the monuments of idolatry," from that most veracious historian of the Protest- ant Reforrnation-D'Aubigne. The incidents referred to occurred as early as 1523: the first having taken place at Meaux, of which city Briqonnet, a refuted friend of the new gospelers was bishop; the second at Metz. The account is aLso a pretty fair specimen of the bold hypocrisy and contempt- ible cant with which this romantic historian is wont to regale his readers: " The wool-comber Leclerc began to visit fronm house to house, confirming the disciples. But not stopping short at these ordinary cares, he would fain have seen the edifice of popery overthrown, and France, from the 391 392 REFORMATION IN FRANCE-THE HUGUENTR signally failed in accomplishing this purpose; and no im- partial man, who calmly reviews the whole series of trans- midst of these ruins, turning with a cry of joy towards the gospeL His unguarded zeal may remind us of that of Hottinger at Zurich, and of Carl- stadt at Wittenberg. He wrote a proclamation against the antichrist of Rome, announcing that the Lord was about to destroy him by the breath of his mouth. He then boldly posted his placards on the gates of the cath edral. Presently all was in confusion around that ancient edifice. The faithful were amazed; the priests exasperated. What! a fellow whose em- ployment is wool-combing dares measure himself with the Pope! The Franciscans were outrageous, and demanded that this once at least a terrible example should be made. Leclerc was thrown into prison." Leclerc left the uncongenial city of Mcaux, where his luminous parts were not duly appreciated, even by the bishop Bri onnet; and we next hear of him at Metz, where his zeal broke forth into the following extraordinary proceeding, as related by D'Aubigne: "Thus Metz was about to become a focus of light, when the imprudent zeal of Leclere suddenly arrested this slow but sure progress, and aroused a storm that threatened utter ruin to the rising church. The common people of Metz continued walking in their old superstitions, and Leclerc's heart was vexed at seeing this great city plunged in idolatry. One of their great festivals was approaching. About a league from the city stood a chapel containing images of the Virgin and of the most celebrated saints of the country, and whither all the inhabitants of Metz were in the habit of making a pilgrimage on a certain day in the year, to worship the images and to obtain the pardon of their sins. The eve of the festival had arrived: Leclerc's pious and courageous soul was violently agitated. Has not God said: 'Thou shalt not bow down to their gods; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images ' Leclerc thought that this command was addressed to him, and without consulting either Chatelaine, Escb, or any of those who he might have suspected would have dissuaded him, quitted the city in the evening, just as night was coming on, and approached the chapel. There he pondered while sitting silently before the statues. He still had it in his power to withdraw: but .... to-mor- row, in a few hours, the whole city that should worship God alone, will be kneeling down before these blocks of wood and stone. A struggle ensued in the wool-comber's bosom, like that which we trace in so many Christians of the primitive ages of the Church. What matters it to him that what he sees are the images of saints, and not of heathen gods and goddesses "F Leclerc was certainly a Christian of a very primitive stamp! His ignor- ance was equaled only by his presumption and self-conceit: he would have CONCLUSION. actions, can either be surprised at, or can even greatly regret their failure. All the glories of France were closely bound up with the interests of the Catholic religion. In conclusion, we venture the opinion, that the French re- volution of the last century was the final result of the un- settledness of faith caused by the protracted wars of religion, and of "that atheism" which, according to Rank6, "was springing up amid the confusion of religious strife," as early as the close of the sixteenth century. Voltaire succeeded Calvin; both were Frenchmen, and both were animated with the same undying hatred of the Catholic Church! Says Macaulay: "The only event of modern times which can be properly compared with the Reformation, is the French revolution; or, to speak more accurately, that great revolution of political feeling which took place in almost eveiv part of the civilized world during the eighteenth century, and which ob- tained in France its most terrible and signal triumph. Each of these mem- orable events may be described as a rising up of human reason against a caste. The one was a struggle of the laity against the clergy for intellect- ual liberty (!); the other was a struggle of the people against the privileged orders for political liberty."t torn down the images which God ordered to be placed in the temple of Solomon! Here is the latest outbreakof his zeal: "Leclerc arose, approached the images, took them down and broke them in pieces, indignantly scattering their fragments before the altar. He doubted not that the Spirit of the Lord had excited him to this action, and Theodore Beza thought the same. After this, Leclerc returned to Metz, which he en- tered at daybreak, unnoticed save by a few persons as he was entering the gates."-History of the Reformation, pp. 458, 463. Am. Edit., 1 vol. 8vo. New York, 1851. Civil Wars, etc., p. 473. t Review of Nares' Memoirs of Lord Burghley, Miscell, p. 173. 393 HISTORY OF THE PROTESrA NT REFORMATION. CHAPTER IX. THE REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. Reformation in Sweden the work of the crown-Gustaf Wasa its author- Conversion and civilization of Sweden-Its bishoprics-And early sanc- tity-Upsala the metropolis-Union of Calmar - Sweden reluctant to submit-The Stures administrators-Contests and a compromise-The families of Sture and Trolle-The feud between them-Archbishop Trolle deposed by the diet-Bishop of Linkoping-The Pope excommunicates all who were concerned-The tyrant Christian II.-The " Blood Bath" of Stockholm-Bishop of Linkoping escapes-Gustaf Wasa, the deliverer of Sweden-His treachery in breaking his parole-His remarkable adven- tures in Northern Sweden-His eloquent address from a tomb-stone- Popular enthusiasm-The army of independence-The Catholic bishops- Wasa intriguing with them and with the nobles-Employs force when persuasion fails-His army of foreign mercenaries-He appoints new bishops, and re-organises the diet-He is elected king-Decides to rob the Church-Turns reformer-The two brothers Olaus and Lawrence- Beginning the work of sacrilege-Wasa deposes and appoints bishops- The Anabaptists-The archbishop of Upsala-The peasants and the Chap- ter of Upsala-Manoeuvring of Wasa to bend or oust the archbishop- He deposes him and expels him from Sweden-The exile and death of the archbishop-Two bishops mocked and put to death-The foreign troops furnish the key to Wasa's position-Diet of Westeras-The Catholic Reli- gion abolished-And Wasa declared supreme in church and state-Diet of Orebro completes the work of destruction-Lament of the people- Exile and death of Bishop Brask-An extraordinary pastoral visitation- Watching and preying-Wholesale confiscation-New archbishop conse- crated-Rebellions-Sacrilege and taxation-Confiscation of church bells- The Dalmen-How disaffection was put down-The priests beheaded- How the popular grievances were redressed-Confirmatory testimony of Geijer-Wasa and Henry VIII. compared-Avarice of Wasa-His hard swearing -How he was rebuked by the two brothers-And how he pun- (394) CONVERSION OF SWEDEN. ished them-The curse of sacrilege-Family of IWV sa-His death--Tm- morality of Sweden-Testimony of Bayard Taylor-Conclusion. THE history of the Reformation in Sweden does not present any great exception to the general laws which governed the movement elsewhere; with this difference, however, that in Sweden it was, as in England, wholly and exclusively the work of the crown. Gustaf Wasa, the liberator of Sweden from the Danish yoke, and the founder of the Swedish mon- archy in modern times, was the main spring, and the \ery life and soul of the Swedish Reformation, which rnoved at his bidding, and was moulded entirely to his will. lie began the work by cunning intrigue and under false pretenses, and he ended it with general spoliation of the Church, and open violence to the consciences of his people. After having shaken off the Danish yoke, he became,chiefly through the imeans of the Reformation, supreme both in church and state; and though the semblance of the ancient Catholic diets of the kingdom was still kept up, yet the different orders of the state had but little real power, and every thing was forced to bend to his OWEl iron will. In Sweden, as much probably as anywhere else, the Reformation resulted from the working of the three great concupiscences, mentioned by the inspired apostle as controlling the world. All this we expect to estab- lish by unexceptionable Protestant authority.t We preserve the old Swedish spelling as given by the historian of Sweden-Fryxell, infra cit. The name is more usually written Gustavuis Vasa. t We shall rely chiefly on the authority of the " History of Sweden, translated from the original of Anders Fryxell, by Mary Howitt; As in two vols., 12mo, London, 1844; for a copy of which we are indebted to the very Rev. E. T. Collins V. G. of Cincinnati The author is a Swede and a Lu- theran, with strong religious prejudices in favor of the Reformation; yet withal he is candid enough not wholly to conceal or grossly to misstate the principal facts. We mention this circumstance, that our readers may be the better able to appreciate his testimony, and to draw the line of distinc- tion between his opinions and his ficts, in the passages which we shall have occasion to quote. 395 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. Thie early history of Sweden is involved in no little ob scurity. The Swedish peninsula was a part of that ancient Scandinavia, which in the fifth and following centuries of the Christian era, poured its teeming hordes of barbarians over the more inviting provinces of Southern Europe. Like all the other Germanic and Northern tribes, its people were indebted for Christianity and for all consequent civilization to the Catholic Church and to the Roman Pontiffs. St. Anskarius, a monk of Corbie in Westphalia, may be said to have been the first apostle of Sweden, though he was not able to extend his labors far into the interior of the country. In the eleventh century, David. Stephen, and Adelward, Anglo-Saxon monks, under a regular commission from the Sovereign Pontiff, carried the light of the gospel into Sweden. Of these Adelward was appointed the first bishop of Skara. They were followed, in the twelfth century, by St. Henry, the martyr-bishop of Upsala, who was also the apostle of the neighboring Finlanders; and by Nicholas Breakspear-after- wards Pope Adrian IV.-who converted the Norwegians. Eric, the sainted Swedish king, contributed much, by his holy example and royal influence, towards diffusing through- out his kingdom and firmly establishing Christianity, for which he fell a willing martyr, while assisting at the holy sacrifice of the Mass in the Cathedral of Upsala. This ancient city had been the principal seat of pagan superstition in Scandinavia. The idols of Odin, Thor, and Frey were there enshrined and worshiped by their devotees, who flocked thither from all the neighboring countries of the North. These were removed by the Christian missionaries, and the cross was reared in triumph on the site of the statue of Odin. Thenceforth Upsala became the centre of the Chris- tian Religion in Sweden; and under Stephen, its sixth pre- late, it was raised by the Sovereign Pontiff to the dignity of Or Wodin. As is well known, the names of our days, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, are derived from these three Scandinavian deities, Wodin, Thor, and Frey. 396 UNION OF CALMAR. an archiepiscopal see, having under it six suffragan bishop- rics: Linkoping, Stregnes, Westeras, Skara, Vexio, and Abo in Finland. At a period when society was struggling into form, and when might and right were often convertible terms, these seven sees became the conservative centres of the new order and civilization; and the bishops by the general consent and through the liberality of pious princes became influential and powerful members of the body politic. In the course of time they were made princes, and they had their strong castles and retainers, viewed as necessary elements of that feudal system, which originating in the fastnesses of the North, lingered there longer than anywhere else in Europe. The northern states continued in a state of perpetual agi- tation and civil feuds until near the close of the fourteenth century, when the genius of Margaret, called the Semiramis of the North, united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Swe- den, and Norway into one under her own powerful sceptre. This Union was accomplished by the treaty of Calmar, in 1397. It was not, however, destined to be of long continu- ance. The successors of Margaret had little of her talents or skill in government, and the powerful confederacy was soon Originally there were as many as nine bishoprics in Sweden alone, besides that of Finland; exhibiting the vigor of the early Swedish faith. In the course of time, however, three of them were suppressed as unneces- sary. The early Swedish church numbers twenty-three canonized saints; one of whom was a king,-St. Eric,-and ten were bishops. Among the holy women who adorned Sweden with their virtues were St. Mechtildes, who flourished in the thirteenth, and St. Brigit or Birgit, who flourished in the fourteenth century. St. Brigit caused her pious and learned secretary Mathias to translate the Scriptures into Swedish in the year 1352. This translation is still extant, a monument of Catholic zeal for the diffusion of the Scriptures in the middle ages, and a signal rebuke to heretical calumny in modern times. See for these and other interesting facts, the work of the learned Dr. Theiner published some years ago, in Rome, entitled :"On the Efforts made by the Holy See in the last three centuries, to bring back the people of the North to the Unity of the Catholic Church." See also a Re view of this work in the Universit6 Catholique, voL x. 397 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. frittered away by disunion and intestine vars. No.way, because weaker, continued longer in the Union, as a depend- ency of Deirnark, than did Sweden, which had always re- garded the Union with a suspicious eye. Froni its very date, there had rbeen two antagonistic parties in Swedeii; the one favoring the connection, the other opposing it, and standing up for Swedish independence. From and during the last quarter of the fifteenth century, Sweden was virtually inde- pendent of Denmark, having her own governors, under the modest name of administrators. Of these, the most distin- guished belonged to the ancient and illustrious Swedish family of Sture; of whom three, Sten Sture the Elder, Swante Sture, and Sten Sture the Younger, successively held the reins of government, almost down to the end of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, when our history of the Reformation opens. Unfortunately for the cause of Catholicity in Swedcn, the Catholic bishops at this period belonged to the party which favored the Union of Calmar. Whether it was from the general conservative spirit of the Catholic Church, based on a respect for the obligation voluntarily assumed by Sweden in the solemn treaty stipulations there made, or from the fact that many of the bishops were of Danish families, and had been invested with their episcopal dignity by the Danish crown, or from both causes combined, the Swedish prelates were generally favorable to Denmark; and their influence in the diets, combined with that of many among the leading nobles imbued with similar feelings, possessed great weight in controlling the course of events. This was particularly unfortunate, at a time when Sweden was on the eve of cast- ing off the yoke of the Danish tyrant Christian II., and as- serting her own independence. The struggle was precipitated by the death of the admin- istrator Swante Sture, which occurred suddenly in 1512. His followers concealed his death, and wrote to the governors of the different castles in his name, instructing themn to hold 398 ARCHBISHOP TROLLE DEPOSED. their fortresses in the name of his son, Sten Stare the Younger. The bishops and the older nobles opplosed the appointment attempted to be thus irregularly and clandes- tinely made. The feeling more or less general was, that the Stures had held the administratorship long enough, and that they should now allow it to pass into the hands of the Trolles, or of some other noble family. After much agitation, and many animated discussions in successive diets, the affair was finally compromised by the election of the younger Sture, on condition that Gustaf Trolle, the son of Erick Trolle his competitor, should be chosen archbishop of Upsala. Trolle was then in Rome, and the Pontiff ratified the compromise, accepting at the same time the willingly proffered resignation of Jacob Ulfson the aged archbishop, who retired to the quiet of private life. The new archbishop arrived in Sweden in 1515, and he was solemnly installed in his cathedral by the retiring incumbent. As we have already intimated, the families of thle Stolles and the Stures were rivals, and were at the head of the two political factions which had long agitated Sweden. The feud was not calmed, but it rather became embittered by the com- promise. Both parties probably went too far, as is generally the case in such contests; but, if we may believe our Luther- an historian of Sweden, Trolle was haughty and unyielding, while Sture, the administrator, sought to remove the agitation by conciliation. But the facts, even as stated by himself, clearly prove, that if the latter began by the way of concilia- tion, he ended by that of open violence. He declared war against the refractory archbishop, and had him apprehended and arraigned as a traitor before a diet at Stockholm, where he was deposed and degraded from his office. The arch- bishop protested against the competency of the court, com- posed of nobles and bishops, which sat to try him; and he The usually accurate writer of the article in the Dublin Review, for September 1845, reviewing Fryxell's History of Sweden, calls him the nephew of Swante. He was his son, as Fryxell states, ii, 5. 399 400 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. appealed to the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff But Iris apl)eal was not heeded. "i Ie was obliged with a solemn oath to r'csign his archbishopric, and was confinied in Wester- as Cloister, whence he was further obliged to write to the chapter of UDsala to cor firm his al)dication, and beg them to choose a new archbisho)p: at last he received permission to go home to his father's estate Ekholm, and remain there." His castle of Stake was demolished, and lie subsequently escaped with difficulty to Dennmark. That the entire proceeding, even with the mitigating cir- cumstances alleged in its defense, was one of violence and against all law and precedent, is sufficiently apparent. The bishops, the only competent judges of the case besides the Pope, did not sign the decree of the states of their owni free will, but rather under compulsion. This was the case at least with the most distinguished among them all, Hans Brask, bishop of Linkoping, who, " when he was to place the great wax seal by his name, unremarked, slipped a little paper un- der it, on which he had written these words: 'This I do by compulsion."-t That political considerations were at the bottom of the whole movement, is even more certain. The Pontiff afterwards excommunicated all who had taken part in the violent deposition of the archbishop; but that he sought, at the same time, to promote peace in the kingdom, and to prevent the bishops from interfering in the political administration, is apparent from his previous answer to Sture, who had complained of the refractory conduct of the archbishop. "The Pope replied, by warning Trolle and the whole Swedish clergy, ' not to set themselves up contrary to temporal government, but with humility attend to their own duties.' However, Gustaf Trolle heeded neither Pope nor administrator."I-If this be true, the archbishop was certainly so far in the wrong; but clearly neither the Pope nor the Church was fairly responsible for what ensued. FryxelL History of Sweden, ii, 15. t Ibid. I Ibid., p. 11. ccTIHE BLOOD BATH." The plot now thickened. Availing himself of the dissen- sions in Sweden, the Danish king Christian, or Christiern II. came over on the ice with a powerful army, in the winter of 1520-1, anid by overwhelming force bore down all oppo:ition. Sten Sture, the administrator, perished in the conflict; and after eight nmonths' siege, Stockholm opened its gates to the conqueror, who was now prepared effectually to enforce the Union of Calmar. But Christian was a bloody tyrant, and instead of endeavoring to heal dissension by conciliation, he establislled a reign of terror such as Sweden had never before witnessed. In November, 15-21, lie was solemnly crowned, and his Swedish reign was inaugurated by a bloody tragedy, in which the principal nobles arind several of the bishops, who had been invited to the coronation banquet, were treacherously butchered. This butchery is called by the Swedish historians ' the Blood Bath." Hans Brask, the bishop of Linkoping, saved his life, only by exhibiting the paper concealed under his seal to the paper deposing the archbishop of Upsala. This treacherous and inhuman massacre, while it rendered the Swedish church desolate, carried sorrow into the families of the principal Swedish nobles, many of which had to la- ment the bloody death of their heads. As the people re- turned to their homes from the sanguinary banquet and carried the sad tidings to their distant homes, a general gloom with a universal panic overspread the land. The Danish ascendency was thus secured amidst ominous silence and wide- spread desolation; but the quiet preceded a storm, which was soon to sweep away the Danish power from Sweden for- ever. A deliverer was at hand, aId he was GUSTAF WASA, belonging to one of the oldest families of Sweden. Our present scope does not require or allow us to enter into the interesting details of the Swedish war of independence; which, so far as it was a war of freedom against tyranny, has our most hearty sympathy. Our business with Gustaf Wasa is not so much with his political relations to his country as VOL. IL-34 401 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. its deliverer from the Danish yoke, as with his subsequent assumption of the right to change its religion, to sever it from its time-hallowed communion with the holy Catholic Church, and to make himself its supreme head in spirituals as well as in temporals. Had lhe not overstepped the limits of his own proper sphere of action, and laid sacrilegious hands on the sanctuary of God, his character might perhaps pass the ordeal of historical scrutiny, not indeed as unstained with crime, but at least as not much worse than that of his contenhpora- rics. But when lie set himself up as a religious reformer, and availed himself of the power which his position gave him to despoil and enslave the Church, and to make it the mere creature of his own royal will, we have a right to inquire into his antecedents, into the motives which prompted his action, and into the manner in which he accomplished his work. Taken off-by treachery as we are told by Fryxell-to Denmark among other hostages in 1518, he was imprisoned by Christian II., who however shortly afterwards released him at the instance of his relative, Sir Erick Baner, who stood surety to the king for his safe keeping, in the sumn of six-thousand rix-thalers. By his kind friend and surety, Gustaf was taken over to Kallo, " Where he was well received, and enjoyed much freedom. ' I will not cause you to be strictly guarded,' said Sir Erick, 'neither will I put you in confinement. You shall eat at my table, and go where you please; only faithfully promise me not to make your escape, nor journey anywhere unknown to me.' To this Gustaf bound himself both by writing and word of mouth, and thus gained liberty to go where he pleased within six miles of Kallo. In the beginning he was always accompanied by a guardian; but gradually gaining more and more of his relation's confidence, he was at last left entirely to himself."- How did Wasa repay this confidence We grieve to state, that lie began his public career by an act of treachery to his About 3,000, equal to about 36,000 of our present money. t Fryxell, History of Sweden, vol. ii, p. 62. 402 WASA-HIS ADVENTURES AND ELOQUENCE. friend anrd relative, wholly inexcusable under any circum- stances. Ile broke his solemnly plighted parole, and in the summer of 1.519, he secretly fled through Holstein to the free city of Lubeck. His surety followed him, and earnestly pleaded with him to return, and not leave him to bear the brunt of the king's resentment, besides being moreover com- pelled to pay the heavy penalty to which he was bound as his surety. Gustaf would listen to neither entreaties nor threats, and he put off his confiding relative with the vague promise of repaying the money when able, on his return to Sweden. In Lubeck, Gustaf Wasa "first became acquainted with the new doctrines which Luther at that time began preaching in Germany, all of which proved gi eatly to the advantage of his country when he became sovereign.'-As we shall soon see, the "new doctrines" proved much more advantageous to himself than "to his country." After remaining for eight months at Lubeck, Wasa returned secretly to Sweden in 1520, at the very time that Christian's army was marching to its conquest. Narrowly escaping with his life from the South of Sweden, he fled to the fastnesses of the North, where lie passed through a series of adventures, and made a number of thrilling hair-breadth escapes, which strongly remind us of the adventures of Charles Stuart in the Scottish highlands. so graphically painted by Chambers.t Distrust and treachery seem to have met him at almost every step. The Danish officials everywhere dogged his footsteps; and flying from place to place, and knowing not whom to trust amid the general panic, he was often tempted to give up the cause of independence as hopeless. At length he found himself on Christmas day at Mora, a populous village on the northern borders of lake Siljan, and he accompanied the people to the solemn High Mass. At the Fryxell, ibid., p. 63. t In his "Rebellion in Scotland "-one of the most thrillingly interest ing books in the English language. 403 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. close of the service, he mounted upon a tomb-stone in the adjoining cemetery, and delivered an impassioned patriotic harangue to the assembled multitude. Young, athletic, and eloquent, his words made a deep impression on the popular mind. Aroused to enthusiasm, the people ran to the steeple and rang the church bells, the usual tocsin for great emerg- encies of alarm and danger. The numbers of the brave and patriotic peasantry rapidly increased; and there, on a Christ- mas day, after a soul-stirring appeal from a Catholic tomb- stone, with the ringing of the venerable Catholic church bells, Swedish patriotism was re-awakened, and the nucleus was formed of that rude but energetic and conquering army, which rolled on in its swelling numbers and growing enthusi- asm from North to South, until it bore down all opposition, crushed the armies of the Dane, and delivered Sweden for- ever from a foreign yoke! As yet, none of the bishops had declared for Wasa. One reason for this was, that most of them had been butch- ered with the nobles at the terrible Blood Bath of Stock- holm; and another was, that the deposed archbishop Ttolle had already returned, and together with another noble had been intrusted by the Danish crown with the administration of the kingdom. Gustaf Wasa determined to gain over to his cause the most learned and influential member of the episcopal body, Hans Brask of Linkoping, of whom we have already spoken. He succeeded in this purpose; and at the diet of Wadstena, after coquetting with the assembled repre- sentatives and pleading that he was unworthy of so high an office, he was finally prevailed on to accept the post of chief executive, under the. modest title of administrator. He was as adroit a politician in the cabinet, as he was an able general in the field. Aiming steadily at the supreme power, he moved on towards his object steadily but cautiously, always alleging his own unworthiness, and frequently threatening, when thwarted, to abandon the government altogether and leave the ungrateful Swedes to their fate. 404 WASA ELECTED KING AND TURNS REFORMER. Yet when such coquettish cajolery failed of its effect, he had no scruple whatever to resort to force, and to carry out his measures by open violence. He had brought into the country a strong body of foreign mercenaries, chiefly German Lutherans; and he did not hesitate to avail himself of this powerful engine of oppression, whenever persuasion failed with the refractory nobles and people, who had inherited a strong prejudice in favor of liberty from their Catholic ances- tors. All this we shall soon see, especially when we shall have occasion to show how the Reformation was introduced into Sweden. Meantime the seige of Stockholm, which was still held by the Danish garrison, went slowly on. Gustaf might probably have taken the city at once; but it did not suit his purpose to be in a hurry. He wished to accustom the people to his sway, and to prove to them how necessary he was to their safety. He desired also to have time to pre- pare the way for more effectually carrying out his subsequent designs. To be able to succeed in this ulterior purpose, it was necessary to reorganize the elements of the old Swedish diets, which without a thorough remodeling would probably have presented a sturdy resistance to his darling scheme of becoming an absolute king. Circumstances favored him. The members of the diets had been greatly diminished: the Blood Bath of Stockholm had already done its work with the bishops and nobles. As ourLutheran historian himself tells us: " Scarcely was there a bishop or a senator in the country till very lately, that is, till the autumn of 1522, when new bishops had been appointed bv Gustaf viz Master Knut in Upsala to replace Gustaf Trolle; Magnus Sommar in Strangnas, after Beldenack; Harold Stromfelt in Skara, in the room of Didrik Slaghok; and Peter Sunnanwader in Westerms to replace Otto Swinhufwud lately dead; who all became famous in the history of Gustaf's reign. The senate was also furnished with new members in the diet held at Strangnas." In this diet of Strangnas, thus fully reorganized anid filled with his own particular friends, Gustaf Wasa was chosen king Fryxell, History of Sweden, voL ii, p. 11L 6, 405 406 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. of Sweden in June, 1523. His newly created bishops were among the loudest in demanding his election, which was warmly seconded by the people whose idol he had now be- come. Gustaf as usual, played off the arts of a consummate diplomat. - "He was already weary of the labors he had undergone, and they could choose from the old knights who were present."-None of these daring to think of accepting the dignity, for fear of his head, Gustaf was at length pre- vailed upon reluctantly to accept the royal crown, after the urgent entreaty of the Papal legate, John Magnus, whom he afterwards had appointed archbishop of Upsala. Having now secured his object, there was no longer any valid reason for delaying the taking of Stockholm; the gates of which were accordingly freely opened to him on the 21st of June of the same year, a few days after his election. He made his entry in great state, and immediately repaired to the "High Church," where he prostrated himself in thanks- giving before altars which he was so soon, and which he even then probably intended, to subvert! But the wary monarch had not yet sufficiently moulded the popular mind, and es- pecially the character of the episcopal body, to his mind; and he accordingly delayed his coronation, until entire sub- serviencv could be obtained, and he would be required to take no inconvenient oaths.t Being now firmly seated on the throne, Wasa, who had long cast a covetous eye on the possessions of the Church, soon began seriously to devise ways and means for accom- plishing his settled purpose, which was to enrich himself by seizing on the rich property that had been accumulated by the generous piety of ages towards the support of the clergy and the poor,and the splendor of divine worship. He could not hope to succeed in carrying out this sacrilegious design, without first shaking the deeply seated reverence of his people for the ancient Religion and for the persons of their chief See the whole scene, which is an exceedingiy rich one, in Fryxell, ERistory of Sweden, voL ii, p. 111, seqq. f Ibid THE TWO BROTHERS. pastors; and he accordingly determined first gradually to undermine the foundations of the stately fabric which it was his darling object entirely to subvert. If he could once in- fect the popular mind with the new opinions, and degrade the episcopal character in the eyes of the people, he need entertain no reasonable doubt of ultimate success. He determined to labor for this double object, as a necessary preliminary to the thorough work of spoliation which he had in view. As we have already seen, he had been himself infected at Lubeck with the taint of the new gospel; but as yet, while all Sweden was Catholic, he had not dared avow his partial- ity for Lutheranism, and he still passed himself off as a zeal- ous Catholic. To begin the work of undermining, he now cordially received at court and loaded with honors the two brothers Olaus and Lawrence, sons of Peter, a rich smith in Orebro; who having begun their education in the Carinelite convent of their native town, had been sent by their wealthy parents to Germany to complete their education. They had become the zealous disciples of Luther in Wittenberg, and they now returned to Sweden brim full of the new gospel. They arrived in 1521, just in time to attend the funeral of their father; but they had become suddenly much wiser than their mother, and they openly thwarted her purpose of hav- ing their deceased parent buried, according to his dying re- quest, by the Carmelites, or of allowing these pious monks, with whom they had received their own early education, to celebrate Masses for the repose of his soul, as he had also provided in his will. The tears of the weeping mother were unheeded, and the Carmelites were rudely driven off from the funeral cortege. These wise sons tauntingly asked their sorrow-stricken mother: "If she understood the Mass in Latin, or what she thought of it. She answered.: 'I do not understand it; but while I listen to it, I pray God that he will accept their prayers which I doubt not He will.' " A Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, 118. 407 408 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. simple, but eloquent answer, which would have moved any one but two such rude and heartless boys, who were evi- dently totally unworthy of such a mother. The brothers were very unlike one another. Both dis- ciples of Luther, one resembled his master in volubility and coarseness, while the other was more like the gentler Melanc- thon: " Olaus the elder was bold, lively to an excess, perhaps bordering on vio- lence; active, determined, learned, capable of defending his principles by his pen, still mole so by his speech. Lawrence the younger was milder, though not less zealous, a less eloquent speaker but a greater author, and more learned than his brother; neither was to be moved from what he considered right. They were promoted by Luther ill 1518 to the grade of magister (master), Olaus being twenty-one, and Lawrence nineteen years old. The elder had accompanied Luther on a tour of inspection through the churches and schools of north Germany, by which he profited much. Such were the men with whose assistance Gustaf Wasa introduced the Lutheran reform into Sweden." The insincerity of Wasa, and the cunning and unprincipled manner in which he conducted the work of gradually under- mining the faith of Sweden, are unfolded in the following passage of the candid Lutheran historian: "The dauntless Olaus Petri had presented himself at the diet held at Strangnas in 1523, and sought to expose the errors of popery before the states. It caused much excitement, and reached the king-s ears, who called for Olaus and his patron, the venerable and learned Laurentius Andreae. They must now explain their sentiments before him, and it was impossible for him not to approve what agreed so well with his own convictions and advantage; but he did not express himself openly yet for some time, fearing by gaining the name of a heretic to draw on himself the detestation of priests and people; he therefore appeared to take no part in these relig- ious quarrels, but protected the net doctrines 8ecretly, and, for their further dissemination, placed Lawrence as doctor of theology at Upsala, Olaus as preacher in the High Church of Stockholm, and Laurentius Andreae he nominated his own private secretary. Thus these three, each in his own province, were enabled to labor in the cause of truth (error y't Each of these men discharged the office assigned him with Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, 117-8. t Ibid., 119. WASA DEPOSES BISUIOPS. a zeal worthv a better cause. In the High Church of Stock- holm a pulpit was built for Olaus "shaped like a basket, from which he with bold words and youthful zeal, set forth the errors and deceits(!) of popery;" while his milder and more learned brother duly indoctrinated with the new heresy the numerous candidates for the sacred ministry who frequented the ancient university of Upsala. No wonder the Catholic bishops, and others who had the interests of the ancient faith at heart, took the alarm. Bishop Brask earnestly besought the king not to countenance the new teachers, lest he should lose the good name of a Christian prince; but the king in his answer assumed the lofty tone of an impartial protector of all his subjects alike, without regard to their religious opinions. How little he was sincere in this, the sequel clearly proved; but even at the time he deceived no one. Says Fryxell: "In spite of this assumed impartiality, Brask was not slow to perceive the king's leaning towards the Lutherans; but he neither could, nor dared un- dertake any thing further.