The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (223 page)

by the promise of a general amnesty; and the king ratified this act 9th Dec.

of clemency. He published, however, a manifesto against the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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rebels, and an answer to their complaints; in which he employed a very lofty style, suited to so haughty a monarch. He told them, that they ought no more to pretend giving a judgement with regard to government, than a blind man with regard to colours: “And we,” he added, “with our whole council, think it right strange, that ye, who be but brutes and inexpert folk, do take upon you to appoint us, who be meet or not for our council.”

As this pacification was not likely to be of long continuance, Norfolk was ordered to keep his army together, and to march into the northern parts, in order to exact a general submission. Lord Darcy, as well as Aske, was sent for to court; and the former, upon his refusal or delay to appear, was thrown into prison. Every place was full of jealousy and complaints. A new insurrection broke out, headed by Musgrave and Tilby; and the rebels besieged Carlisle with 8000 men. Being repulsed by that city, they were encountered in their retreat by Norfolk, who put them to flight; and having made prisoners of all their officers, except Musgrave, 1537.

who escaped, he instantly put them to death by martial law, to the number of seventy persons. An attempt, made by Sir Francis Bigot and Halam to surprize Hull, met with no better success; and several other risings were suppressed by the vigilance of Norfolk. The king, enraged by these multiplied revolts, was determined not to adhere to the general pardon, which he had granted; and from a movement of his usual violence, he made the innocent suffer for the guilty. Norfolk, by command from his master, spread the royal banner, and, wherever he thought proper, executed martial law in the punishment of offenders. Besides Aske, leader of the first insurrection, Sir Robert Constable, Sir John Bulmer, Sir Thomas Piercy, Sir Stephen Hamilton, Nicholas Tempest, William Lumley, and many others, were thrown into prison; and most of them were condemned and executed. Lord Hussey was found guilty as an accomplice in the insurrection of Lincolnshire, and was executed at Lincoln. Lord Darcy, though he pleaded compulsion, and appealed, for his justification, to a long life, spent in the service of the crown, was beheaded on Tower-hill. Before his execution, he accused Norfolk of having secretly encouraged the rebels; but Henry, either sensible of that nobleman’s services and convinced of his fidelity, or afraid to offend one of such extensive power and great capacity, rejected the information. Being now satiated with punishing the rebels, he published anew a

general pardon, to which he faithfully adhered;k
and he erected by patent a court of justice at York, for deciding law-suits in the northern counties: A demand which had been made by the rebels.

Soon after this prosperous success, an event happened, which crowned Henry’s joy, the birth of a son, who was baptized by the name of Edward. Yet October 12. Birth of was not his happiness without allay: The queen died two days Prince Edward, and

after.l
But a son had so long been ardently wished for by Henry, death of Q. Jane.

and was now become so necessary, in order to prevent disputes with regard to the succession, after the acts declaring the two princesses illegitimate, that the king’s affliction was drowned in his joy, and he expressed great satisfaction on the occasion. The prince, not six days old, was created prince of Wales, duke of Cornwal, and earl of Chester. Sir Edward Seymour, the queen’s brother, formerly made Lord Beauchamp, was raised to the dignity of earl of Hertford. Sir William Fitz PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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Williams, high admiral, was created earl of Southampton; Sir William Paulet, Lord St.

John; Sir John Russel, Lord Russel.

The suppression of the rebellion and the birth of a son, as they 1538.

confirmed Henry’s authority at home, encreased his

consideration among foreign princes, and made his alliance be courted by all parties.

He maintained, however, a neutrality in the wars, which were carried on, with various success, and without any decisive event, between Charles and Francis; and though inclined more to favour the latter, he determined not to incur, without necessity, either hazard or expence on his account. A truce, concluded about this time between these potentates, and afterwards prolonged for ten years, freed him from all anxiety on account of his ally, and re-established the tranquillity of Europe.

