$5. The Death of Catherine

But before this parliamentary session had begun - before the visitors had ended their labors in the north, and while the king's ambassadors in Germany were still discussing theology with Protestant divines — an event occurred which made a sensible change in the situation. Catherine of Aragon, after nearly four years' separation from her husband, died at Kimbolton on January 7, 1536. A pathetic story which has gained too much credit with historians says that at the last she wrote a touching letter to Henry, which drew tears into his eyes when he read it. Facts, unhappily reported at the time in confidential despatches by Chapuys, show that the tale is pure invention. Catherine, for her part, could not have written such a letter; for she had long been obliged to yield to the painful conviction that her husband had become utterly hardened and unscrupulous. And the news of her death gave him a satisfaction that he was at no pains to conceal. "God be praised," he said; "we are now free from all fear of war." Next day he clothed himself in yellow and danced with the ladies of his court like one mad with delight.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The great work on the dissolution of the monasteries is Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries. For a full and scholarly account of Cromwell and his work, consult Merriman, Thomas Cromwell. On all the points discussed in the above extract, compare the views and accounts given by Froude, History of England, and Pollard, Henry VIII.

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CHAPTER V

THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINAL REVOLT

DR. JOHN CLARK, in presenting to the pope Henry VIII's book against Luther, doubtless spoke truly when he declared that England "has never been behind other nations in the worship of God and the Christian faith, and in obedience to the Roman Church." In spite of attempts to demonstrate that the influence of Wycliffe's teachings was widespread and that there was a steady increase of heretical opinion in England before the Act of separation from the Roman Church, the evidence so far adduced has not been very conclusive. The king and Parliament, whether representing national will or not, were just as anxious to punish those who attempted to bring about changes in doctrine as those who retained their allegiance to the pope. It seems, therefore, that the distinguished Catholic writer, Dr. Gasquet, is quite sound in his contention that we should look to Luther rather than to Wycliffe as the source of the dogmatic revolution; but it must be admitted that English Protestant theologians in the sixteenth century were influenced by the study of Wycliffe's writings.

§ 1. Religious Discontent and Lollardry1

It is not uncommonly asserted that the religious changes in England, although for convenience' sake dated from the rejection of papal supremacy, were in reality the outcome of long-continued and ever increasing dissatisfaction with the then existing ecclesiastical system. The pope's refusal to grant Henry his wished-for divorce from Catherine, we are told, was a mere incident, which at most precipitated by a short while what had long been inevi1 Gasquet, The Eve of the Reformation, 1st edition, pp. 208 ff. By permission of Dr. Francis A. Gasquet.

table. Those who take this view are bound to believe that the Church in England in the early sixteenth century was honeycombed by disbelief in the traditional teachings, and that men were only too ready to welcome emancipation. What, then, is the evidence for this picture of the religious state of men's minds in England on the eve of the Reformation?

It is, indeed, not improbable that up and down the country there were, at this period, some dissatisfied spirits; some who would eagerly seize any opportunity to free themselves from the restraints which no longer appealed to their consciences, and from teachings they had come to consider as mere ecclesiastical formalism. A Venetian traveller of intelligence and observation, who visited the country at the beginning of the century, whilst struck with the Catholic practices and with the general manifestations of English piety he witnessed, understood that there were "many who have various opinions concerning religion." But so far as there is evidence at all, it points to the fact, that, of religious unrest, in any real sense, there could have been very little in the country generally. It is, of course, impossible to suppose that any measurable proportion of the people could have openly rejected the teaching of the Church or have been even crypto-Lollards, without there being satisfactory evidence of the fact forthcoming at the present day.