- Having thus set his instruments to work, Wass next took one step forward in his great scheme of robbing the Church. At the diet of Stragnas, in 1523, he called upon the estates to pay his large body of foreign mercenaries, who were now lying idle, and were clamoring for the remainder of their wages. Wasa proposed that the clergy should make up the deficit out of their revenues, but the clergy naturally objected to a tax which was unusual, and which, they foresaw, was but the beginning of a system of wholesale spoliation. Here- upon the king wrote a letter to Brask, " full of severity and threats;" and the prudent prelate at length yielded, probably to avert greater evils.t His next step in advance was, to depose an obnoxious bishop, and to have a new archbishop appointed for- Upsala. He did both with a high hand. Among the new bishops whom he had caused to be named, one was accused of sowing dissaffection; this was Peter Sunnanwader of Westeras. The Fryxell, History of Sweden, i 12L t Ibid.. 122. VOL. IL-35 409 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. king, accompanied by some senators immed ately rode to Westeras, summoned before him the trembling chapter of the cathedral, ordered them to depose Peter at once, and to nom- inate in his stead Petrus Magni. The canons hesitated, but the king peremptorily commanded them to decide, and they tremblingly obeyed. He then rode straight back to Stock- holm, and ordered before him the canons of Upsala, whom he directed to nominate a new archbishop in place of Knut whom he had already deposed. "He was obeyed, and the choice fell on John Magnus, the papal legate, whom the king had proposed to them." The Church in Sweden had fopund a master, who lorded it over her bishops with a military despotism, before entirely unheard of in the spiritual domain. All were stricken with consternation at these high-handed measures; but the end was not yet. In 1524, Wasa left Sweden, to hold a conference with the Danish King Frederick at Malmo, on subjects connected with the mutual relations of the two kingdoms. During his ab- sence important events occurred. Urged on by the zealous Bishop Brask, the new archbishop of Upsala summoned be- fore his chapter the two brothers Olaus and Lawrence, and as they proved obstinate in their adherence to the new gospel, he excommunicated them. Brask cordially co-operated with the metropolitan, and not only denounced the new doctrines in his diocese, but established a press whence he caused to be issued a number of publications against the errors of Luther, which he disseminated through the country.t Meantime, the violent appeals of Olans were producing their legitimate fruits at Stockholm. The cry of gospel-lib- erty raised by him was taken up by some Anabaptists who had lately arrived from Germany; and a popular commotion ensued, which threatened to destroy all social order and to in- troduce universal anarchy; in a word to make of Stockholm Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, 122-3. 410o f Ibid., p. 138& THE ANABAPPISTh. 411 what the Anabaptists were then making of Leyden and other cities. "They pretended to be impelled by the Spirit; they shouted and screamed, and finally succeeded in exciting the lower orders to uproar. A disgraceful tumult followed: shoe-makers, tanners, and others, often the most ignorant and vicious of their class, also imagined, or wanted to make others imagine, that they too were impelled by the Holy Ghost. These new apostles pre- sented themselves in the churches; but no one could recognize the doctrines of Christianity in the anger and violence with which they preached. The people, stirred by their discourses, wildly stormed both churches and con- vents, tore down their images and ornaments, and dragged them about in the mud of the streets. Olaus and his colleagues hastened out and sought to quiet the uproar; but the excited and raging multitude heeded not their words. The more sensible part of the community looked on these excesses with horror; and began to fear for the liberty or conscience in matters of religion which had lately been introduced in the country. But the peasants who happened to be in town were most wrathful; they hurried with horror out of Stockholm as a Gomorrah of iniquity, describing to the other peasants with bitterness and detestation what they had witnessed, and in their ignorance laying the whole blame on the doctrines of Luther. Up- land seemed on the point of insurrection; the peasants threatened that they would march to Stockholm, and clear the town and country of Lutherans and heretics."t The peasants were not far wrong in laying the blame on the doctrines of Luther; there was, on the contrary, an irre- sistible logic in the "ignorance" with which they reasoned. For if every man had a clear right to judge for himself in religious matters, why had not the shoe-makers and tanners as valid a right as any others In what was their right to preach inferior to that of Olaus and the other self-constituted apostles of the new gospel On his return, the king was filled with consternation at the popular-tumults, which threatened the stability of his newly established throne. He arrested and threw into prison the Anabaptist leaders, whom he afterwards sent out of the country, with the significant threat, "that it should cost them their lives if they ventured ever again to set foot on Swedish Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, p. 139. REFORMATION' IN SWFI)EN. ground." Olans and his Lutheran colleagues were also se. verelv rebuked by him for their to)o great indulgence towards men, who after all did hut follow out the priIlcipule of l)riv'ate judgment which those new apostles had so boastingly pro- mulgated. To still the popular tempest, Wasa came down from his throne and associated with the people, having a gra- cious smile and a bow for the lowest: he stopped them in the streets. asked concerning their complaints, played the part of Absalom when the latter was meditating treachery against the throne of his father.-Wasa certainly knew well how to act his part, both in comedy and in tragedy; but especially in the latter. The end was now fast approaching. At Christmas, 1524, Wasa visited Upsala to sound the dispositions of the new archbishop, whom he had lately caused to be appointed in so summary a manner. He soon found, however, to his sorrow that John Magnus, though a timid and courtly man, was not likely to become his ready and compliant instrument. He would do every thing to oblige the king, except to sacrifice his conscience, by abandoning the faith "once delivered to the saints."t Upon discovering this unpleasant truth, the king put in requisition all his arts to seduce the archbishop, or to The Lutheran historian calls this acting of Wasa, making his Eris- gata. Fryxell, Ibid., ii, p. 140. f Of the archbishop's character Fryxell says: "The lately elected archbishop John Magnus was a learned man of a mild and gentle disposition. He loved his country much, and its deliverer not less, for whose high qualities he entertained the greatest veneration, though mixed with fear and some ill will when he discovered that the king was laboring to overthrow the old Religion. Brask incessantly incited him, as the chief prelate of Sweden, to set a bound to the royal encroachments, but the archbishop could never bring himself openly to venture on so haz- ardous an attempt, and was obliged for his cowardice to endure many a sharp reproof from the bolder bishop. It was not that John Magnus ap. proved of the kjng's proceedings; he was devoted to the Roman Catholic Religion in heart and soul, and tried to counteract them as much as his ti- midity permitted."-Ibid., p 144. 412 THE ARCHBISHOP OF UPSALA. degrade hun in popular estimation; or, if all else Jailed, to drive him froms his see. His first rnanrieuvre was to have a public disputation on religion hlel(l in his presence at Upsala; his constant companion and theologian, the violent Olaus taking the Luthern side, and Peter Galle, a learned theologian, the Catholic. The discussion being held under the eye of the terrible king was scarcely free, and it terminated, as such wordy contests generally do, in nothing. The disputants Cgrew lonuler and more violent; and the king then ordered them to finish, and caused the chief points which had been discussed to be committed to paper." We may easily imagine how full, fair, and impartial was the report of the discussion, made and circulated under such auspices; but it had precisely the effect it was meant to produce,-to weaken the hold which the ancient faith had on the minds and hearts of the people. Determined, if possible, to bend the archbishop to his will, Wasa went again to Upsala in May, 1526.t He was accom- panied by a retinue of two hundred splendidly accoutred horsemen. Halting upon one of the mounds of old Upsala, he addressed the assembled multitudes in an harangue teem- ing with coarse invectives against the clergy, and especially the monks. He evidently coveted their wealth, and the simple-minded people discovered it at a glance. "But the peasants began to shout out and to cry 'that they might be per- mitted to keep their monks, since they were willing to support them: they had heard that they were to be robbed of the Latin Mass and their old ffith; that the secretary 'Master Lars' was certainly the cause of all this; they therefore wanted to get him out of the town and punish him.' Gustaf smiled, and asked them if they knew 'Master Lars' They answered: 'no, not we; but if we had him here with us on the common, we should presently make better acquaintance.' 't See Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, p. 141. t He had previously summoned the archbishop before him at Stockholm, and administered to him a sharp and unmerited rebuke on his supposed love of pomp! The timid prelate was like a lamb before the wolf! See an ac- count of the curious interview, Ibid., p. 145. t Ibid., p. 146. 413 414 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. Tlhis secretary of Wasa was Lars Andersson, w.lz com bined the unprincipled cunning of the English Crannier with the crouching servility of the English vicar general Crom- well. No wonder the people cordially disliked hini, and sought to make his nearer acquaintance on the coninion! The royal reformer next presented himself in new Upsala. where "to make sport of the archbishop," he publicly placed a garland on his head constituting him May-King! lie next passed a rude insult on the venerable prelate at a public banquet: "At the end of the repast, the archbishop with a full cup in his hand turned towards the king and said: ' Our grace drinks to your grace.' Gus- taf answered: ' Thiy grace and our grace cannot find room under the same roof; '-to which the archbishop had nothing to answer, but the company burst into a loud laugh."t The king next visited the archepiscopal chapter, and came at once and bluntly to the point, to which all this cunning manceuvring was evidently tending. He asked the canons to tell him the origin of their privileges: "' Peter Galle stood up, and answered (more cautiously than wisely) in the name of his companions: ' That the holy Church had received her privile- ges from Christian emperors, kings, and princes: goods and lands had, on the other hand, been presented to churches and convents by pious souls, which gifts had afterwards been confirmed by kings and princes, so that they should remain inalienable and ever the same.' 'But,' observed the king, 'have not kings and princes the right to recall such privileges, for which they find no ground in Scripture, but which have been extorted by denunciations of purgatory and more of the sort, which can never be proved by holy writ' Peter Galle not replying, the king turned to the archbishop begging him to answer, but neither did he speak."1t They no doubt thought it a bootless task to contend with the roval ruffian, whose purpose was already fixed, as they but too plainly perceived. The sequel is so well told by the Lutheran historian, that we can not do better than transcribe his words: Called by Fryxell Laurentius Andrefe-his name in the Latinized foro f Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, p. 147 1 IbidL THE ARCHBISIHiP S EXILE AND DEATH. 415 "King Gustaf perceived but too well, that so far from having a friend in the anrzhbishop, he was, on the contrary, counteracted by him, as much as so weak and timid a man could venture to do. Ile called for him. therefore, and declared to him that he would never recognize him as archbishop; he might therefore look after some other employment, and leave the country, for he was never more to return to Upsula. John, not daring to resist such a positive order, sailed away as soon as he had collected his most precious effects..... He remained long in Poland, in the hope of being recalled and reinstated in his office, but never took part in the many conspiracies which were set on foot against Gustaf by fugitive Swedes; on the contrary, he sought in many instances to further his and Sweden's weal to the best of his ability; but all the time urged the king, according to his own heart's convic- tion, to re-embrace the Roman Catholic faith. When he found his efforts vain, he set out for Rome, seeking help, but finding none. He died at last in poverty in a hospital of that city in 1544."' Thus died the last Catholic archbishop of Upsula; a holy man worthy of better times and of a happier lot. We are reminded of the lamb pleading in vain for mercy before the hungry wolf, whenever we consider his meek relations with the tyrannical Wasa.t But the degradation of the episcopal body was not yet com- plete. The two recently deposed prelates, Knut and Sunnan- wader, were now brought up for trial before the temporal lords, the king himself appearing as their principal accuser, and charging them with having been engaged in stirring up the recent revolt in Dalgarna. Whether they were guilty or not, we have no means of ascertaining, nor, with such an ac- cuser and under such circumstances, did their guilt or inno- Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, p. 149. f The writer on the Swedish Reformation in the Dublin Review scarcely does justice to the rude despotism of Wasa, in saying that, to get rid of him. he sent the archbishop "as it were on a special embassy to the Polish court," with the promise "that his dispatches should be forwarded to him at Dant- zic."1 Wasa seems to have adopted no such expedient of politeness, but rudely expelled him from the kingdom. Fryxell indeed tells us that the archbishop alleged something of the kind after his departure,-which, con- sidering his sincere and truthful character, is scarcely credible; unless, indeed, the amiable prelate wished by thiE expedient to excuse the king. 416 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. cence matter much with the judges. They were, of eourse, found guilty of treason, and condemned to death. "The two seditionaries() were forced to make a degrading entry into Stockholm, riding backwards on poor half-starved horses, dressed in ragged palls, Master Knut wearing a bark mitre on his head, Peter Sunnanwader a crown of straw, and a wooden sword by his side. Crowds of people in dis- guise followed them, mocking and teasing the unfortunates. The procession passed through some of the principal streets of the town, and stopped at last on the great square, where they were led to the whipping-post, and made to drink with the executioner, hooted at and derided by the mob all the while. Shortly after this ungenerous treatment, they were both con- ducted to the place of execution, beheaded and impaled: Peter Sunnanwader in Upsala, 18th Feb., 1527, and Master Knut three days later in Stockholm. The fame of these proceedings spread, like wild-fire, through the kingdom. Gustaf had ordered the ignominious procession through Stockholm, to de- crease the reverence of the people for their bishops; but it was interpreted as an ungenerous victor's mockery over the vanquished; and the execution itself excited yet greater displeasure. Such an attempt against such men was extraordinary, nay unheard of The priests represented the criminals as the fallen defenders of the clerical freedom; the friends of the Stures as innocent victims of their devotion to that family; and the Roman Catholics as martyrs to the true faith. sacrificed by the hand of a heretic and godless king; in which sentiments the clergy sought to maintain the people to the utmost of their power. It was related that strange signs were seen in the sky at Sunnanwader's execution; and a failure of the crops, which happened the same year, was accounted as a punishment of heaven .... It was no wonder if the discontent became general, and the misguided( !) people ex- pressed both displeasure and hatred against the sovereign they had once so much loved." All this was a part of the settled programme in the cun- ningly devised drama of the Swedish Reformation. As to the discontent and murmurs of the people, Wasa heeded them not, so long as he had his well trained and powerful body of foreign troops at his back. With such aid he had no doubt of being able fully to sustain himself, and to crush out all opposition, if necessary in the blood of his own peo- ple. These foreign mercenaries were, in fact, the real key of his position. He played them off on all occasions, whether to ca- Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, p. 154-5. THE DIET OF WESTERAS. 417 jole his people, and especially the clergy, out of their money, or to threaten them into servile comiipliance with his will. Thus, "At the meeting held at Wadstena in 1521, it was determined that the foreign cavalry should be quartered in the cloisters; at the meeting of Stock- holm (12th Jan., 1525), that the tithes of that year should be employed to pay off the foreign soldiery. The priests opposed it, but the king clearly proved that these expenses were necessary, and the nobility, citizens, and peasants, glad at not having to pay themselves, were well satisfied that the priests should do it. This bait Gustaf often employed, to get the whole of the people on his side against the prelates of Home." It is not to be denied that Wasa was an adroit, as he cer- tainly was a most unprincipled tactician. He had so man- aged every thing, that the plot was now ripe for execution, and the day was at hand for the total subversion of the Cath- olic Religion in the kingdom. Among all the prelates, there remained only the venerable Brask of Linkoping from whom he dreaded any serious opposition to his favorite design; and him he had no doubt of being able to control. Accordingly, in the midsummer of 1527, a diet was convened at Westeras. The haughty and tyrannical course adopted by the king had already inspired such alarm among the bishops and clergy, that " even proud Bishop Brask wrote to Ture Jonsson Roos 'that he would rather be dead than fall under his grace's (king Gustaf's) displeasure.'"t No wonder, then, that "The Roman Catholics anticipated little gain from this diet. It was with the utmost repugnance that Bishop Brask saw that their faith was to be discussed before the people; .... and that this was to be done in the pres- ence of the king was a circumstance still more alarming to him; for though a bold and wise man, Brask had, like the rest, experienced how Gustaf by his look, his voice, his words and gestures, had such an influence over the minds of the people that none dared or were able to speak in his presence, much less to resist his wilL"t Under such circumstances, the proposed discussion of Re- ligion before the diet was little better than a solemn farce and a hollow mockery; for with the overweening influence and overbearing manner of a king now openly favoring the Luther- FryxeH, Ibid., p. 142. t Ibid., p. 123. I Ibid. p. 156 418 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. ans, little fairness and still less freedom could be expected in the debate. Still more to humble the bishops, Wasa more- over passed an open insult on the whole episcopal body, by assigning them, contrary to immemorial usage, the second place at the grand banquet given to the members before the opening of the diet. "The prelates, who had hitherto sat above the senators, saw themselves with rage thus removed lower; however, none ventured to expose himself to the kings anger; they were silent and obliged to make the best of the places assigned them." "The following day they, assembled in the cathedral at the summons of Brask, and the doors being shut, that no stranger might glide in amongst them to betray their counsel, the question was proposed how they were t9 conduct themselves now, when by so many previous events, and lastly by the disgrace which had been put upon them at the royal banquet, it was clear to perceive that the king had serious intentions on their property, power, and privileges. To this the bishops of Strangna.5 and Westeras (re- cent nominees of Wasa) answered, that 'they were well satisfied, poor or rich, how the king would have them, for had they little to receive, they had likewise little to bestow.' This complying speech highly incensed Bishop Brask. 'Ye are madmen,' he exclaimed, 'if ye permit such a thing! If King Gustaf will take from us, let him do it by force, not with our own free will and consent; in that manner we retain our right to complain before our Holy Father in Rome. Let each one take good heed how he abandoned the Pope. Many kings and princes have taken the same in hand, as this one is now doing; but they have all been scorched by the thunder-bolts of papal excommunication; and the persecuted clergy have got what was theirs quietly back again. But should we fall from Rome, which is our sheet- apehor and defense, we fall into fire and thorns on every side. The Holy Father will excommunicate us, and the king here at home will count us little better than slaves; so that we may not venture to speak a word for the freedom and rights of the Church.",f The timid were reassured by this zealous appeal, and they all entered into a solemn written agreement and pledge to resist the new doctrines to the end; "but such was their dread of the king, that they buried the parchment under it stone in the floor of the church; and it was not till fifteen Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, p. 156-7. f Ibid., p. 157-8 MAN(EUVRING AND VIOLENCE. years afterwards that it was sought for, and and again saw the light." At length the deed was done, and the act was passed which despoiled the churches elf their property, severed Swe- den from Catholicity, and made the king supreme head of the Swedish church in spirituals as well as in temporals. Thle inost inportant articles of this celebrated act of Wsesteras were as follows: "1. That the superfluous riches and revenues of the bishops, the churches, and convents should be applied to the use of the kingdom and the crown. 2. What property before the time of Charles VIII. (about the year 1445) had been bestowed upon churches and convents should return to the crown. 3. What since the time of Charles VIII. had been given to churches and convents, sold, or pledged, should be resumed or redeemed by those who could prove themselves to be the nearest heirs of the same. 4. The pure word of God(!) should be preached in all churches of the kingdom; and in a separate determination, called Westera. Ordinantia, it was fixed that bishops, deans, etc., should be nominated by the king without the ad- vice of the Pope; that the king should depose unqualified clergymen; that priests in worldly affairs should appear before temporal tribunals; that mulcts (fines) should fall to the king and not to the bishops; that the inher- itance of priests should fall to their nearest relatives, instead of to the bish- ops; that the Bible should be read in schools, etc." t We cannot, and need not give a more detailed account than the above of the tortuous manceuvring by which Wasa thus brought all the orders of the kingdom to his feet, and had himself made virtually an absolute despot, with a standing army of foreign mercenaries to enforce obedience to his will. Suffice it to say, that the diet of Westeras was not a free as- sembly; that the king came to it with his hungry Lutheran soldiery at his back to overawe the deliberations; that when on the very first day, both the bishops led by Brask, and the Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, p. 157-8. t Ibid., p. 166-7. The writer in the Dublin Review makes an important mistake in omitting the second clause given above, or rather combining it with the third, in such a way as to limit the confiscation of church property to that which had been acquired since the reign of Charles VIIL 419 4REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. nobles led by the venerable Ture Jonsson Roos the oldcst of their number, sternly opposed the wholesale spol-i4,n1 a f the Church and the sweeping innovations in religion, Waia ab- ruptly left the hall, and declared that he would no loeger be king over so ungrateful a people, worked himself apparently into a towering rage, and called on the estates to refund him all the money lhe had advanced for the defense of the coun- try; that for three days he surlily kept his own apartments, resisted entreaty after entreaty from the diet that lhe would still vouchsafe to retain the crown: and that finally, only on the fourth day, when both bishops and nobles had become sufficiently humbled, and when the peasants, no doubt at the king's instigation, were openly clamoring for their blood in case they held out any longer, he consented to appear again before the diet, and, surrounded by his guards, promised to continue to act as their king, but only on condition of their passing all the acts he required, to make him supreme in church and state. The humbled estates, amidst the violent clamor of the peas- ants, now voted every thing at once, with outstretched hands and with seeming alacrity. Some of the newly created bish- ops, his own creatures, had already abandoned the cause of their brethren, to whom they had so solemnly plighted their faith at the memorable meeting in the cathedral; the vener- able Brask hung his head in sorrow and humilation, and si- lently submitted to an outrage upon all rights human and divine, which he had striven in vain to prevent. The bish- ops were compelled by force to give up their castles, along with their property; and when Wasa had thus obtained all he wanted, he abruptly dismissed the diet. Says Fryxell: "The diet of Westeras did not last very long; scarce eight days passed ere it was closed; but never at any diet has more been executed; never have any resolutions brought about a more complete change. The whole tremendous power of popery (!) in all its members was crushed. Deprived of their riches, their privileges, their great consideration, they (the clergy) were open to the continued and often unjust exactions of the crown and the nobility, to the attacks of the Lutheran priests, and left without power to 420 THE CATHOLIC RELIGION ABOLISHED. 421 piotect themselves from the encroachments of enemies on every side. The crown of Sweden, which before had been utterly impoverished and unable to pay half its expenses, became rich at once; the king formerly, in most respects, compelled to act according to the will of the bishops and clergy (and the people) now acquired a much wider (more despotic) rule; the peasants felt a great alleviation in their taxes; but the nobility gained the most: for countless estates were redeemed or resumed (robbed) from churches and convents. Gustaf, himself descended from the chiefest and wealthiest families, did not in this respect curtail aught from his own privileges (!), but received large property which has since been known by the name of the Gustavian ent il. It often happened afterwards, that the nobles appropri- ated by force fields and possessions of the church, etc." Gustaf, indeed, rebuked their rapacity; but they were only acting in accordance with his spirit, if not copying his ex- ample. This passage accounts satisfactorily for the whole affair, singularly enough called the Reformation in Sweden ! Its chief effect, as well as its great aim, was to enrich the king and the nobles at the expense of the Church, which it sacri- legiously despoiled and ruthlessly enslaved. The work of destruction begun at Westeras was completed in the suc- ceeding diet of Orebro, held in the beginning of 152.9, the same year that the Lutherans issued their famous protest at the diet of Spires in Germany. At the diet of Orebro the venerable sacrifice of the Mass was abolished, and the new- fangled service composed by Olaus was substituted in its place. General discontent followed this vital innovation in worship. The older Catholic priests, who had not yet been tainted, " Lamented that the good old times were passed, and wished that they were lying deep enough under the soil, that they might not be forced to witness the evil and mischief which were spreading over the world. A great body of the common people joined with these, particularly women and old people, crying and lamenting over these novelties, and the boldness of their impious sovereign."t These poor people lamented in vain; their "impious sov- Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii. 168-9. J Ibid., 179. 68 REFOR'IATION IN SWEDEN. ereign" had a heart as hard as the coin he loved so well. Thev were soon left "like sl-,ep without a shepherd ;" such of their faithful pastors as could not be compelled to conform to the new )rder of things were deprived of their places, were driven into exile, or were made to eke out their living in their old age as best they might, or else to starve; while the people themselves were forced into conformity at the points of those formidable foreign bayonets which the royal reformer knew so well how to employ, in order the more ef- fectually to establish the precious right of private judgment in matters of religion! The venerable Bishop Brask was forced to leave Sweden, and to bury his sorrows in a foreign land, where his gray hairs went down in affliction to the tomb. "In Dantzic he met the deposed archbishop John Magnus, and both labored there a while on the conversion of Gustaf from the Lutheran faith. When John Magnus removed to Italy, Brask remained some time in the Olivet cloister near Dantzic; and his last years were passed further in the interior of Poland in a monastery called Landan. Like John, he never bore any part in any of the conspiracies which were carried on against Gustaf; but he wrote frequently to his friends in Sweden, exhorting them faithfully and earnestly to remain true to the faith of their fathers, the doctrines of the old Catholic Church. Faithful himself to these doctrines, for which he had sacrificed all, he ended his days in the above mentioned monastery, A. D. 1538."1t Having now become supreme head of the Swedish church, Wasa entered at once on the vigorous discharge of his new pastoral functions. His first duty was to make a regular visitation of the dioceses, which his terror-stricken diet and his own good sword, together with that of his faithful foreign troops, had committed to his spiritual jurisdiction. Such a visitation the Christian world probably never witnessed be- fore; it was very much like that which was made by Mo- hammed with the Koran in one hand and the scimitar in the other! Surrounded and supported by a strong body of cav- v Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, 171. 422 AN EXTRAORDINARY VISITATION. alry, to give thde greater effect to his pastoral advice, he traversed the country, carrying with him Olaus and other Lutheran preachers; whose words must have been very eloquent and impressive indeed, under the imposing circum- stances of this most extraordinary visitation. While these preached and prayed, Wasa watched with his cavalry, ready at a moment's notice to swoop down upon the refractory, and to give them a practical evidence of that blessed religious liberty, which he had just inaugurated. But he watched more particularly over his own pecuniary interests. Whithersoever he came, his first care always was to ask for the charters and deeds of the churches, convents, and monasteries. These he scrutinized narrowly, and woe to the clerical proprietor or religious corporation, if his eager glance detected a single flaw in the instrument! Many of the charters of such institutions had perished in the course of time, or by the violence of civil commotions and foreign wars. Of course, all such property was confiscated to the crown without mercy, and no prescription, even from time immemorial. was of any avail against the royal rapacity. What with titles pronounced defective, and with those which had perished. the amount of confiscation was immense. "So sweeping was the effect of the royal scrutiny, and so wholesale the confiscation, that in this one journey the Protestant historian assures us that no fewer than sixteen thousand manor farms were alienated to the crown. The lion's share he kept himself; the remainder he divided among his followers; soldiers, courtiers, favorites, every one who had proved him- self the servile and obsequious minion of the royal will came in for his portion of the sacrilegious plunder. The clergy who consented to embrace the new religion, were allowed to retain their property for a time. Those who spurned the proffered bribe, and preferred poverty and exile to riches and apostasy, had to leave their native country, and many years afterwards were to be seen begging their bread from door to door through the continent of Europe." Hitherto the king had delayed his coronation, chiefly because, intending to sweep away the Catholic Church from Paper in the Dublin Review, supra cit. 423 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. Sweden and to confiscate its property, he did not wis to be hampered with the customary oath to protect its rigiLts and privileges. Now all obstacles having been removed; the good Archbishop Magnus, and the zealous Bishop Brask hav- ing been expelled the kingdom, and the other prelates having been duly drilled into silent acquiescence, if not submission; he determined to delay no longer an event so important. Accordingly, as a preliminary step, he now appointed Lau- rence Petri, brother of Olaus, archbishop of Upsala; and through the management and false promises of his wily chancellor, Lars Andersson, he finally succeeded in inducing first the bishop of Westeras, and then the bishops of Abo, Scara, and Stregnes, all his own creatures, to perform the ceremony of consecration.t The consecration having been duly performed by bishops having undoubtedly the episcopal character themselves, though uncanonical and unlawful, was certainly valid, and thus the present Swedish Lutheran bishops, unless the right of consecration has since been materially altered, are invested with the episcopal character; though being severed from the communion of the Church, they have not canonical jurisdiction or any lawful authority whatever. Every thing having been thus prepared, the king was solemnly crowned a week afterwards, on the 12th of January, 1528. The new archbishop, of course, took to himself a wife, as his brother Olaus had done before; and as all the clergy were expected to do afterwards, if they would give -an- See Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, 175. t The consecrating prelates were simple enough to believe the solemn promise made them in writing by Andersson and the archbishop elect, that they would, immediately after the ceremony ask and obtain from Rome a confirmation of what had been done; which, o' course, they neither did, nor intended to do. See Messanius, Scandic Chit nology, quoted by Dublin Review, Ibid. Ibid. Tbe Reformation in Sweden was thus, far more adroitly managed than that in England. 424 SACRILEGE AND REBELION. doubted evidence of their sincere attachment to the new gospel! The giving of wives to the clergy, and the putting of money into the purses of the kings and nobles, were every- where among the first and most precious fruits of the Refor- mation. Without these two necessary adjuncts, it would have been incomplete, and comparatively worthless. The good people of Upsala, who had been so long accus- tomed to witness the virtues of John Magnus and of other holy Catholic archbishops, were greatly startlel and scan- dalized at seeing their new archbishop leading his wife into their venerable cathedral. The same feeling of indignation had been even more openly displayed at Stockholm a few years previously, when Olaus was publicly married in the High Church, in which he was officiating. Says the Lutheran Fryxell: 'A general murmur was heard; the ignorant (!) populace threatened to kill the foreign heretics and depose the apostate king."' As innovation after innovation came successively to light, the popular Indignation grew stronger and stronger, until at last it broke out into open and repeated civil commotions and insurrections. Three times in succession did the hardy people of Dalarna, called the Dalmen, who had been among the first to raise the banner of Swedish independence, break out into open revolt, in which they were joined by other provinces; while the people of almost the whole country sympathized with their cause, as they shared in their griev- ances. Almost the entire subsequent reign of Wasa was dis- turbed by these repeated rebellions of his subjects, outraged and aggrieved in their dearest feelings and most sacred rights, civil and religious. At first, he had cajoled them into acquiescence, by prom ising them exemption from taxation, after he could obtain the rich property of the Church, which, he alleged, would be amply sufficient to defray the expenses of the government. Fryxell, Ibid., p. 143. VOL U.-36 4259 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. But he had no sooner attained his object, and become en riched by sacrilegious robbery, than the people were made to see and feel how deceptive were his promises. The richei Wasa became, the heavier grew the burdens which lie im- posed on his people. Thus it is, that sacrilege hardens the heart, curses the one who has dared grasp its spoils, and ex- tends its fatal blight over all who come under its withering influence! The whole history of the Reformation, in every country in Europe, affords a striking evidence of this appall- ing truth. At length, the last blow was struck in this system of grow- ing extortion and high-handed tyranny. The king was in- debted to the people of Lubeck, and though he had money enough in store to pay the debt without feeling it, lie deci- ded to confiscate the church plate and even the church bells fir this purpose! In 1530 it was determined that the " su- perfluous bells " of the town churches should be given up for the payment of this debt; and the amount thus realized, not having been found sufficient, it was resolved in 1531, " that the same tax should likewise be claimed of the country parishesy' The people might, perhaps, have borne with even heavier burdens; this touched them in their most ten- der feelings and in the most hallowed reminiscences of the past, and it was therefore viewed as wholly unbearable. That the church bells, which had rung out merrily at wed- dings, and sadly at funerals, which had called them to the joyful festivals of religion, and which had sent forth their solemn peals as a tocsin, to arouse their patriotism and call them to arms to repel the invader and struggle for their threatened rights;-that those sacred bells, which cheered them in the present, and called up the most sacred recollec- tions of the past, should be thus summarily and sacrilegiously confiscated, was more than they could patiently endure. The Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, p. 196. Where there were more bells than one, the second in size was to be given up; where there was but one, it must be redeemed at half its value. Ibid. 426 HOW TO REDRS GRIEVANCES. bells once more sounded forth--for the last time alas e-the thrilling tocsin, and the Dalmen, with other brave peasants, rushed to arms. But vain was their struggle. Wasa had not money enough to pay the Lubeckers, but he had quite enough to pay, and even richly to reward his fon !iyn sol- diery, whom he systematically employed to crush out the liberties of his people. Treacherous promises, followed by open violence; these were the means he adopted to redress the grievances of his subjects! We can not go into details on this fruitful topic, and must refer our readers to the interesting pages of the Lutheran historian. Still we may briefly allude to the sunmmary way in which Wasa put down these wide-spread popular commo- tions. On one occasion he collected fourteen thousand sol- diers, and rode at their head into the valleys of Dalarna. The people were summoned, and ordered to state their grievances. They did so. They assembled, "guilty and innocent," in vast multitudes in the plain; when they were at once sur- rounded by the soldiers, and loaded cannon were pointed at their Berried masses, "the king himself in glistening armor, surrounded by the counselors and body guard, taking his place in front of the assembly." The "assembly" was, of course, a free one; the poor Dal- mnen might calmly state their grievances, and confidently look for redress! The trembling people were addressed by one of the lords, who reproached them with their ingratitude, and told them that they had been guilty of having "a disobedient heart towards the king," and of having used " contemptuous and slanderous expressions" against him; and that"unless they now immediately humbled themselves and promised amendment, they merited nothing but that his grace should not permit one of them to quit the place with life." On the demand of the king, they gave up those who were pointed out -as ringleaders in the disaffection, "mostly Catholic priests;" and after these had been summarily condemned to Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii 176, 181, 196, 210, seqq. 427 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. death on the spot, and " the executioner had advanced and struck off their heads," the terror-stricken peasants " fell on their knees, imploring the king's mercy for God's sake ;" where- upon the wrath of Wasa was appeased. He pardoned them, on their solemnly renewing their oath of allegiance, and he continued his journey through Helsingland and Gestrickland, where "he restored peace and quietness" by similar means! In another of his triumphant progresses through the king- dom, Wasa summoned the peasants of Upland to meet him at Upsala. "The king, in glittering armor, sat on horseback on one of the mounds, surrounded by the chief lords of the kingdom, and accompanied by a great body of men at arms. The peasantry stood before him, and according to his custom he harangued them himself. They showed themselves perverse and unmanageable. He at last asked them, 'why so many among them were perverse and contumacious, No answer was heard, but a muttering and grumbling amongst the whole assembly, accompanied here and there by a threat or angry word. Then the king's blood began to boil; he drew out his sword, brandished it before their eyes, bounded forward on his horse, and said: II will no longer endure your evil tongues; I would rather have your blows. Therefore take courage and begin; I with my company will try which can master the field !