Henry continued desirous of cementing a union with the German protestants; and for that purpose, he sent Christopher Mount to a congress which they held at Brunswick; but that minister made no great progress in his negociation. The princes wished to know, what were the articles in their confession which Henry disliked; and they sent new ambassadors to him, who had orders both to negociate and to dispute. They endeavoured to convince the king, that he was guilty of a mistake, in administering the eucharist in one kind only, in allowing private masses, and in requiring the celibacy of the clergy.
m
Henry would by no means acknowledge any error in these particulars; and was displeased that they should pretend to prescribe rules to so great a monarch and theologian. He found arguments and syllogisms enow to defend his cause; and he dismissed the ambassador without coming to any conclusion. Jealous also least his own subjects should become such theologians as to question his tenets, he used great precaution in publishing that translation of the scripture which was finished this year. He would only allow a copy of it to be deposited in some parish churches, where it was fixed by a chain: And he took care to inform the people by proclamation, “That this indulgence was not the effect of his duty, but of his goodness and his liberality to them; who therefore should use it moderately, for the encrease of virtue, not of strife: And he ordered that no man should read the Bible aloud, so as to disturb the priest, while he sang mass, nor presume to expound doubtful places, without advice from the learned.” In this measure, as in the rest, he still halted half way between the catholics and the protestants.

There was only one particular, in which Henry was quite decisive; because he was there impelled by his avarice, or more properly speaking, his rapacity, the consequence of his profusion: This measure was the entire destruction of the monasteries.

The present opportunity seemed favourable for that great

Suppression of the

enterprize, while the suppression of the late rebellion fortified greater monasteries.

and encreased the royal authority; and as some of the abbots were suspected of having encouraged the insurrection, and of corresponding with the rebels, the king’s resentment was farther incited by that motive. A new visitation was appointed of all the monasteries in England; and a pretence only being wanted for their suppression, it was easy for a prince, possessed of such unlimited power, and seconding the present humour of a great part of the nation, to find or feign one. The abbots and monks knew the danger, to which they were exposed; and having learned, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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by the example of the lesser monasteries, that nothing could withstand the king’s will, they were most of them induced, in expectation of better treatment, to make a voluntary resignation of their houses. Where promises failed of effect, menaces and even extreme violence were employed; and as several of the abbots, since the breach with Rome, had been named by the court, with a view to this event, the king’s intentions were the more easily effected. Some also, having secretly embraced the doctrine of the reformation, were glad to be freed from their vows; and on the whole the design was conducted with such success, that, in less than two years, the king had got possession of all the monastic revenues.

In several places, particularly in the county of Oxford, great interest was made to preserve some convents of women, who, as they lived in the most irreproachable manner, justly merited, it was thought, that their houses should be saved from the general destruction.
n
There appeared also great difference between the case of nuns and that of friars; and the one institution might be laudable, while the other was exposed to much blame. The males of all ranks, if endowed with industry, might be of service to the public; and none of them could want employment, suited to his station and capacity. But a woman of a family, who failed of a settlement in the married state, an accident to which such persons were more liable than women of lower station, had really no rank which she properly filled: and a convent was a retreat both honourable and agreeable, from the inutility and often want, which attended her situation. But the king was determined to abolish monasteries of every denomination; and probably thought, that these ancient establishments would be the sooner forgotten, if no remains of them, of any kind, were allowed to subsist in the kingdom.

The better to reconcile the people to this great innovation, stories were propagated of the detestable lives of the friars in many of the convents; and great care was taken to defame those whom the court had determined to ruin. The reliques also and other superstitions, which had so long been the object of the people’s veneration, were exposed to their ridicule; and the religious spirit, now less bent on exterior observances and sensible objects, was encouraged in this new direction. It is needless to be prolix in an enumeration of particulars: Protestant historians mention on this occasion with great triumph the sacred repositories of convents; the parings of St.

Edmond’s toes; some of the coals that roasted St. Laurence; the girdle of the Virgin shown in eleven several places; two or three heads of St. Ursula; the felt of St.

