History of the Reformation, vol. 5

Chapter 16

Wolsey’s Terror—Impeachment by the Peers—Cromwell saves him—The Cardinal’s Illness—Ambition returns to him—His Practices in Yorkshire—He is arrested by Northumberland—His Departure—Arrival of the Constable of the Tower—Wolsey at Leicester Abbey—Persecuting language—He dies—Three Movements: Supremacy, Scripture, and Faith

While many pious Christians were languishing in the prisons of England, the great antagonist of the Reformation was disappearing from the stage of this world. We must return to Wolsey, who was still detained at Esher. HRSCV5 864.1

The cardinal, fallen from the summit of honors, was seized with those panic terrors usually felt after their disgrace by those who have made a whole nation tremble, and he fancied he saw an assassin lay hid behind every door. “This very night,” he wrote to Cromwell on one occasion, “I was as one that should have died. If I might, I would not fail to come on foot to you, rather than this my speaking with you shall be put over and delayed. If the displeasure of my lady Anne be somewhat assuaged, as I pray God the same may be, then I pray you exert all possible means of attaining her favor.” HRSCV5 864.2

In consequence of this, Cromwell hastened down to Esher two or three days after taking his seat in Parliament, and Wolsey, all trembling, recounted his fears to him. “Norfolk, Suffolk, and Lady Anne perhaps, desire my death. Did not Thomas A Becket, an archbishop like me, stain the altar with his blood?” Cromwell reassured him, and, moved by the old man’s fears, asked and obtained of Henry an order of protection. HRSCV5 864.3

Wolsey’s enemies most certainly desired his death; but it was from the justice of the three estates, and not by the assassin’s dagger, that they sought it. The house of peers authorized Sir Thomas More, the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and fourteen other lords, to impeach the cardinal-legate of high treason. They forgot nothing: that haughty formula, Ego et rex meus, I and my king, which Wolsey had often employed; his infringement of the laws of the kingdom; his monopolizing the church revenues; the crying injustice of which he had been guilty,—as for instance, in the case of Sir John Stanley, who was sent to prison until he gave up a lease to the son of a woman who had borne the cardinal two children; many families ruined to satisfy his avarice; treaties concluded with foreign powers without the king’s order; his exactions, which had impoverished England; and the foul diseases and infectious breath with which he had polluted his majesty’s presence. These were some of the forty-four grievances presented by the peers to the king, and which Henry sent down to the lower house for their consideration. HRSCV5 864.4

It was at first thought that nobody in the commons would undertake Wolsey’s defence, and it was generally expected that he would be given up to the vengeance of the law (as the bill of impeachment prayed), or in other words, to the axe of the executioner. But one man stood up, and prepared, though alone, to defend the cardinal: this was Cromwell. The members asked of each other, who the unknown man was; he soon made himself known. His knowledge of facts, his familiarity with the laws, the force of his eloquence, and the moderation of his language, surprised the house. Wolsey’s adversaries had hardly aimed a blow, before the defender had already parried it. If any charge was brought forward to which he could not reply, he proposed an adjournment until the next day, departed for Esher at the end of the sitting, conferred with Wolsey, returned during the night, and next morning reappeared in the commons with fresh arms. Cromwell carried the house with him; the impeachment failed, and Wolsey’s defender took his station among the statesmen of England. This victory, one of the greatest triumphs of parliamentary eloquence at that period, satisfied both the ambition and the gratitude of Cromwell. He was now firmly fixed in the king’s favor, esteemed by the commons, and admired by the people: circumstances which furnished him with the means of bringing to a favorable conclusion the emancipation of the church of England. HRSCV5 864.5

The ministry, composed of Wolsey’s enemies, was annoyed at the decision of the lower house, and appointed a commission to examine into the matter. When the cardinal was informed of this he fell into new terrors. He lost all appetite and desire of sleep, and a fever attacked him at Christmas. “The cardinal will be dead in four days,” said his physician to Henry, “if he receives no comfort shortly from you and lady Anne.”—“I would not lose him for twenty thousand pounds,” exclaimed the king. He desired to preserve Wolsey in case his old minister’s consummate ability should become necessary, which was by no means unlikely. Henry gave the doctor his portrait in a ring, and Anne, at the king’s desire, added the tablet of gold that hung at her girdle. The delighted cardinal placed the presents on his bed, and as he gazed on them he felt his strength return. He was removed from his miserable dwelling at Esher to the royal palace at Richmond, and before long he was able to go into the park, where every night he read his breviary. HRSCV5 864.6