-The terrified peasants then fell on their knees, and promised never again to resist his will."t Finally, after the Dalmen had at length submitted, and obtained pardon from the king, the latter treacherously fell upon them with his foreign army, again brought them trem- blingly to their knees by the brutal threat, that "he would hold such a muster with them that from this day forth neither dog nor cock should be heard throughout the land," made them deliver up " the culprits," and did not let them rise till they had said "yes" -to all his demands.1 It was by such gentle and persuasive means as these, that the Reformation was introduced into and firmly established Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, 176, seqq. f Ibid., p. 199-200. This challenge of Gustaf to an unarmed multitude was, under the circumstances, very brave and chivalrous! I Ibid., p. 211-2. 428 TESTIMONY OF GEIJER. 429 in Sweden! In the light of such undoubted facts as the above, attested even by the partial Lutheran historian of Sweden, every one may be able to decide at once whether it was the work of God, or the work of human passion rioting in sacrilegious spoliation and in popular oppression. No inl- partial man can hesitate a moment as to the opinion which he must necessarily form in accordance with the facts. In further confirmation of the facts thus far alleged, we will here present extracts from the pages of another recent accredited Protestant historian of Sweden-Geijer-whose testimony will scarcely be impeached. Speaking of the character of Wasa, especially in his rela- tions with the venerable Bishop Brask, the royal historo- grapher of Sweden writes as follows: "Those who wish to study his character in this phase from its earliest disclosure, may be referred to the correspondence with Bishop Brask, as one of the main sources for the history of the first years of his reign. This prelate was beyond comparison the most influential, as well as the most sagacious and best informed man of his day in Sweden; in his way the upright friend of his country, for whose economic prosperity he formed pro- jects which Gustavus himsel4 and subsequently others of Sweden's distin- guished men again revived; a friend too of Swedish liberty, as he himself understood it, and as he explains it in letters to his friend Thur6 Jonson, 'that the freedom of the realm depended on the Church and the baronage;' for which reason he opposed, and afterwards censured, the government of the Stures. He treated the young king from the beginning with a fatherly superiority, styling him administrator and ' dear Gustavus,' and accepting in return the title of 'gracious lord.' Shortly after the royal election, he ob- tained a confirmation of all the privileges of his bishopric and church. But he was soon destined himself to feel the force of the king's saying to the last Catholic archbishop, Joannes Magnus,-' Thy grace and our grace have tot room beneath one roof' With the aggressions of Gustavus on the This work is entitled: " The History of the Swedes, by Eric Gustavus Geijer, Historiographer Royal of Sweden, etc. Translated from the Swedish, with an Introduction and Notes, by J. H. Turner, Esq., A. M. The first portion, (comprising the first three volumes of the original) from the earliest period b) the accession of Charles X London, Whittaker & Co., Ave Maria Lane.- 430 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. clergy, began the prelate's opposition; and with every impediment thiown in his way, the king went one step further, as if he were bent on reducing his most powerful adversary to extremities, so that the latter at lkngth determined, after the example of Joannes Magnus, to quit the kingdom. But he was first to see the hierarchy of Sweden completely overthrown. Presages of its downfall were already fast accumulating." How the royal reformer quoted Scripture, is thus told by the Swedish historiographer: " Olave (Olaus) Peterson, although a priest, entered into wedlock at Stock- holm in 1525. 'He will defend this by God's law,' writes the king to Bishop Brask. Accordingly, he vindicated his conduct in a published tract; nor did his example want imitators in the order to which he belonged. In the capital the Latin Mass was abolished by a resolution of the magistrates. At the fair of St. Eric's day, 1526, Gustavus himself, sitting on horseback on one of the barrows of Upsala, discoursed to. the people who stood around, on the uselessness of the Latin service and the monastic life. Then repair- ing to the chapter, he demanded of them, 'by what right the Church held temporal power, and whether any ground for its privileges was to be found in Holy Scripture ;'-the New Testament, translated by Laurence Ander- son, having been printed this year at the king's instance. On the other hand, he confirmed the privileges of knighthood and nobility at the baronial diet held at Wadstena."t How Wasa confiscated the monastic and church property is unfolded in the following passages: "He now sought to acquire an ally against the Church, and showed the nobility what they might gain by the reduction of the conventual estates, preferring himself, before the council, a claim to the monastery of Gripsholm, as heir of its founder, Steno SturA the elder. His allegation was, that the consent which his father gave to its foundation had been extorted. Shortly afterwards, grounding himself on the voluntary cession of the monks, he sequestered the convent without waiting for the declaration of the counciL An explanatory letter was issued to all the provinces, intended, in his own words, to obviate evil reports, for which end the transaction is represented almost as an instance of royal generosity. At the same time lie wrote to Bishop Brask, who had undertaken to make an inventory of the appurten- ances cj' Nydala abbey, ' that he, the king, would himself take order regard- ing tni monasteries; ' which was indeed performed in such a fashion that one after the other was brought under his own management. The secular fiefs of the bishops were confiscated, and the fines at law due to them were Geijer, History of the Swedes, p. 114, 115. t Ibid. TESTIMONY OF GELJER. 431 collected by the king's bailiffs, all complaints on this head being set at nought. No further regard was paid to the spiritual jurisdiction; on the contrary the king adjudicated even in ecclesiastical causes, gave to monks and nuns who wished to quit their convents letters of protection, and de- clared excommunications invalid. He appointed and deposed priests by his own authority, and assumed the episcopal right of taking the effects of those who died intestate, doing this even in some cases where the parties had left a will, and sharing their revenues with them at his good pleasure. "All was yet in mould, nothing had reached its appointed goal, and least accurately defined were the new relations of the Church towards the State. Hence the Recess of Westeras, on which these were grounded, underwent in practice continual alterations. By its provisions, the revenues of bishop- rics, canonries, cathedrals, and convents, were so far committed to the king's discretion, that he was free, after reserving to the holders and masters such a proportion as was required for their due maintenance, to apply the residue for the behoof of the crown. Nevertheless, the confiscation of the estates appertaining to these foundations was not the immediate result. The king was content with the payment of a fixed rent in money, adjusted by com- pact with the bishops, chapters, and monastic priors, whether clerical or laical. Gradually this arrangement was changed, and it completely ceased after the hereditary settlement The king sequestered the episcopal estates, and the incomes of the bishops were paid instead out of the two-thirds of the tithes, which by the Westeras Recess were vested in the crown. The like befell with the estates of the canons as well as with their dwelling houses in the towns, which escheated to the crown, as the incumbents of canonries died off or were removed to benefices in the country. In the same manner the remaining conventual estates were appropriated, as the monastic life was by degrees dropped, so that at last only some few aged nuns were to be found in the convents of Wadstena, Skenninge, Nadendal, and Skog, who were supported by the king. By different ordinances in 1545 and the two following years, all other ecclesiastical estates, not comprehended under the denominations already mentioned, were transferred to the state, the in- ferior clergy being indemnified out of the proceeds of the crown-tithes."t That Wasa panted to be an absolute monarch by divine right, sufficiently appears from the following: " Gustavus commonly showed that he entertained the most exalted notions of the powers of his royal office, and though he ascribed its origin to God and the people, to judge from his favorite saying and his last words, yet the divine right appears to have had the preference at one period of his t Ibid., p. 128. Ibid. 432 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. life. ' In the name of the Holy Trinity,' he said, when the council in the year 1540 swore obedience unto him, upon his bare sword, as an hereditary sovereign, 'and out of the Divine strength and power of Almighty God, which is bestowed upon us and all the royal and princely lords, heirs of our body, from generation to generation, to rule and dispose over you and all our sub- jects upon earth, we hold this sword of righteousness over you to witness; herewith swear.' Immediately thereafter he styled himself king hereditary, without waiting for the formal act of settlement subsequently passed at Westeras." Finally, his groveling and hard-hearted avarice is thus portrayed by Geijer: " With all his kinsmen the king had controversies as to the inheritance of property. He regarded himself, moreover, as heir-general to all the plate and movable goods of the churches, con .ents, and ecclesiastical foundations, not forgetting even copper kettles and tin cups, took the place of bishops as co-heir to all clerical estates, and was not content with the smallest share. When vacancies occurred, he applied to his own use in many cases the revenues of the greater benefices, paying the inferior clergy himself In addition to these matters of gain, he engaged personally in the pursuits of agriculture, mining, and trade in all the productions of the country, more largely than any of his subjects, and by these means amassed great wealth. To his bailiffs he was a terror, and thus, like himself, in questions of prop- erty, they were by no means scrupulous. At Salberg, where, as usual in the greater mines, there was an asylum for all except atrocious criminals, a weekly payment of two pence (ore) to the king was exacted even from loose females, who herded there for their roguery and dissolute living."t Gustaf Wasa preceded Henry VIII. by a few years, in carrying out the work of the Reformation; and though he was not probably so bad a man as his English brother, yet there are many points of resemblance in the character of. the two royal reformers, as wpll as in that of the work accom- plished by both. Both began their reigns well, as the idols of the people, and both ended them badly, as objects of popular detestation. Under both reigns, there was popular liberty at the beginning, and popular slavery at the end. Both made themselves supreme heads of the Church in tieir respective kingdoms by fraud and violence; and both, by e Geijer, History of the Swedes, p. 130. t Ibid., p. 132-3 WASA AND HENRY VIII. and through this sacrilegious usurpation of spiritual sov- ereignty, succeeded in crushing the liberties of the people, and in establishing an unmitigated royal despotism. Both fattened, with their courtiers, on the spoils of the Cl urch, which were at the same time the patrimony of the poor; and both were cursed in themselves, in their children, and in their kingdoms by the sacrilegious spoliation. Both set up lay vicar generals, to lord it over the bishops and clergy, and to be the organs and depositories of the royal supremacy. Both were married several times-Henry six and Wasa three times-; and while Henry divorced four and legally butch- ered two of his consorts, Wasa was accused of having brought about the death of his first wife by a blow on the head in- flicted with a hammer. Both imposed additional burdens on their people, after having grown rich themselves on the confiscated property of the Church; and both put down ini- surrections, caused by their own tyrannical innovations and oppressions, by the strong arm of military force. If Wasa employed foreign soldiery, Henry's immediate successor did the same, and for the same purpose. But, in one respect, there was a marked difference in the character of the two. While Henry was free-hearted and generous, and squandered with a lavish hand his ill-gotten spoils among his mistresses and courtiers, Wasa was hard, avaricious, and griping to the last; constantly accumulating and seldom spending his treasures. " His children were kept strictly. Hams and butter were sent from the country for the supper of the princes at Upsala; the queen herself sewed their shirts, and it was considered a great present, if ever one of the prin- cesses got a blank rixthaler. Gustaf's love of money seduced him to several The Lutheran historian informs us, that "such was the rumor which was spread, and finally reached Gustaf's ears; but it is nowhere related that he ever took the least pains to refute so base a calumny."-VoL ii, 225. Any one acquainted with the impetuous and sturdy character of Wasa will be inclined to regard his silence under the circumstances as ominous of conscious guilt. VOL. ii.-37 433 434 REFORMATION IN SWEDENT. injustices, which, however, in those days were not so striking as now. He sometimes permitted parishes to remain without rectors, having them ad- ministered by vicars, and appropriated their returns to himself He forbade the export of cattle to his subjects in general, buying them himself at a low price from the peasants, and selling them abroad at a great profit. This last circumstance was one of the chief causes of the Dacke Feud. Several things of this kind which are less creditable to him are related; but the people overlooked them for the sake of his many virtues.t They also knew that this money was not uselessly squandered. Herr Eskill's hall, and the other vaulted chambers of the treasury, were full of good silver bullion at the king's death."t Like Henry VIII., and unlike any genuine apostle of the true religion, Wasa was violent in his temper, and addicted to much hard swearing whenever his anger was aroused. So scandalous, in fact, had this practice at length become, that even Olaus, the court preacher, declaimed against it from his " basket-like pulpit" in the High Church of Stockholm. Here- upon Wasa was naturally indignant, and he not only rebuked the preacher, but, in his newly acquired character of head of the Swedish church, he wrote to his brother, the archbishop of Upsala, ordering him, " that from this day, no step is to be taken in the Reformation, and nothing printed unknown to us;" and adding significantly: "and you, archbishop, take you especial heed to yourself, if you wish to avoid di8a- 9reeable8 ! " The courtly archbishop was accordingly very careful. Still he met with "disagreeables" at the hands of his imperious master. A year later, he was called upon to pass sentence of death on his own brother Olaus, and even to sign his death warrant. Along with Olaus, the wily and unscrupulous chancellor and lay vicar general Lars Andersson was also A protracted civil war, in which the king triumphed as usual over the just rights of his people. f How they were forced "to overlook them," we have already seen. It was certainly not out of regard for his "many virtues" but through fear of his overbearing and all crushing despotism. t Fryxell, History of Sweden, ii, p. 246-7. Ibid., p. 230-1. THE CURSE OF SACRILEGE. condemned to death. The latter escaped the penalty by sac- rificing all his property for the benefit of the king, and living ever afterwards in retirement; G1aus did not come off so easily, as the king's anger was greatly excited against him. Says the Lutheran historian: "At last, when the burghers of Stockholm united in imploring the pardon of their minister, and presented five handred Hungarian guldens as a ransom for him, Gustaf permitted himself to be moved. Olaus received mercy, and after the lapse of three years was even restored to his office. Thus, as happened even more strikingly in England, the chief instruments of the king in despoiling the Church and introducing the Reformation, met with accumulated misfor- tunes and a sadly clouded fate, as a just requital for their manifold treachery and sacrilege in the past. But the curse of sacrilege fell even more heavily on the royal reformer him- self. His eldest son Erick, the heir apparent to the throne, was little better than a madman. Again, his daughter Cecilia, by her open and shameless profligacy, even during his life- time, brought bitterness -to his declining years; while, to fill up the cup of his domestic afflictions, another son, Magnus, became a confirmed idiot. "The temper of Gustaf became each day more harsh and violent; and on his death-bed, even his own children could scarce remain an hour in his com- pany. "t But the worst and most abiding curse of sacrilege fell on unfortunate Sweden herself, which through its blighting influ- ence was permanently severed from the Church and tainted with heresy. In the subsequent history of this ill-fated king- dom, a fitful splendor has occasionally gleamed up, like a meteor, from the incursions of its fierce and half mad sover- Fryxell, Ibid., p. 230-1. The honest burghers knew well that Wasa's heart lay where his treasure was! Olaus and Andersson were accused, justly or unjustly, of having been privy to an attempt to assassinate the king. t Dubli, Review, sup. cit. 435 436 REFORMATION IN SWEDEN. eigns into the territories of their neighbors ; but with these transient exceptions, it has since continued in a very depressed and sadly fallen condition, even ill a temporal point of view. And at present, Sweden is, perhaps, the least enlightened, the least tolerant, and certainly, in a moral point of view, the most thoroughly degraded and debased Christian country of Europe. It is the only European country, in which intolerance is now carried to the length of punishing with exile and con- fiscationi of property all who dare abandon the Lutheran for the Catholic religion. The Scottish Protestant historian Laing has long since settled the question of its surpassing immorality. From the more recent statements of our own distinguished traveler, Bayard Taylor, we infer that its moral condition has not ma- terially improved since Laing wrote his account, some sixteen years ago. Speaking of the capital,Stockholm, Taylor says: "It has been called the most licentious city in Europe, and, I have no doubt, with the most perfect justice. Vienna may surpass it (we doubt this) in the amount of conjugal infidelity, but certainly not in general incon- tinence. Very nearly half the registered births are illegitimate, to say nothing of the illegitimate children born in wedlock. Of the servant girLs, shop- girls, and seamstresses in the city, it is very safe to say that not ten out of a hundred are chaste; while, as rakish young Swedes have informed me, many girls of respectable parentage, belonging to the middle class, are not much better. The men, of course, are much worse than the women, and even in Paris one sees fewer physical signs of excessive debauchery. Here, the number of broken down young men, and of blear-eyed, hoary-headed sinners, is astonishing. I have never been in any place where licentiousness was more open and avowed; and yet, where the slang of sham morality is more prevalent. There are no houses of prostitution in Stockholm, and the city would be scandalized at the idea of allowing shch a thing. A few years ago two were established, and the fact was no sooner known, than a virtuous mob arose and violently pulled them down ! "I Like Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. t Northern Travel; Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark, and Lapland, by Bayard Taylor. New York, 1838. On the appearance or his strictures, the Swedish papers commented on them as exaggerated CONCLUSION. 437 Verily, the tree of the Protestant Reformation has borne its legitimate, but most bitter fruits in Sweden ! The author, in a note (Ibid.), defends them as strictly within the bounds of truth, and, if at all inaccurate, rather below than above the mark! We dare not republish certain open and glaring exhibitions of shameless licen- tiousness, which the distinguished American traveler witnessed in Stock- holm. Under John, the second son and successor of Wasa, whose reign began in 1577, efforts were made to bring back Sweden to the communion of the holy Catholic Church. Catherine, the king's wife, a Catholic and daughter of Sigismund king of Poland, zealously labored to bring about the reconcil- iation. At her instance, Pope Gregory XIII. sent the celebrated Cardinal Hosius into Sweden, with several learned and zealous Jesuit Fathers. Every advance was made which charity and zeal could devise; but the mis- sion utterly failed. The Lutherans took the alarm, and raged fiercely against the Catholic envoys; the king became alarmed and he vacillated. The result was that they had to leave the kingdom. Subsequently, a Swe- dish queen became a Catholic; but, probably in consequence, abdicated the crown, and went to Rome, where she finally died. See Theiner's work. above quoted. 69 HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. CHAPTER X. REFORMATION IN DENMARK, NORWAY, AND ICELAND. Reformation in these countries similar to that in Sweden-That of DEN- MARK advised by Gustaf Wasa-Christian II.-His attempt to introduce Lutheranism-His injustice to the Church-Humane provisions in his code of laws-The peasants liberated-The nobles enraged-He is de- posed-Frederic I. begins the Reformation by crushing popular liberty- And by violating his solemn oath-Protestant testimony-Hlis measures for this purpose-Contest after his death-Christian III. succeeds him- And completes the work of the Reformation in Denmark-A Catholic confessor and martyr-The new church organization-Terrible penal laws against Catholics-Recapitulation-NORWAY-Determined opposition to the new gospel-How it was quelled by force-Penal laws-Firmness of the monks-Norwegian independence destroyed-The Reformation and despotism triumph together-Religious liberty, as understood in Norway-The bishop of the North Pole-Interesting anecdote by Bayard Taylor-ICELAN---Its discovery and conversion to Christianity-Its golden age-The great pestilence-Its annexation to Denmark-The Reformation introduced by violence-The last Catholic bishop put to death-Its two old Catholic sees abolished-Its decline since that period -The North and the South-Conclusion. THE history of the Reformation in these northern countries need not detain us long. In all of them, the religious revo- lution was closely modeled after that which occurred about the same time in Sweden. Here, as there, it was the work of violence and of spoliation of the Church; and here, even more than there, it was consummated by the government on the ruin of all the time-honored liberties and the dearest rights of the people. (438) CHRITIAN EIL I DENMARK. 1. The near resemblance in the characte istics presented respectively by the Swedish and Danish Reformations might be inferred a priori from the fact, that the latter was prompted by the advice, and was carried out in conformity with the suggestions of the Swedish reformer-Gustaf Wasa.' We must content ourselves with a very brief summary of the principal facts.t The first sovereign who appears to have conceived tile pro- ject of introducing the Reformation into Denmark was the same tyrant Christian, or Christiern II., who had pre- tended so much zeal for the Catholic religion in the com- mencement of his contest with Sweden. This prince appears to have been guided by no principle of conscience, and his policy was regulated entirely by his own selfish interests. Thus, when it was question of subduing Sweden, lie hastily patched up a peace with the papal legate, whose influence lhe deemed important, if not necessary for securing the object he then had in view. But after the horrible massacre at Stock- holm, in which bishops and nobles fell victims to his treach- erous cruelty, he deemed his power sufficiently secure; and he then sought to overthrow the Catholic Church in Denmark, in order thereby to increase his power by seizing on the wealth of the Church. The principles of Luther seemed favorable to his cherished design of reigning supreme and unrestrained both in Church and State. Accordingly, he placed a disciple of the reformer-one Martin-over the church of Copenhagen, in order to prepare the minds of the people for the contemplated change in religion. The nobles, Fryxell vouches for this fact-History of Sweden, ii, 224. t In doing this, we shall have occasion to quote from a well written and somewhat detailed, though prejudiced history of Denmark found in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, article, Denmark; an authority which will hardly lie suspected of partiality to Catholicity, or of enmity to the Reformation. Some of the chief facts are confirned by FryxelL 439 440 REFORMATION IN DEMIARK. the clergy, and the people earnestly protested against the scandalous innovation; but he persisted in his mischievous design, and even had recourse to violence. He arrested and put to death the archbishop Lund, and he published a law which forbade unmarried ecclesiastics to purchase property, and contained other provisions that trenched on the rights or greatly restricted the immunities of the clergy. The result was his expulsion from the throne by a general movement of all the orders composing the states of the king- dom. After many strange wanderings and vicissitudes, the tyrant was finally consigned to a Danish prison, where he inhabited for many years a cell which was walled up, with a misshapen dwarf as his only attendant! He had been the vile slave of his concubine's mother throughout his reign; having been guided in his state policy mainly by her wily and unscrupulous suggestions. He perished by a death more terrible even than that which he had so often inflicted on others! Though Christian II. is generally and no doubt justly painted as a cruel and remorseless tyrant, yet it is certain that towards the close of his reign, in 1521, he published a code of laws containing some very wise and humane provi- sions; which circumstance, strange as it may appear, strongly contributed to hasten his deposition and flight. This code provided for abolishing the impious and wicked practice, which had hitherto prevailed in Denmark, of buying and selling poor farmers, and thereby making a traffic of Chris- tians, and reducing the peasantry to an abject slavery. Under its humane enactments, the peasants, when maltreated by one landlord, had the right to flee elsewhere for shelter and protection. The code also forbade, under the most stringent penalties, the inhuman usage of the Danish wree - See Alzog, Histoire Universelle de l'Eglise; 1 vol. 4to, Tournai, 1851, p. 567. He quotes Erico Pontoppidano, Precis de l'hist. de la Reforme en Danemarke; Munter, Holberg, and other historians. Fryxell also says that Christian "encouraged the doctrines of Luther."-Hist. Sweden, ii, 104. FREDERIC I. INTRODUCES REFORMATION. 441 ers, who were wont to seize on and plunder Such vessels as had been cast by storms on their shores, or as they had decoyed to destruction by false signals; and were in the habit of robbing, sometimes of murdering the shipwrecked sailors and passengers. These prohibitions cut off one of the principal sources of profit from the unprincipled nobles, who had made a practice of selling their peasants, and whc for gain had winked at or openly encouraged the brutal prac- tices of the organized bands of wreckers. Christian was openly accused by them of siding with the peasants against the nobles; while the clergy looked upon him as unfriendly to the Catholic religion. Both united against him, and hie was deposed at the diet of Wyberg in 1522. 2. After the flight of Christian, his uncle, the duke of Hol- stein, was called to the Danish throne, under the name of Frederic I. The very first thing the new sovereign was asked to do, was to abolish the humane laws which had been enacted by his predecessor, and to restore to the nobility- what was really a most flagrant abuse, but what they now claimed as a right-unlimited control over their serfs. This he readily did by signing a solemn instrument, called a ca- pitulation, which placed the property and the lives of the serfs wholly at the mercy of the nobles! Thus commenced that series of innovations on the ancient Catholic constitution of Denmark, which ended in totally destroying every element of liberty that it contained, and in .making the Danish king a despotic monarch, supreme both in church and state. As we shall soon see, the commence- ment of this radical change in the polity and constitution of the country coincided precisely with the rise and establish. ment of the Reformation. This revolution was, in fact, its ihil- mediate and real cause, without whose operation so complete and so thorough a destruction of popular liberty would have been well nigh impossible. This is a very curious fact, so ' This statement made by the writer in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia is fully confirmed by FryxelL-Hist. Sweden, ii, 104. 442 REFORMATION IN DENMARK. singular, that it will scarcely be credited without the strong est evidence. Says the Protestant writer in the Edinburg Encyclopedia: "By all the former capitulations which the Danish sovereigns had signed, these orders of men (the nobles and clergy) had never been able to obtain a legal sanction to the right which they claimed over the lives of their farm- ers; all they could obtain, was the right of judging them for small offenses; but by one of the articles of the capitulation which Frederic signed, the nobles obtained formally, not only the i.ht of life and death over their farmers, but also that of condemning them to lose all their goods, whenever they supposed that they had acted illegally; this power the king could not in reality bestow, since by the fundamental laws of the constitution of Den- mark, the farmers formed a distinct order of the state, and had always been recognized, though not always treated as :uch. The oppression and treachery to which this extended right of the nobility gave rise, was so galling and in- supportable, that the people began to entertain those feelings and sentiments which afterwards made them concur in that revolution which entirely changed the constitution of Denmark." The revolution here referred to occurred nearly a century and a half later, in 1660. Lest it should be supposed, that, even at this late day, popular liberty was restored, it may be well to remark here, that the chief, if not the only effect of the revolution in question, was to restrain the power of the nobility by making the king absolute. The people were in- deed freed from the grinding tyranny of the nobles; but they were liberated from this species of thralldom, only to be made to bow their necks to anotheralmost if not equally galling -that of the king. Instead of many petty tyrants, they now had one supreme and absolute master, to lord it over them, supreme in church and state. "The royal law, as it is called, consists of forty articles, of which the fol- lowing are the most important: The hereditary kings of Denmark are above all human laws; and in all affairs, ecclesiastical and civil, they do not acknowledge any superior judge but God alone. The king alone possesses the right to make, repeal, change, and interpret all laws, except the royal law which is irrevocable; the king shall be deemed of age at fourteen, and from that time he shall have no master or guardian; from the aera of the royal law, the kings of Denmark, so long as any branch of the royal family shall exist, will be born such, without having any occasion for an election; AND CRUSHES POPULAR RIGHTS. he (the king) shall not be obliged to take any oath, or enter into any en gagement whatsoever respecting the monarchy, seeing that, as a fire and ab. solute sovereign, his subjects can neither impose upon him the necessity of an oath, nor prescribe any conditions to him Mwhich shall limit his authority. The princes and princesses of the blood shall not appear before any inferior judge, because the king is himself their judge in the first and last instance. "The twenty-sixth article is very long and very express on the subject of absolute monarchy: it declares that every thing which may be said and written to the advantage of an absolute and hereditary Christian king, should also be understood in the most favorable sense of the hereditary king of Denmark; and it directs all his successors 'to take very particular care to defend their hereditary right and absolute dominion, and not to sutffer it to be called in question upon any condition whatever.' "1 Thus it is incontestable, that whatever of popular liberty there was in Denmark in the beginning of the sixteenth cen- tury was crushed out at the very commencement of the Reformation in that kingdom, and that the only change i. the civil polity, introduced nearly a century and a half later, accrued to the benefit not of the people, but of royalty, which was then declared supreme and absolute. This is a very significant fact, and it is as undoubted as it is signifi- cant. For, be it remembered, that Frederic I. began, and his son Christian III. consummated the work of the Reformation in Denmark. The Reformation was altogether and exclu- sively a movement of the king and nobility; for the people had been, by Frederic's very first act, too thoroughly en- slaved, to be able to take any part in it whatsoever, except to hear and to obey. In 1526, says the Protestant writer whom we have already quoted: "Frederic's attention was principally occupied by the religious disputes which arose in his kingdom; he himself had embraced the Protestant Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Ibid. This fundamental law of Denmark, though enacted in 1660, was not signed by the three orders until January, 1661, and it remained in the royal archives till the accession of Christian V. in 1670, when it was solemnly promulgated. The power which it gave to the sovereign was as absolute as that of the Czar, or of the Grand Sig- nor himself! 