History of the Reformation, vol. 5

Chapter 11

Fox’s Report to Henry and Anne—Wolsey’s Impression—He demands the Decretal—One of the Cardinal’s petty Manoeuvres—He sets his Conscience at Rest—Gardiner fails at Rome—Wolsey’s new Perfidy—The King’s Anger against the Pope—Sir T. More predicts Religious Liberty—Immorality of Ultramontane Socialism—Erasmus invited—Wolsey’s last Flight—Energetic Efforts at Rome—Clement grants all—Wolsey triumphs—Union of Rome and England

During this time Fox was making his way to England. On the 27th of April he reached Paris; on the 2nd of May he landed at Sandwich, and hastened to Greenwich, where he arrived the next day at five in the evening, just as Wolsey had left for London. Fox’s arrival was an event of great importance. “Let him go to Lady Anne’s apartments,” said the king, “and wait for me there.” Fox told Anne Boleyn of his and Gardiner’s exertions, and the success of their mission, at which she expressed her very great satisfaction. Indeed, more than a year had elapsed since her return to England, and she no longer resisted Henry’s project. “Mistress Anne always called me Master Stephen,” wrote Fox to Gardiner, “her thoughts were so full of you.” The king appeared and Anne withdrew. HRSCV5 805.4

“Tell me as briefly as possible what you have done,” said Henry. Fox placed in the king’s hands the pope’s insignificant letter, which he bade his almoner read; then that from Staffileo, which was put on one side; and, lastly, Gardiner’s letter, which Henry took hastily and read himself. “The pope has promised us,” said Fox, as he terminated his report, “to confirm the sentence of the divorce, as soon as it has been pronounced by the commissioners.”—“Excellent!” exclaimed Henry; and then he ordered Anne to be called in. “Repeat before this lady,” he said to Fox, “what you have just told me.” The almoner did so. “The pope is convinced of the justice of your cause,” he said in conclusion, “and the cardinal’s letter has convinced him that my lady is worthy of the throne of England.”—“Make your report to Wolsey this very night,” said the king. HRSCV5 806.1

It was ten o’clock when the chief almoner reached the cardinal’s palace; he had gone to bed, but immediate orders were given that Fox should be conducted to his room. Being a churchman, Wolsey could understand the pope’s artifices better than Henry; accordingly, as soon as he learnt that Fox had brought the commission only, he became alarmed at the task imposed upon him. “What a misfortune!” he exclaimed: “your commission is no better than Gambara’s… However, go and rest yourself; I will examine these papers tomorrow.” Fox withdrew in confusion. “It is not bad,” said Wolsey the next day, “but the whole business still falls on me alone!—Never mind, I must wear a contented look, or else” In the afternoon he summoned into his closet Fox, Dr. Bell, and Viscount Rochford: “Master Gardiner has surpassed himself,” said the crafty supple cardinal; “what a man! what an inestimable treasure! what a jewel in our kingdom!” HRSCV5 806.2

He did not mean a word he was saying. Wolsey was dissatisfied with everything—with the refusal of the decretal, and with the drawing up of the commission, as well as of the engagement (which arrived soon after in good condition, so far as the outside was concerned). But the king’s ill humor would infallibly recoil on Wolsey; so, putting a good face on a bad matter, he ruminated in secret on the means of obtaining what had been refused him. “Write to Gardiner,” said he to Fox, “that everything makes me desire the pope’s decretal—the need of unburdening my conscience, of being able to reply to the calumniators who will attack my judgment, and the thought of the accidents to which the life of man is exposed. Let his holiness, then, pronounce the divorce himself; we engage on our part to keep his resolution secret. But order Master Stephen to employ every kind of persuasion that his rhetoric can imagine.” In case the pope should positively refuse the decretal, Wolsey required that at least Campeggio should share the responsibility of the divorce with him. HRSCV5 806.3

