1 said that such was the prejudice of a London jury against the clergy, that it would convict Abel of the murder of Cain. The fall of Wolsey, who was ruined by the failure of the negotiations with Rome for the divorce, and by the enmity of Anne Boleyn, intimidated the whole clerical body, and made them an easy prey to the King's rapacity. "The authority of this Cardinal," says Hall, the old chronicler, "set the clergie in such a pride that they disdained all men, wherefore when he was fallen they folowed after." Early in 1531, Henry revived an old statute of Richard II., and accused the clergy of having incurred the penalties of præmunire forfeiture of all movable goods and imprisonment at discretion—for submitting to Wolsey in his character of papal legate. Assembled in convocation, they were obliged to implore his pardon, and obtained it only in return for a large sum of money. In their petition, he was styled "the Protector and Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of England," to which was added, after long debate, the qualifying phrase: "as far as is permitted by the law of Christ." Acts of Parliament took away the first-fruits from the Pope, prohibited appeals from ecclesiastical courts to Rome, and, after the consecration of Cranmer, as Archbishop of Canterbury, ordained that henceforward the consecration of all bishops and archbishops should be consummated without application to the Pope. Henry was married to Anne Boleyn on the 14th of November, 1532. On the 14th of the preceding July, at Windsor, he saw Catharine for the last time, who had been his faithful wife for twenty-two years. Eleven weeks after the marriage, the king authorized Cranmer to decide the question of the divorce without fear or favor! Of course the divorce was decreed. In 1534 the King was required by the Pope to take back Catharine, on penalty of excommunication. On the 9th of June of that year, a royal edict was issued, 1 p. 774. ACT OF SUPREMACY. 321 abolishing the Pope's authority in England. Parliament passed the act of supremacy, "That the King, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England, called the Anglicana Ecclesia." This was followed by another great measure for the further humbling of ecclesiastical power -the abolishing of the cloisters and the confiscation of their property in 1536. This fell, to a great extent, into the hands of the nobles and gentry, and had a powerful effect in binding them to the policy of the king. Subsequently, the larger monasteries, which had been spared at first, shared the fate of the inferior establishments; and by the expulsion of the mitred abbots from the upper House, the preponderance of power was left with the secular lords. Thus the kingdom of England was severed from the Papacy, and the Church of England brought into subjection to the civil authority. The old English feeling of dislike of foreign ecclesiastical control had at last ripened into a verification of the words which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of King John, as a message to Pope Innocent III.: "Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of England, There had been no renunciation of Catholic doctrines. The hierarchy still existed as of old, but with the King in the room of the Pope, as its earthly head. There were two parties side by side in the episcopal offices and in the Council; one of them disposed to press forward to other 1 King John, act iii., sc. i. 66 changes in the direction of Protestantism; the other bent on upholding the ancient creed in its integrity. The Act of Supremacy, as far as it had the sympathy of the people, could not fail to shake their reverence for the entire system of which the Papacy had been deemed an essential part, and to incline many to substitute the authority of the Bible for that of the Church; for to the Bible the appeal had been made in the matter of the King's divorce, and the Bible and the constitution of the primitive Church had furnished the grounds for the overthrow of papal supremacy. At the head of the party disposed to Reform, among the bishops, was Cranmer, who had spent some time in Germany, and had married for his second wife a niece of a Lutheran theologian, Osiander. Cranmer is well characterized by Ranke as one of those natures which must have the support of the supreme authority, in order to carry out their own opinions to their consequences; as then they appear enterprising and spirited, so do they become pliant and yielding, when this favor is withdrawn from them; they do not shine by reason of any moral greatness, but they are well adapted to save a cause in difficult circumstances for a more favorable time." Latimer, who became Bishop of Worcester, was made of sterner stuff. Among the other bishops of Protestant tendencies, was Edward Fox, who, at Smalcald, had declared the Pope to be Antichrist. The leader of the Protestant party was Thomas Cromwell, who was made the King's Vicegerent in ecclesiastical