443 REFORMATION IN DENMARK. religion, but the nation was divided into two parties filled with the most bitter rancor against each other. The policy of Frederic on this occasion, was liberal and enlightened(!): he published an edict prohibiting all his subjects under severe penalties from laying any restraints on conscience, or in any manner depriving a man of his fortune, reputation, or liberty, on account of his religious opinions; the doctrines of the reformed religion were also permitted to be preached openly, without the least molestation. This edict was soon afterwards ratified at a general diet of the states, at which it was also decreed that the religious of all orders should be permitted to marry, and to live in any part of the kingdom they thought proper, without respect to particular monasteries, etc. In consequence of this decree, the abbeys and cloisters were deserted. Lutheranism now spread rapidly; the city of Malmo publicly prohibited Mass and the other superstitions (!) of the Romish Church; and its example was soon followed by the other cities and towns; the New Testament was also translated into the Danish language. The progress of the reformed religion, and the countenance and support which Frederic gave to it, rendered him very obnoxious to the clergy." But this writer does not tell the whole truth. He conceals most important facts, which are necessary for a just appreci- ation of Frederic's movements in the matter of religion. At his coronation this prince had taken a solemn oath to protect the Catholic religion. When openly accused of its violation at the diet of Odens6e, in 1527, he alleged, in vindication, the flinmsy pretext, that the oath to sustain the Catholic Church did not bind him to suffer its abuses; of which he, of course, was to be the sole judge. Among these alleged abuses was the Primacy of the Holy See, which he accord- ingly suppressed, or at least suspended in its exercise over Denmark. He reserved to himself the exclusive right of confirming the nomination of bishops, and he exacted heavy fees on occasion of their installation. Thus Rcennow, the newly appointed bishop of Rceskild, had to pay into the royal treasury six thousand Danish dollars, before he could obtain possession of his see.t 3. Frederic I. died in 1533, and he left two sons, Chris- tian and John, the former of whom had been reared a Prot- estant, and the latter a Catholic. The Danish monarchy was Edinburgh Encyclopedia-Ibil. t See the authorities in Alzog sup. cit. 444 CHRISTIAN M. ESTABLISHES LUTHERANISM. not as yet hereditary, and the choice of a successor devolved upon the states composed of deputies from the different orders. A. fierce struggle now ensued between the Catholic and Protestant parties, as to which of the two sons should be chosen king. "As soon as Frederic's death was known, the senate convoked the depu- ties of the different orders of the states at Copenhagen. The bishops opened the debate, by inveighing with great zeal and warmth on the subject of religion; and when they found that the lay senators did not coincide with their opinions, they demanded that the decree of the diet of Odensee, which had given the nobles such extensive power over their farmers, should be annulled; the nobility were alarmed, and endeavored to soothe the clergy, but the latter. feeling their weight in the assembly, carried their point so 'fr, that the tenths were restored to them. The next subject discussed related to the choice of a successor to Frederic: the Catholic and ecclesiasti- cal senators declared for John, the lay and Protestant senators for Chris- tian." At length the bishops, fearing worse results, " Consented to the election of Christian the Third, on the condition that the privileges and rights of the senate and states should be confirmed, and tht he should not be the enemy of their religion. The rights of all classes, except those of the farmers, were amply secured by the capitulation, which Christian signed when he ascended the throne; but the farmers were, if possible, in a still worse and more oppressed condition than they had ever been before." It will be remarked, that in this diet, in which the Prot- estant party for the first time gained the ascendency in Denmark, the rights of the farmers, or common people, were still further crushed, notwithstanding the energetic protest of the clergy, who had sought to protect them by curbing the power of the nobles. The condition of the people be- came thus far worse under Christian III., than it had been even under Frederic I. Christian certainly fulfilled, to the letter, that part of the capitulation or coronation-oath, which required him to allow the nobles to grind the common people to the very dust;-did he comply as scrupulously with his Edinburgh Encyclopedia-Ibid. 445 446 REFORMATION IN DENMARK. other more solemn engagement "not to be the enemy of the Catholic religion" or of its ministers Our prejudiced Prot estant historian shall inform us; and we are willing to abide the verdict which necessarily grows out of the facts as stated even by himself. " As soon as Christian III. was firmly seated on the throne, he turned his attention to the state of religion, and resolved to carry into execution a plan which had been communicated to h m by Gustavus (Wasa), for reducing the power of the clergy. He accordingly assembled the senate with great se- cresy, and they immediately came to the resolution to annex all the Church lands, towns, fortresses, and villages to the crown, and to abolish forever the temporal power of the clergy. All the bishops in the different parts of the kingdom were arrested about the same time; and that the nation might not be alarmed by this extraordinary measure, the king convoked the states at Copenhagen; the nobility were ordered to be there in person, and the commons by their deputies, but the clergy were not summoned to attend. After a strong speech from the king against the rapacity of the clergy, the senate confirmed the decree of the diet; and the power and privileges of the clergy were declared to be annihilated forever. The senate next settled the succession in the duke Frederic, the kingIs eldest son. In return for these concessions, the king confirmed the nobility in all their rights, parti- cularly in what they called the right of life and death over their vassals, and of punishing them in what manner they thought proper. Thus wag the power of the clergy forever destroyed in Denmark; but the conclusion which the nobles drew from this, that their own authority and power would be so much the more augmented, was soon proved to be erroneous; for as a great part of the crown lands had fallen into the hands of the clergy, these lands being again annexed to the crown, the royal authority was considera- bly increased. The oppression of the farmers still continued, and the nobles displayed a restless and increasing desire to prevent them from ever rising in the state; for the senate passed a law, forbidding any person, either eccle- siastic or secular, who was not noble, to buy any freehold lands in the king- dom, or to endeavor to acquire such lands by any other title.- It was well for the men who enacted this iniquitous statute to talk of " the rapacity of the clergy I" The clergy had stood up valiantly for their religion and for their long established rights; they had nobly vindicated the right of the pooi farmers, or peasants, that is, of the body of the people, to be Edinburgh Encyclopedia-Ibid. TERREBLE PENAL LAWS. treated as men and not as beasts of burden; in buth claims they were overborne by mere brute force triumphantly wielded by the rapacious king and nobles. They fell in the struggle; but along with them and with the Church which they repre- sented, fell also the rights and liberties of the Danish people! The same blow which destroyed the Catholic religion in Denmark struck down to the dust, and deprived of all liberty, and almost of manhood itself, every Dane who happened not to be born of noble lineage! The Reformation in Denmark was clearly for the advantage of the king and nobles, andl for the oppression through them of the great mass of the population. If the facts do not lead to this conclusion, they have no mean- ing whatsoever. The diet referred to was held in 1536. On the 20th of Au- gust of that year, the king caused all the bishops to be ar- rested and imprisoned. Liberty was offered to them only on condition of their resigning their sees. All of them appear to have gained their liberty by accepting this iniquitous con- dition, except the courageous Roennow, bishop of Roeskild, who firmly refused, and died in prison in the year 1544, a confessor for eight years and finally a martyr for his faith. In 1537, the Lutheran minister Bugenhagen was called from Wittenberg to complete the work of Reformation thus auspiciously begun. Through his instrunentality the new Lutheran church of Denmark was so organized, as to be en- tirely subservient to the will of the king, without whose au- thority it could move neither hand nor foot. The king immediately appointed seven 8uperintendents to take the place of the deprived bishops. At a later period, these royal superintendents took the name, but could not regain the au- thority of bishops. The new ecclesiastical organization was confirmedandlegallyestablished at the diet of Odens6e, held in 1539; and a subsequent diet, which was convened at Copenhagen in October, 1546, abolished all the civil and po- litical Lights of Catholics, and declared the property of the Catholic Church confiscated forever for the benefit of the 447 REFORMATION IN NORWAY. king and the nobles. No Catholic could henceforth hold any civil office, or succeed l)y inlieritance to any possession. Cath- olic priests were f)rhidden to remain on the s lil of Denmark under the penalty of death; and the same dreadful punish- ment was to be awarded to all who dared give them shelter in their houses! Exile or death were the only alternatives now offered to the Catholics of Denmark ! Thuls was the Reformation estal)lishled in Denmark. Con- ceived by a cruel and blood-thirsty tyrant, begun by a per- jured monarch, who had sworn to defend the Catholic reli- gion, it was consummated through wholesale spoliation and downright violence by another perjured king, who had prom- ised at his accession "not to be an enemy of the Catholic Church." With such facts as these beforeus, to talk of the Reformation being the spontaneous movement of the people tired of the yoke of Rome and panting after spiritual liberty, is simply absurd; and if the subject were not so very grave and so very sad, it would excite a smile at the simplicity which has accredited so unfounded an assertion. IL NORWAY. When Sweden threw off the yoke of Denmark, and estab- lished her independence under Gustaf Wasa, Norway still continued, at lest nominally. a dependency of the Danish crown. And when the change of religion took place in Denmark, it was expected, as a matter of course, that Nor- way would follow the example. The Lutheran doctrines had already penetrated into this kingdom through the open con- nivance. if not the direct agency of the faithless bishop of Drontheim., who was an active partisan of the dep sed tyrant Christian II. It would appear, however, that the new religious move- See Alzog, sup. cit., for the authorities. 448 NORWEGIAN LIBERTY DETROYE D. ment was not popular with the masses of the Norwegiaii people, and that nothing short of actual violence could quell their determined opposition, or subdue their firm purpose to adhere to the ancient faith. After the bishop of Dron- theim had been forced to fly the country, in 1537, another bishop was compelled to resign his see, and a third was cast into prison. Thus deprived of their chief pastors, the Nor- wegians were wholly at the mercy of the Danish govern- ment, which immediately took active measures to enforce the new religion on a reluctant people. Stringent laws were passed, by which all the inferior clergy were compelled either to embrace Lutheranismn, or to resign their places and fly the country. To their honor be it said, many of the monks preferred exile to apostasy. Thus the method adopted for crushing the Catholic relig- ion in Norway was, if possible, still more summary and un- just than that which had been employed in Denmark; while both equally destroyed the rights of the people. Though nominally united with Denmark since the Union of Calmar in 1397, Norway had been hitherto virtually free, and had been governed by her own laws. All this was now to be com- pletely changed; and with the Catholic religion her inde- pendence and liberties were to be destroyed forever. Says our Scottish historian :t "Norway was still unwilling to acknowledge Christian (III.); the Catho- lic religion kept its ground there longer and more firmly than it did in Den- mark. The states of the former kingdom (Norway) being assembled at Drontheim, in the beginning of the year 1536, Christian sent notice to them that he was king of Denmark, and demanded, by virtue of the union of the two kingdoms, to be elected their king also; but the clergy representing this demand as haughty and the presage of a tyrannical government, the peo- ple rose in a tumultous manner, massacred several of the king's friends, and compelled the rest to quit the kingdom. Christian on this resolved to have recourse to the most decisive measures. He accordingly marched an army GebhardiA Histoire de Danemark, p. 156; apud Alzog, loco cit. t Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Art., Denmark. VOL. i.-38 449 450 REFORMATION IN NORWAY. into Norway, and before the end of the year the whole kingdom was reduced to a state of obedience and tranquillity. The Danish nobility persuaded the king to take advantage of the subjugation of Norway, to strip the kingdom of its independence; and a decree was accordingly passed, stating that, as the kingdom of Norway had declined in its power and resources, so as to be no longer capable of supporting a king, and as the greatest part of its senators had shown themselves enemies to the crown of Denmark; there fore the said kingdom of Norway shall be and forever remain subjected to the crown of Denmark, so that in future it shall no more be a kingdoin apart, nor shall it any more he so called, but shall be a part of the kingdom of Denmark ..... This decree was carried into immediate execution. The senate of N'orway was suppressed; the states no longer had any influence in the elections, and the Danish nobility were appointed to most of the places of confidence and emolument in dlat kingdom." Thus the Reformation, which everywhere had the promise of liberty upfon its lips, cast a blight over the social, material, and political prospects of Norway, from. the effects of which she has not since been able fully to recover. First a degraded dependency of Denmark, and subsequently a degraded de- pendency of Sweden. her independence has ceased to exist, her energies have been weakened, her commerce has beeTn crippled, and her national spirit has been almost wholly extinguished. Still. in the midst of his degradation, the Norwegian loves his country, clings to it amidst all reverses of fortune, and can illv brook any thing said to its disparage- ment. The same home feeling exists also among the inhabi- tants of Lapland and Greenland. In the course of his late travels in Norway, our country- man, ]Jayard Taylor fell in with - the Catholic bishop of the Arctic Zone ,`-or, as we believe he is more correctly styled, the Vicar Apostolic of the North Pole. le describes him as an intelligent and highly accomplished " Russian baron, whose conversion had cost hini his estates." What ideas the Protestant Norwegrians: of the present day have of religious liberty, may aIppear from the following incident, described by Taylur, as having occurred on the vessel on which he was coasting Norway: CONVERSION OF ICELAND-ITS GOLDEN AGE "A short time afterwards, my attention was called to the spot where they stood, by loud and angry exclamati ns. Two of our Norwegian savans stood before the bishop, and one of them with a face white with rage, was furiously vociferating: 'It is not true! it is not true!! Norway is a free country!' ' In this respect, it is not free,' answered the bishop, with more coolness than I thought he could have shown under such circumstances: 'You know very well that no one can hold any office but those who be- long to your state church-neither a Catholic nor a Methodist, nor a Qua- ker; whereas in France, as I have said, a Protestant may even become a minister of the government.-' But we do not believe in the Catholic faith; we will have nothing to do with it !'-screamed the Norwegian.-' We are not discussing our creeds, answered the bishop: 'I say that, though Norway is a free country politically, it does not secure equal rights to all its citizens, and so far as the toleration of religious beliefs is concerned, it is behind most of the other countries of Europe.'-Hle thereupon retreated to the cabin, for a crowd haud gathered about the disputants, and the deck passengers pressing aft, seemed more than usually excited by what what was going on. The Norwegian shaking with fury, hissed through his teeth: 'How dare he to come here to insult our national feeling !-Yes, but ev'ery word was true; and the scene was only another illustration of the intense vanity of the Norwegians in regard to their country. Woe to the man who says a word against Norway, though he say nothing but what every body knows to be true." III. ICELAND. Iceland was discovered by Norman navigators in 861, and it was soon afterwards colonized. In the following century, the Saxon priest Frederic preached the gospel with much success among the Icelanders. Other apostolic missionaries soon followed, and completed the good work which he had commenced. About the year 1000, a large popular assem- bly, after a spirited debate, solemnly received the Christian ieligion; but on condition that the inhabitants should still be allowed to observe certain popular usages, among which were "secret sacrifices, the exposure of infants, and eating the flesh of the horse." The last named condition was not likely to present any very serious obstacle to their being Northern Travel, etc., sup. cit., p. 297-7, 451 REFORMATION IN ICELAND. received into the Christian fold; but the two first could not be consistently accepted. Gradually, however, these heathen- ish prejudices gave way before the increasing light of the gospel, and in 1056 St. Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, and the great apostle of the North, had the satisfaction of being able to consecrate the priest Isleif first bishop, of Skalholt, the oldest see in Iceland. Under the influence of Christianity, the Icelanders ad- vanced rapidly in civilization. From the tenth to the thir- teenth century, the Island was the center of Northern civil- ization, activity, and enterprise. The government was a species of republic, controlled by its own laws, which were generally wise and well adapted to the material and social advancement of the people. This was the golden age of Icelandic civilization. About the year 1000, Icelandic navi- gators discovered and colonized Greenland; which was also soon afterwards converted to Christianity, and received its bishops, first from Bremen, and at a later period from Nor- way. The conversion and early civilization of Iceland had indirectly an important bearing on European civilization; as from this precise epoch the invasions of Europe by the North- men seem to have ceased. After the annexation of Iceland to the Danish crown, about the year 1380, its commerce and prosperity rapidly declined. In 1482, a terrible plague swept off more than half of the inhabitants; and the population recovered but slowly from this terrible blow. Still the Island was beginning to re- gain something of its former prosperity, when the Reforma- tion came, and inflicted on its inhabitants an injury much greater and much more permanent than the great pestilence itself. It is admitted on all hands, that the Reformation was in- See Finni Johnnei Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiae; quoted by Alzog, sup. sit., p. 282. The navigators who penetrated to the far West, and discovered Vineland, were probably Icelanders, whose enterprise was as great as their commerce was extensive, during the period to which we refer. 452 THE REFORMA1TION IINTRODUCED BY VIOLENCE. troduced into Iceland( l)y downright violence, and against the known and clearly expressed wishes of the population. A very prejudiced writer tells us, that "the Reformation was not effected without violence. John Areson, bishop of Hloo- Jmm, was the most strenuous and violent opposer of tle intro- duction of Lutberanisrn."4 The people of Iceland rallied around the zealous bishop of Hoolurm ; anrd, with arms in their hands, declared that they would not be compelled to embrace the new religion, or sub- mit to the authority of thle new Lutheran bishop.-IHow was their opposition subdued It was overcome by the sharlp ar- gument of the sword! The kingof Jenniark dispatelhed a large force to the Island, which encountered, and wy over- whielming numbers and superior discipline defeated thle in- surgents. The Catholic bishop was seized and put to (leathi. Still the disaffection continued, arnd it was finally put (low!n only by brute force wielded by these foreign Danish troops. Thus was Lutheranism established by violence in Iceland, about the middle of the sixteenth' centnry. Since tlhat time, the independence and liberties of the Island have wholly (is- appeared; while her literature and her civilization have con- tinued to droop. Until a very recent period Iceland has produced no writers worthy-of the name; these have appeared fitfully, and at long intervals, like the aurora borealis. Her golden age will never return.t The church establishment in Iceland .las been, ever since the Reformation, a mere creature of the Danish crown, which has moulded its doctrines and discipline at will. The toflow- ing is a curaits example of this dependerncy furnished by the Scottish writer whoion we lhave already (quoted: Ilie two sees of Skalholt and Ilooluin happening to becomie vacanlt at the same time, they were utnited in the year 171.) in the person of Geir Vidahin, who now en jovs tile title of tllw- bishop Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Art., Iceland. t See I farioe, La Reforme en Isladile; quoted by Alzog, sup. cit., p. 56)8 60 453 454 REFORMATION IN ICELAND. of Iceland, and is settled at Reikavik."-Thus, by a simple act of his will or caprice, the Danish monarch blotted out the two old Catholic sees, and erected a new one, thereby removing the last trace of a connection with the Church, under the influence of which Iceland had become compara tively great and flourishing. As we have seen, the Reformation could never gain a foot- hold in the genial and sunny South. The colder North was a far more congenial climate for the new gospel.-And here we accordingly take our leave of the Reformation- IN ICELEiD. NOTES AND DOCUMENTS. NOTE A, PAGE 108. ARTICLES OF RELIGION AND 1300K OF COMMON PRAYER. IN his History of the Church of England, the Anglican bishop Short furnishes an elaborate account of the various successive changes and amend- ments introduced into the collection of Articles of Religion, as well as into the Book of Common Prayer of the church as established by law. If both are not now perfect, it is certainly not for the want of repeated revisions and improvements. These numerous variations run through a period of more than a hundred years; the last revision of the Prayer Book having been made at as late a date as 1661. The limits of this Note will not allow us to do more, than barely to indicate the time and number of the various changes which were introduced; and for a fuller account we must refer our readers to the work of Bishop Short, p. 167, seqq., and p. 278, seqq.; where the whole of this singular history of successive reformations in what was originally characterized as the work of God, set forth "by the aid of the Holy Ghost," will be found in all its curious details. 1. THE ARTICLES OF RELIGION. 1. In regard to the Articles of Religion, from the six originally set forth by Henry VIII., they grew to forty-two under Edward VI. These were pub- lished in 1553, appended to a short catechism. Cranmer composed them, assisted probably by Ridley, and they were submitted to the revision of Cecil and Cheke. Cranmer appears to have derived them from his own active researches, and from the Augsburg and other German Confessions. It would appear from what Bishop Short says, that they were not formally sanctioned by the convocation, and that comparatively few of the clergy subscribed them. 2. In 1562, the Articles were submitted to another examination, result- ing in another amendment. Archbishop Parker prepared them for the (455) 456 NOTE A. convocation, where they were considerably altered; and were at first reduced to thirty-eight, which number contained all that were then printed, and subsequently, by some mysterious process, raised to the present number -thirtv-nine. In the parliament of 1571, Elizabeth, who had previously successfiully opposed the passage of the bill sanctioning the Articles, finally suffered it to become a law; and as they had now received the sanction of the head of the Anglican church, they were subscribed and printed. 3. Great discussions subsequently arose in reference to several of these Articles, particularly the twentieth, concerning the power of the church " to decree rites and ceremonies"' and her "'authority in controversies of faith." This question was much agitated in the examination of Archbishop Laud in 1637 ; and the genuineness of the Article seems to have been finally settled by a canon published in 1604. 4. It would be amusing, if it were not s5, sadl, to examine all the succes- sive controversies carried on in the Anglican church about the meaning of the various Articles, the genuineness of some of them, the obligation of subscribing them, and the importance or non-importance attached to the act of subscription. This insular church, after an almost continued agitation and controversy of three hundred years, has not yet been able to determine with certainty as to the real nature and extent of its faith, and the precise meaning of its Articles of Religion! II. THE 1BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. The case was even worse, if possible, with regard to the Book of Com- mon Praver. This has undergone even more changes, and has given rise to even more discussions, than the Articles themselves. We will merely note the dates of the various amendments and alterations, as furnished by Bishop Short, p. 278. 1. In 1545; the King's Primer, printed by authority 2. In 1548; the first communion service. 3. In 1549; first Liturgy of Edward VI. published. 4. In 1550; First ordination service published. 5. In 1552; Second Liturgy of Edward VL 6. Same year; Second ordination service. 7. In 1560; Liturgy of Elizabeth. 8. In 1604: Alterations introduced by James I. 9. In 1633; Alterations bv- and Charles I. Archbishop Laud is accused of having introduced these last changes; but the author does not seem fully to accredit the charge. See p. 282, and note. 10. In 1661; Last revision-Authorized Liturgy. 11. To this was subsequently added the service fol the consecration of churches, together with certain political services. BOOK OF COMMENION PIRAYA:l. 4.57 Here we have no less than Reveil different revisions of the (ormnmon Prayer Book, running through a period of one hundrlcd and sixteen year. ' That the amendments were not merely verbal or unimportant, is apparent from the great interest taken in them, by those most concerned, anrd the angry co-ntroversies which raged on occasion of them l)eteen lil'rtilt sections of the Anglican church; which Controversies are not nie1 to taiis very day ' The first change from Henry's lPrimnerto EdwaIl's first lit'0irvy was immense, as every one concedles; and that from the first to the secocld Liturgy of Eldwar(l, though the timte intervening was only three years,, w;s also very considerable. In this very short time, what had been done 'Iv the aid of the ifoly Ghost" was fowind iby those godlly InCei to have befln very badly done ; anrd several ` superstitious observance-s '`-ili aos pinayiig for the dead, exorcisIms, anointing with oil inI baptisiir and in thle vi;itbttiin of the sick-which were retained in 15')), were expunnged, we ulpposc also "by the aid of the Ifholy Ghost," in 1552 ' (Ibid., p. 278-9) ) A nd so of many other subsequent changes. flishop Short mnakes one aulnkissionl -whic h we copy: "In giving an account of the ()mrnon Prayer Book, it will `e more cor- rect to describe it as a work ompiled frorm the services of the (C3rch 4 Rome, or r(tJher as a, tra.slaft;on of suich portions of them as were free from all objection, than as an o iginal rompoqition."-(P. 278, , 7-1.) Though this is a well ascertained fact, conceded by all men of learning and candor. yet we do not believe that it is either generally known or gen- erally admitted among Episcopalians. Were wve caUed upon to characterize this Book of Common Prayer, we should (lescribe it as the Ivoman Missal, spoiled by a very partial and a very garbled translation, which leaves out the very best parts-those precisely which are most unear lly, d.ost grand. and most sublime. No doubt the Anglican liturgy is still impressive, and not devoid of a certain grandeur of thought and expression; but if the mutilated fragments of the Roman Missal be so grand and beautiful, what must be the original work itself! This has stood in all its majestic grandeur, and beautiful proportions, for nearly eighteen hundred years. Those who may desire to examine more fully this interesting subject, are referred to an cxcellcnt work lately published in Baltimore by Kelly, Hedian & Piet, entitled "Letters to an Episcopalian, on the origin, history, and doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer, by Augustine Bede: 1859" In this volume, the author of which is well known, thougih he writes under a nom de plume, the question is learnedly and ably discttscused in all itS bear- ings. In order to complete our rapid sketch, wve extract from it some general conclusions reached by the author, followed by an account of the chainres introduced in the United States; which latter we suppose tc contain an P"'urate statement of facts, though no au thority is given: VOL n.-39 458 NOTE A. "There are two other important facts which I have laid before you in the course of this historical sketch, and which must not be overlooked. The first is, that the lPraver-Book wvas put forth by pai liamneit, and that it was alternately set up and al)lishe'l, accordinn- to the relig-ious sentiments of the reigning- s;overeign. 'l'huts, pa;rliaLimlent set it up under Edward, and parlia- ment abolished it under Mary. Again, lparliamient set it up utnder Elizabeth, and parliament abolishied it a second time uniler Cromwell, and subsequently set it up a third time. under Chat les. Trhe second fact is, that thi-s Praver-Ihok was not only set forth by par- liament, but it was forced upon the people of Eng-land by the penal enact- ments of that body. Its adoption wa s compulsory. No choice was left to ither clergy or laymen. However much opposed to it, they had to use it, or suffer the loss of office, and undergo ruinous fines and a degrading impris- onment. Thus, its history is a history of persecution,-lbitter, unrelenting, protracted, and even murderous persecution. Its history; indeed, is written in blood. It is enough to make one's hair stand on end, enough to make the blood boil. to read of the cruel sufferings to which the poor Catholics were subjected, in order to compel them to adopt the Book of Common Prayer. And however much, my friend, yon may esteem that look, you must condemn the cruel and arbitrary measures bv which it was fastened upon the English people. And whether its merits be greater or less, you must perceive and admit that if it has, to solve extent, supplanted the Cath- olic Missal, the change was brought about, not bv a sense of the superior excellence of the Prayer-Book, but by arbitrary power, civil enactments, and cruel persecutions-in one word, by matte force. "My historical notice of the Prayer-Blook has thus far been confined to the changes which it underwent in England. I have now to say something concerning another revision, which it was subjected to in this country. Down to the period of our national independence, the Prayer-Book, as last amended under Charles II, was used by that body of religious persons, in this country, who acknowledged the authority of the church of England. But when the colonies became separated from the mother country, these persons considered themselves free, ecclesiastically, and immediately pro- ceeded to establish an independent church. One of their first cares, in the process of setting up for themselves, was to alter and amend the Book of Common Prayer, as they had received it from the old country. Accord- ingly, at a convention held in Philadelphia in 1785, the Prayer-Book under- went a general review; and among other great changes then made in it, the Nicene Creed was thrown out! What think you of that, my friend Is it not a terrible argument against the spirit and faith of the members com- posing that convention The Prayer-Book, as then amended, was called 'The Proposed Book., At a convention held in Wilmington, the following year, the subject was again taken up, and the Nicene Creed was restored but the Athanasian Creed was left out' And this latter Creed has been left out to this day, although still retained in the Prayer-Book of the church of England! The Prayer-Book, thus amended, was adopted and ratified in convention in 1789, with the exception, however, of the Thirty-Nine Arti- -les, which were the source of much controversy, and which were not adopted until the year 1801; and only then, rather because they found it impossible to agree upon any other set of doctrines, than that they relished the Thirty-Nine. But still the Pray-er-Book was imperfect. In 1792 the Ordinal was revised and altered. In 1795 a service was added for the con- secration of a church. In 1804 another office was inserted in it, for the BOOK )F COMMON PRAYER. 459 institution of a minister-and at later periods, several instalments of hymns were added. Thus, it has already undergone, in this country, in a brief period, some half a dozen reviews and revisions, consisting of omissions, alterations, and amendments, of' more or less doctrinal importance, even to the setting aside, first, of one entire creed, then of another; both of them, creeds which, from the fourth century, have been revered as the svmbols of true orthodoxy! But after all the revisions and amendments wvhich the Prayer-Book has undergone, first in England, then in America, how utterly unsatisfactory has been the result. Further changes have been repeatedly called for, and air still desired, by many in both countries. High Church- men are not satisfied with it, and Low Churchmen are even l ss satisfied with it. And, indeed, I doubt if a single Episcopalian can be found who is entirely satisfied with it. All parties in the church would like to see changes introduced, but the great difficulty is, that they are unable to agree, like the conference under James II., as to what these changes shall be. High Churchmen would make the book more Catholic-Low Chbrelinnen would make it more Protestant.-P. 51-2. Among the changes introduced in the American revision, we wsill mention but two. The first is the permission given in the rubric to "any churches"' which prefer it, to omit that part of the Apostles' Creed which says of Christ: "lie descended into hell."-(lbid., p. 149.) The second is the total omission of the following important rubric found in the English Prayer- Book "Here shall the sick person be moved to make a .pecial confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offenses: and by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."-(Ibid., p. 246.) NOTE B, PAGE 183. ANGLICAN ORDINATIONS. In his " Comparative View of the Grounds of the Catholic and Protestant Churches," Dr. Fletcher has treated this subject with so much moderation, succinctness, and thoroughness, that we can not probably do better than to republish his twelfth chapter entire. It will well repay the perusaL 460 NOTE B. ON TI[E ORDINATIONS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. "It is evident unto all m -n, diligently reading the holy Scripture, and ancien authority, that, from the apostles' time, there have been three orders of ministers in Christ's Church,--bishops, priests, and deacons; which offices were, evermore, haL.1 in such reverend estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, ex- eept he were first called, tried, etc.;-and also by public prayer, with imposition of hands wvvr approved, and admitted thereto by lawful authority."--Prejace to tiu Ordination &rrice. SuCH is the doctrine of the church of England. It believes, like the Cath- olic, that Christ Jesus has instituted an order of ministers in his Church; that these are initiated into it bv the application of the episcopal consecra- tion; and that such only, who have received this holy ordinance, are to be considered, eitner as the pastors of the faithful, or as the administrators of the sacred mysteries. Whence, in conformity to such opinion, it considers the dissenting ministers of every sect, and description, as a mere set of lay- ten, unauthorized to perform any spiritual function, and unfitted to admin- ister any sacrament;-their ministry, no ministry at all; their churches, no churches, according to that statement of Bishop Dodwell, which I have cited already: ' where there is no episcopal ordination, there is no ministry; no sacrament; no church." I have not, in the foregoing chapter, called in question, nor so much as appeared to suspect the validity of the ordinations employed by the church of England. I have rather, on the contrary, supposed or seemed to sup- pose that they are valid: and that, consequently, by virtue of them, its prelates are truly bishops; and its parsons truly priests. I have, hitherto, seemed to allow all this. But, what then, must the consequence be, if it should so turn out, that its ordinations are after all nudl ! and that, not- withstanding the confident claims which it arrogates to itself of having inherited the genuine forms, and rite, of holy orders from the parent church, still, it does not possass them The consequence in such case would be most serious; and indeed, according to the maxims themselves of the estab- lishment, ruinous to its pretensions. For, it would thus, according to the words just cited from Dodwell, "be no church; have no ministry; no sacrament." Such would confessedly be the effects that would result to the established church from the nullity of its ordinations. The consideration, therefore, of this awful question is, to the members of this religion, an object of the most vital interest. It has, accordingly, both at the early periods of the Reformation, and on many occasions since, awak- ened all the solicitude, and stimulated all the talents, zeal, and ingenuity of its best defenders. In fact, no question deserved their attention better.- However, to the Catholic, the subject,-though certainly very interesting,- is yet after all but a matter of secondary moment. Because, since even valid ordinations do not of themselves confer any wmmission,-the real grounds of all pastoral power,-so, of course, not even would the certainty of the validity of the English orders suffice, by any means, to prove the divine foundation of the established church. It would prove, indeed,-just as it did in the cases of the Donatist, and the Nestorian, clergy,-that the men who have received the sacred consecration are really bishops, and priests :-but, it would prove nothing more. It would not prove that they are authorized, either to conduct.the faithful, or to exercise any pastoral function. For these reasons,-although I am quite unable to believe, yet I FLETCHER ON ANGLICAN ORDINATIONS. 461 am not going to deny, the validity of our English ordinations. I am going only to state a few of those many circumstances, which, to my apprehension of things,-and according to what I consider the dictates of impartial criti- cism, appear to render the claim extremely doidf/ul and itnprobaxVe. In the first place, it is a circumstance, which ought I conceive to have some weight upon the Protestant who is not biassed by partiality or warped by prejudice,-and which should, more or less, abate the confidence which he is pleased to found upon the alleged pretension,-that, notwithstanding all the ardor and eloquence with which it has been, and is yet, defended,- it was still very little regarded by the first fathers and apostles of the En- glish church. For, referring to the sentiments which those men, nearly all of them, entertained, respecting the subject of ordination, and the derivation of any pedigree from the parent Church, it will be found, that they were, not only very vague and slovenly, but completely the reverse to those which now constitute the general doctrines of the established clergy. "The first English reformers," says Dr. McCrie, "by no means considered ordination by the parent Church, or descending from the parent Church, as necessary. They would have laughed at the man, who would have asserted seriously, that the imposition of the hands of the bishop was essential to the validity of ordination. They would not have owned that person as a Protestant, who would have ventured to insinuate that, where this was wanting, there was no Christian ministry; no ordinance; no church;-and perhaps, no salvation."-" The private opinions," he adds, " of the first English reform- ers were similar to those of the reformers of Switzerland and Geneva.- Hooper, in a letter dated February 8, 1550. informs Bullinger that the archbishop of Canterbury; the bishops of Rochester, Ely, St. David's, Lin- coln, and Bath, agreed in al; thing8 with the Helvetic churches. Packhurst, bishop of Norwich, in a letter to Gualter does the same.