1538. CHAP. from the royal family, being fourth son of the Countess XXXI. of Salisbury, daughter of the Duke of Clarence. He gave, in early youth, indications of that fine genius and generous disposition by which, during his whole life, he was so much distinguished; and Henry having conceived great friendship for him, intended to raise him to the highest ecclesiastical dignities; and, as a pledge of future favours, he conferred on him the deanery of Exeter, the better to support him in his education. Pole was carrying on his studies in the university of Paris at the time when the king solicited the suffrages of that learned body in favour of his divorce; but though applied to by the English agent, he declined taking any part in the affair. Henry bore this neglect with more temper than was natural to him; and he appeared unwilling, on that account, to renounce all friendship with a person whose virtues and talents he hoped would prove useful, as well as ornamental, to his court and kingdom. He allowed him still to possess his deanery, and gave him permission to finish his studies at Padua; he even paid him some court, in order to bring him into his measures; and wrote to him while in that university, desiring him to give his opinion freely with regard to the late measures taken in England for abolishing the papal authority. Pole had now contracted an intimate friendship with all persons eminent for dignity or merit in Italy, Sadolet, Bembo, and other revivers of true taste and learning; and he was moved by these connexions, as well as by religious zeal, to forget in some respect the duty which he owed to Henry, his benefactor, and his sovereign. He replied, by writing a treatise of the Unity of the Church, in which he inveighed against the king's supremacy, his divorce, his second marriage; and he even exhorted the emperor to revenge on him the injury done to the imperial family and to the catholic cause. Henry, though provoked beyond measure at this outrage, dissembled his resentment; and he sent a message to Pole, desiring him to return to England in order to explain certain passages in his book, which he found somewhat obscure and difficult. Pole was on his guard against Goodwin's Annals. this insidious invitation, and was determined to remain CHAP. in Italy, where he was universally beloved. The pope and emperor thought themselves obliged to provide for a man of Pole's eminence and dignity, who, in support of their cause, had sacrificed all his pretensions to fortune in his own country. He was created a cardinal; and though he took not higher orders than those of a deacon, he was sent legate into Flanders about the year 1536. Henry was sensible that Pole's chief intention, in choosing that employment, was to foment the mutinous disposition of the English Catholics; and he therefore remonstrated in so vigorous a manner with the Queen of Hungary, regent of the Low Countries, that she dismissed the legate, without allowing him to exercise his functions. The enmity which he bore to Pole was now as open as it was violent; and the cardinal on his part kept no farther measures in his intrigues against Henry. He is even suspected of having aspired to the crown, by means of a marriage with the Lady Mary; and the king was every day more alarmed by informations which he received of the correspondence maintained in England by that fugitive. Courtney, Marquis of Exeter, had entered into a conspiracy with him; Sir Edward Nevil, brother to the Lord Abergavenny; Sir Nicholas Carew, master of horse, and knight of the garter; Henry de la Pole, Lord Montacute; and Sir Geoffrey de la Pole, brother to the cardinal. These persons were indicted, and tried and convicted before Lord Audley, who presided in the trial as high steward: they were all executed, except Sir Geoffrey de la Pole, who was pardoned; and he owed this grace to his having first carried to the king secret intelligence of the conspiracy. We know little concerning the justice or iniquity of the sentence pronounced against these men: we only know, that the condemnation of a man, who was at that time prosecuted by the court, forms no presumption of his guilt; though as no historian of credit mentions, in the present case, any complaint occasioned by these trials, we may presume that sufficient evidence was produced against the Marquis of Exeter and his asso ciates". t Herbert. u Herbert in Kennet, p. 216. XXXI. 1538. CHAP. XXXII. 1538. CHAPTER XXXII. DISPUTATION WITH LAMBERT.—A PARLIAMENT. — LAW OF THE SIX ARTICLES. THE rough hand of Henry seemed well adapted for rending asunder those bands by which the ancient superstition had fastened itself on the kingdom; and though after renouncing the pope's supremacy, and suppressing monasteries, most of the political ends of reformation were already attained, few people expected that he would stop at those innovations. The spirit of opposition, it was thought, would carry him to the utmost extremities against the church of Rome, and lead him to declare war against the whole doctrine and worship, as well as discipline of that mighty hierarchy. He had formerly appealed from the pope to a general council; but now, when a general council was summoned to meet at Mantua, he previously renounced all submission to it, as summoned by the pope, and lying entirely under subjection to that spiritual usurper. He engaged his clergy to make a declaration to the like purpose; and he had prescribed to them many other deviations from ancient tenets and practices. Cranmer took advantage of every opportunity to carry him on in this course; and, while Queen Jane lived, who favoured the reformers, he had, by means of her insinuation and address, been successful in his endeavours. After her death, Gardiner, who was returned from his embassy to France, kept the king more in suspense; and by feigning an unlimited submission to his will, was frequently able to guide him to his own purposes. Fox, Bishop of Hereford, had supported Cranmer in his schemes for a more thorough reformation; but his death had made way for the promotion of Bonner, who, though he had hitherto seemed a furious. XXXII. enemy to the court of Rome, was determined to sacrifice CHAP. every thing to present interest, and had joined the confederacy of Gardiner, and the partisans of the old religion. 1538. Gardiner himself, it was believed, had secretly entered into measures with the pope, and even with the emperor; and in concert with these powers he endeavoured to preserve, as much as possible, the ancient faith and worship. Henry was so much governed by passion, that nothing could have retarded his animosity and opposition against Rome, but some other passion which stopped his career, and raised him new objects of animosity. Though he had gradually, since the commencement of his scruples with regard to his first marriage, been changing the tenets of that theological system in which he had been educated, he was no less positive and dogmatical in the few articles which remained to him, than if the whole fabric had continued entire and unshaken. And though he stood alone in his opinion, the flattery of courtiers had so inflamed his tyrannical arrogance, that he thought himself entitled to regulate, by his own particular standard, the religious faith of the whole nation. The point on which he chiefly rested his orthodoxy happened to be the real presence; that very doctrine in which, among the numberless victories of superstition over common sense, her triumph is the most signal and egregious. All departure from this principle he held to be heretical and detestable; and nothing, he thought, would be more honourable for him, than while he broke off all connexions with the Roman pontiff, to maintain, in this essential article, the purity of the Catholic faith. tion with There was one Lambert, a schoolmaster in London, Disputawho had been questioned and confined for unsound Lambert. opinions by 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 a Fox, vol. ii. p. 396. 14 VOL. III. CHAP. heads. Taylor communicated the paper to Dr. Barnes, XXXII. who happened to be a Lutheran, and who maintained, that though the substance of bread and wine remained 1538. 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 opinions 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 the 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 antagonistb 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 b Fox, vol. ii. p. 426. |