The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (225 page)

Lambert.

archbishop Warham; but, upon the death of that prelate, and the change of counsels at court, he had been released. Not terrified with the danger which he had incurred, he still continued to promulgate his tenets; and having heard Dr.

Taylor, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, defend in a sermon the corporal presence, he could not forbear expressing to Taylor his dissent from that doctrine; and he drew up his objections under ten several heads. Taylor communicated the paper to Dr. Barnes, who happened to be a Lutheran, and who maintained that though the substance of bread and wine remained in the sacrament, yet the real body and blood of Christ were there also, and were, in a certain mysterious manner, incorporated with the material elements. By the present laws and practice Barnes was no less exposed to the stake than Lambert; yet such was the persecuting rage which prevailed, that he determined to bring this man to condign punishment; because, in their common departure from the ancient faith, he had dared to go one step farther than himself. He engaged Taylor to accuse Lambert before Cranmer and Latimer, who, whatever their private opinion might be on these points, were obliged to conform themselves to the standard of orthodoxy, established by Henry. When Lambert was cited before these prelates, they endeavoured to bend him to a recantation; and they were surprised, when instead of complying, he ventured to appeal to the king.

The king, not displeased with an opportunity, where he could at once exert his supremacy, and display his learning, accepted the appeal; and resolved to mix, in a very unfair manner, the magistrate with the disputant. Public notice was given, that he intended to enter the lists with the schoolmaster: Scaffolds were erected in Westminster-hall, for the accommodation of the audience: Henry appeared on his throne, accompanied with all the ensigns of majesty: The prelates were placed on his right hand: The temporal peers on his left. The judges and most eminent lawyers had a place assigned them behind the bishops: The courtiers of greatest distinction behind the peers: And in the midst of this splendid assembly was produced the unhappy Lambert, who was required to defend his opinions against his royal antagonist.
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The bishop of Chichester opened the conference, by saying, that Lambert, being charged with heretical pravity, had appealed from his bishop to the king; as if he expected more favour from this application, and as if the king could ever be induced to protect a heretic: That though his majesty had thrown off the usurpations of the see of Rome; had disincorporated some idle monks, who lived like drones in a bee-hive; had abolished the idolatrous worship of images; had published the bible in English, for the instruction of all his subjects; and had made some lesser alterations, which every one must approve of; yet was he determined to maintain the purity of the catholic faith, and to punish with the utmost severity all departure from it: And that he PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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had taken the present opportunity, before so learned and grave an audience, of convincing Lambert of his errors; but if he still continued obstinate in them, he must

expect the most condign punishment.d

After this preamble, which was not very encouraging, the king asked Lambert, with a stern countenance, what his opinion was of Christ’s corporal presence in the sacrament of the altar; and when Lambert began his reply with some compliment to his majesty, he rejected the praise with disdain and indignation. He afterwards pressed Lambert with arguments, drawn from Scripture and the schoolmen: The audience applauded the force of his reasoning, and the extent of his erudition: Cranmer seconded his proofs by some new topics: Gardiner entered the lists as a support to Cranmer: Tonstal took up the argument after Gardiner: Stokesley brought fresh aid to Tonstal: Six bishops more appeared successively in the field after Stokesley. And the disputation, if it deserve the name, was prolonged for five hours; till Lambert, fatigued, confounded, brow-beaten, and abashed, was at last reduced to silence. The king, then returning to the charge, asked him whether he were convinced? and he proposed, as a concluding argument, this interesting question, Whether he were resolved to live or to die? Lambert, who possessed that courage which consists in obstinacy, replied, that he cast himself wholly on his majesty’s clemency: The king told him, that he would be no protector of heretics; and therefore, if that were his final answer, he must expect to be committed to the flames. Cromwel, as vicegerent

pronounced the sentence against him.NOTE [M]