-Cranmer says positively, that bishops and priests, are not two things, but one office, in the beginning of Christ's religion. Doctors Cox and Redman say the same thing Thirteen bishops and a great number of ecclesiastics subscribed the proposition. Latimer and Hooper maintained the identity of bishops and pastors, by divine institution. So alio did Pilkinton, Bishop of Dur- ham, Jewell," etc. Another Protestant writer,-Mr. Macdiarmid,-speaking of the notions which Cranmer entertained upon the subjects of episcopacy and episcopal power, observes:-" Cranmer so fully considered himself as merely an officer, acting by the king's authority; and was so fully convinced that his episcopal power ended like that of other officers with the life of the mon- arch who conferred it, that on the death of Henry VIII. he refised to exercise any jurisdiction till he had received a new commission from King Edward."-Indeed. not only did this venerable patriarch of the English church carry his ideas to the foregoing degree of latitude, but he even went so far, Burnet tells us, as to maintain that no ordination whatsoever is re- quired to make men bishops, or priests, but merely the kings election and nomination. "He contended," says the historian,-who also has preserved the document which attests the filet,-"he contended, in an assembly of bishops, that the king's election and nomination, alone, without any cere- mony of ordination, sufficed to make priests and bishops."1-The same no- tion, Collier also informs us, was in like manner entertained by Barlow, the supposed consecrator of Archbishop Parker ;-and which, hence, ought here to appear the more striking. "Barlow," he says, maintained the same sin. gular proposition.-Such as these,-so loose and crude were the senti- 462 NOTE B. inents which the first founders of the church of England entertained upon the subjects of ordination and spiritual power. The reason is obvious. They were perplexedl. They felt the difhicaltv and the inconsistency of pretend. ing to have derived a Protestant mission from Catholic pastors. Thlley, cfn- sidered it an absurdity to affect to have received any spiritual generation from a church which they had reprobated as idolatrous ; and were actually pulling down, as antichristian. Their opinions, if they be entitled,-as surely they should be,-to the respect of the established clergy, or of the Protestant in general, ou ht, at all events, to lessen that over-weening confi- dence which they found upon the allegedl grounds of episcopal orlinations. However, it is true, that the above opinions, although thus strikingly recommended; and although even they continued to be the prevailing doc- trines of the reformers during the reigns both of Henry and the sixth Edward,-yet, on the accession of Elizabeth.-the real foundress of the present establishment,-they appear to have considerably sulb-ided; and sentiments more consonant to the venerable doctrines of antiquity, again returned to engage the public mind. Ut all events, this is certain, that Elizabeth had not imbibed the Calvinistic notions of the first reformers. She had been educated more or less- a Catholic; and although, from motives of policy and temporal interest, she had resolved to pull down the Catholic Church,-still, revering many of its institutions, she at the same time was desirous to retain them. She was an admirer of the Episcopal order; either because she considered it as established bv our Redeemer for the governmient of his kingdom;-because it was consonant to the general w-iles of the public;-because it was a splendid and ornamental thing;-or else, because she looked upon it as the best remedy against the growth of puritanism; which, also, she disliked, as peculiarly hostile to the claims of monarchy. She therefore,-beginning as she now was to organize anew both the church and the state,-determined to preserve the sacred institution. But then, there occurred here a very serious and perplexing difficulty. It was,-how to procure the consecrators of her new ministry. She had deposed and imprisoned the Catholic bishops; who all save Kitchin had refused to take the oath of supremacv:-whilst, in relation to Edward's prelates, she seems,-as they were a set of Zuinglians; and as, moreover, their consecration had been declared null in the preceding reign of Mary,- she seems to have entertained a very mean opinion of their competency to perform the sacred rite. Wherefore, knowing as she did that the real epis- copal character was vested in the persons of the Catholic bishops, she, accordingly, although reluctantly,-for she had persecuted them severely,- addressed herself to these. She, in the first instance, indeed,-being appre- hensive of a refusal,-applied to Dr. Creagh, the archbishop of Armagh, who was at that time a prisoner in the Tower. She urged him to perform the important task, promising him, upon this condition, not only his liberty, but great rewards. However, the good man refused.-Disappoiiited in this We find, that even so late as the year 1562, when Parker, Jewell, Horn, etc., gave out their new version of the Scriptures, distorting the sacred text, thev interpreted the ,Xvprcvie, ( which antiquity, always. and even modern Protestant translators, now, interpret "the imposition of iiands,")--they interpreted this,-" ordination by elec- tion,"-meaning thus to imply, that the election of the prince, without the need of any episcopal consecration, suffices to make metn bishops. This tranDsltion was suf- fered, too, to remain in the approved versions of the Bible until the reign of James the First, when the ancient letter,-" imposition of hands,"-was again restored tc Ahe sacred text. Tle circumstance ot the perverted, but artful expedient, serves forcibily to point out the sentiments of the men who used it. FLETCHER ON ANGLICAN ORDINATIONS. 463 attempt, she now, therefore, applied to the nfrciaid prelates. She issued a commission, directed to the following indiviluals,-Ttunstal, bishop of Dur- ham; Bourne, of Bath; Pole, of Peterborough; and Kitchin, of llandaff, -joining to them, in the instrument, Barlow, mnorcover, and Forey; and directing them to consecrate Dr. Mi atthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury. But the four former, just like the venerable Creagh, resolutely declined the office. Not even could Kitchin him-elf, with all his mean obsefluiousness, be induced to perform it. Wherefore, hopeless of success from an r of the ancient prelates, she now issued another commission, addressed to William Barlow, John Scorey, Miles Coverdale, and John I[odskins; empowering these to consecrate, as archbishop of Canterbury, Doctor Matthew Parker. These men, therefore, arcording to the testinmony of the Lambethl reqyikqter,- performed the important action. The ceremony took place, says the same instrument, upon the 17th of December, anno 1559. Thus w;Is createdl and organized, the present hierarchy of the established church; thus were laid the founrlations of its pastoral power; and thus, also, say its defenders, its ministers are now portions of those hallowed links, which constitute the apostolic chain. But, alas-such is, forever, the fate of religious innovations. scarcely had the above act taken place, (if, indeed, it ever did take place.) when a series of doubts and apprehensions, founded upon a grat variety of motives, began to agitate the public mind. The Catholics, who still formed the far larger portion of the nation, unanimously denied, not only the competency of the aforesaid men to perform the act of episcopal consecration,-but they denied even. that they had ever, themselves, received such consecration. They contended that Barlow, the chief acting consecrator (as it was alleged) on the eventful occasion, was no bishop. Such was the lang-uage of the Cath- olics; who loudly, at the same time, and incessantly, called upon their Prot- estant antaonists to produce,-if the fect were really true some attestation or other to evince it :--a. to evince it, was certainly of the most vital moment to the church of England-But, so it is:-the attestation was sought for, and has been sought for, till the present day,-n vain. Neither Archbishop Bramhall, with all his industrv; nor Mason, with all his art; nor Burnet. with all his researches; nor Warton, with all his learning, could ever find out the useful instrument. So that Stevens, a learned Protestant clergy- man, makes the following observation upon the circumstance: "It is a won- derful thing bv what chance, or providence it happened, that Barlow's consecration, who was the principal actor in this, should nowhere appear; nor any positive nroof of it be found, in more than fourscore vears since it was first questioned, by all the search that could be made by so many learned], and industrious, and curious persons." (Great question.) The thing is, indeed. certain. that the supposed consecration of Barlow is one of those facts, which not all the diligence, nor all the ingenuity of the estab- lished clergv have, ever vet, been able to evince satisfactorilvy;-a circum- stance, surely. which should seem to merit verv serious consideration. For, if Barlow, the consecrator, were not himself a bishop,-then neither could he make Parker, the ronsec-rated, such :-since, according to the received Principle of the church of England, it is only a bishop that can make a bishop. A circumstance, too, which possiblY might have increased the unwillingniess of the public to believe in the consecration of Barlonw. was the swell kfiowpvj 'plinion, which this man had himself long entertained. and publicly avowel1, upmn the suhbject of episcopal ordination. It was his professed doctrine, declared solemnly before the 464 NOTE B. Another consideration, which, at least equally with the preceding, excited a great deal of suspicion, not only in the mind-s of Catholics, but also amongst multitudes of thinking Protestants, was this,-that even the very action itself of the alleged consecration of Parker was very generally disbelieved; -as it certainly does now appear to be a very dark and mysterious qjues- tion. "If," said the public, "a ceremony of such infinite importance have really taken place, how then comes it, that there are no undoubted evidences to attest it -no witness to vouch for it How comes it, that it has not been generally known and noticed" Hence, the Catholic writers of that period,-men, too, the most acute and learned; men who watched every occurrence, and pryed into every event, in the new order of things; men, moreover, who were, some of them, personally acquainted with the newly- appointed bishops, (they were such men as Harding,, Stapleton, Allen, Bris- tow,) all loudly declared that the whole transaction was an empty fiction.- They defied their antagonists,-.Tewell, Horn, etc.,-to prove the contrary. "You savy, observed I larding to Jewell, 'that you are a bishop by the consecration of the archbishop (Parker). But, pray, how was the archbishop himself consecrated Your metropolitan, who should give authority to all your consecrations, had, himself, no consecration." To these challenges,-at a time, when, if ill-founded, it was most easy, and certainly most important, to have refuted them,-no satisfactory answered was returned.-The circum- stance, too, is singular, that the alleged act of the consecration of Parker is not noticed by any Protestant writer, or historian, of that period,-not even by Stowe himself, the warm friend and confidant of the prelate. I do not say that this silence was sufficient to authorize the conclusion that the ceremony did not take place. But, it was enough to excite,-as it did, and forever must excite,-very strong suspicions upon the subject A third consideration, which again in the eyes of multitudes contributed to lessen their confidence in the first Protestant ordinations, was the circum- stance that they were completely uncanonical;--and indeed not only this, but even illegal too. They were uncanonical, because they were adminis- tered without the consent, both of the metropolitan, and of the bishops of the province;-or rather, in direct opposition to the will of both of them. They were uncanonical, because neither Barlow nor his fellow-consecrators, assembly of bishops, etc., which was held at Windsor, in the first year of the reign of Edward VI.,-that episcopal consecration is an useless ceremony; and that the king's nomination suffices, alone, to make a bishop. This is a fact, which both Burnet, in his History of the Reformation, and Stillingifeet, in his Irenicon, each of them admit. The thing, no doubt, was calculated to increase the public suspicion, respecting the man's own consecration. For, if he had been really consecrated, he would not, they conceived, have thought and spoken as he had done. The opinion, too, might have been somewhat confirmed by the consideration of the well known fact, that, although both Latimer and Ridley haid acted as bishops, and sat in parlia- ment as such, yet they had not, either of them, received any other consecration, save that of priesthood. thus, Foxe relates in his Martyrology, that when these men, pre- viously to their execution, were solemnly degraded by the spiritual power, the offici- ating minister on the occasion,-Dr. Brooks, the bishop of G!oucester,-"declared them degraded, not from the episcopal character, because they had never received it, but only from their priestly character." The situation of Barlow was, probably similar to theirs. If bishop, he was only such by princely nomination. "Eves Cromwell," says Towgood, "the vicegerent of Henry, could make bishops." It would seem as if Bishop Bancroft himself, at the beginning of the reign of James, entertained no very strong conviction of the episcopal character of Barlow. For, when pressed by Dr. Alabaster, on the subject of Parker's consecration, his reply was: "I hope, in case of' necessity, a priest may be sufficient for to ordain a bishop,. FLErCHER ON ANGLICAN ORDINATIONS. 465 (supposing these men to have really performed the act; and to have been really, at the same time, bishops) possessed, at the period of the supposed ceremony, one particle of canonical jurisdiction. They were even, at that period, themselves under the sentence of canonical deposition from every religious function.-I have said. too, that these first ordinations, besides being uncanonical, were, moreover, illeyal. This indeed is certain. Be- cause the first consecrators, when they are supposed to have performed the solemn act, were then actually laboring under the sentence of legal depriva- tion by the state itself. The case was this:-the laws of Mary, which had repealed the ordinal of Edward, were still in force; not having been, as yet, altered by the authority of the parliament. The ordinal of Edward had been repealed and condemned in the year 1553,-the first of Mary. This repeal and condemnation continued still the standing law of the nation, until the year 1562,-the third of Elizabeth. And it was during the above inter- val, that Parkers presumed consecration, as well as that of a few other prelates, are supposed to have taken place; and that these men did actually take possession of the sees of their Catholic predecessors.-So that the whole transaction is thus replete with objections,-a breach of the canons, which it violated; and an outrage of the laws, which it infringed. Insomuch that our historians tell us, that the newly-intruded bishops began, them- selves, to be uneasy. "It was doubted," says Neale, "whether Parker's consecration was canonical: 1st, because the persons engaged in it had been canonically deprived, and were not yet restored; 2ndly, because the conse- cration ought to have been directed according to the statute of the 2.5th of Henry VIII.; and not according to the form of King Edward's ordinal; inasmuch as that book had been set aside in the last reign, and was not yet restored by parliament. These objections made the new bishops uneasy. They began to doubt of the validity of their ordination." Indeed, induced by the above considerations, as well as by many others, which I have not cited, there were several Protestant writers;-and these, too, very distinguished members of the established church,-who fairly gave up the pretended claim; going even so far as to throw ridicule upon the We may trace a similar kind of diffidence pervading the minds of the queen's judges, even some time after the consecration, or supposed consecration, of the nev' prelacy. Bonner had refused to take the oath of supremacy, which had been tendered to him by Horn, the presumed bishop of Winchester. His refusal was founded upon the plea, that Horn was not really a bishop; nor, therefore, properly empowered to iquire, or tender such an oath. The case excited great attention. It was first tried in the Public court ; and then referred to the consideration of all the judges. These, having long deliberated upon it, decided that the plea of Bonner should be received, and the case be again committed to a jury, in the county of Surrey. However, here, Heylin informs us, the government interfered; and commanded,-deeming the thing more prudent,-"that the decision of the point should be referred to the following parliament, for fear that such a weighty matter might miscarry." Here, theG., the business appears to have strpped. For Bonner, although so peculiarly hateful to the Protestants, was no more molested. However, it was in the ensuing parliament, (S Eliz.) that in order in some degree to check the growing scandal, the new bishops were declared, at all events, "legal bishops;"-whence they long bore the name of " parliamentary bishops." And not only did this diffidence prevail during the earlier periods after the first organization of the new religion,--it continued, we find,-and this, again, amongst the Protestants,-even so late as in the reign of the first Charles. Thus, Panzani, the papal envoy at this prince's court, and who fnrm his intercourse with the chief no- bility was peculiarly competent to know their sentiments, informs us in his Memoirs, that "nearly all the principal nobility who died-although reputed Protestants-died Catholics." 466 NOTE B. notio-i of a Protestant church deriving orders from the Church if Rome Such were Whittaker, Fulke, Sutcliff, etc. "I would not have you think," says the former writer, " that we make such reckoning of your orders, as to hold our own vocation unlawful without them. And therefore keep your orders to yourselves." The language of Fulke is similar to this. "You are much deceived," he says, in his reply to a counterfeit Catholic, "you are much deceived, if you think we esteem your offices of bishops, priests, and deacons, any better than laymen; and you presume too much to think that we receive your ordering to be lawful. Again, with all our hearts, we defy, abhor, detest, and spit at your stinking, greasy, antichristian orders.", (Re- tentive.) Surely it is not thus that these men would have written, if they had conceived that the hierarchy of their church had derived its commission, and received its sacred character through the medium of the ancient pastors. The doubts, the misgivings, and apprehensions which thus pervaded the feelings of the public, were peculiarly injurious to the new order of things; and might even, unless they had been arrested, have proved fatal to it. Elizabeth and her ministers were feelingly sensible of this: and they accord- ingly devised a variety of expedients to stay the growing evil. Amongst other contrivances for this purpose, they issued a proclamation, wherein they caution the public against "the slanders" aewst upon the new order of the episcopacy; assuring them that "the same evil speech and talk is not grounded upon any just matter or cause."' This, no doubt, was charitable. But, as such assurances did not suffice to allay the the general discontent, a remedy more effectual was now resorted to. It was this :-clothing her- self in the mantle of that spiritual omnipotence m hich the laws had con- ferred upon her, and addressing a commission to the newly-created pastors, -Elizabeth solemnly tells them that she now, by virtue of her supreme power, dispenses with every defect, and supplies for every deficiency which may have attended their ordination. " We s8ppiy," says she to them, "by our supreme royal authority, whatever is wanting or shall be wanting in order to the performance of the premises; either in the things which shall be done by you, or in any one of you, your condition, state, or power, etc - the circutnmtances of the time and the urgency of affairs rendering it necessary." Such was the contrivance; such the panacea, designed by the ingenuity of Elizabeth and her ministers to remove the doubts, and to appease the appre- hensions of the public, on the score of the new-formed hierarchy. If seri- ously considered, the scheme was rather calculated to highten suSpicion than to allay it. Accordingly, it did not alla.y it. The doubts, and fears, and suspicions, of of the public still remained unabated. Wherefore, she had now recourse (this was in the eighth year of her reign) : he had now recourse to a bet- ter, because a somewhat stronger, expedient. She procured an act of par- liament to be passed, to give an additional force and sanction to the preceding mandate. In this she again declares to the nation that, "by her supreme power and authority, she has dispensed with all causes, and doubts, of any imperfections, or disabilities, that can, or may, in any wise, be objected against the same, etc. So that it is and may be very evident and apparent, that no cause of scruple, ambiguity, or doubt, can, or may, justly be objected against the said elections, confirmations, or consecrations. Wherefore, be it now declared, and enacted, that all persons that have been or shall be made, ordered, or consecrated, archbishops, bishops, etc., after the form and order prescribed in the said order and form, how archbishops, bishops, etc., should be consecrated,-be in very deed, archbishops, bishops, FLETCHER ON ANGLICAN ORDINATIONS 167 etc.,--any statute, law, canon, or other being, to the contrary, notwith3tand- ing." Such is the act, or rather abstract of the act, provided by the policy of Elizabeth, for the security of the established church; for the confirmation of its pastors; and for the removal of the public scruples. "It wa.s thus," says [leylin, speaking of the above law,-" it was thus that the church is strongly settled upon its natural pillars." How tar the singular measure may have removed, or is calculated to re- move, the scruples of the Protestant mind, it is not for me to say. Neale tells us, that " it removed the scruples of the bishops." (It put these men, let the reader observe, in possession of the privileges and temporal preroga- tives of their Catholic predecessors :-which, no doubt, was not a little calculated to cure their scruples.) But, is the act itself really of such nature, as to suffice to allay the doubts and to satisfy the misgivings of a prudent man I think not. It admits the defects to which the public had ob- jected: only, it dispenses withi them. But, then, by what authority By the authority of a female, assuming to herself far more than papal power; and by the sanction of a set of legislators, invested with no spiritual char- aoter, but created only for the enactment of temporal, and human laws. To my feelings, the circumstance appears less calculated to appease old ap- prehensions, than to inspire and awaken fresh ones. The apprehensions, indeed, still continued general. The Catholics pressed the awful subject incessantly upon the public attention. And whilst it an- noyed the established clergy, it had, also, the effect of withholding, or with- drawing, multitudes from their communion. Hence, some proceeding again, more efficacious, if possible, than any of the foregoing ones, became very urgently necessary. The resources of art are infinite: and therefore, the useful secret was at length discovered. One of the great arguments, the reader has seen, which the Catholics had made use of to disprove the validity of the new ordinations;--or rather, to give no credit to them,-was this,-that there did not exist any evidence even to attest the alleged and simple fact, that the consecration of Parker, the great keystone of the new episcopal arch, had ever, itself, so much as taken place. There was no register, they said; no seal, or document, to prove it. The objection was certainly striking; and it gave rise to great perplexity. However, behold, at length, (it was after the long interval of above fifty years) the great mystery became unraveled. Turning over one day at Lambeth, a heap of musty records and long neglected papers, the learned and curious Mr. Mason, who was, at that time, the chaplain of Archbishop Abbot, chanced to hit upon the very instrument which had so long been wanted; and which the Catholics had in vain so loudly called for,-the very register itself of Parker's comsecration! The discovery was deemed quite providential; and at all events, particularly fortunate. In this important document, there are attested, not only the fact of the con- secration of Parker, the place, the time, etc.; but the whole process and order of the ceremony. So that now it was hoped that the objections of the Catholics would be silenced, at least upon this score. I have not denied the validity of the English ordinations. For this reason, I am not going to assert, either that the above register was not dis- covered: or that the ceremony, which it announces, was not performed. My design is only to show, that, in what relates to the new hierarchy, there is always a something or other that is awkward, and that tends to excite suspicion. -No sooner, then, was the instrument brought forward, and triumphantly proclaimed, than the Catholics,-for the spirit of criticism is 468 NOTE B. never still,-protested positively against it. They treated it as a piece of forgery, the useful dictate of the archbishop, and the handiwork of Mason. Perhaps, they were mistaken. But after all there was, certainly, a great deal in the whole transaction that was calculated to awake suspicion. An instrument, or attestation, such as the above, was of the highest moment to the Protestant cause; both in order to silence the reproaches of the Catho- lics, and to appease the uneasiness of the public. The Catholics had inces: santly called for it, and challenged the new prelates to produce it. "We say to you, Mr. Jewell," called out Harding, '"and to each of your companions, show us the register of your bishops; show us the letters of your orders.", The challenge was given in vain. No register was produced; no letters of orders were cited. It was only after the long lapse of four and fifty years, that the useful evidence at last came to light. Now, whence this astonish- ing silence Whence, this long neglect, or forgetfulness, of a document, which must have been of infinite service to the newly established church If it had really existed, said the Catholics, it could neither have been neglected, nor forgotten. Hence. they inferred, that the instrument was a forgery. I have just now said, that possibty their opinion was false. Their arguments, too, are only negative. Still, however, there is much in the whole business that is singular; much, that, according to the canons of gen- eral criticism, it is difficult to reconcile and solve ; and much, therefore, (for this is all that I am now contending)-much that leaves ample room for doubt and apprehension. I will consider onlv one further circumstance, in relation to the present subject. It is one, which, like those which I have been discussing, has always been the source of a great deal of controversy; and to multitudes the occasion of a great deal of diffidence and fear. It is a circumstance, moreover, peculiarly important; and happily, less involved in any obscurity, and more easy to appreciate, than the arguments just dismissed. It is a circumstance, which, although it may still leave room for doubt to some minds, removes every doubt from mine :-insomuch that if there existed no other motive for disbelieving the validity of the English ordinations, this alone would engage me to do so. I am alluding to the form of ordination, which is prescribed in the ordinal of Edward VI.; and which was, alone, made use of by the established church, during the interval of upwards of a century. If that form be invalid, the whole question is at once decided. For then, invalid also must have been the ordinations imparted by it. Be- caws2 it is only a valid form that can confer a valid consecration, and there- fore, create a valid, and real priesthood. So that nearly the whole dispute, which relates to the established church, might be compressed into the in- vestigation of this single and simple question. It is a maxim, then, in religion, which the members of the established church admit equally with the Catholics; and which indeed no rational believer will contest,-that in the administration of the sacraments, or in th dispensation of those external mediums which our divine Redeemer has established in order to confer grace and sanctification upon the faithful,- it iz essential to employ only those forms, and to retain that matter, which have been selected by his wisdom, and sanctioned by his authority. The reason of this is manifest. It is,-that since grace is not in the power, nor under the control, of man, so it is not, consequently, within the power of any human being to attach its gift, or communication, to any external act or object. To do this, is only in the will and power of him, who is the author of grace and the source of sanctification.-Accordingly, the FLETCHIER ON ANGLICAN ORDiNATIONS. 469 sequence is,-and it is also the doctrine of the established church,-that, since episcopacy is a sacred institution, and imparted through the external medium of holy orders,-so, of course, only that form should be employed in its communication; only that form. can effletually confer the hallowed dig- nity, which has been dictated to us, and established by the Eternal Wisdom. It must necessarily be divine. And since too, in conformity to tho nature of things, and to the properties of all the other institutions of griace, since it is established, in order to confer a peculiar grace, and a peculiar character, so it ought, moreover, to be composed of such words, or of such an order of terms, as are expressive of such grace, and descriptive of such appropriate character. This too is a maxim, which the theology of the English church admits. Wherefore, these preliminary observations made, let us now proceed to examine what that form of ordination is, which is prescribed in King Ed- ward's ordinal; and which, also, I have observed, was alone made use of in the consecration of the English hierarchy for the space of above a century. The following is the tenor of it: 'Take the Holy Ghost; and remember, that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of hands: for, God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and soberness."-That these are the wordls, which, along with the imposi- tion of hands, constitute the form of the episcopal consecration, is a point, which no one, I conceive, will pretend to call in question. For, except these, there is certainly nothing in the whole series of the rest of the expres- sions, that can reasonably appear to do so. Whoever weighs all the words, which are made use of in the administration of the sacred rite, whether those which precede the above; or those which follow them,-vill feel convinced that there is not any thing in either of them to which it is pos- sible to attach the grace and virtue of consecration. The words, which precede the above, imply manifestly, that the individual upon whom the solemn action is now performing is not yet consecrated. The words which follow them, just -s obviouslv imply that he is now consecrated. In short, if there be any thing in the aforesaid ordinal that constitutes the form, and can be supposed to communicate the character, of the episcopal order, it is, beyond all doubt, comprised in the terms just cited." "Take the Holy Ghost," etc. Now, is there indeed sufficient reason, I here ask, to induce any prudent man to believe, without at least some feelings of apprehension,-that this form is certainly valid -that it is really that same sacred order of words, which, dictated by the divine wisdom, has served always to create, and to preserve, in the Christian church, the dignity and distinction of the episco- pal body I think not; although it were merely for the following reason, -that such form is not only different from that which had been Alwavs hitherto employed in the parent Church, but different even from everv thing that had ever been hitherto employed in any Christian church. As a form of ordination, it is completely netv. And this circumstance alone is suffi- cient, I will not say, to render it invalid,-but, at all events, to render it ex- tremely dubious. It is trule, indeed, that in relation to the words them- selves,-being the words of the sacred Scripture,-they are, hence, sacred and ancient. But then, they are nowhere prescribed in the holy volume as the form, or order, of the episcopal consecration. Tl'hev are words ad- dressed to an individual, who had long since received the episcopal conse- cration; and containing in themselves little else than a mere exhortation to piety. In short, as I have remarked, they are, as a form of ordination, new; 61 470 NOTE B. -nowhere, until the recent creation of the church of England, to be found in any ordinal or ritual, either Catholic, heretical, or schismatical,-a con- sideration this, which alone should serve to awaken doubt. I have observed likewise, that since the episcopal consecration is designed to confera peculiar character, and to impart an appropriate grace and au- thority,- so the terms which are employed in the sacred rite ought of course to be more or less expressive of these benefits. This, too, is a maxim, which, being consonant to the nature of things, the theologians of the English church make no difficulty to admit. "When Christ," says Mason, who is the great defender of the English ordinatior.s, " when Christ commanded that ministers should be created, his command implied, that fit words should be used in ordaining of them,-that is, such words as might contain the power of the order, then given. And these words, inasmuch as they denote the power given, are the eesential form of that order." Now if this principle be,-as it certainly is,-correct, behold, then, again, in this circumstance, another motive, if not absolutely to deny, at all events to call in question, the validity, of the firestated forn. For it is evident that there is nothing in it,-nothing in the words, which compose it,-that either de- notes any peculiar grace, or that expresses any particular character,-no- thing "as might contain the power of the order given." The word-s relate no more to the episcopal, than they do to the priestly dignity. Indeed, not only this, but they point out no dignity, no office, no function, or character whatsoever. They are words which might be used in the administration of any sacrament-of baptism, of the eucharist, of confirmation;-or still further, on the occasion of prayer or exhortation ;-as it was in reality upon the occasion simply of exhortation, that they were addressed by St. Paul to his disciple, Timothy. So that, hence I again infer.-that, precisely as there is reason to doubt of the validity of the above form on account of its novelty, -so likewise there is at least an equally well-founded motive to do so, on account of its apparent insufficiency. It seldom chances, that the Protestant will condescend to acquiesce in any kind of suggestion which comes from the Catholic, be this ever so wise, palpable, or even necessary. Prejudice, the fruit of ignorance; or partiality, the effect of habit; are sure, nearly always, to check the useful act. How- ever, here,-in relation tc the question which is now before us,-singular as the circumstance is, and if well considered, decisive, perhaps, of the whole controversy-here, the case is not so. Here we have an instance of wis- dom ;-an example of one of those slow and compunctious returns to mod- eration, which, only now and then occur to surprise us in the annals of religious rancour. The Catholics had, long and incessantly, forced upon the attention of the established clergy the very striking, imperfections of their form of ordination,-its novelty, its inadequacy, etc.,-which the latter, un- able perhaps to see, or at least unwilling to own, had also long, and very ardently defended. However, at length, either because they were struck by the force of evidence, or because they were alarmed at the idea of their own insecurity,-they began to relent. They now deemed it prudent, not indeed openly to avow the nullity of the above form, (this could not be expected of them) but very sensibly to chance the terms of it. They did this; substituting in room of the preceding terms, others which are certainly a great deal more rational and consistent; more conformable to ancient precedent, and expressing as such an institution ought to express, both the nature of the office intended to be conferred, and the character of the grace appropriate to it. In short, rejecting the long-used form they FIZTCHER ON ANGUCAN ORDINATIONS 471 now adopted the following new one in its stead: "Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a bishop, in the church of God, now com- mitted unto thee by the imposition of our hands, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. And remember, that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of our hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and soberness." (They, too, be- sides this, made a similar alteration at the same time, in the form of ordaining priests; because they now considered this, like that for the consecration of the prelacy, imperfect.) The above alterations were effected in the reign of the second Charles, in the year 1662,-that is, exactly a hundred and twelve years after the introduction of the forms prescribed in the ordinal of Edward the Sixth. For Burnet dates the introduction of this ordinal in the year 1550. It is not my intention to discuss the merits of this new improvement. Neither will I examine any further than I have done, what the reasons were which induced its authors to adopt it,-whether it was in consequence of the suggestions and importunities of the Catholics, as I have seemed to sup- pose; or in consequence merely of the dictates of their own good sense. The only observation which I shall make, and which also is a very obvious one, is this; that, since in their wisdom they did reject their long established forms, both of episcopal and priestly ordination, they therefore must have deemed them,-I will not say invalid,-but, at all events, doubtful and im- perfect. For surely, if this had not been the case, or if they had not consid- ered them defective, it is impossible, with any thing like reason, to account for their conduct. They would not,-they could not,-have re jected or altered what they looked upon as perfect, or as an order of things instituted by the eternal wisdom, or as handed down to them from the apostles. They most certainly could not have done this. It was a piece of presumption, of which they were incapable. Therefore, is the consequence obvious, which 1 have just been stating,-namely, that since the English clergy have in their prudence thought proper to change their once-established forms of ordina- tion, they must, consequently, have considered them, if not absolutely null, at all events, doubtful and imperfect. If the supposition be once admitted, or if it be true, that those forms were really invalid, then are the effects in this ease truly awful to the established church; so awful indeed, as even, according to his own maxims, to destroy all the claims of its ministers to the genuine dignity of the Christian priesthood. For if those forms were invalid then, of course, it must follow that the consecrations of the individuals to whom they were applied must have been invalid too : ince it is only a valid form that can possibly confer a valid consecration. The application of an invalid form, let it be made by whomsoever or in whatever manner it may, is but an empty and unmeaning ceremony,-its eject none. Consequently ,consecrated as were the whole prelacy and priesthood of the established church during the space of upwards of a century, by no other forms than those prescribed in the ordinal of Edward,-it plainly follows that if they were null,-then null also must have been all the consecrations designed to have been effected b ' them Such consecrations, however solemnly performed, were completeiv unavailing;-leaving the individuals upon whom they were performed prn- cisely what they were before the awful act,-priests, if hitherto they had been priests,-laymen, if until now they had been laymen. But there is another consequence which results immediately fiom the precedin- one ;-and which agair like it,-and even still more than it.