This was not all: While reading the engagement, Wolsey discovered the loophole which had escaped Gardiner, and this is what he contrived:—“The engagement which the pope has sent us,” he wrote to Gardiner, “is drawn up in such terms that he can retract it at pleasure; we must therefore find some good way to obtain another. You may do it under this pretence. You will appear before his holiness with a dejected air, and tell him that the courier, to whom the conveyance of the said engagement was intrusted, fell into the water with his despatches, so that the rescripts were totally defaced and illegible; that I have not dared deliver it into the king’s hands, and unless his holiness will grant you a duplicate, some notable blame will be imputed unto you for not taking better care in its transmission. And, further, you will continue: I remember the expressions of the former document, and to save your holiness trouble, I will dictate them to your secretary. Then,” added Wolsey, “while the secretary is writing, you will find means to introduce, without its being perceived, as many fat, pregnant, and available words as possible, to bind the pope and enlarge my powers, the politic handling of which the king’s highness and I commit unto your good discretion.” HRSCV5 806.4

Such was the expedient invented by Wolsey. The papal secretary, imagining he was making a fresh copy of the original document (which was, by the way, in perfect condition), was at the dictation of the ambassador to draw up another of a different tenor. The “politic handling” of the cardinal-legate, which was not very unlike forgery, throws a disgraceful light on the policy of the sixteenth century. HRSCV5 806.5

Wolsey read this letter to the chief almoner; and then, to set his conscience at rest, he added piously: “In an affair of such high importance, on which depends the glory or the ruin of the realm,—my honor or my disgrace,—the condemnation of my soul or my everlasting merit,—I will listen solely to the voice of my conscience, and I shall act in such a manner as to be able to render an account to God without fear.” HRSCV5 806.6

Wolsey did more; it seems that the boldness of his declarations reassured him with regard to the baseness of his works. Being at Greenwich on the following Sunday, he said to the king in the presence of Fox, Bell, Wolman, and Tuke: “I am bound to your royal person more than any subject was ever bound to his prince. I am ready to sacrifice my goods, my blood, my life for you But my obligations towards God are greater still. For that cause, rather than act against his will, I would endure the extremist evils. I would suffer your royal indignation, and, if necessary, deliver my body to the executioners that they might cut it in pieces.” What could be the spirit then impelling Wolsey? Was it blindness or impudence? He may have been sincere in the words he addressed to Henry; at the bottom of his heart he may have desired to set the pope above the king, and the church of Rome above the kingdom of England; and this desire may have appeared to him a sublime virtue, such as would hide a multitude of sins. What the public conscience would have called treason was heroism to the Romish priest. This zeal for the papacy is sometimes met with in conjunction with the most flagrant immorality. If Wolsey deceived the pope, it was to save popery in the realm of England. Fox, Bell, Wolman, and Tuke listened to him with astonishment. Henry, who thought he knew his man, received these holy declarations without alarm; and the cardinal, having thus eased his conscience, proceeded boldly in his iniquities. It seems, however, that the inward reproaches which he silenced in public, had their revenge in secret. One of his officers entering his closet shortly afterwards, presented a letter addressed to Campeggio for his signature. It ended thus: “I hope all things shall be done according to the will of God, the desire of the king, the quiet of the kingdom, and to our honor with a good conscience.” The cardinal having read the letter, dashed out the four last words. Conscience has a sting from which none can escape, not even a Wolsey. HRSCV5 806.7

However, Gardiner lost no time in Italy. When he met Campeggio (to whom Henry VIII had given a palace at Rome, and a bishopric in England), he entreated him to go to London and pronounce the divorce. This prelate, who was to be empowered in 1530 with authority to crush Protestantism in Germany, seemed bound to undertake a mission that would save Romanism in Britain. But proud of his position at Rome, where he acted as the pope’s representative, he cared not for a charge that would undoubtedly draw upon him either Henry’s hatred or the emperor’s anger. He begged to be excused. The pope spoke in a similar tone. When he was informed of this, the terrible Tudor, beginning to believe that Clement desired to entangle him, as the hunter entangles the lion in his toils, gave vent to his anger on Tuke, Fox, and Gardiner, but particularly on Wolsey. Nor were reasons wanting for this explosion. The cardinal, perceiving that his hatred against Charles had carried him too far, pretended that it was without his orders that Clarencieux, bribed by France, had combined with the French ambassador to declare war against the emperor; and added that he would have the English king-at-arms put to death as he passed through Calais. This was an infallible means of preventing disagreeable revelations. But the herald, who had been forewarned, crossed by way of Boulogne, and, without the cardinal’s knowledge, obtained an interview with Henry, before whom he placed the orders he had received from Wolsey in three consecutive letters. The king, astonished at his minister’s impudence, exclaimed profanely: “O Lord Jesu, the man in whom I had most confidence told me quite the contrary.” He then summoned Wolsey before him, and reproached him severely for his falsehoods. The wretched man shook like a leaf. Henry appeared to pardon him, but the season of his favor had passed away. Henceforward he kept the cardinal as one of those instruments we make use of for a time, and then throw away when we have no further need of them. HRSCV5 807.1