Ambition and hope returned with life. If the king desired to destroy the papal power in England, could not the proud cardinal preserve it? Might not Thomas Wolsey do under Henry VIII what Thomas A Becket had done under Henry II. His see of York, the ignorance of the priests, the superstition of the people, the discontent of the great,—all would be of service to him; and indeed, six years later, 40,000 men were under arms in a moment in Yorkshire to defend the cause of Rome. Wolsey, strong in England by the support of the nation (such at least was his opinion), aided without by the pope and the continental powers, might give the law to Henry, and crush the Reformation. HRSCV5 865.1

The king having permitted him to go to York, Wolsey prayed for an increase to his archiepiscopal revenues, which amounted, however, to four thousand pounds sterling. Henry granted him a thousand marks, and the cardinal, shortly before Easter 1530, departed with a train of 160 persons. He thought it was the beginning of his triumph. HRSCV5 865.2

Wolsey took up his abode at Cawood Castle, Yorkshire, one of his archiepiscopal residences, and strove to win the affections of the people. This prelate, once “the haughtiest of men,” says George Cavendish, the man who knew him and served him best, became quite a pattern of affability. He kept an open table, distributed bounteous alms at his gate, said mass in the village churches, went and dined with the neighboring gentry, gave splendid entertainments, and wrote to several princes imploring their help. We are assured that he even requested the pope to excommunicate Henry VIII. All being thus prepared, he thought he might make his solemn entry into York, preparatory to his enthronization, which was fixed for Monday the 5th of November. HRSCV5 865.3

Every movement of his was known at court; every action was canvassed, and its importance exaggerated. “We thought we had brought him down,” some said, “and here he is rising up again.” Henry himself was alarmed. “The cardinal, by his detestable intrigues,” he said, “is conspiring against my crown, and plotting both at home and abroad;” the king even added, where and how. Wolsey’s destruction was resolved upon. HRSCV5 865.4

The morning after All Saints day (Friday, 2nd November) the earl of Northumberland, attended by a numerous escort, arrived at Cawood, where the cardinal was still residing. He was the same Percy whose affection for Anne Boleyn had been thwarted by Wolsey; and there may have been design in Henry’s choice. The cardinal eagerly moved forward to meet this unexpected guest, and impatient to know the object of his mission, took him into his bed-chamber, under the pretence of changing his travelling dress. They both remained some time standing at a window without uttering a word; the earl looked confused and agitated, while Wolsey endeavoured to repress his emotion. But at last, with a strong effort, Northumberland laid his hand upon the arm of his former master, and with a low voice said: “My lord, I arrest you for high treason.” The cardinal remained speechless, as if stunned. He was kept a prisoner in his room. HRSCV5 865.5

It is doubtful whether Wolsey was guilty of the crime with which he was charged. We may believe that he entertained the idea of some day bringing about the triumph of the popedom in England, even should it cause Henry’s ruin; but perhaps this was all. But, an idea is not a conspiracy, although it may rapidly expand into one. HRSCV5 865.6

More than three thousand persons (attracted not by hatred, like the Londoners, when Wolsey departed from Whitehall but by enthusiasm), collected the next day before the castle to salute the cardinal. “God save your grace,” they shouted on every side, and a numerous crowd escorted him at night; some carried torches in their hands, and all made the air re-echo with their cries. The unhappy prelate was conducted to Sheffield Park, the residence of the earl of Shrewsbury. Some days after his arrival, the faithful Cavendish ran to him, exclaiming: “Good news, my lord! Sir William Kingston and twenty-four of the guard are come to escort you to his majesty.”—“Kingston!” exclaimed the cardinal, turning pale, “Kingston!” and then slapping his hand on his thigh, he heaved a deep sigh. This news had crushed his mind. One day a fortune-teller, whom he consulted, had told him: You shall have your end at Kingston; and from that time the cardinal had carefully avoided the town of Kingston-on-Thames. But now he thought he understood the prophecy Kingston, constable of the Tower, was about to cause his death. They left Sheffield Park; but fright had given Wolsey his death-blow. Several times he was near falling from his mule, and on the third day, when they reached Leicester abbey, he said as he entered: “Father abbot, I am come hither to leave my bones among you;” and immediately took to his bed. This was on Saturday the 26th of November. HRSCV5 865.7