- 472 NOTE B. deserves the most serious consideration of the tho; ghtful Protestant. It is this,-that if the forms of Edward's ordinal were invalid, then are the orders, both of the episcopacy and the priesthood, long since extinct in the church of England. The reason is plain :-those forms had alone been made use of in this church for upwards of a hundred years ;-its prelates and its ministers having been all of them during that interval consecrated solely by them. Therefore, if they were really null,-and hence incompetent to com- municate the pastoral character,-so it is, of course, evident, that when the alteration of them took place, in 1662, (that is, a hundred and twelve years after theirfirst introduction) this sacred dignity must ere this have vanished. It is true, that at the above epoch the established clergy, sensible of the de- fects of those ftrms, introduced and employed new ones, far wiser in their stead. But then unfortunately the improvement, after such length of inter- val, could not possibly have been of any avail. It came too late. For if the men who now began to use the new forms, had not been themselves validly ordained, they could not now,-the thing is evident,-validly ordain their brethren. They could not impart a character which they did not them- selves possess ;-could not make priests or bishops, unless they were them- selves such;-as it is a maxim of the established church, that it is only a bishop that can make a priest or bishop. So that, if once the invalidity of the forms cf ordination prescribed in Edward's ordinal be established. the consequence in the case is undeniable,-that then the real pastoral character and commission have been long since extinguished in the church of En- gland; and that, therefore again, by an ulterior consequence, this establish- ment reposes upon no grounds which can be prudently deemed divine; according to that principle of Dodwell already cited; and which also is a fixed principle of the English church: "Where there is no real and episco- pal ordination, there is no ministry, no church," etc. Such as these,-for I have cited only a few of them,-are the difficulties which surround the question of our English ordinations,-that "question of questions," as it has justly been denominated by several of its defenders. Its difficulties, indeed, to whosoever has discussed the subject carefully, are, -besides being very various,-in the highest degree perplexing. It is in- volved in obscurities, in contradictions, and defects which no ingenuity can elucidate; no criticism reconcile; no theology explain satisfactorily. I am convinced, that whoever will give himself the trouble to study the great subject well and with a mind unbiassed by any partiality, will feel himself compelled to acknowledge this ;-or at all events, he will doubt. Awful con- sideration this !-because to be reduced to doubt of the very object which is supposed to constitute the chief basis itself of the establishment, is in reality to be reduced to doubt equally of its divinity ;-for a doubtful min- istry makes of course but a doubtful church.-However, unhappily so it is: -Few study the important question; although no question deserves more care. Men reconcile themselves easily to any thing; above all, where to do so is agreeable to their worldly interests, to the spirit of the public fashion, and to inclination. But superior to considerations like these, and conducted by the pure love of truth, let any prudent and impartial indivi- dual explore and fathom ,the perplexing subject to the bottom; and the result, I will answer for it, will at all events be that which I have just now .itated :-he will DOUBT. INSTRUMENTS AND METHOD OF TORTURE. 473 NOTE C, PAGE 193. INSTRUMENTS AND METHOD OF TORTURE UNDER ELIZA- BETH. WE: here republish Dr. Lingard's note C, at the end of voL viii of his English History-referred to approvingly by Hallam in his Constitutional History. The note presents a succinct view of the system of torture adopted by Elizabeth and CeciL The following were the kinds of torture chiefly employed in the Tower: 1. The rack was a large open frame of oak, raised three feet from the ground. The prisoner was laid under it, on his back, on the floor; his wrists and ancles were attached by cords to two rollers at the ends of the frame; these were moved by levers in opposite directions, till the body rose to a level with the frame. Questions were then put; and if the answers did not prove satisfactory, the sufferer was stretched more and more till the bones started from their sockets. 2. The scavenger's daughter was a broad hoop of iron, so called, consist- ing of two parts, fastened to each other by a hinge. The prisoner was made to kneel on the pavement, and to contract himself into as small a compass as he could. Then the executioner, kneeling on his shoulders and having introduced the hoop under his legs, compressed the victim close together, till he was able to fasten the extremities over the small of the back. The time allotted to this kind of torture was an hour and a half, during which time it commonly happened that from excess of compression the blood started from the nostrils; sometimes, it was believed, from the extremities of the hands and feet. See Bartoli, 250. 3. Iron gauntlets, which could be contracted by the aid of a screw. They served to compress the wrists, and to suspend the prisoner in the air from two distant points of a beam. He was placed on three pieces of wood, piled one on the other, which, when his hands had been made fast, were succes- sively withdrawn from under his feet. "I felt," says F. Gerard, one of the sufferers, "the chief pain in my breast, belly, arms, and hands. I thought that all the blood in my body had run into my arms, and began to burst out at my finger ends. This was a mistake: but the arms swelled, till the gaunt- lets were buried within the flesh. After being thus suspended an hour, I fainted; and when I came to myself, I found the executioners supporting me in their arms: they replaced the pieces of wood under my feet; but as soon as I was recovered, removed them again. Thus I continued hanging for the space of five hours, during which time I fainted eight or nine times.", Apud Bartoli, 418. 4. A fourth kind of torture was a cell called " little ease." It was of so small dimensions, and so constructed, that the prisoner could neither stand, walk, sit, nor lie in it at full length. He was compelled to draw himself up in a squatting posture, and so remain during several days. I will add a few lines from Rishton's Diary, that the reader may form some notion of the proceedings in the Tower. VOL. ii.-40 474 NOTE D. Dec. 5, 1580. Several (7atholics were broiht from different prisons. Dec. 10. Thomas( Cottom and Luke Kirbwe, priests (two of the number) suffered compression in the scavenger's daughter for more than an hour Cottam bled profusely from the nose. Dec. 15. Ralph Siherwine and Robert Johnsop, priests, were severely tortured on the rack. Dec. 16. Ralph Sherwine was tortured a second time on the rack. Dec. 31. John Hart, after being chained five days to the floor, was led to the rack. Also Henry Orton, a lay gentleman. 1581, Jan. 3. Christopher Thomson, an aged priest, was brought to the Tower, and racked the same day. Jan. 14. Nicholas Roscaroc, a lay gentleman, was racked. Thus he continues till June 21, 1585, when he was discharged. See his Diarium, at the end of his edition of Sanders. NOTE D, PAGE 205. THE FATE AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CHURCH ROBBERS, SIR Henry Spelman, a zealous Anglican writer of the seventeenth cen- tury, published two works on the awful punishments awarded by Almighty God to those who, at the time of the Anglican Reformation, laid sacrilegious hands on church property. Both of them were published after his death. One of these publications, now lying before us,is entitled: "DE NON TEM- uRA-.Dis EccLEsns; CHurRcHEs NOT TO BE VIOLATED. A Tract of the rights and respects due unto churches, etc. Written by Sir Henry Spelman, Knight; the fifth edition. Oxford, 1676." The other is better known, and it has been lately republished in England by two Anglican parsons: its title is, "The History and Fate of Sacrilege." In the Dublin Review for Sep- tember, 1846, we find an able paper, from the graceful and copious pen of Cardinal Wiseman, reviewing the latter work. Prefixed to the Tract in our possession we find a lengthy introduction "To the Reader," written by a son of Sir Henry Spelman, and containing much curious matter, quaintly treated in the style of the seventeenth century, setting forth the punish- ments with which some of the principal actors in the Anglican Reformation were visited. As the subject possesses considerable interest, we will here republish, first, an extract from the Introductioii referred to; and secondly, the more import- &nt portion of the article from the Dublin Review. We are confident that our readers will be gratified to have these documents before them for reference. Sir Henry Spelmanws honesty was as well known, as his candor was widely appreciated; for we find in an epistle prefixed to his Tract on not violating FATE AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CHURCH ROBBERS. 475 churches a statement to the effect, that several lay possessors, or ,nprapri ators of church property, were induced by his arguments to restore the sac. rilegious spoil. I.-STATEMENT BY SIR HENRY 8PELMAN'S SON. Cardinall Woolsey being dead, his servant Cromwell succeeds him in his court, favor and fate, as their births were alike obscure, their rise alike emi- nent, so alike miserable. were their downfull: wonder not at the first part of their fortune, but contemplate the latter; policie in kings preferres able men to high places and honour; for authorities power, and esteenie of the persons advantages their actions, of which wise princes reap the harvest, the actors get but gleanings: while the king makes Cromwell a baron, his secretary, lord privy scale, his vicegerent in ecclesiasticis, he doth but facili- ate his owne great worke of dissolving monasteries, a businesse wherein Cromwell was too much versed, and unhappily too successefull. Report spake him a great stickler for the Protestant religion, and that although the gospel had lost a pillar in Queene Anne Bullen, yet was another raised in Crornwell, for he had caused the Bible to be read, the Creed, Paternoster, and Ten commandments to be learned in English, and expounded in every church: some thought that Cromwell hoped to bury popery in the ruines of the abbies, and thereby give the better growth to the more pure Protest- ant religion; how pious soever his intents were in reforming reatgion, yet was not the manner of effecting them (it seems) acceptable to heaven; for by parliament in the 31 of H. 8 (Henry VIII.) he perfected his dissolutions, and in April, in the 32 of H. 8, he is made earle of Essex, and lord great chamberlaine of England, high in the kingIs favour and esteeme, yet in- stantly, while sitting at the councel-table, he is suddainly apprehended and sent to the Tower, whence he comes not forth, untill to his execution, for in parliament he is presently accused of treason and heresie, and unheard, is attainted. Some do observe that he procured that law of attainting by parliament, without hearing the partie, and that hituselfe was the tirst, that by that law died unheard, for in July following he was thereupon beheaded. Next consider, that King Henry the eighth, who ingrossed sacriledge and retailed it to posteritie, what the Pope permitted Woolsey, (saith Cambden,) H. 8: with the assent of his parliament, permits himselfe; the first to catch the Pope, pretends charitie and good workes (colledges shall be built); the later to win the laity in parliament was offered with the revenue of religious houses to maintain 40 earles, 60 barons, 300 knights, 40,000 souldhiers, and forever ease the subject of taxes and subsidies; both obtained their desires in dissolving, neither perform the ends promised. H. 8 had first furthered Woolsey in his dissolution, and thereby found the way to ruine all the rest. In the 27th year of his reign, by parliament, he dissolves the lesser houses, and in the 31th the great ones, in the 37th all the colledges, hospitals, and free chappeLs, except some few. and possesseth all their lands, goods, and treasure. For the first halfe of his reigne (while free from sacriledge) he was honoured of his allies abroad, loved of his subjects at home, stecesse- full in his actions, and at peace, as it were, with God and man; lut after his sacriledge (as in disfavour with both) his subjects rebell, first in S-utfolke, after in Lincolne, Somerset, Yorkeshire, and the northerne parts, as also ill Ireland; such dearth of bread and corne in England, (the granarie of Chris. 476 NOTE D. tendome,) that many dye starved, which hath not been since the 40 of H. a And now (like Saul forsaken of God) he falls from one sinne to another. Queen Catharine (the wife of his bosome for 20 yeares) must now be put away, the malliaige declared voyil, and lie desirous of sonnes, rather then pillars to lxeare his name, marries the Lady Anne Bullen, and by her had the ldy Elizabeth, and in the 27th of his reign a sonne born dead (to his great affliction) the 19th of May, 1336. The 28th of his reigne she is be- headed, and the next day he marries the Iadly Jane Seymore, who being witli child by him, she (nature unwilling to give birth to the sonne of such a father) wants strength to bring forth: the father commands her insci.ssion, and the mother the 12 of Octob. dyes to give a short life to her sonne; and the sixt of January in the 3lth yeare, the king weds the Lady Anne of Cleve, andl in .July after is divored: and in August followinl he marries the L-adv Katharine Howard, and in l)eceinber, in the 33. of his reign, she is attaitedil and dies on the block: and in July, in the 35th of his reign, he marries the Lady Katharine Parre. Here's wives enough to have peopled another Canaan, had he had Jacob's blessing; but his three last are child- lesse, and the children of the two first are by statute declared illegitimate, and not inheritable to the crown. But himself growing aged and infirme, hopeless of more children, and not willing to venture the support of his crown and familie upon a single, and so weak a prop, as was his son Prince Edward; in the 3.5. year of his reign he entailes the crown upon his children, after his death, they all suc- cessively sway his scepter, and all dye childless, and his family is extinct, and like Herostratus, his name not mentioned, but with his crimes. HIis crown happily descends to the issue of his eldest sister, and a forraign nation (like Cyrus his) fills his throne. Among the many great and active men aiding H. 8 in his dissolution of monasteries, and receiveing great reward out of his church spoile, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk was the chief: he had four wives; his first the daughter of Nevil, Marquesse Mounteagle, who dyed without i-sue. By his second wife he had one daughter, married to Stanly, Lord Mountague, but dyed without issue. His third wife was Mary, queen dowager of France, and sister to Henry 8th; by her he had one son, Henry, and two daughters, Frances and Elianor. His son was created earl of Lincoln, but dyed a a child; his daughter Frances married Gray, Marquesse Dorset, and after duke of Suffolk, who had one son, Henry, who dyed young; Jane Gray his eldest daughter married to Guildford Dudley, and was with him beheaded about 5. Mary. Katharine his second daughter was married to Edward, Lord Seymore, eldest son to the duke of Sommerset; Mary, his third daughter, married to Martin Keyes, and dyed without issue. Ellenor, see- ond daughter to Charles Brandon, married to Clifford, earle of Cumberland, a gallant family, lately extinct. The queen dowager dying, Charles Brandon married the daughter and heir of the Lord Willoughby of Eresby, who inriched him with two sons, Henry and Charles; but the duke dying about the 36. of H. 8, left his title and estate to his son Henry, who enjoyed it until 5. E. 6, then dying of the sweating sickness, left them to his brother Charles, who only lived to be his brother's heir, and duke of Suffolk; and the same day, and of the same disease with his brother dyed: and with him the title, name, and family of Brandon. The statute of H. 8. 13 gives the monastery of Sibeton in Suffolk, to the duke of Norflk, and the chauntry of Cobham in Kent, to the Lord Cobhau, FATE AND PUNIS11MENIr OF THEI CIhURCH ROBBERS. 477 since which time how heavy the hand of justice hath fallen upon these noble families, inform thyself from our annals. Consider next the duke of Somerset, protector to Edward the sixth. Goodwin in his annals saith, He was a just and pious man, a zealous reformer of religion, a faithful preserver of the king and commonwealth, save that with the common error of the time, his hands were deep in sacri- ledge. In the first year of Edward the 6th he procured the dissolution of some chauntries, free chappels, and hospitals, left undissolved by 11. 8. In the third year, he permits (if not procures) his brother Thomas, Lord Scy- more, untried, (saith Goodwin) to be attainted by parliament, and shortly after (not unblamed) signed a warrant for his execution, whereupon his brother lost his head, and he a friend. The same year his zeal to R-formation adds new sacriledge to his former; for he defaces some parts of St. Paul's Church, converts the charnel house, and a chappel by it, into dwelling houses; and demolishing some monu- ments there, he turns out the old bones to seek new sepulchers in the fields: next he destroyes the steeple, and part of the Church of St. Johns of Jeru- salem, by Smithfield, and with the stone beginneth to build his house in the Strand; but as the leprosie with the Jews, with us the curse of sacriledge, cleaves to the consecrated stone, and they become unsuccesful, so as the builder doth not finish his house, nor doth his son inherit it. In the fifth year of Edward the 6th the duke was indicted, and found guilty of felony, which was (saith Hollinshead) upon a statute made the third and fourth of Edward the 6th, and since repealed: whereby to attempt the death of a privy counsellour is felonie, (Goodwin saith) upon the statute of 3. H. 7, but erroniously, that not extending to barons: it is observable, that this law was but the year before passed by himself, and himself the onely man that ever suffered by it. The statute being since repealed, Goodwin observes and wonders, that he omitted to pray the benefit of his book. as if heavens would not, that he that had spoiled his church, should be saved by his clergy; and it is observable, that in the reign of Edw. 6th none of the no- bility dyes under the rod of Justice, but the duke of Somerset and his brother, the lord admiral, all the unckles the king had: and their crimes comparatively were not hainous. II.-REVIEW OF SPELMAN BY CARDINAL WISEMAN. TM: HISTORY AND FATE OF SACRILEGE. By SM HENRY SPELMAN. Edited in part from two MSS., revised and corrected, with a continuation, large additions, and an Introductory Essay. By two Priests of the Church of England. London: Masters, 1846. We have long been looking out for this republication of Sir H. Spelman's posthumous work, and it appears at a moment which seems to us most pro- pitious. It is not indeed likely that the holders of old Catholic church property will become alarmed, and restore their ill-gotten possession to us again; for as we shall see, but few descendants of the original granters of church property now hold it; and it would be difficult to expect such a sacrifice from those who have gained it through purchase or other indirect modes. It is not, therefore, from any idea that Sir Henry Spelman's fear- We have, however, known several instances lately, where property has come into Catholic hands by purchase or inheritance, where a portion of it consisting of impro- 478 NOTE D. ful tale of julgm,-nts upon church despoilers, will awaken slusnierillng con- sciences to restitution, that we are gl:id to see his work printed in a loopular form, and with such valuable additions. If we calculate upon ally gain from it, it is rather from the hope that sensible and religious min(ds will reason thus: if God by such visible j udgments punishes thoie wvl destroy, plunder, or profane places, things, or persons once consecrated to Him and His poor, is it not reasonable to hope that He will bless those who repair such sacrilegious violence, and repair, restore, or newly give what is needful for religious and charitable purposes But independently of such considerations, we think that the republication of this work will necessarily prove useful. It will disgust people more and more with that terrible event in English history, the horrors of which have been gilded by the name of Reformation ; and some will ask themselves, can that have been God's work, which was conducted by the wholesale com- mission of a crime, which till then had been rare in Christendom Can that have been His work, which throughout, was a systematic plundering of what- ever had been dedicated to Him Can that have been His work, which brought down vengeance from heaven upon all who shared it In truth, the more the public mind is informed on the true history and character of that revolution and rebellion against God and His Church, the more will it be led to abhorence of that ungodly event, and sympathy for all that it overthrew. For our parts, we sometimes ask ourselves with no small amazement, what is there now left for men to cling to in that event, or to justify to tlmeni the name which they give it The antiquarian, like Mr. Paley or Mr. Neale, loathes its profane and sacrilegious destruction of sacred edifices and holy things; the liturgist, like Mr. Maskell, deplores the abolition of ancient offices, and the presumption of abrogating the "apostolic canon of the Mass;" the ascetic sees nothing but loss in the overthrow of all mystical devotion and feeling worship; the friend of charity regrets the loss of those institu- tions bv which the poor were succoured and instructed, and a refuge was opened to repentant or afflicted spirits; and the theologian laments over the imperfection and deficiency of the new formularies of faith then sanctioned, over the indefiniteness of belief which they have introduced, the heretical doctrines which they tolerate, and the removal of the safeguards of truth which they effected. In fact, what did the Reformation change which sensible and devout men would not give much to get back Truly, it is hard to say; but we believe that the gains, which any but very violent Protestants would enumerate, would be mostly negative. We would defy any one to state the smallest amount of positive good which it brought into the English church. But to pursue this subject would lead us far astray; we.will resume there- fore our present matter, by repeating that Sir. Hf. Spelman's Hlistory of Sacrilege will do good to the truth, by giving additional evidence of the frightful amount of execrable crime which formed an essential part, instru- ment, and development of the Reformation. The editors have enlarged the original work by much additional matter, and they have also illustrated the text by careful collations; but their most valuable improvement on the old editions, consists in their preliminary essay, which occupies nearly one hundred and thirty pages. The object of this is to prove in a more systematic form, what Spelman's work aims at doing at priation of tithes, has been settled, or spent, upon religious objects. The former is, hoawever, the only true way of dealing with it with security. FATE AND PUNISISMIENT OF THE CHURCH ROBBERS. 479 once by evidence. It is as the counsel's speech premised to the calling of witnesses. Without some such introductory dissertation, the full ibrce of Spelmnan's reasoning would not have been felt by many readers; and in this age of little faith, object.ors tniglit and would probably have been raised gainst it, which it was prudent and wise to anticipate and solve. Yet for us, uch a course must be unn cessary. Were any one to write "thoe listory ud Fate of Murder," there is not a single reader, we are convine,' 1, who on taking it up, would not be prepared to find it contain a series of facts, all demonstrative of the wond rful pursuit of the murderer by divine justice, and of the strange and unexpected ways in which it has often overtaken him. The most astute lawyer, and the most obtuse peasant, would equally agree how much there is that is clearly providential in the detection and punishment of this crime ; so that the proverb that "murder will out," is almost as much a legal aphorism as a homely saying. 'Now they who be- lieve Sacrilege to be an enormous crime, (and no one who has read Scripture or learnt his Catechism can believe otherwise,) will be equally prepared to find it punished by God in some signal way; at least will easily yield to the evidence of facts, that the cas& is so. Again, whoever believes In Pi ovidence. and in its punishment of crime, will as naturally expect that the chatstiserent will be of a peculiar character for this offense, because experience and the common consent of men show such an allotment of peculiar judgments for peculiar transgressions. Some of these are inherent in the sin, but others present no necessary connection with it, yet still are clearly analogous and appropriate. Thus a sinful addiction to mere sensual enjoyment and the gratifying of animal appetites, will lead to the destruction of the power of indulging them -will consume the flame, destroy vigor, form, complexion, bring an early decreptitude and disease into the limbs and the vitals, and, in quaint phrase, soon make "a wreck of the rake," as a warning to others not to run upon the same rock. What demonstration do we require that " pride will have a fall," or in more sacred phrase, that " pride goeth before destruction, and the spirit is lifted up before a fall "- Prov. xvi: 18. Who would ever be sur- prised at being told that one, who had been hard-hearted to the poor, a harsh and oppressive landlord, and an extortioner, was come himself to want, and was brought down to humble himself to obtain his bread or who thinks it other than a most probable story, that the pirate who cut away the bell from the Inchcape rock should himself be shipwrecked on it or that a man Wyho had amassed wealth by cheating his clients, or by plundering his wards, or by usurious contracts, should see it clean melt in his hands like snow, and flow away like water in a sieve, approving the sayings of all ages, "male parta, male dilabuntur," and " ill-gotten, ill-spent." Now, if the fate of sacrilegious men be shown through history to be such as by natural analogy, as well as by religious principles, seems to present an appropriate and well-proportioned punishment of their crime, we cannot see how any one can refuse to consider it as a punishment from God, unless he either deny at once that there is such a crime, or that Providence ever interferes to inflict chastisement. And now with regard to the appropriateness of the punishment. Let it be observed, that a punishment will be the more appropriate, in proportion as it better defeats the objects of the crime; and that not merely on the prin- ciple of retributive justice, but as a warning to others, who will be deterred from committing the sin, if they see that it hinders, instead of promoting what they desire by it. Thus, as we have seen, unjust acquisition will have 480 NOTE D. its righteous retribution in poverty and want Sacrilege may be divided into two classes, according to the principle which suggests and directs its commission. It may be an act of sudden violence, the momentary work of passion; sacred places may be profaned, and holy things broken, destroyed, or carried off by a licentious soldiery in war, whether through rage or through covetousness; and persons consecrated to God may be ill-treated in anger or through revenge. To this class of sacrilege, resulting from an evil passion, committed under its passing influence, belong most of the sacrileges of an- cient times-such, in fact, as preceded the Reformation. But well may Spelman, on coming to this period in his history, exclaim: " I am now come out of the rivers into the ocean of iniquity and sacrilege." (p. 131.) For then, for the first time, was witnessed systematic sacrilege, sacrilege by law, by principle, coolly calculated, unflinchingly executed, not cloaked over with excuses, but plainly avowed, justified, boasted of as a good work; sacrilege universal in its character, not allowing any one possible branch or form of the crime to be overlooked; embracing saints, cardinals, bishops, priests, clerks, monks, friars, nuns, the sick and the poor, the aged and the child; cathedrals, abbeys, monasteries, convents, chantries, hospitals, schools; tak- ing hold of manors, glebes, farms, buildings, rights, rents, and every possible species of property; seizing, and appropriating, and turning to profane use, every thing sacred-iron-work, and stone-work, and wood-work, roofs and bells, altars and church-furniture, shrines, tabernacles, holy vessels, and plate of every kind; plundering and confiscating, breaking, burning, razing, wresting, murdering by violence or by course of law. No person, no place, no thing, no mode was overlooked, through which sacrilege could be com- mitted. But this fully-planned, and fully-executed villainy clearly was not the fruit of an outburst of passion: it had a purpose and an end. The king and his counselors wished and intended to enrich themselves, and to leave to their children and their families for ever the broad lands and rich treas- ures accumulated through ages in the Church. They fully designed to " build up their own houses," with the stones of the sanctuary; to make their descendants rich with the spoils of the temple. Now, whatever addi- tional punishment, in body or mind, in goods or reputation, it may have pleased God to inflict on the authors of such sacrilegious rapine, this we ought not to be surprised at finding a general consequence-the total frus- tration of the hopes and purposes of the crime. We may expect, as a natu- ral chastisement of such calculating, covetous spoliation as here took place, the overthrow and ruin of such families, or the loss to them of their ill-gotten wealth, or hereditary disturbance in their succession. A priori, such is the punishment of the Reformation sacrilege, which we might reasonably expect: and at any rate, if facts lead to the observation of such results, we shall at once see their fitness. Again, looking at the posi- tive law, as the popular and universal conviction respecting the almost in- evitable punishment of murder, (which, being a social crime, is generally effected by providential delivery of the perpetrator to human justice,) ac- cords exactly with the divine award, "Whosoever shall shed man's blood, his blood shall be shed," (Gen. ix: 6,) so will the experience of past ages and of the present time, that sacrilege is a plague-spot on the family of the original criminal, and a canker to his inheritance, be easily pronounced in harmony with the awful declaration of God, who adds to the first of His commandments, that He is " mighty and jealous, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation." (Exod. wx: 4.) Now, it is against this commandment so guarded, that the crime FATE AND PUNISH NT OF TH CHURCH ROBBERS. 481 of sacrilege, whether considered as an act of grievous covetousness, ("' which is a serving of idols,") or as a direct offense against God's honour and wor- ship, and a rebellious attempt to rob Him of what has once been given Him is committted. Nor will it suffice to show that, in some particular instances, this punish- ment has not occurred, any more than a few, or even many, cases of un- avenged murder will weaken the conviction derived from daily experience. And yet the very small number of exceptions in the case of sacrilege ought rather to confirm our argument. The active researches of the editors of Spelman's work have led them to the conclusion that only fourteen families yet hold abbey lands in direct succession to six hundred and thirty original grantees! And, even in some of those, the curse of strange misfortunes has accompanied the line to our days. It was a consideration of this sort, which, in fact, led Spelman to write his work. He lived within eighty years of the guilty epoch, and could thus more easily trace the history of the original acquirers of Church property. Having himself experienced nothing but misfortune from the possession of a sacrilegious estate, of which he was at last glad to be rid, he commenced an examination on a limited scale. He drew a circle from a house near his own, with a radius of twelve miles. This contained twenty-five abbey- sites, and twenty-seven gentlemen's parks. He found that, while not one of the latter had changed families, every one of the former, except two, had changed them, "thrice at least, and some five or six times." (P. lxxxix.) Here is another example given by Raynerus, in his Apostolatus Benedlicti- nus. He took, in one part of England, two hundred and sixty families which had received part of the Church spoils; and, on the other side, twenty gentlemen, to whom Thomas, duke of Norfolk, left legacies of 40 a year out of his own estate. Every one of the latter had a son "flourishing in his father's inheritance," while not sixty of the kings grantees had trans- mitted their estates to their children. (P. xcii.) The editors of the work before us have taken great pains to collect what we may call the statistics of sacrilege. They have examined the different averages of possession by individuals and by families, of lands that formerly belonged, and of lands that have never belonged, to the Church. The fol- lowing are their results: JChurch lands. Family estates. Average possession in years by each individual, - - 17 - - - - - 23 do do do doa family - - - - 38t - - - - - 70 The figures in the second column are purposely understated.t It is impossible to read the two appendices, in which the fate of the fami- lies who first received grants of abbeys is detailed, and not be struck with the literal fulfillment of God's threats. Many of the original possessors died childless ; of several we read, "extinct in the third generation," "extinct in the fourth generation," and of others we may easily compute by the dates, Giving the history of sacrilege in Blackborough and Wrongey abbeys, he thus mentions himself among the losers by it. " Sir 11. Spelman, a great loser, and not beholden to fortune, yet happy in this, that he is out of the briars; but especially that thereby he first discerned the infelicity of meddling with consecrated places."- P. 193. t In Warwickshire, the averages are fifteen years for an individual, and twenty- seven for a family. X In one hundred of Kent, the average possession of a family is two hundred and eight years. VOL. I.-41 482 NOTYE D. that it was about the same period in their descents that they received their final blow. In others, each generation presents a series of misfortunes and premature deaths; while many astonish us by the total failure of issue, where, according to human probabilities, there should have been a numerous offspring. As an awful example, we will quote the history of Charles, duke of Sullolk. "' This despoiler of thirty monasteries was married four times. By his first wife he had no children. By his second, a daughter, Mary, married to Lord Monteagle, by whom she had three sons, of whom two died without issue; the third left issue only a daughter, and in him the title became extinct. By his third wife the duke had issue one son, created earl of Lincoln, who died at an early age, and two daughters. Frances married Henry, duke of Suf- folk, who was beheaded, 1534; and by him she had, 1. Lady Jane Gray, beheaded; 2. Lady Catherine Gray, married Henry, Lord Herbert, who di- vorced her, and then Edward, earl of Liertford, beheaded; 3. Lady Mary Gray, married to Martin Keys, and died without issue. After the execu- tion of her husband, Frances Brandon married Adrian Stokes, and appears by him to have had no issue. The duke's third daughter, Eleanor, married Henry, earl of Cumberland, and by him had two sons, Henry and Charles, who both died young; and Margaret, married to Henry, earl of Derby. By his fourth wife the duke had two sons, who both, in turn, succeeded; and died of the sweating sickness in one day, July 14th, 5 Ed. VI. A more re- markable instance could scarcely be found, wherein, in the next generation, a man's name has been clean put out."-Appendix ii. But not only the original seizers of church lands have been thus punished, but the Divine attainder seems to attach itself to the property, and to follow it even into hands comparatively innocent. The extraordinarily broken and interrupted descent in families that hold it, is truly wonderful. Thus, in the Russell family, instanced by Tanner, as an exception to the general rule about the transmission of ecclesiastical lands, we find that in ten generations the eldest son has succeeded to his father only thrice. And in the same family there have been four violent deaths, (not in the field of battle), two within the last six years.-p. 312. Our readers will allow us to introduce here an illustration " of the law of succession" in sacrilegious families, because it applies to a part of England, once so rich in noble abbeys and splendid churches, and one that has not been much referred to by the editors of Spelman. We allude to Yorkshire; and we will insert the very words of the letter, which, at our request, con- veyed the information. We can only add, that we have every reliance on the integrity and the accuracy of our informant. "I have a friend in this neighborhood, and his name is-. Ele- is a magistrate, and a gentleman of very extensive reading, and of great research in books which treat of times long gone by. "One day, whilst I was telling him of the immense advantage which En- gland, in better days, had reaped from her monastic institutions, he asked me, if I were aware that families enjoying that property, had never been able to retain it for three successive generations;-that is-father, son, and grandson. I answered, that I had never paid attention to the subject as far as succession was concerned. 'Then,' said he, 'let me tell you, that I mv- self have paid very great attention to it: and I have never been able to dis- cover one single solitary instance, of any family possessing the monasterial property for three successive generations of father, son, and grandson ; andl, I defy you,' added he, 'to produce an unbroken line of three generations.' SANDERS ON THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 483 "I replied, that, 'whatever might have been the case up to the present time, there was at this moment, every appearance of a regular succession in father, son, and grandson, at Kirklees Hall, near Huddersfield. Sir George Armitage, the present possessor, has one foot in the grave. His son is ready to succeed him, and that son has healthy male issue. ' Time will show,, said Mr.