Thomas of Lancaster, an infallible cure for the head-ach; part of St. Thomas of Canterbury’s shirt, much reverenced by big-bellied women; some reliques, an excellent preventive against rain; others, a remedy to weeds in corn. But such fooleries, as they are to be found in all ages and nations, and even took place during the most refined periods of antiquity, form no particular or violent reproach to the catholic religion.

There were also discovered, or said to be discovered, in the monasteries some impostures of a more artificial nature. At Hales, in the county of Gloucester, there had been shown, during several ages, the blood of Christ brought from Jerusalem; and it is easy to imagine the veneration with which such a relique was regarded. A miraculous circumstance also attended this miraculous relique; the sacred blood was not visible to any one in mortal sin, even when set before him; and till he had performed good PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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works sufficient for his absolution, it would not deign to discover itself to him. At the dissolution of the monastery, the whole contrivance was detected. Two of the monks, who were let into the secret, had taken the blood of a duck, which they renewed every week: They put it in a phial, one side of which consisted of thin and transparent chrystal, the other of thick and opaque. When any rich pilgrim arrived, they were sure to show him the dark side of the phial, till masses and offerings had expiated his offences; and then finding his money, or patience, or faith, nearly exhausted, they

made him happy by turning the phial.o

A miraculous crucifix had been kept at Boxley in Kent, and bore the appellation of the
Rood of Grace.
The lips, and eyes, and head of the image moved on the approach of its votaries. Hilsey, bishop of Rochester, broke the crucifix at St. Paul’s cross, and showed to the whole people the springs and wheels by which it had been secretly moved. A great wooden idol revered in Wales, called Darvel Gatherin, was also brought to London, and cut in pieces: And by a cruel refinement in vengeance, it was

employed as fuel to burn friar Forest,p
who was punished for denying the supremacy, and for some pretended heresies. A finger of St. Andrew’s, covered with a thin plate silver, had been pawned by a convent for a debt of forty pounds; but as the king’s commissioners refused to pay the debt, people made themselves merry with the poor creditor, on account of his pledge.

But of all the instruments of ancient superstition, no one was so zealously destroyed as the shrine of Thomas a Becket, commonly called St. Thomas of Canterbury. This saint owed his canonization to the zealous defence, which he had made for clerical privileges; and on that account also, the monks had extremely encouraged the devotion of pilgrimages towards his tomb, and numberless were the miracles, which, they pretended, his reliques wrought in favour of his devout votaries. They raised his body once a year; and the day on which this ceremony was performed, which was called the day of his translation, was a general holiday: Every fiftieth year there was celebrated a jubilee to his honour, which lasted fifteen days: Plenary indulgences were then granted to all that visited his tomb; and a hundred thousand pilgrims have been registered at a time in Canterbury. The devotion towards him had quite effaced in that place the adoration of the Deity: nay, even that of the Virgin. At God’s altar, for instance, there were offered in one year three pounds two shillings and six pence; at the Virgin’s, sixty-three pounds five shillings and six pence; at St. Thomas’s, eight hundred and thirty-two pounds twelve shillings and three pence. But next year, the disproportion was still greater: There was not a penny offered at God’s altar; the Virgin’s gained only four pounds one shilling and eight pence; but St. Thomas had got for his share nine hundred and fifty-four pounds six shillings and three pence.
q

Lewis VII, of France had made a pilgrimage to this miraculous tomb, and had bestowed on the shrine a jewel, esteemed the richest in Christendom. It is evident, how obnoxious to Henry a saint of this character must appear, and how contrary to all his projects for degrading the authority of the court of Rome. He not only pillaged the rich shrine, dedicated to St. Thomas: he made the saint himself be cited to appear in court, and be tried and condemned as a traitor: He ordered his name to be struck out of the calendar; the office for his festival to be expunged from all breviaries; his bones to be burned, and the ashes to be thrown in the air.