On Monday morning, tormented by gloomy forebodings, Wolsey asked what was the time of day. “Past eight o’clock,” replied Cavendish.—“That cannot be,” said the cardinal, “eight o’clock No! for by eight o’clock you shall lose your master.” At six on Tuesday, Kingston having come to inquire about his health, Wolsey said to him: “I shall not live long.”—“Be of good cheer,” rejoined the governor of the Tower.—“Alas, Master Kingston,” exclaimed the cardinal, “if I had served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs!” and then he added with downcast head: “This is my just reward.” What a judgment upon his own life! HRSCV5 866.1

On the very threshold of eternity (for he had but a few minutes more to live) the cardinal summoned up all his hatred against the Reformation, and made a last effort. The persecution was too slow to please him: “Master Kingston,” he said, “attend to my last request: tell the king that I conjure him in God’s name to destroy this new pernicious sect of Lutherans.” And then, with astonishing presence of mind in this his last hour, Wolsey described the misfortunes which the Hussites had, in his opinion, brought upon Bohemia; and then, coming to England, he recalled the times of Wickliffe and Sir John Oldcastle. He grew animated; his dying eyes yet shot forth fiery glances. He trembled lest Henry VIII, unfaithful to the pope, should hold out his hand to the Reformers. “Master Kingston,” said he, in conclusion, “the king should know that if he tolerates heresy, God will take away his power, and we shall then have mischief upon mischief barrenness, scarcity, and disorder, to the utter destruction of this realm.” HRSCV5 866.2

Wolsey was exhausted by the effort. After a momentary silence, he resumed with a dying voice: “Master Kingston, farewell! My time draweth on fast. Forget not what I have said and charged you withal; for when I am dead ye shall peradventure understand my words better.” It was with difficulty he uttered these words; his tongue began to falter, his eyes became fixed, his sight failed him; he breathed his last. At the same minute the clock struck eight, and the attendants standing round his bed looked at each other in affright. It was the 29th of November 1530. HRSCV5 866.3

Thus died the man once so much feared. Power had been his idol; to obtain it in the state, he had sacrificed the liberties of England; and to win it or to preserve it in the church, he had fought against the Reformation. If he encouraged the nobility in the luxuries and pleasures of life, it was only to render them more supple and more servile; if he supported learning, it was only that he might have a clergy fitted to keep the laity in their leading-strings. Ambitious, intriguing, and impure of life, he had been as zealous for the sacerdotal prerogative as the austere Becket; and by a singular contrast, a shirt of hair was found on the body of this voluptuous man. The aim of his life had been to raise the papal power higher than it had ever been before, at the very moment when the Reformation was attempting to bring it down; and to take his seat on the pontifical throne with more than the authority of a Hildebrand. Wolsey, as pope, would have been the man of his age; and in the political world he would have done for the Roman primacy what the celebrated Loyola did for it soon after by his fanaticism. Obliged to renounce this idea, worthy only of the middle ages, he had desired at least to save the popedom in his own country; but here again he had failed. The pilot who had stood in England at the helm of the Romish church was thrown overboard, and the ship, left to itself, was about to founder. And yet, even in death, he did not lose his courage. The last throbs of his heart had called for victims; the last words from his failing lips, the last message to his master, his last testament had been Persecution. This testament was to be only too faithfully executed. HRSCV5 866.4

The epoch of the fall and death of Cardinal Wolsey, which is the point at which we halt, was not only important, because it ended the life of a man who had presided over the destinies of England, and had endeavoured to grasp the scepter of the world; but it is of especial consequence, because then three movements were accomplished, from which the great transformation of the sixteenth century was to proceed. Each of these movements has its characteristic result. HRSCV5 866.5