The similarity of the doctrines held by the English reformers of the sixteenth century with many of those taught by the followers of Wycliffe has, indeed, led some writers to assume a direct connection between them which certainly did not exist in fact. So far as England at least is concerned, there is no justification for assuming for the Reformation a line of descent from any form of English Lollardism. It is impossible to study the century which preceded the overthrow of the old religious system in England without coming to the conclusion that as a body the Lollards had been long extinct, and that as individuals, scattered over the length and breadth of the land, without any practical principle of cohesion, the few who clung to the tenets of Wycliffe were powerless to effect any change of opinion in the overwhelming mass of the population at large. Lollardry, to the Englishman of the day, was "heresy," and any attempt to teach it was firmly repressed by the ecclesiastical authority, supported by the strong arm of the State; but it was also an offence against the common feeling of the people, and there can be no manner of doubt that its repression was popular. The genius of Milton enabled him to see the fact

that "Wycliffe's preaching was soon damped and stifled by the pope and prelates for six or seven kings' reigns," and Mr. James Gairdner, whose studies in this period of our national history enable him to speak with authority, comes to the same conclusion. "Notwithstanding the darkness that surrounds all subjects connected with the history of the fifteenth century," he writes, "we may venture pretty safely to affirm that Lollardry was not the beginning of modern Protestantism. Plausible as it seems to regard Wycliffe as 'the morning star of the Reformation,' the figure conveys an impression which is altogether erroneous. Wycliffe's real influence did not long survive his own day, and so far from Lollardry having taken any deep root among the English people, the traces of it had wholly disappeared long before the great revolution of which it is thought to be the forerunner. At all events, in the rich historical material for the beginning of Henry VIII's reign, supplied by the correspondence of the time, we look in vain for a single indication that any such thing as a Lollard sect existed. The movement had died a natural death; from the time of Oldcastle it sank into insignificance. Though still for a while considerable in point of numbers, it no longer counted among its adherents any men of note; and when another generation had passed away the serious action of civil war left no place for the crotchets of fanaticism."

On the only evidence available, the student of the reign of Henry VII and of that of Henry VIII up to the breach with Rome is bound to come to the same conclusion as to the state of the English Church. If we except manifestations of impatience with the pope and curia, which could be paralleled in any age and country, and which were rather on the secular side than on the religious, there is nothing that would make us think that England was not fully loyal in mind and heart to the established ecclesiastical system. In fact, as Mr. Brewer says, everything proves that "the general body of the people had not as yet learned to question the established doctrines of the Church. For the most part, they paid their Peter-pence and heard mass, and did as their fathers had done before them."

§ 2. Luther and his English Followers

It may be taken, therefore, for granted that the seeds of religious discord were not the product of the country itself, nor, so far as we have evidence on the subject at all, does it appear that the soil of

the country was in any way specially adapted for its fructification. The work, both of raising the seed and of scattering it over the soil of England, must be attributed, if the plain facts of history are to be believed, to Germans and the handful of English followers of the German Reformers. If we would rightly understand the religious situation in England at the commencement of the Reformation, it is of importance to inquire into the methods of attack adopted in the Lutheran invasion, and to note the chief doctrinal points which were first assailed.

Very shortly after the religious revolt had established itself in Germany, the first indications of a serious attempt to undermine the traditional faith of the English Church became manifest in England. Roger Edgworth, a preacher during the reigns of Henry and Queen Mary, says that his "long labors have been cast in most troublesome times and most encumbered with errors and heresies, change of minds and schisms that ever was in the realm. Whilst I was a young student in divinity," he continues, "Luther's heresies rose and were scattered here in this realm, which, in less space than a man would think, had so sore infected the Christian folk, first the youth and then the elders, where the children could set their fathers to school, that the king's Majesty and all Christian clerks in the realm had much ado to extinguish them. This they could not so perfectly quench, but that ever since, when they might have any maintenance by man or woman of great power, they burst forth afresh, even like fire hid under chaff."

83. Protestant Literature in England

Sir Thomas More, when chancellor in 1532, attributed the rapid spread of what to him and most people of his day in England was heresy, to the flood of literature which was poured forth over the country by the help of printing. "We have had," he writes, "some years of late, plenteous of evil books. For they have grown up so fast and sprung up so thick, full of pestilent errors and pernicious heresies, that they have infected and killed, I fear me, more simple souls than the famine of the dear years have destroyed bodies."

We are not left in ignorance as to the books here referred to, as some few years previously the bishops of England had issued a list of the prohibited volumes. Thus, in October, 1526, Bishop Tunstall ordered that in London people should be warned not to read the works in question, but that all who possessed them should