1538. CHAP. Pole had now contracted an intimate friendship with XXXI 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 connections, 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 this insidious invitation; and was determined to remain 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 1 Herbert. XXXI. 1538. suspected of having aspired to the crown, by means CHAP. 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 associates.1 1538. CHAP. XXXII. Disputation with Lambert-A parliament-Law of the six articles-Proclamations made equal to laws-Settlement of the succession-King's projects of marriage-He marries Anne of Cleves-He dislikes her-4 parliament-Fall of Cromwel-His execution-King's divorce from Anne of Cleves-His marriage with Catherine Howard-State of affairs in Scotland-Discovery of the queen's dissolute life-A parliament-Ecclesiastical affairs. CHAP. THE rough hand of Henry seemed well adapted XXXII. 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. XXXII. Cranmer took advantage of every opportunity to CHAP. carry him on in this course; and while queen Jane lived, who favoured the reformers, he had, by 1598. 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 enemy to the court of Rome, was determined to sacrifice every thing to present interest, and had joined the confederacy of Gardiner, and the partisans of the old religion. Gardiner himself, it was believed, had secretly en, tered 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 1538. CHAP. of superstition over common sense, her triumph is XXXII. 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 connections with the Roman pontiff, to maintain in this essential article the purity of the catholic faith. Disputation with There was one Lambert,' a schoolmaster in Lambert. London, who had been questioned and confined for unsound 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 corporeal 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 |