affairs, who had conducted the visitation of the monasteries which preceded the destruction of them, and was an adherent of the reformed doctrine. On the other side was Gardiner, 1 Englische Geschichte, i. 204. A severe, not to say harsh, estimate of Cranmer is given by Macaulay, Hist. of England, i. 48; Review of Hallam (Essays, i. 448). "If," says Hallam, "we weigh the character of this prelate in an equal balance, he will appear far indeed removed from the turpitude imputed to him by his enemies; yet not entitled to any extraordinary veneration." Const. Hist., ch. ii. Bishop of Winchester, who upheld the King's Supremacy, but was an unbending advocate of the Catholic theology; together with Tunstal of Durham, and other bishops. The King showed himself, at first, favorable to the Protestant party. The English Bible, which was issued under his authority, and a copy of which was to be placed in every church, had upon the title-page the inscription, issuing from his mouth: "Thy word is a lantern unto my feet." In 1536, ten articles were laid before Convocation, adopted by that body, and sent, by the King's order, to all pastors as a guide for their teaching. The Bible and the three ancient creeds were made the standard of doctrine. Salvation is by faith and without human merits. The sacrament of the altar is defined in terins to which Luther would not have objected. The use of images and various other ceremonies, auricular confession, and the invocation of saints, are approved, but cautions are given against abuses connected with these things. The admission that there is a Purgatory is coupled with the denial of any power in the Pope to deliver souls from it, and with the rejection of other superstitions connected with the old doctrine. These articles, unsatisfactory as they were, in many respects, to the Protestants, were still regarded by them as a long step in the right direction. The Catholic party were offended. A majority of the nation still clung to the ancient religion. The suppression and spoliation of the monasteries, which were prized as dispensers of hospitality and sources of pecuniary advantage to the rustic population, had excited much discontent, especially in the North and West, where the Catholics were most numerous. The disaffection, which was heightened by the leaning of the government towards Protestant doctrine, broke out in the rebellion of 1536, which, although it was put down without concessions to the promoters of it, was succeeded by a 1 On the English versions of the Bible, see Anderson, Annals of the Engl Bible (2 vols. 1845). change in the King's ecclesiastical policy. The Catholic faction gained the ascendency, and, notwithstanding the opposition of Cranmer and his friends, the Six Articles for "abolishing diversity of opinions" in religion, were framed into a law. These decreed transubstantiation, the needlessness of communion in both kinds, the celibacy of the priesthood, the obligation of vows of chastity, the necessity and value of private masses and of auricular confession. Whoever denied transubstantiation was to be burned at the stake as a heretic. Whoever should publicly attack either of the other articles was to suffer death as a felon, without benefit of clergy. Imprisonment, confiscation of goods, and death were threatened to expressions of dissent from the last five of the articles, according to its form and degree. The execution of Anne Boleyn and the marriage of the King to Jane Seymour (1536); and still more, the fall of Cromwell (1540), the great support of the Protestant interest, which followed upon the marriage of Henry to a Protestant princess, Anna of Cleve, and his immediate divorce, increased the strength of the persecuting faction. Those who denied the King's supremacy and those who denied transubstantiation were dragged on the same hurdle to the place of execution. Earnest bishops, as Latimer and Shaxton, were imprisoned in the Tower. Cranmer was protected by his own prudence and the King's favor.2 1 The amount of persecution under the Six Articles is discussed by Maitland, Essays on the Reformation (London, 1846). 2 This is not the place to discuss at length the personal character of Henry VIII. Sir James Mackintosh, after recounting the executions of More and Anne, says: "In these two direful deeds Henry approached, perhaps, as nearly to the ideal standard of perfect wickedness as the infirmities of human nature will allow." History of England, 11. ch. vii. Macaulay pronounces him "a king whose character may be best described by saying, that he was despotism itself personified." (Review of Hallam.) Burnet gives a milder judgment: "I do not deny that he is to be numbered among the ill princes, yet I cannot rank him with the worst." Hist. of the Ref., i. p. i. b. iii. Lord Herbert, after speaking of his willfulness and jealousy, says: "These conditions, again being armed with power, produced such terrible effects as styled him, abroad and at |