-. And time did soon show: for, the eldest son fell ill, and went to the grave a month or two before his father; and thus, the regular succession was broken. e e e "On a re-perusal of your letter, I gather that you want information con- cerning families in this immediate neighborhood. At Nostell Priory, pos- sessed by Mr. Winn, there has been no regular succession from father, to son and grandson, since the monks were most cruelly and most unjustly de- prived of it. " The present Lord Fitzwilliam, who possesses monasterial property, and who resides about sixteen miles from this place, has lost his eldest son. " Sir Edward Dodsworth, (formerly Smith,) who possessed the monaste- rial property of Newland, has died without lawful issue. "Temple Newsham, about ten miles from hence, has, I believe, passed from family to family, without ever having a grandson." Tho writer of this letter further corroborates these statements, by the striking fact, that in our royal succession since the sacrilegious spoliation of the Church, no sovereign has been succeeded by a grandson on the throne. NOTE E, PAGE 222. SANDERS ON THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. WE propose here to furnish a few extracts from the justly celebrated work of Nicholas Sanders on the English Schism. Sanders was a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth. Like many others, he suffered much for his faith, and was compelled to live in exile. A native of Charlewood in the county of Surrey, England, he received his early educa- tion in the college of Wykeham, founded by the famous bishop of this name. He afterwards passed at Oxford in 1548, where he became a great proficient in theology and canon law, and was made bachelor in 1551. In 1557 he was promoted to the distinguished position of professor of canon law in this university. In 1560, he was compelled to resign his place, in consequence of the persecutions inaugurated by Elizabeth against all who would not forsake the ancient faith. He then betook himself to Rome, where he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He accompanied the celebrated Cardinal Hosius to the Council of Trent, as one of his theologians, and sub- sequently went with him to Poland and Louvain. In the famous university 484 NOTE E. of the latter city he was retained for some time as royal professor of theo- logy. Pope St. Pius V. afterwards invited him to Rome, whence Pope Gre- gory XIII. sent him first to Spain and later to Ireland, in the honorable capacity of apostolic nuncio. The fear of falling into the hands of the English, who gave no quarter to Catholic priests, especially to those who had ventured to return from exile, compelled him to take refuge in the forests; where he died, a confessor of the faith, about the year 1581, or 1582. Besides his celebrated work on the English Schism, he left several others of less note. As a contemporary, who knew well the things of which he wrote, and as a man of irreproachable character and elevated position, who proved his sincerity by enduring protracted privations and sufferings for his religious convictions, his authority must have great weight with all impartial men. With this view, we will furnish a few specimens of his statements in regard to the Anglican Reformation, some of which arL sufficiently curious. Hallam and others have attempted to throw discredit on his testimony, but they have furnished DO valid reasons for so doing. It is easy to call a man "' a liar"-as Hallam does Sanders in his Constitutional History, without any proof whatsoever; but it is more difficult to substantiate the injurious accu- sation. Sanders may have received some things on trust, and he may have been betrayed into occasional mistakes in minor points; but we havo scarcely a doubt of his substantial accuracy, much less of his general truth- fulness. If he misstated facts, why was he not refuted at the time, while the events were all so fresh, and while his enemies had the press in England exclusively in their hands 1. Sanders boldly states that Anne Boleyn was the natural daughter of I lenry VIII. ! His testimony is as followss: " Thomas Boleyn was at that time at the court of Francis I. in the quality of ambassador, with the Chevalier Anthony Brun. As soon as he had heard of the love of Henry (for Anne) and his design, he took post, without having obtained the previous permission of the king, and came to England. lie believed that there would be danger of his life, if any other except himself, in proper person, should discover to Henry the secret of the birth of Anne. He met Norris the chamberlain, and begged that he would make his journey seem good in the eyes of the king, and would manage to obtain for himself a private audience. Having obtained this, he related to the prince (King Henry) that which had formerly taken place during his embassy in France: ' That in his absence his wife was brought to bed of Anne: that for this reason he had wished to repudiate her; that he would have done so, had it not been for the order of his majesty, who had commanded him to pardon her; to which he had consented, after his wife had avowed to him that the king was the father of his last daughter (Anne.)' "Henry commanded him to be silent, and said, 'that there were so many See, for an abstract of his life and writings, Moreri, Grand Dictionaire Histo- rique. Amsterdam and La Haye, 1702. SANDERS ON THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 485 persons who had had part in the good graces of his wife, that it could not be known who was the real father of Anne; whosoever it might be, however, that he wished to espouse her, and that he (LBoleyn) should never speak of that which he had just now mentioned.'-Thereupon the king laughing left him on his knees.-History of the English Schism, p. 31. "Anne was born in England two years after the departure of Thomas Boleyn; thus it is simply impossible that she could have been his daughter. Henry in truth had fallen in love with the wife of Thomas Boleyn, and had sent him to France with the specious quality of ambassader, in order to have a more free intercourse with his mistress. Boleyn learned on his return the bad conduct of his wife, and he caused her to be called before the official of Canterbury, on the charge of adultery: she informed the king, who sent immediately the marquis of Dorchester to Boleyn, to cause him to stop any further measures, to pardon his wife, and receive her again into favor.-lIbid., p. 17. 2. In proof of the cruelty of Henry, the example of Pole and of others is adduced by our author, who writes thus: " Pole in the course of four months composed four books, on the unity of the Church, which he dedicated to Henry, and caused a copy to be put into his hands. In this work Pole refutes in a learned manner the primacy of the king, shows forth his crimes with remarkable clearness, and endeavors to teach him the way of penance for the remission of his sins. The king was so outraged at his boldness, that he caused him to be declared a traitor to his country, and guilty of high treason. Henry laid also several plots for his life, caused his mother to be put to death, as well as his brother and uncle; indeed, very little more, and he would have extinguished his whole race.-Ibid., p. 106. " On the 14th June 1535, the king caused three more of the Carthusian fathers to be arrested, and, after having kept them for fourteen days in prison with irons upon their necks, arms, and legs, so that they were unable to make use of their limbs, he caused them to be dragged through the streets of London to the place of execution. They were hung for a few moments, thence taken down still alive and their members cut off-even those which modesty does not permit us to name-and thrown into the fire. The executioner or hangman opened their sides with a knife, tore out their entrails, and threw them in the same manner into the flames: finally he cut off their heads, and divided their bodies into four parts, which he caused to be boiled, then they were hung up in different parts of the city, as a spec- tacle for the people !"-Ibid., p. 110. Shortly afterwards ten more of the Carthusians were thrown into prison and treated with so much cruelty and inhumanity, that they all died in prison of hunger and filth; on hearing which Cromwell expressed pain that they had died so easly !-Ibid. 3. Of the dissolution of the monasteries, Sanders writes as follows "On the 4th of February the pret3ndled or real disorders of religious houses having been brought forward, the pgd liam nt ordered, that the rev- enues of all the convents which did not exce3d seven hunidre.I crowns, should be reunited to the royal domain, or, in other worls, confiscated to the government. ThM less wealthy Inonascries s.-m=d to be the less ne- eessary for the public; some said that because of the small number of the 62 486 his iTE E. religious, the regular discipline was illy observed. The king therefore at- tacked these first, in order to be able to get into his power afterwards those which wer, more wealthy, as well as not to excite the abbots, who were more influential and wMho had a voice in parliament. These, esteeming themselves free from danger, wcre thou-ht to be less apt to oppose the will of the king."-lbid., p. 1;,3. "Thus, at once, three hundred and seventy-six monasteries were ruined, and their spoils augmzented the king's revenues .... "More than six thou- sand persons of both sexes returned to the secular llfe.".. "A remarkable fact, in connection with all this (levastation, is, that eight months afterwards the people were so heavily laden with taxes, that they took arms to rid themselves of burdens so wholly intolerable."-Ibid. 4. Speaking- of Henry before and after the divorce, he says: "Before llehry had divorced his wife. he had sent very few of his sub- jects to the scaffold, and only two gentlemen of rank, Edmund Pole, count of Suffolk, and the duke of Buckingham. The former of these was be- headed more by order of Henry VII. than l)y himself; Henry VII. when dying had recommended that he should he punished on account of having been engaged in some revolt; and he had granted the life of the latter (Buckingham) to the importunities of Wolsey. But after his separation from the Church, and from Queen Catharine, it would be impossible to say how much blood he spilled, both of the nobility and people. Among those who had to feel his violence, may be enumerated three or four queens, two princesses, two cardinals, of whom one was condemned to death for con- tempt of authority; twelve dukes and marquises, and counts or sons of counts; eighteen barons or gentlemen; thirteen abbots or priors; and seventv-seven monks and priests. Cardinal Pole remarked. that the favor- ites of the king always ran the greatest risk of their necks; of which Wolsev, Compton, Norris, the Boleyns, Cromwell, the Howards, etc., are striking examples."-P. 210-1. 5. Of Henrvys fearful death, he writes: "Henry VIII. died in London, January 28th, 1546, at the same time that Luther died in Germany; and two months aftef the death of Henry, Francis I. of France also departed this life. Henry was not much regretted by his subjects, having incurred their hatred by his bad conduct. "Henrv was hard beset by his sickness, when some one informed him of the extremity in which he was placed; whereupon he asked for a glass of white wine, and looking steadfiLstly at one of his friends, he said to him: "ALL Is LOST!" It is said, that he died after having repeated several times the word MONKS. Henry had then reigned thirty-seven years, nine months, and six days. Twenty-one of these were passed in union with the Church, five years in contests withi her without knowing what precise stand to take; whilst during the rest of his life-about twelve years-ike re- mained in manifest revolt against the Holy See."-P. 212. 6. The state of ecclesimtstical matters in England under Edward VI. can be readily conceived from the fact, that Cranmer himself, although archbishop of Canterbury, was obliged to submit to the law that no ordinations could he held unless by the express consent of a mere child! Nor was the per- mission to ordain given absolutely, but conditionally and for a certain time only. The fot swine wavs the form of the permission obtained by Cranmer, SANDES ON TIHE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 4 87 "Edward, by the grace of God, king of England, France, and Ireland sovereign head on earth of the English and Irish church, as well in spiritual as in temporal concerns; to the ltev. 'l'homas, archbishop of Canterbury, health, etc.: Since all jurisdiction, both secular and ecclesiastical, emanates from the royal power, etc.: For this reason, we give you power, by the present letters, which are available only so long as it will be pleasing to us, to confer in your diocese of Canterbury sacred orders, and even the priest- hood to all who will present themselves.-P. 222-3. " After the parliament had arranged temporal concerns, which were their principal care, they passed to religious matters. Up to this time both bishops and priests had been ordained according to the rite of the Catholic Church, saving and excepting however, that they all refused to be subject to the Holy See. They established therefore for the future a new form of ordination, by the authority of a baby king: they also prescribed a new method for the administration of the sacraments, and a Ritual was puluished and confirmed by the state assembly."-P. 240-1. 7. Of Elizabeth's insincerity and tyranny, Sanders treats at great length. We can furnish but one or two specimens. The first signs of Elizabeth's change of religion, or rather of its loss, were, according to him, "The silence which she placed upon the Catholic preachers; the permis- sion which she gave to the banished heretics to return home; and the order which she gave to a bishop when going to the altar to celebrate the holy Sacrifice, not to elevate the consecrated Host. ft was on this account that the archbishop of York, to whom the right of consecratinru the queen be- longed, after the death of Cardinal Pole, primate of Canterbury, refused to lend his aid; all the other bishops excused themselves in like manner; one alone, the last of the whole hod , performed the ceremony. Elizabeth however did not refuse to take the ordinary oath, 'to maintain the Catholic faith, and preserve the privileges and liberties of the Church.' She believed that in order to get the reins of government, deception, dissimulation, and perjury were permitted. She allowed herself to be anointed, although with scorn and disdain; for when she had retired into her pavilion to take the royal habit, she said to her maids of honor: ' Don't approach me, that stinking oil would give you heart-ache.' "-P. 327. "During the reign of Mary, Elizabeth made an open profession of the Catholic religion. She even went so far as to wish one day, that the earth might open and swallow her up, if this were not her real faith! Many gentlemen of the court were witnesses of this imprecation."-P. 320. 8. The foregoing extracts were translated by a friend from a French trans- lation of the work of Sanders, published in Paris in 1683. Though some- what free, the translation is substantially accurate. We have since found in the library of the archbishop of Baltimore, one of the earliest editions of the original work in Latin, published at Cologne (Colonias Agrip.) in 1610. From this edition we take what is by far the most important passage in the work: that in which he speaks of the ordination of Parker and his col- leagues-the first "parliamentary bishops.", The importance of this testi- mony can scarcely be exaggersted; for Sanders was not only an Englishman and a contemr rary, but he may be said to have been almost an eve-wit 488 NOTE E. ness of the transaction which he records; for he was then professor of car on law in the university of Oxford. We publish the testimony first in Latin, and then in an English trans- lation. " Sed cum ipsi superintendentes creandi essent, nec a Catholicis episcopis impetrare potuerint ut ipsis manus admoverent, nec inter se aut tres, aut duos episcopos, nec ullum prorsus perfidiwe sume Metropolitanum ab ahiis episcopis ordinatum haberent, cujus vel mann vel consensu consecrari possent; nec etiarn ad vicinas Lutheranorum aut Calvinistarum ecclesias se contulerunt ut inde mutuas episcoporum (qui forte nec ibi erant) operas peterent. In- stabant quidem multum apud quemdam archiepiscopum-Hibernuin, quem tunc in carcere Londinensi in vinculis habebant, ut illis in hac necessitate succurreret, ipsi libertate et praemiis propositis, si vellet istorum ordinationi pricesse; sed vir bonus nullo modo adduci potuit ut hxreticis sacras manus imponeret, vel alieno peccato communicaret. Atque ita, cum omni legitimna ordinatione de8Jituti vulgo dicerentur, et ipsis legibus Anglicanis vere proba- rentur non esse episcopi, brachium saeculare invocare coacti sunt, ut laicalis magistratus confirmnationem in futuris comitiis acciperent. Quorum auctori- tate, si quid minus rite et legaliter in priori inauguratione gestum esset aut omissum ipsis condonaretur, idque postquam episcopali officio et cathedra, SINE ULLA EPISCOPALI CONSECRATIONE, aliquot annos functi essent. Hine nomen illis impositum, ut Episcoyi Parliamentarii dicerentur." -Edition above referred to, p. 349. TRANSLATION. "When these overseers (bishops) were to be created, they were not able to persuade the Catholic bishops to impose hands on them, and not having among themselves three or two bishops or any metropolitan ordained by other bishops of their party, who might consecrate them, or consent to their consecration, neither had they recourse to the neighboring Lutheran or Calvinist churches to obtain thence the aid of bishops (who perhaps were not there). They were very urgent with an Irish archbishop, who was then confined in prison t and offered him liberty and recompense, if he would im- pose hands on them. But the good man would not consent to impose hands on heretics, or be implicated in their guilt. And thus, as they were commonly reputed to be destitute of all lawful ordination, and by the very laws of England were proved not to be bishops, they were obliged to implore the arm of the civil power, that they might obtain the sanction of the lay magistrate, in a subsequent parliament. By authority of which, whatever In the edition used by Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, in his Anglican (rdina- tions, p. 63-4, this word Epiacopali is not found: it strengthens the testimony. There is also found another slight discrepancy, which does not however affect this. MORAL CHARACTER OF JOHN KNOX. 489 had been done irregularly, or unlawfully, or whatever had been omitted in their inauguration, might be pardoned them; and this, after they had dis- charged the episcopal office and occupied sees some years, WITHOUT ANY EPISCOPAL CONSECRATION. Hence they obtained the name of Parliamentary bishops." NOTE F PAGE 253. MORAL CHARACTER OF JOHN KNOX. TEIx moral character of John Knox was sharply canvassed, both during his lifetime and shortly after his death. Those who were opposed to him in religion almost, if not quite uniformly represented him as a most profli- gate and abandoned man, whose stern religion was but a cloak for his gross sensuality; while some of his co-religionists have painted his character as blameless, and his life as one of austere and active zeal. We purpose, in this Note, to exhibit both sides of the controversy, and for this purpose to republish so much of McCrie's Note QQ, at the end of his volume, (p. 495, seqq.,) as has direct reference to the character of Knox; interspersing the defense with a running commentary of our own. " ' C'est rendre sans doute (says Bayle) quelques service a la memoire de Jean Knox, que de fair voir les extravagances de ceux qui ont dechire sa reputation.' And, having referred to the 'gross and extravagant slanders' of one writer, he adds, 'this alone is a sufficienUt prejudice against all which the Roman Catholic writers have published concerning the great reformer of Scotland.' Dict. art. Knox. If Mons. Bayle could speak in this manner upon a quotation from one author, what conclusion shall we draw from the following quotations "1 Bayle, besides being comparatively a recent writer, was an infidel or a skeptic; and his authority amounts to very little, especially when, as in the present instance, it consists in the enunciatiation of a mere opinion. He was, in one sense, a Protestant like Knox, the only difference being, that he carried his protest considerably further. His opinion presents another striking evidence of that sympathetic feeling which exists among dissenters and errorists of every class. They all defend one another; but the defense of a Christian by an infidel is any thing but complimentary to the former. The writer to whom Bayle refers, as having uttered a slander against Knox, was the contemporary historian Thevet, an ex-monk, who however had not, it would seem, abandoned the Catholic faith. Bayle rejects his testimony, but without alleging any other ground for so doing than that he misspelt the name of Knox! A foreign, and especially a French write- very naturally falls into such blunders even at the present day. We will 490 NOTE F. republish an extract from the testimony of Thevet, who speaks of the con- fusion which Knox and his disciple. had caused in Scotland during These twelve years past," and was therefore a contemporary entitled to some credit; the more so, as the kingdoms of France and Scotland were then in intimate relations with each other, on account ot the Srattish queen having married the French dauphin. Thevet writes thus of Knox: 'This firebrand of sedition, who delightel in nothing but broils and tumults, could not be content with barely following the steps of Luther, Zuingle. Farel, and less still those of his master Calvin, who had not long before delivered him fromn the gallies of the prior of Capua, where he had been three years for his crimes, unelawful amours, andl abominable fornications ; for he used to lead a dissolute life in several shameful and odious places; being also found guilty of the parricide and murder committed on the body of James Beton, archbishop of St. Andrew's, etc."-Bayle's Historical and Critical Dictionary, Art. Knox. Edit. London; 1738, in ten vols., folio. In the same article, Bayle states that Moreri ctnarged Knox with almost every crime against chastity, following in this respect the annalist Spon- danus, who ad an. 1559, says that "Knox, a priest and an apostate monk, who was a debaucher of several women, and of his own step-mother, and a magician, returned to Scotland in 1559, well provided with instructions from Calvin ;" and that in Scotland he everywhere caused tumults, sacrilege. and violence. Bayle adds: " The misfortune is, that the English episcopalians agree with the papist writers, in representing him as an apostle who established his Reformation with fire and sword, and who taught the most seditious doctrines.-Ibid. In the notes he furnishes many authorities on this head. The evidence of Christian contemporaries, who were cognizant of the facts, is much more valuable for forming a correct opinion than that of Bayle. McCrie alleges and attempts to refute three such witnesses: Archibald Hamilton, Nichol Burne, and James Iaing, besides dne nearly contemporary -Alexander Baillie. All of these were Scots, and therefore they may be supposed to have been sufficiently acquainted with Knox, and with the stirring events in which he was so prominent an actor. Of the first witness, Hamilton, McCrie writes: " The first writer who seems to have attacked Knox's character, after his death, was Archibald Hamilton, whose hostility against him was inflamed by a personal quarrel, as well as by political and religious considerations. (See above, p. 345.) His book shows how much he was disposed to recom- mend himself to the papists,by throwing out whatever was most injurious to his former connections. But there were too many alive at that time to refute any charge which might be brought against the reformer's moral character. Accordingly, when he aimed the most envenomed thrust at his reputation, Hamilton masked it under the name of an apprehension or sur- mise. Having said that, upon the death of Edward VI. 'he fled to Geneva with a noble and rich lady,' (which by the bye is also a falsehood) he adds in MORAL CHARACTER OF JOHN KNOX. 491 a parenthesis 'qua simul et filia matris pellice familiariter utsus fuisse putcr batur.' De Confusione Calvinianw Sectaw, p. 65, a. Parisiis 1377. What Hamilton insinuated as a mere surmise, his successors soon converted into undoubted certainty." Archibald Hamilton was of a noble family, and he had been induced at first to join the reformed party. But he soon became disgusted with the coarseness of Knox's invectives against poor Mary of Scots, and he absented himself from his preaching. His brother Robert was a minister of the Kirk at St. Andrews, and he was himself a distinguished professor in the univer- sity, where "his influence visas great." (McCrie, p. 345.) lie brought the matter of Knox's preaching before the university; but Knox, while willing to converse privately with the professors, entered " a protestation" against their jurisdiction, and appealed to the regular church courts. lie (Knox) wrote a letter to the general assembly, which met in August, 1372; in which he expressed himself strongly, if not coarsely, against the church being placed " under the bondage of the universities." Hamilton soon afterwards left Scotland, where his residence was no longer agreeable, or perhap; safe; and going to France, he re-entered the Catholic Church, and published his work above quoted. That lie was a respectable and competent witness, no one will deny; that his prejudices against Knox would scarcely have led him so far as to cause him deliberately to bear false witness against him, few will be disposed to assert. His book was published but five years after the death of Knox, which occurred Nov. 24th, 1572. (McCrie, p. 369.) His testimony is much stronger than it suits the purpose of MIcCrie to ad- mit. He asserts positively, that Knox "fled to Geneva with a noble and rich lady ;" and he adds, as the current opinion and belief at the time, that he lived criminally both with her and her daughter! This appears to be the force of the term putabatur, which implies much more than "a mere surmise "-as McCrie asserts. That Mrs. Bowes and her daughter, the wife of Knox, were really abroad on the continent together with Knox, McCrie bimself admits (p. 196); and we have nothing but his own bold assertion, that Hamilton's positive statement of their having both fled with Knox to Geneva is a falsehood. Many may be inclined to believe, that the assertion of a respectable contemporary, like Archibald Hamilton, is much more weighty than that of so recent and so prejudiced a witness as McCrie. "A few years after we find one of them writing in the following terms: Johne Kmnux your first apostel, quha caused ane young woman in my lord Ochiltreis place fat almaist dead, becaus sche saw his mnaister Sattharn in ane black mannis likenese with him, throuche ane bore of the dure: quha was also ane manifest adulterare bringand furth of Ingland baith the mother and the doehter whom he persuadit that it was lesum to leve her housband, (see p. 196, 197,) and adhere unto him, making ane fieshe of himself the mothers 492 NOTE F. andl the dochter, as if he wald conjoyne in ane religione, the auld synagogue of the Jeuis with the new fundat kirk of the Gentiles." In another place he introduces the account of his second marriage with these words: "' That renegat and perjurit priest schir Johane Kmnox, quha efter the death of his first harlot, (1lulilk he mareit incurring eternal damnation be breking his vou and promiss of chastitie, quhen his age requyrit rather that with tearis and lamentations he sould have chastised his flesh and bewailit the breaking of his vou, as also the horribil incest with his gudmother in ane illogie of Haddingtoun.'-Burne's Disputation concerning the Controversit Headdis of Religion, p. 102, 143. Parise, 1581." The severity and coarseness of this declaration of Burne, together with some credulity in the statement concerning the fright of the young woman whose place of residence he particularizes, does not detract from the substance of his testimony in regard to the generally believed immoral character of Knox. This admixture of superstition and plainness of speech was a char- acteristic of the age, especially in Scotland. Making all due allowance for the prejudice and credulity of Burne, we can hardly suppose that there was no foundation in truth for his statement. The very boldness of his charge, and his specifications, presuppose the existence of at least some grounds for them. There is no evidence whatever, so far as we have seen, to show that he copied from Hamilton, whose accusation he so strongly confirms. ThesMere circumstance that both works were published in Paris within four years of each other, is no evidence of the fact of collusion or concert of testimony. At that time, there was so little freedom of the press both in Scotland and England-thanks to the liberty-promising Reformation-that no Catholic dared, as he valued his liberty or life, to publish a work in defense of his faith in either country; and the result was, that Catholic authors were com- pelled to betake themselves for publication to France or Belgium. This explains how so many of the Catholic publications of the sixteenth century were issued from the presses of the continent. Paris was one of the most accessible and available points for the purpose, and it was moreover the favorite resort of the Scots. "But the two former writers were outstripped in calumny by that most impudent of all liars, James Laing, who published in Latin, during the same year in which the last mentioned work appeared, an account of the lives and manners of the heretics of his time. There are few pages of his book in which he does not rail against our reformer; but in (what he "alls) his Life, he may justly be said to have exceeded any thing which personal malice, or religious rancour, ever dictated. " Statim (says he) ab initio suae pueritise omni genere turpissimi facinoris infectus fuit. Vix excesserat jam ex ephe- bis, cum patris sui uxorem violarat, suam novercam vitiarat, et cum ea, zui reverentia poti'ssimum adhibenda fuerat, nefarium stuprum fecerat."1 His bishop having, forsooth, called him to account for these crimes, he straight- way became inflamed with the utmost hatred to the Catholic religion. MORAL CHARACTER OF JOHN KNOX. 493 "Deinde non modo cum profanis, sed etiam cum quibuscunque sceleratissi- mis, perditissimis, et potissimum omnium hoereticis est versatus, et quo quisque erat immnanior, sceleratior, crudelior, eo ei carior et gratior fuit.- Ne unum quidem diem sceleratissimus hoereticus sine una et itern altera meretrice traducere potuit.-Continuo cum tribus meretricibus, quwe vide- bantur posse sufflicere uni sacerdoti, in Scotia convolat.-Ceterum hic lasci- vus caper, quem assidue sequebatur lasciva capella, partim perpetuis crapu- lis, partim vino, lustrisque ita confectus fuit, ut quotiescunq. conscenderet suggestum ad maledicendum, vel imprecandum suis, opus erat illi duobus aut tribus viris, a quibus elevandus atq. sustendandus erat."1-De Vita et Jorib'm atque Rebus Gestis HBzreticorum nostri temporis. Authore Jacobo Laingto, Seoto, Doctore Sorbortico, fol. 113, b. 114, a, b. 115, a. Parisiis, 1581. Cum Privilegio." The testimony of Laing is too plain to admit of translation, and we leave it in the original Latin. Suffice it to say, that he boldly accuses the Scottish reformer of almost every possible species of gross immorality, says that his hatred against the Church was induced by his bishop having called him to severe account for his enormities, and more than intimates that his infirm- ities in advancing years were caused by early excesses. It will not do to get rid of his testimony, by simply calling Laing "the most impudent of all liars; " something more than violent denunciation is requisite to refute the positive testimony of a contemporary and a fellow-countryman of Knox. "Personal malice and religious rancor" he may have had; but while these might account for some exaggeration, they can scarcely be plcaded as suf- ficient to invalidate his entire testimony: unless, indeed, we chose to pro- ceed on the principle of believing nothing in history which is not agreeable to our feelings or prejudices. Here then is the joint testimony of t,hree respectable Scots, boldly pub- lished to the world within nine years after the death of Knox. They deal not in vague generalities; they allege facts and furnish specifications. They had probably been all of them sufferers from the Reformation, which had rendered it impossible for them to live in Scotland without sacrificing their conscience. They write strongly, and may appear to exaggerate; but even supposing, against probability, that they were reckless, they would scarcely have dared coin facts, or boldly state falsehoods, which could have been so easily refuted, while the events were fresh in every one's mind. Were their statements refuted at the time McCrie indeed tells us (p. 345, note) that one Smeaton replied to the book of Hamilton; but if he refuted his facts against Knox, why does not McCrie give us his refutation So far as it would appear, the other two witnesses remained unanswered. " Nor were such accounts confined to that age. As late as 16i28 we find Father Alexander Baillie repeating, in the English language, all the gross tales of his predecessors, with additions of his own, in which he shews a total disregard t) the bect known facts in the reformer's life. "Jhone Knox 494 NOTE F. (says he) being chaplane to the laird of Balh'rie and accused for his vi-ses and leecherie, was tound so guiltie and culpable that to eselhevie the just punishlintnt prepared for him he presenltly tied away in to Inglandl." lie afterwards says, that, after the death of his second wife (that is, twenty years at least after his own death,) Knox "shamefully fell in tile abominable vice of incestuous adultry, as A,cl/,. Jlusnilton awi others doe witnesse ;"1 and ass a proof that Knox reckoned this vice no blot, he puts into his mouth a defence of it, in the very words which Sanders, in his book against the Anglican Schism, had represented Sir Francis Brian as using in a cotiversa- tion with I lenrv VIII.-Baillie's Trtue Information of the unhallowed (ff- spring, lProg ress, and inipoison'd Fruits of our Scottish-Calvinian Gospel and Goslellers, p. 14, 41. Wirtsburgh, 162 8." The first fact alleged by Baillie is stated without any reference to Archi- bald Hamilton, and it contains a distinct specification which could easily have been refuted at the time, had it not been true. The circumstance that for another statement he distinctly alleges the authority of Hamilton, is rather an evidence that he relied on other sources of information for his other facts. McCrie wholly fails in substantiating his theory, that these statements injurious to the character of Knox, " have been all grafted on the convicted lie mentioned in his preceding note, and on the malignant surmise insinuated by Archibald Hamilton.' (Ibid., p. 497.) Where there is so much smoke, there is likely to be some fire. It is not to be supposed that the statements of so many respectable contemporaries, persisted in, as Mr. McCrie admits for so great a length of time, are all the results of mere prejudice or of systematic falsehood. Few candid men will subscribe to the sweeping statement of McCrie, in closing his defense of Knox. "I do not wish to insinuate that -ll the popish writers were of the above description, or that there were not many Roman Catholics, even at that time, who disapproved of the use of such dishonorable and empoisoned weapons; but the great number of such publications, the circulation which they ob- tained, and the length of time during which they continued to issue from the popish presses, demonstrate the extent to which a spirit of lying and wanton defamation was carried in the Romish Church. And I may safely aver, that no honest and candid person, who is duly acquainted with the writings on both sides, will pretend that this can be accounted for from the hostility and asperity common to both parties." If this general combination against the character of Knox by almost, if not quite all the Catholic writers who were his contemporaries, and had occasion to refer to him, is not "to be accounted for by the hostility and asperity common to both parties," to what are we to ascribe it, if not to the faet that Knox's character was notoriously ')ad. Men do not usually calumniate without a reason. It is a very significant fact, that whleL his Catholic contemporaries united in publicly denouncing him as an abandoned profligate, his contemporary friends seem to have kept an ominous silence MORAL CHARACTER OF JOHN KNOX. 495 on this su1ject! If they answered Hamilton, Laing, Baillie, and others, why lo0 not Mc-Crie and his friend Iayle furnish us their anvwers with de- tailed specifications, instead of giving us their own mere conjectur s, which clearly have no weight The statement-not "malignantsurmise"-of Hamilton has been already considered; the "convictedl lie" requires a few words of explanation, which we furnish on McCric's own authority. According to him, Methven, an eminent minister of the Kirk, had been convicted of immoral conduct, and displaced from the ministry; and his grievous fall had caused great scandal, and had sorely afflicted the new gospelers in Scotland. McCrie adds: "At the very time that he (Knox) was engaged in scrutinizing the scan- dal against Methven, and inflicting upon him the highest censure f the church, it was alleged that he himself was guilty of a similar crinme. Eu- phemia Dundas, an inhabitant of Edinburgh, inveighing one day, in the presence of a circle of her acquaintances, against the Protest;Lant doctrine and ministers, said, among other things, that John Knox had been a com- mon wh- monger all his days, and that, within a few days past, he 'was apprehendit and tane (taken) furth of ane killogie (brothel) with ane com- moun h-re This might. perhaps, have been passed over by Knox and the church, as an effusion of popish spleen and female scandal; lut the recent occurrence at Jedburgh, the situation in which the reformer at pres- ent stood, the public manner in which the charge had been brought, and the specification of a particular instance, seemed to them to justiiy and call for a legal prosecution. Accordingly, the clerk of the general assembly, on the 18th of June, gave in a formal representation and petition to the town council, praying that the woman might be called before them, and the matter examined; that, if the accusation was found true, the accused might be punished with all rigor without partiality; and that, if false, the accuser might be dealt with according to the demerit of her offense. She was called, and appearing before the council, flatly refused (denied) that she had ever used any such words; although Knox's procurator afterwards produced respectable witnesses to prove that she had spoken them-P. 282-3. The sequel of this prosecution is thus told by McCrie in note PP. at the end of his volume-it will be remembered that the process was begun on the 18th of June:- The minute of the 25th (of June) contains the account of the proof which Knox's procurator led (brought) to show that Eufame Dunda3 had uttered the scandal which she now denied, and the appointment that the parties should be 'warnit literatorie (in writing) to hear sentence given in the said action.' I have not observed any thing more respectirnq the cau se in the tninutes, and it is probable that the reformer, having obtained the vin- dication of his character, prevailed on the judges not to inflict punishment on the accuser." In the case of any other man than John Knox, this might be "probable ;"i in his case, it was well-nigh impossible. He was relentless and inexorable. 