The king’s anger against the pope far exceeded that against Wolsey; he trembled from head to foot, rose from his seat, then sat down again, and vented his wrath in the most violent language:—“What!” he exclaimed, “I shall exhaust my political combinations, empty my treasury, make war upon my friends, consume my forces and for whom? for a heartless priest who, considering neither the exigencies of my honor, nor the peace of my conscience, nor the prosperity of my kingdom, nor the numerous benefits which I have lavished on him, refuses me a favor, which he ought, as the common father of the faithful, to grant even to an enemy Hypocrite! You cover yourself with the cloak of friendship, you flatter us by crafty practices, but you give us only a bastard document, and you say like Pilate: It matters little to me if this king perishes, and all his kingdom with him; take him and judge him according to your law! I understand you… you wish to entangle us in the briers, to catch us in a trap, to lure us into a pitfall… But we have discovered the snare; we shall escape from your ambuscade, and brave your power.” HRSCV5 807.2

Such was the language then heard at the court of England, says an historian. The monks and priests began to grow alarmed, while the most enlightened minds already saw in the distance the first gleams of religious liberty. One day, at a time when Henry was proving himself a zealous follower of the Romish doctrines, Sir Thomas More was sitting in the midst of his family, when his son-in-law, Roper, now become a warm papist, exclaimed: “Happy kingdom of England, where no heretic dares show his face!”—“That is true, son Roper,” said More; “we seem to sit now upon the mountains, treading the heretics under our feet like ants; but I pray God that some of us do not live to see the day when we gladly would wish to be at league with them, to suffer them to have their churches quietly to themselves, so that they would be content to let us have ours peaceably to ourselves.” Roper angrily replied: “By my word, sir, that is very desperately spoken!” More, however, was in the right; genius is sometimes a great diviner. The Reformation was on the point of inaugurating religious liberty, and by that means placing civil liberty on an immovable foundation. HRSCV5 807.3

Henry himself grew wiser by degrees. He began to have doubts about the Roman hierarchy, and to ask himself, whether a priest-king, embarrassed in all the political complications of Europe, could be the head of the church of Jesus Christ. Pious individuals in his kingdom recognized in Scripture and in conscience a law superior to the law of Rome, and refused to sacrifice at the command of the church their moral convictions, sanctioned by the revelation of God. The hierarchical system, which claims to absorb man in the papacy, had oppressed the consciences of Christians for centuries. When the Romish Church had required from such as Berengarius, John Huss, Savonarola, John Wesel, and Luther, the denial of their consciences enlightened by the word, that is to say, by the voice of God, it had shown most clearly how great is the immorality of ultra montane socialism. “If the Christian consents to this enormous demand of the hierarchy,” said the most enlightened men; “if he renounces his own notions of good and evil in favor of the clergy; if he reserves not his right to obey God, who speaks to him in the Bible, rather than men, even if their agreement were universal; if Henry VIII, for instance, should silence his conscience, which condemns his union with his brother’s widow, to obey the clerical voice which approves of it; by that very act he renounces truth, duty, and even God himself.” But we must add, that if the rights of conscience were beginning to be understood in England, it was not about such holy matters as these that the pope and Henry were contending. They were both intriguers—both dissatisfied, the one desirous of love, the other of power. HRSCV5 808.1