The first is represented by Cromwell. The supremacy of the pope in England was about to be wrested from him, as it was in all the reformed churches. But a step further was taken in England. That supremacy was transferred to the person of the king. Wolsey had exercised as vicar-general a power till then unknown. Unable to become pope at the Vatican, he had made himself a pope at Whitehall. Henry had permitted his minister to raise this hierarchical throne by the side of his own. But he had soon discovered that there ought not to be two thrones in England, or at least not two kings. He had dethroned Wolsey; and resolutely seating himself in his place, he was about to assume at Whitehall that tiara which the ambitious prelate had prepared for himself. Some persons, when they saw this, exclaimed, that if the papal supremacy were abolished, that of the word of God ought alone to be substituted. And, indeed, the true Reformation is not to be found in this first movement. HRSCV5 866.6

The second, which was essential to the renewal of the church, was represented by Cranmer, and consisted particularly in re-establishing the authority of holy Scripture. Wolsey did not fall alone, nor did Cranmer rise alone: each of these two men carried with him the systems he represented. The fabric of Roman traditions fell with the first; the foundations of the holy Scriptures were laid by the second; and yet, while we render all justice to the sincerity of the Cambridge doctor, we must not be blind to his weaknesses, his subserviency, and even a certain degree of negligence, which, by allowing parasitical plants to shoot up here and there, permitted them to spread over the living rock of God’s word. Not in this movement, then, was found the Reformation with all its energy and all its purity. HRSCV5 867.1

The third movement was represented by the martyrs. When the church takes a new life, it is fertilized by the blood of its confessors; and being continually exposed to corruption, it has constant need to be purified by suffering. Not in the palaces of Henry VIII, nor even in the councils where the question of throwing off the papal supremacy was discussed, must we look for the true children of the Reformation; we must go to the Tower of London, to the Lollards’ towers of St. Paul’s and of Lambeth, to the other prisons of England, to the bishops’ cellars, to the fetters, the stocks, the rack, and the stake. The godly men who invoked the sole intercession of Christ Jesus, the only head of his people, who wandered up and down, deprived of everything, gagged, scoffed at, scourged, and tortured, and who, in the midst of all their tribulations, preserved their Christian patience, and turned, like their Master, the eyes of their faith towards Jerusalem:—these were the disciples of the Reformation in England. The purest church is the church under the cross. HRSCV5 867.2

The father of this church in England was not Henry VIII. When the king cast into prison or gave to the flames men like Hitton, Bennet, Patmore, Petit, Bayfield, Bilney, and so many others, he was not “the father of the Reformation of England,” as some have so falsely asserted; he was its executioner. HRSCV5 867.3

The church of England was foredoomed to be, in its renovation, a church of martyrs; and the true father of this church is our Father which is in heaven. HRSCV5 867.4

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This is the only known magnetic media copy of the classic History of the Reformation by J. H. Merle D’Aubigne (London translation dated 1846) quoted so often by Ellen White supplied by Ray B. Pitts University of Georgia Experimental Satation Griffin, GA 30223 (404) 228 7306 published on CD by The Adventist Pioneer Library P.O Box 1844 Loma Linda, California, U.S.A. HRSCV5 867.5

Originally in five volumes, this history of the Protestant Reformation still finds ready acceptance. As a popular work on the Reformation, it has had immense circulation in several languages. HRSCV5 867.6

D’Aubigne’s description of the prominent events and personalities of the Reformation is marked by a lively style of writing, a certain picturesqueness, and powerful word painting. It captures the heartbeats of the Reformation. Characters such as Erasmus, Luther, Melanchthon, Farel, Calvin, Tetzel, and Eck spring to life. Their personality traits and their roles in the drama of the Reformation are captured in lively detail. HRSCV5 867.7

Jean Henri Merle d’Aubigne (1794-1872) was born in Geneva of French Protestant refugees and studied in Geneva, Leipzig, and Berlin. His brilliant career included a first pastorate in a French congregation in Hamburg, a stint as court preacher in Brussels, and a professorship in the theological school of the Evangelical Society of Geneva. Although he taught a variety of subjects, his primary interest and first love was church history, especially that of the Protestant Reformation. The first volume of his magnum opus appeared in 1835, the last in 1853. HRSCV5 867.8

(from cover of Baker Book House reprint) HRSCV5 867.9