496 NOTE G. He was never known to become softened, or to let go the hapless victim upon wvW'm he had once fastened. lis persistent vinlictiveness is, perhaps, the most prominent trait in his character. It can readily be conceived, how the poor woman may have been frightened into denying her previous state- ment; as even strong and bold men were not then safe from the vengeance of the Kirk; it is utterly inconceivable how John Knox should have dropped the prosecution so quietly and so suddenly, unless there was something more in it than what it was deemed prulent to allow to appear on the min- utes. There is evidently some mystery about the whole affair, which, even as stated by McCrie, looks very much like dropping or hushing up an un- pleasant examination. We close this note with the somewhat plain, but withal humorous ac- count, which Nichol Burne furnishes of the second marriage of Knox-the passage is found in McCrie's note RR., p. 499. "Heaving laid aside al feir of the panis of hel, and regarding na thing the honestie of the warld, as ane bund sklave of the Devil, being kendillit with an unquenshible lust and ambition, he durst be sua bauld to interpryse the sute of marriage with the maist honorabil ladie, my ladie Fleming, my lord duke's eldest dochter, to the end that his seid being of the blude royal, and gydit (guided) be thair father's spirit, might have aspyrit to the croun. And because he receavit ane refusal, it is notoriouslie knawin how deidlie he haited the hail hous of the tlamiltonis.-And this maist honest refusal would nather stench his lust nor ambition; bot a lytel efter he did persew to have allyance with the honorabill hous of Ochiltrie of the Kyng's M. awin (own) blude; Rydand (riding) thair with ane gret court, on ane trim gelding, nocht lyk ane prophet or ane auld decrepit priest, as he was, bot lyk as he had bene ane of the blude royal, with his bendes of taffetie feschnit (fastened) with golden ringis, and precious stanes. And as is planelie re- portit in the countrey, be sorcerie and witchcraft did sua allure that puir gentil-woman, that scho (she) could not leve wethout him: whilk appeiris to be of gret probabilitie, scho being ane damssel of nobel blud, and he ane auld decrepit creatur of maist bais degrie of onie that could be found in the countrey: Sua that sik ane nobil hous could not have degenerat sua far, except Johann Kmnox had interposed the powar of his maister the Devil, quha as he transfiguris himself sumtymes in an angel of licht: sua he causit Johann Kmnox appeir ane of the maist nobil and lustie men that could be found in the warld."-Nicol Burne's Disputation, ut supra, p. 143, 144. NOTE G, PAGE: 275. INNOCENCE OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. TVm grievous accusation brought against Mary by Murray and his associates was, as is well known, that she was an accomplice with Bothwell in the murder of Darnley, with a view to her subsequent marriage with the INNOCENCE OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 497 murderer! We propose in this Note to furnish a rapid summary of the arguments by which this horrible charge is fully disproved, and the pretended evidence on which it rests is shown to have been a vile forgery, concocted by Buchanan at the instigation of Murray and other interested parties. We will have little more to do than merely to condense the triumphant defense of Mary, as presented by Miss Strickland in the sixth volume of her Queens of Scotland. 1. B3othwell himself, when the terrors of his conscience were awakened by a dangerous illness in Denmark, made a dying confession, before impartial witnesses, among whom was the Lutheran bishop of Sconer, in which he accused himself of the murder of Darnley, and fully exonerated Mary from all complicity in the crime. Men usually tell the truth at the approach of death; and on this solemn occasion Bothwell had no interest in concealing the truth. (Queens of Scotland, p, 29. She quotes Keith's Appendix.) 2. The murder of Darnley took place on the 9th of Febuary, 1567. Shortly afterwards, Mary having been inveigled into the hands of her illegitimate half brother Murray and of his associates, was treacherously con- signed to imprisonment at Lochieven. The result was, that Murray now gained the long coveted post of regent of the kingdom, by getting her out of the way; and he had therefore a strong interest in criminating her, in order to retain his elevated position. Ruthven, Lindsay, and others of his tools, accord- ingly visited her at Lochleven, and by ruffian threats forced her to sign her ab- dication; which they afterwards solemnly swore was her own voluntary act! This was followed by the coronation of her infant son, with Murray as regent. 3. After Mary had languished for six months in prison, the assembly of the Kirk, which convened on the 4th of December, 1567, solemnly demanded of the regent, " to open and make manifest to them the cause of the detention of the queen's grace in the said house, or else to put her to liberty furth of the same ;"1 (Chalmers, in Life of Mary-Ibid., p. 39.) Murray appears to have been greatly embarrassed by this unexpected demand, to which no direct answer seems to have been given. He needed time to reflect, probably to concoct his story. 4. The required explanation was given in the parliament which convened eleven days later, on the 15th of December. Meantime Murray had held a secret meeting of his council, the most prominent members of which were Morton, Balfour, and Maitland, three notorious accomplices in the murder; besides the bishop of Orkney who had performed the marriage with Bothwell, and Ruthven, and Lindsay, who by their brutal threats had compelled the queen to sign her abdication, and had then perjured themselves by swearing that it was her own free act. (P. 41-2.) These men, with Murray as the prime mover in the atrocious scheme, then concocted in secret conclave the story of Mary's letters to Bothwell; which they now alleged, VOL. ii.-42 498 NOTE G. for the first time, in this parliament-more than ten months after the murder! o. An investigation into the horrible charge and its alleged grounds was then and there publicly demanded by Lord Herries and other friends of the imprisoned queen, to whom she had been able to send a private message warmly denying the infamous accusation; but the investigation was prudeitly smothered by Murray and his associates, who were in the majority! (P. 43.) Yet, that was the only proper time for going into the inquiry. The events were all fresh, and competent witnesses could be easily brought init6 court, who could testify to all the facts. Among these were the countesses of Marr and Murray, the Lady LethiDgton, (Maitland's wife,) who was most intimate with the queen; the Ladies Buccleugh and Reres, the former of whom had been placarded as an accomplice in the murder, and the latter was afterwards accused by Buchanan as having been an accomplice in the alleged amour. There was also the Lady Coldinglham, who was the only lady in attendance on Mary when she was forcibly abducted by Both- well, and who knew all the facts and circumstances of the case. Why were not these witnesses summoned before the parliament, in which Murray and his friends had so overwhelming a majority Why was not the issue then openly made, when all the circumstances, including the par- tial character and leaning of these important witnesses, were so strongly in favor of the conspirators The investigation had been boldly challenged by the lords favorable to Mary, who had moved, that " a proper inquiry should be made touching the pretended crimes with which she was aspersed, since she ought not to be accused in a public assembly without being per- mitted to defend herself, either personally or by her advocates." (P. 43.)- Her enemies shrank from the public investigation, as if conscious of their enormous guilt, and they contented themselves with merely referring in a vague way to the recently discovered letters of Mary to Bothwell! The in- quiry should have been made then and there, else the foul accusation should have been dropped forever. For these facts, Miss Strickland quotes Goodall, Lesley, Whitaker. Tytler, etc. 6. Moreover, there were then detained in prison in Edinburgh the ser- vants of the fugitive Bothwell: John Hepburn, John Hay, William Powrie, and George Dalgleish. They were tried and executed, in most unseemly baste on the same day-the 3d of January, 1568-eighteen days after the meeting of the parliament.-Why were not these witnesses produced, and their testimony taken and canvassed The reason is manifest. Their tes- timony would not have suited the purposes of the conspirators. With their dying words, they all solemnly declared the innocence of the queen, and plainly implicated Murray, Morton, and the other chiefs of the conspiracy in contriving the murder! John Hepburn said on the scaffold INNOCENCE OF MARY, QUEEIN OF SCOTS. 499 "'I declare that Murray and Morton were the sole contrivers, movers, and counselors of Bothwell in the commission of this murder, and that they have assisted in all the enterprises and conspiracies formed against Lord Darnley, and exhorted the earl (Bothwell) my master not to hesitate to execute boldly a deed so necessary for all the nobles of Scotland. I conefss to have had knowledge of this, not only by word of mouth from my lord Bothwell, with whom they were associated in it, and who assured me they would bear him out in it, but by the letters and indentures signed bv both of them, which lie showed me, and I have seen and read them myself, setting forth and describing the whole plot.' These were his last words, on which lie periled the salvation of his soul."-Chronicle of Belforest, in Jebb's Col- lections; quoted Ibid., p. 51.) Public placards were previously affixed on the doors of the council cham- ber and of Murray's house, significantly asking-" Why John Hepburn and John Hay of Tallo were not compelled openly to declare the manner of the king's slaughter, and who consented thereunto "-(Tytler's History of Scot- land. Ibid.) 7. So much for the signal failure of the conspirators to make good their accusation, when it was first made, and an investigation into its truth was so boldly challenged, more than ten months after the murder. The famous silver casket, in which the correspondence was said to have been found, is mentioned for the first time only nine months later, and nearly nineteen months after the murder; and this before a small and select coterie of the confederates convened in secret council on the 16th of September, 1568 ! It was only at this late date, that the story seems to have been fully concocted; no mention whatever of the casket occurring in any previous minute of the council or record of parliament. The story now was, that Bothwell had left the casket behind him in his hasty flight, and that it was found on the person of his servant George Dalgleisli, "upon the 20th day of June, 1567; and that the earl of Morton had truly and honestly kept the writings con- tained in that box since they came into his possession, without alteration, augmentation, or diminution !" (Anderson, Keith, Goodall; quoted Ibid., p. 45.) If Morton had this casket in his possession, why did he not produce it before parliament, when the investigation was so boldly demanded nine months previously Why did he wait till Dalgleish, the only competent witness, to the fact, had been executed for nine months Why did he take so much pains to have people believe, that the contents of the casket had been sacredly, but most secretly, kept by him from June 1567, to Septem- ber 1568, " without alteration, augmentation, or diminution "1 Why is it, that we now receive, for the first time, intimation of the existence of this casket, and of sundry additions, of contracts, sonnets, and love-ballads, never before heard of The whole story looks exceedingly suspicious, to say the very least. 500 NOTE G. 8. These and many other facts, which the limits of this Note will not permit uw to allege, go very far towards proving, that the whole story was a vile fabrication, and the letters and sonnets themselves a balse forgery. Brnntme, a competent witness, declared, at the time, that the sonnets were not written by Mary, whose French style they did not in the lea.4 rie-emble; and he plainly intimated that Buchanan had forged them, in requital for the queen's unvarying kindness to him, both in France and in Scotland, and of her having recalled him from exile and saved his life! lie indignantly exclaimlc "lie (Buchanan) had employed his fine learning better, had he spoken more faithfully of her than that 'she was enamoured of Bothwell ' and making sonnets and imputing them to her. But those who are acquainted with her poetry and taste have always declared that they were not by her. Bothwell," he adds, " was the ugliest and awkwardest of men." (Ibid., p. 212.) Forgery was, then, alas! but too common in Scotland. Besides Mary's perfidious secretary, Maitland, who had been in the habit of forging her name to public documents, and his wife, Mary Fleming, and Mary Beaton, another of the four Marxys waiting on the queen, both of whom haul learned how to imitate precisely her hand-writing (Ibid., p. 217), Miss Strickland furnishes two public cases of forgery, perpetrated the one by Kirkaldy, a leading member of the confederacy against Mary, the other by Thomas Barrve. formerly an officer in her court: thus making good honest parson Whitaker's grave charge in this matter against the reformed party in Scot- land. (Ibid., p. 207, note.) 9. What was most relied on for establishing this foul accusation against Mary, was no doubt Buchanan's " Detection," which was industriously exhibited to the English commissioners at Westminster by Murray and his confederates. This infamous book was afterwards published in London, in an English translation, under the auspices of the wily and unprincipled Cecil, and it was dedicated to Mary's great enemy-Elizabeth. The trans- lator from the original Latin was Thomas Wilson, under-secretary for Cecil; and Cecil even issued a state paper with a view to accredit the publication. In this he says, that the book was written by George Buchanan, " not as of himself, nor in his own name, but according to the instructions to him given by common conference of the lords of the privy council of Scotland, by him only for his learning penned, but by them the matter ministered ;"- which simply means, that Buchanan acted only in the capacity of scribe and pliant tool to Murray, Morton, Maitland, and tl'2 Mother confederate conspir- ators; and that these really furnished the matter of the entire book! They, and they alone, then, were the real authors of the vile fabrication. And yet this "Detection", of Buchanan is the principal authority of Mignet, in his recent violent and unjust work against Mary Stuart! (Ibid., p. 209.) INNOCENCE OF MTARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 501 10. It is thus plain, that Elizabeth, and her wily prime minister Cecil, were deeply interested in making good the foul accusation against Mlary's character. The process so unsatisfactorily begun in Scotland, was pursued no less unsatisfactorily in England, whither the innocent victim of all this treachery had fled, to experience the tender love and sisterly offices of her good "sister Elizabeth PI Two conferences were held in England, on the subject of Mary's guilt or innocence, after her treacherous imprisonment in that kingdom; the one at York, and the other at Westminster: and in both of them, in spite of all the odds against her, Mary's innocence came out of the terrible ordeal wholly unscathed. Innocence, though in prison and beset with prying spies and powerful enemies, proved more than a match for cun- ning and all-powerful malignity, and it signally triumphed over calumny armed with all its fiery shafts. " Never was any princess more successfully belied than Mary Stuart. A firee press would have confounded the faLse tongues and pens of her political slanderers, and exposed the badness of a cause that resorted to means so base for support. But the press was in the hands of those whose interest it was to defame her." (Ibid., p. 216.) 11. At the conference of York, Mutrray and his associate vonspiratorz4 ilitI not venture openly to prefer the accusation, unless Elizabeth would lh a formal in4rument in writing, previously hold them safe from all the ( 0mse- quences which might ensue from their acts. This the cautiou;s lnuglih queen declined to do. Her selfish policy seems, to have been, to keeps alive the feud between the conspirators and their imprisoned queen, with view to hold them both more fully in her power. Under these circunmsi nces, Murray and his confederates produced the forged correspondlence -(cretlv before the English commissioners; thus flagrantly violating the fundamental agreement of the parties to the conference, which wavs, that every thinI should be done openly, and that all charges should be communicaTed to the party concerned. It was in vain that poor Mary, on hearing of this secret and treacherous proceeding called through her commissioners fbr the production of the original writings against her; her call was 'otallv unheeded. "In case," says she in her instructions to her commisioners, " they :lle te that they have any writings of mine which may infer presumptions a.zainst me in that cause, ye shall desire the ptincdipetl. (originals) to ixb prodiriced, that I my.self mayl have inslection thereof, anti make answer thereto. Por ye shall atfirm, in niy namne, T never writ an -thingr concerning that ma tter to any creature. And if such writin's be, they are false and feigned.,';)tql antl 'neente I bl 1heirnselves alone, to rly dishonor and slandekle; and there are divers in Sc tlanl, both inen and women, thart write the like manauller or' writinz as well as myself, anmd principallV such is are in co:nip;tas with thcmselves." (Idid., p. 216-7. She quotes LabanoiE vol. ii, p). 20J2.) 63 502 NOTE G. This was coming directly to the point; but Murray and his associates were much too wary to meet the issue thus fairly and loldly male. "Murray and his coadjutors ventured no reply" to Mary's answer defending her whole conduct in reference to Bothwell, and the affairs of her kingdom. (Ibid. p. 22-5.) They dared not enter on the inquiry, when they were thus, for a second time, boldly and publicly challenged to do so; undercircumstances, too, when every thing was in their favor, anti every thing against their inwrsoned and tortured victim! So manifest and so triumphant waw the victory achieved by oppressed innocence over bold and powerful guilt. 12. Thus foiled in his purpose, Murray promised, through the earl of Norfolk, that ",if he (Norfolk) would obtain Queen Mary's favor for him, and her promise to.confirm him in the regency of Scotland, he would in no wise accuse her." (Letter from the earl of Sussex to Cecil, quoted in Lodge, Ibid. p 226.) This simple fact reveals the whole purpose of Murray. and proves the utter groundlessness of his base charges against his half-sister. Finding matters taking this unsatisfactory turn, Elizabeth suddenly broke up the conference at York, and adjourned its sittings to Westminster, where her own presence might overawe all opposition, and produce such a result as was consonant with her policy, and agreeable to her "feline caution." "'I see not., observes Sir Francis Knollys to Cecil, 'how her majesty can, with safety and honor to hersel, detain this queen, unless she shall be utterly disgraced to the world, and the contrary parts be thoroughly main- tain2d.' Elizabeth had from the first determined to pursue this line of conduct, but she proceeded with feline caution. Her first move was to break up the conference at York, which was progressing far too favorably for Mary." (Ibid. p, 227. She quotes Queen Eliabeth's Letter to her Commis. s'oners at York, State Paper Office, and Sir F. Knollys' Letter to Cecil, Oct. 20, 1558; State Paper. MSS.) 13. Finding, that, instead of being a free and impartial tribunal, the con- ference at York was so conducted as no longer to retain even the semblance of fairness or justice, Mary issued the following dignified and noble instruc- tion to her commissioners: "That sinee, contrary to all that had been promised, the earl of Murray, being the principal of her rebels, had, with his confederates, been admitted to the presence of the queen her sister, to calumniate her, when she, his sovereign was excluded and denied the liberty of being heard in her own tdef.ense, wherein manifest partiality had been used, she desired to break up the conference; the more so, as she knew the whole nobility of the realm were about to assemble, when the matter might be publicly discussed." She added: " Therefore ye shall, afore our sister, her nobility, and the whole ambassadors of strange countries, desire, in our name, that we may be licensed to come in proper presence afore them all, to answer to that which many be proponed and alleged against us by the calumnies of our rebels." (Ibid., p. 237. She quotes Letter of Queen Mary in Cottonian Library. printed. by Labanoff and Goodall.) INNOCENCE OF MARY, QUEEN OF s0(1s. 503 This language, uttered in the dignified fearlessness of innocence, met with no suitable response. Elizabeth positively refused to grant her reiter- ated request to be heard in her own defense! She, however, replied, in her usually tortuous and evasive style: " That she would not take upon herself to be judge, nor yet to prejuidice their sovereign's honor in no sort, nor to proceed judicially. But as ton their sovereign's presence, she could not goodly admit the same, until her cause were tried and ended.", (Ibid., p. 238.) If she would not judge, who was "to judge and end" the cause I9c[r commissioners -But who gave them the power And how were they to dio it, with any decent appearance of fairness, without letting Mary be heard in her own defense But fairness and justice were evidently not what Elizabeth or her ministers sought; they evidently wished to protract the proceedings, to leave Scotland in a distracted condition, and, according to the advice of Knollys, to dishonor and disgrace Mary. 14. The trial was accordingly removed to Westminster, a point so distant from Mary's prison, that she had now less, opportunity than ever to be heard, or to communicate with her friends. The conference was opened by a scene of low buffoonery enacted "between the professedly reluctant and conscientious accusers of their captive sovereign, and their confederates in the English commission." The bishop of Orkney snatches the paper on- taining the accusation from the hands of Wood, Murray's lawyer and tool; Wood runs after Orkney making a show of wishing to recover the paper; the bishop is too fleet for him, and reaches the council board in time th de- posit the precious document; then comes "the Mephistophelian leer and wink of the sly lawyer Wood on the thin misshapen English premier (Cecil); then his sardonic smile in return;" finally, "the exultant laughter of Lindsay and the other members of the confederacy, at the success of the well-concerted trick for bringing the accusation against their sovereign for- ward, and at the same time shifting the responsibility of the proceeding on a pair of their tools, who had already committed themselves beyond the power of retreat." (Ibid., p. 246.) The conference thus opened, Mary again, through her commissioners sol- emnly asked "for copies of letters the earl of Murray and his colleagues had shown to the English commissioners." To this most equitable and just demand Elizabeth replied: "That she would take time to consider the demand; but thought it would be best for some arrangement to be made, whereby her good sister, the queen of Scotland, who considered she had cause to be miscontented with her subjects, and they disliking her government, might live a private and peaceful life, by resigning her crown to her Soil." 504 NOTE G. Such then was the end contemplated by all this int icate plotting between Murray and the English court! The secret is here revealed by Elizabeth herself But vain were all their efforts to induce Mary to resign in favor of her infant son: she positively refused, and said with queenly dignity. "For I am resolutely determined rather to die, and that the last word I shall speak in life will be that of a queen of Scotland." (Ibid., p. 283. She quotes State Papers, printed in Goodall's Appendix, and Labanoff.) Finally, when it was found that all efforts to induce Mary to resign, and thus to secure the regency permanently to Murray, had failed, Elizabeth abruptly broke up the conference at Westminster, on the 10th day of Janu- ary, 1569, with the following significant declaration to Murray and his coadjuors: "That forasmuch as there had been nothing deduced against them as yet that might impair their honor and allegiance, so, on the other part, THERE HAD BEEN NOTHING SUFFICIENT PRODUCED NOR SHOWN BY THEM AGAINST THEIR SOVFREIGN, WHIEREBY THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND SHOULD CONCEIVE on TAKE ANY EVIL OPINION OF THE QUEEN, HER GOOD SISTER, FOR ANY THING STIE HAD YET SEEN." (Ibid., p. 285. Quotes Goodall's Appendix. Laban- off. Chalmers Life of Queen Mary, and Bell's Life of the same.) This final judgment settled the whole matter. Mary was acquitted by a court composed of her most bitter and implacable enemies. The famous casket of letters was ignored or shelved. and nothing was proved to induce Queen Elizabeth "to conceive any evil opinion of her good sister." Inno- cence in chains triumphed over guilt enthroned; and the vile slanderers and forgers received a rebuke which must have nearly touched their sensi- bility, if they had any left. But withal, Mary's enemies have attained their object. Murray and his associates returned in triumph to Scotland, to hold the reins of power in the name of their puppet-king. Mary is indeed acquitted, but Mary is con- signed to a life-long prison, from which she is to pass to a bloody death on the scaffold. Such is human justice! Such were the tender mercies of Elizabeth of England! THE CORONATION OATH. 505 NOTE H, PAGE 303. THE CORONATION OATH OF BRITISH KINGS AND QUEENS. 07 FOR the following interesting, because official accounts of the coronation ceremony, and of the oath taken by English kings and queens for a century and a half past, we are indebted to an esteemed friend, as distinguished for his love of historical and literary research as for his skill and success in business, who, however, forbids us to mention his name. It will be seen that the kings and queens of England cannot themselves enjoy freedom in matters of religion; and that if Queen Victoria, following her private judgment and conscientious convictions, should now dare embrace the religion of her Catholic forefathers, she would, by the very act, not only break her Corona- tion Oath, but forfeit her title to the crown! "In the year of our Lord 1534, King Henry VIII. and his parliament,- not Christ, nor any of his apostles, successors,-but King Henry VIII. and his parliament marked out the boundary, and laid the foundation of the new church of England. Just 1501 years after the church of Christ, 'built upon the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself, being the chief corner stone (Eph. ii: 20)' had been established.-Short's History of the Prot- estant Reformation. p. 65. The clergy of the church of England, says Blackstone, "derive all their title from the civil magistrate; they look up to the king as their head, to the parliament as their lawgiver, and pride themselves in nothing more justly, than in being true members of the church emphatically by law estab- lished."-Commentaries, B. iv, p. 104. " The name now given to the church of England, is the 'established church.' This ever was, and ever will be, its true, proper, and distinctive name. It is not pretended that it was founded by Christ, or by his apostles, but by law, that is by acts of parliament."-History Prot. Reformation, p. 65. To perpetuate this establishment, Statutes, Declarations, and Oaths were formed. The declaration and oath of Queen Anne, 23d April, 1702, was as follows: " The sermon being ended, the archbishop goeth to the queen, and standing before her, asketh her: "'Is your majesty willing to make the declaration'-And the queen answering, 'I am willing.' The archbishop being ready with the said decla- ration written on a roll of parchment, and reading it as follows: "'I 1, Anne, by the grace of God, queen of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, defender of the faLith, etc., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God profess, testifie, and declare that I do believe, that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread voL. u.-4C 506 NOTE H. and wine into the body and blood of Christ, at, or after the consecration thereoi by any person whatsoever. 2. That the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous. 3. And I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do make this declaration, and every part thereof; in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read to me, as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatso- ever, and without any dispensation already granted me for this purpose by the Pope, or any other authority or person whatsoever, or without any hope of any such dispensation from any person or authority whatsoever, or with- out thinking that I am or can be acquitted before God, or man, or absolved of this declaration, or any part thereof, although the Pope, or any other person or persons, or power whatsoever, should dispense or annul the same, or declare that it was null and void from the beginning.' "The queen makes and audibly repeats and subscribes the same. " Then the archbishop administers the Coronation Oath, asking her: ' Is your majestie willing to take the oath I' "And the queen answering, 'I am willing,' the archbishop ministereth these questions, and the queen, having a book in her hands, answers each question severally as followeth: "Archbishop.-' Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this kingdom of England, and the dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same ' " Queen.-' I solemnly promise so to do.' "Archbishop.-' Will you to your power cause law and justice in mercy to be executed in all your judgments I "Queen.-' I will.' Archbishop.-' Will you, to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel, and the Proe-stant reformed religion eekliished by law; and will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of the realm, and to the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them, or any of them " Queen.-' All this I promise to do.' "Then the queen arising out of her chair supported as before, and assisted by the lord great chamberlain, the sword of state being carried before her, shall go to the altar, and there make her solemn Oath, in the sight of all the people, to observe the promise, laying her right hand upon the holy gospel in the great Bible which was before carried in the procession, and is now brought from the altar by the archbishop, and tendered to her as she kneels upon the steps, and saying these words: " ' The things which I have before promised, I will perform and keep, so help me God.' Then the queen kisseth the book."-Book of the Court, p. 417-419. London, 1844. The Coronation of King George the Third and of Queen Charlotte took place on the 22d of Sept., 1761. Dr. Drummond, bishop of Salisbury, preached the sermon; which being ended, his majesty read the usual decla- ration and took and subscribed the Coronation Oath, as above.-See Taylor's Glory of Regality, p. 187, 292. London, 1820. The following is a copy of the oath from the statutes:- THE OORONATION OATH. 507 "Oath to be administered to every king and queen at the time of then coronation:- "Archbishop or bishop shall say: " ' Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this king- dom of England and the dominions thereunto belonging, according to the statutes in parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same' "The king and queen shall say: "'I solemnly promise so to do.' "Archbishop or bishop: " ' Will you to your power, cause law and justice, in mercy to be executed in all your judgments' "K King and queen: 'I will.' "Archbishop or bishop: 'Will you, to the utmost of your power, main- tain the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel, and the Protestint rejbrmwd religion, estalislael4 by law. And will you preserve to the bishops and clergy of this realm and to the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them, or any of them "Kini and Queen: 'All this I promise to do.' "After this the king and queen, laying his and her hand upon the holy gospels, shall say: " IThe things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep; so help me God!' "Then the king and queen shall kiss the book.-Abridged Statutes, p 426; Dublin, 1736. The coronation of " her most sacred majesty Queen Victoria " took place in the Abbey Church of Westminster on Thursday, June 28th, 1838. As pub- lished by authority of the earl marshal, the ceremony was as follows. "The sermon being concluded (and her majesty having on Monday, the 20th of November, 1837, in the presence of the two houses of parliament, made and signed the Declaration,) the archbishop of Canterbury, advancing towards the queen, and standing before her, says: 'Madam, are you willing to take the Oath usually taken by your predecessors ' "Queen.-' I am willing.' "Archbishop.-'Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the domin- ions thereunto belonging, according to the statutes in parliament agreed on, and the respective laws and customs of the same ' "Queen.-' I solemnly promise so to do.' "Archbishop.-'Will you to your power, cause law in justice and mercy to be executed in all your judgments "Queen.-'I will.' " Archbishop.-' Will you to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion, established by law And will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof as by law eswablishe'l, within the kingdoms of England and Ireland, the dominion of Wales, and the town of Berwick, upon-T'weed, and the territories thereunto belonging before the union of the two kingdoms (of England and Scotland); anal will you prosorve unto the bishops and clergy or England and Ireland, and to the churches there committed to their 508 NOTE H. charge, all such rights arma privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them or anv of them "Queen.-'All this I promise to do.' " Her majesty will then arise from her chair; and, attended by her sup- porters, and the lord great chamberlain, the sword of state alone being borne before her majesty, will go to the altar, where, kneeling upon the cushion placed on the steps, and laying her right hand on the holy gospels, tendered to her majesty by the archbishop, will take the Coronation Oath: " ' The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep, so help rme God " "She then kisses the gospels, and to a transcript of the Oath sets her sign-manual, the lord great chamberlain of the household holding a silver standish for that purpose, delivered to him by an officer of the jewel-office." -Book of the Court, p. 467. Coronation Manual, p. 111." RELIGIOUS DESTITUTION. To show the present pitiable religious condition of England under the operation and influence of the law and parliament church, hedged in still further, as this state establishment is, by the oath of the British sovereigns binding them to uphold it with all their executive authority, we here append an extract from the January number of the Westminster Review for 1860. It will be seen from the unimpeachable facts and figures here exhibited, that, after all that has been said and written in favor of the Anglican Refor- mation, and after the latter has been reforming England for three centuries, nearly if not quite one-half of the English people are now in a state of frightful irreligion, but little removed from downright paganism! ". We quote from an extract which appeared in the Times of November 5th: 'There is an alarming picture presented of the irreligion in which large masses of the population are steeped. For example, in Southwark there are sixty-eight per cent. of the people who attend no place of worship; in Lambeth, sixty and one-half; in Sheffield, sixty-two; in Oldham, sixty- one and one-half; in Galeshead, sixty; in Preston, fifty-nine; in Brighton, fifty-four; in the Tower Hamlets, fifty-three and one-half; in Finsbury, fifty-three; in Salford, fifty-two; in South Shields, fifty-two; in Manches- ter, fifty-one and one-half; in Bolton, fifty one and one-half; in Stoke, fifty- one and one-half; in Westminster, fifty; and in Coventry, fifty. Of the aggregate population of the sixteen places named, the average proportion who never enter a place of worship is fifty-three per cent., and of the remaining forty-seven per cent., how few are real Christians!' "The select committee of the house of lords 'appointed to inquire into deficiency of means of spiritual instruction and places of divine worship in the metropolis, and in other populous districts in England and Wales,' would have inferred, that the non-attendance on public worship, and the misery and degradation of the great masses of the people in the metropolis and other large towns arise from the paucity of churches, from the deficiency RELIGIOUS DESTITUTION. .509 of church means. But the inference to be drawn from Mr. Horace Mann's very impartial summary respecting the extent and causes of the absence of the people from public worship are, as we have already pointed out, very different. It appears from his statistics, that there were absent from the available means of religious worship on the census Sunday, five million, two hundred and eighty-eight thousand, two hundred and ninety-four persons able to have attended once at least, and who neglected to do so. The pro- portion of persons able to have attended one and the same service on Sundays -that is, not reasonably prevented by age, sickness, and necessary avoca- tions-is estimated at fifty-eight per cent. of the population, and the propor- tion able, without physical hindrance, to attend some one religious service, is taken at seventy per cent. of the population. If seventy per cent. had attended, their number would have been twelve million, five hundred and forty-nine thousand, three hundred and twenty-six, but there was only an aggregate of attendance, at the three services in all places of worship, amounting to seven million, two hundred and sixty-one thousand and thirty- two. Some of these were no doubt attendances by the same persons on more than one service; on the other hand, some who were absent on that day might at other times attend. But were there means of more persons attending then The total number of sittings within reach, when the churches and chapels were open, was twenty million, two hundred and twenty-six thousand, seven hundred and ninety-seven; so that it is tolerably certain that the five million, two hundred and eighty-eight thousand, two hundred and ninety-four who every Sunday neglect religious ordinances, do so of their own free choice, and are not compelled to be absent on account of a deficiency of sittings. (Abridged Report, p. 89.) It is still more worthy of remark, that out of a total of ten million, two hundred and twelve thousand, five hundred and sixty-three sittings in all places of wor- ship, four million, eight hundred and ninety-four thousand, five, hundred and ninety-four are described as free, and the fact of the other sittings being actually paid for, indicates that they are principally the free sittings which are unoccupied." THE END.

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