Be that as it may, a feeling of disgust for Rome then took root in the king’s heart, and nothing could afterwards eradicate it. He immediately made every exertion to attract Erasmus to London. Indeed, if Henry separated from the pope, his old friends, the humanists, must be his auxiliaries, and not the heretical doctors. But Erasmus, in a letter dated 1st June, alleged the weak state of his health, the robbers who infested the roads, the wars and rumors of wars then afloat. “Our destiny leads us,” he said; “let us yield to it.” It is a fortunate thing for England that Erasmus was not its reformer. HRSCV5 808.2

Wolsey noted this movement of his master’s, and resolved to make a strenuous effort to reconcile Clement and Henry; his own safety was at stake. He wrote to the pope, to Campeggio, to Da Casale, to all Italy. He declared that if he was ruined, the popedom would be ruined too, so far at least as England was concerned: “I would obtain the decretal bull with my own blood, if possible,” he added. “Assure the holy father on my life that no mortal eye shall see it.” Finally, he ordered the chief almoner to write to Gardiner: “If Campeggio does not come, you shall never return to England;” an infallible means of stimulating the secretary’s zeal. HRSCV5 808.3

This was the last effort of Henry VIII. Bourbon and the prince of Orange had not employed more zeal a year before in scaling the walls of Rome. Wolsey’s fire had inflamed his agents; they argued, entreated, stormed, and threatened. The alarmed cardinals and theologians, assembling at the pope’s call, discussed the matter, mixing political interests with the affairs of the church. At last they understood what Wolsey now communicated to them. “Henry is the most energetic defender of the faith,” they said. “It is only by acceding to his demand that we can preserve the kingdom of England to the popedom. The army of Charles is in full flight, and that of Francis triumphs.” The last of these arguments decided the question; the pope suddenly felt a great sympathy for Wolsey and for the English church; the emperor was beaten, therefore he was wrong. Clement granted everything. HRSCV5 808.4

First, Campeggio was desired to go to London. The pontiff knew that he might reckon on his intelligence and inflexible adhesion to the interests of the hierarchy; even the cardinal’s gout was of use, for it might help to innumerable delays. Next, on the 8th of June, the pope, then at Viterbo, gave a new commission, by which he conferred on Wolsey and Campeggio the power to declare null and void the marriage between Henry and Catherine, with liberty for the king and queen to form new matrimonial ties. A few days later he signed the famous decretal by which he himself annulled the marriage between Henry and Catherine; but instead of intrusting it to Gardiner, he gave it to Campeggio, with orders not to let it go out of his hands. Clement was not sure of the course of events: if Charles should decidedly lose his power, the bull would be published in the face of Christendom; if he should recover it, the bull would be burnt. In fact, the flames did actually consume some time afterwards this decree which Clement had wetted with his tears as he put his name to it. Finally, on the 23rd of July, the pope signed a valid engagement, by which he declared beforehand that all retractation of these acts should be null and void. Campeggio and Gardiner departed. Charles’s defeat was as complete at Rome as at Naples; the justice of his cause had vanished with his army. HRSCV5 808.5

Nothing, therefore, was wanting to Henry’s desires. He had Campeggio, the commission, the decretal bull of divorce signed by the pope, and the engagement giving an irrevocable value to all these acts. Wolsey was conqueror,—the conqueror of Clement! He had often wished to mount the restive courser of the popedom and to guide it at his will, but each time the unruly steed had thrown him from the saddle. Now he was firm in his seat, and held the horse in hand. Thanks to Charles’s reverses, he was master at Rome. The popedom, whether it was pleased or not, must take the road he had chosen, and before which it had so long recoiled. The king’s joy was unbounded, and equalled only by Wolsey’s. The cardinal, in the fullness of his heart, wishing to show his gratitude to the officers of the Roman court, made them presents of carpets, horses, and vessels of gold. All near Henry felt the effects of his good humor. Anne smiled; the court indulged in amusements; the great affair was about to be accomplished; the New Testament to be delivered to the flames. The union between England and the popedom appeared confirmed for ever, and the victory which Rome seemed about to gain in the British isles might secure her triumph in the west. Vain omens! far different were the events in the womb of the future. HRSCV5 809.1