Lambert, whose vanity had probably incited him the more to persevere on account of the greatness of this public appearance, was not daunted by the terrors of the punishment, to which he was condemned. His executioners took care to make the sufferings of a man who had personally opposed the king, as cruel as possible: He was burned at a slow fire; his legs and thighs were consumed to the stumps; and when there appeared no end of his torments, some of the guards, more merciful than the rest, lifted him on their halberts, and threw him into the flames, where he was consumed. While they were employed in this friendly office, he cried aloud several times,
None but Christ, none but Christ;
and these words were in his mouth when he

expired.f

Some few days before this execution, four Dutch anabaptists, three men and a woman, had faggots tied to their backs at Paul’s Cross, and were burned in that manner. And a man and a woman of the same sect and country were burned in Smithfield.
g

It was the unhappy fate of the English, during this age, that, 1539.

when they laboured under any grievance, they had not the

satisfaction of expecting redress from parliament: On the contrary, they had reason to dread each meeting of that assembly, and were then sure of having tyranny converted into law, and aggravated, perhaps, with some circumstance, which the arbitrary prince and his ministers had not hitherto devised,

or did not think proper, of themselves, to carry into execution.

A parliament. 28th

This abject servility never appeared more conspicuously than in April.

a new parliament, which the king now assembled, and which, if he had been so pleased, might have been the last that ever sat in England. But he PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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found them too useful instruments of dominion, ever to entertain thoughts of giving them a total exclusion.

The chancellor opened the parliament by informing the house of lords, that it was his majesty’s earnest desire to extirpate from his kingdom all diversity of opinion in matters of religion; and as this undertaking was, he owned, important and arduous, he desired them to chuse a committee from among themselves, who might draw up certain articles of faith, and communicate them afterwards to the parliament. The lords named the vicar general, Cromwel, now created a peer, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the bishops of Durham, Carlisle, Worcester, Bath and Wells, Bangor, and Ely. The house might have seen what a hopeful task they had undertaken: This small committee itself was agitated with such diversity of opinion, that it could come to no conclusion. The duke of Norfolk then moved in the house, that since there were no hopes of having a report from the committee, the articles of faith, intended to be established, should be reduced to six; and a new committee be appointed to draw an act with regard to them. As this peer was understood to speak the sense of the king, his motion was immediately complied with; and, after a short prorogation, the bill of the
six articles,
or the bloody bill, as the protestants justly termed it, was introduced, and having passed the two houses, received the royal assent.

In this law, the doctrine of the real presence was established, the Law of the six communion in one kind, the perpetual obligation of vows of articles.

chastity, the utility of private masses, the celibacy of the clergy, and the necessity of auricular confession. The denial of the first article, with regard to the real presence, subjected the person to death by fire, and to the same forfeiture as in cases of treason; and admitted not the privilege of abjuring: An unheard-of severity, and unknown to the inquisition itself. The denial of any of the other five articles, even though recanted, was punishable by the forfeiture of goods and chattels, and imprisonment during the king’s pleasure: An obstinate adherence to error, or a relapse, was adjudged to be felony, and punishable with death. The marriage of priests was subjected to the same punishment. Their commerce with women was, on the first offence, forfeiture and imprisonment; on the second, death. The abstaining from confession, and from receiving the eucharist at the accustomed times, subjected the person to fine, and to imprisonment during the king’s pleasure; and if the criminal persevered after conviction, he was punishable by death and forfeiture, as in cases of

felony.h
Commissioners were to be appointed by the king, for enquiring into these heresies and irregular practices; and the criminals were to be tried by a jury.

The king, in framing this law, laid his oppressive hand on both parties; and even the catholics had reason to complain, that the friars and nuns, though dismissed their convent, should be capriciously restrained to the practice of celibacy:
NOTE [N]
But as the protestants were chiefly exposed to the severity of the statute, the misery of adversaries, according to the usual maxims of party, was regarded by the adherents to the ancient religion, as their own prosperity and triumph. Cranmer had the courage to oppose this bill in the house; and though the king desired him to absent himself, he

could not be prevailed on to give this proof of compliance.k
Henry was accustomed to Cranmer’s freedom and sincerity; and being convinced of the general rectitude of his intentions, gave him an unusual indulgence in this particular, and never allowed even PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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a whisper against him. That prelate, however, was now obliged, in obedience to the statute, to dismiss his wife, the niece of Osiander, a famous divine of Nuremburg;
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and Henry, satisfied with this proof of submission, showed him his former countenance and favour. Latimer and Shaxton threw up their bishoprics on account of the law, and were committed to prison.

The parliament, having thus resigned all their religious liberties, Proclamations made proceeded to an entire surrender of their civil; and without equal to laws.

scruple or deliberation they made by one act a total subversion of the English constitution. They gave to the king’s proclamation the same force as to a statute enacted by parliament; and to render the matter worse, if possible, they framed this law, as if it were only declaratory, and were intended to explain the natural extent of royal authority. The preamble contains, that the king had formerly set forth several proclamations which froward persons had wilfully contemned, not considering what a king by his royal power may do; that this licence might encourage offenders not only to disobey the laws of Almighty God, but also to dishonour the king’s most royal majesty,
who may full ill bear it;
that sudden emergencies often occur, which require speedy remedies, and cannot await the slow assembling and deliberations of parliament; and that, though the king was empowered, by his authority, derived from God, to consult the public good on these occasions, yet the opposition of refractory subjects might push him to extremity and violence: For these reasons, the parliament, that they might remove all occasion of doubt, ascertained by a statute this prerogative of the crown, and enabled his majesty, with the advice of his council, to set forth proclamations, enjoining obedience under whatever pains and penalties he should think proper: And these proclamations were to have the force of perpetual laws.
m

What proves either a stupid or a wilful blindness in the parliament is, that they pretended, even after this statute, to maintain some limitations in the government; and they enacted, that no proclamation should deprive any person of his lawful possessions, liberties, inheritances, privileges, franchises; not yet infringe any common law or laudable custom of the realm. They did not consider, that no penalty could be inflicted on the disobeying of proclamations, without invading some liberty or property of the subject; and that the power of enacting new laws, joined to the dispensing power, then exercised by the crown, amounted to a full legislative authority. It is true, the kings of England had always been accustomed, from their own authority, to issue proclamations, and to exact obedience to them; and this prerogative was, no doubt, a strong symptom of absolute government: But still there was a difference between a power, which was exercised on a particular emergence, and which must be justified by the present expedience or necessity; and an authority conferred by a positive statute, which could no longer admit of controul or limitation.

Could any act be more opposite to the spirit of liberty than this law, it would have been another of the same parliament. They passed an act of attainder, not only against the marquis of Exeter, the lords Montacute, Darcy, Hussey, and others, who had been legally tried and condemned; but also against some persons, of the highest quality, who had never been accused, or examined, or convicted. The violent hatred, which Henry bore to cardinal Pole, had extended itself to all his friends and relations; and his mother in particular, the countess of Salisbury, had, on that account, become PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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extremely obnoxious to him. She was also accused of having employed her authority with her tenants, to hinder them from reading the new translation of the Bible; of having procured bulls from Rome, which, it is said, had been seen at Coudray, her country seat; and of having kept a correspondence with her son, the cardinal: But Henry found, either that these offences could not be proved, or that they would not by law be subjected to such severe punishments as he desired to inflict upon her. He resolved, therefore, to proceed in a more summary and more tyrannical manner; and for that purpose, he sent Cromwel, who was but too obsequious to his will, to ask the judges, whether the parliament could attaint a person, who was forth-coming, without giving him any trial, or citing him to appear before them?
n
The judges replied, that it was a dangerous question, and that the high court of parliament ought to give the example to inferior courts, of proceeding according to justice: No inferior court could act in that arbitrary manner, and they thought that the parliament never would. Being pressed to give a more explicit answer, they replied, that, if a person were attainted in that manner, the attainder could never afterwards be brought in question, but must remain good in law. Henry learned by this decision, that such a method of proceeding, though directly contrary to all the principles of equity, was yet practicable; and this being all he was anxious to know, he resolved to employ it against the countess of Salisbury. Cromwel showed to the house of peers a banner, on which were embroidered the five wounds of Christ, the symbol, chosen by the northern rebels;