Actes and Monuments

by John Foxe

Historical Account of the Progress of the Reformation in the Reign of King Henry VIII

The reader will, doubtless, attend to the transactions recorded in this reign with peculiar interest. It was at this period that God, through the instrumentality of the king, liberated our happy country from the papal yoke, when England became an independent as well as protestant kingdom, and the ascendance of the papal power over this island was preparing to be scattered to the four winds, never more to be able to recover its settlement in a region so adverse to its character and claims.

The wars between the houses of York and Lancaster had produced such fatal revolutions, and cast England into such frequent convulsions, that the nation with great joy hailed the accession of Henry VII. to the throne, who being himself descended from the house of Lancaster, by his marriage with the heiress of the house of York, freed them from the fear of any more wars by new pretenders. But the covetousness of his temper, the severity of his ministers, his ill conduct in the matter of Britagne, and his jealousy of the house York, made him so generally odious to his people, that his life was little respected, and his death as little lamented. Henry VIII. succeeded, with all the advantages he could have desired. His disgracing Empson and Dudley, the cruel ministers of his father's designs for filling his coffers, his appointing restitution to be made of the sums that had been unjustly exacted of the people under covert of the king's prerogative, made the nation conclude they should hereafter live secure, under the protection of such a prince, and that the violent remedies of parliamentary judgments should be no more necessary, except as in this case, to confirm what had been done before in the ordinary courts of justice.

Either from the magnificence of his own temper, or the observation he had made of the ill effects of his father's parsimony, the new king distributed his rewards and largesses with an unmeasured bounty; so that he quickly exhausted the two millions which his father had treasured up, and emptied a coffer which he had left the fullest in christendom: but till the ill effects of this appeared, it raised in his court and subjects the greatest hopes possible of a prince, whose first actions shewed an equal mixture of justice and generosity.

The king had been educated with more than ordinary care: learning being then in its dawning, after a night of long and gross ignorance, his father had given orders that both his elder brother and he should be well instructed; not with any design to make him archbishop of Canterbury, for he had made small progress in theological and ecclesiastical lore, when his brother prince Arthur died, being then but eleven years old. The learning then most in credit among clergy was the scholastic divinity, which, by a shew of subtlety, recommended itself to curious persons; and being very suitable to a vain and contentious temper, agreed best with Henry's disposition. Further, being likely to draw the most flattery, it became the chief subject of his studies, in which he grew not only to be eminent for a prince, but he might really have passed for a learned man had his quality been never so mean. He delighted in the purity of the Latin tongue, understood philosophy, and was so great a master in music that he composed better than many professors of the art. He was a bountiful patron to all learned men, more particularly to Erasmus and Polydore Virgil, and delighted much in those returns which hungry scholars make to liberal princes; for he loved flattery our of measure, and he had enough of it to have surfeited a man of any modesty; for all the world, both at home and abroad, contended who should exceed most indecently in setting out his praises. The clergy carried it; for as he had merited most at their hands, both by espousing the interests of the papacy, and by his entering the lists with Luther, so those that hoped to be advanced by these arts, were as little ashamed in magnifying him out of measure, as he was in receiving their gross commendations.

One of the most conspicuous men of this, or perhaps of any other age, was Cardinal Wolsey. He was of mean extraction, but possessed great parts, and had a wonderful dexterity in insinuating himself into men's favours. He had but a little time been introduced to the king before he obtained an entire ascendancy over him, and the direction of all his affairs, and for fifteen years continued to be the most absolute favourite ever known in England. He saw the king was much set on his pleasures, and had a great aversion to business, and the other counsellors being unwilling to bear the load of affairs, were unwelcome to him, by pressing the king to govern by his own counsels; but he knew the methods of favourites better, and so was not only easy, but assistant to the king in his pleasures, and undertook to free him from the trouble of government, and to give him leisure to follow his appetites. This was the chief cause of that unbounded influence which Wolsey so soon acquired over a sovereign quite as ambitious as himself. The accidental circumstance of another and baser passion predominating in the king's heart over pure ambition, gave the crafty Wolsey an opening, which he did not for a moment neglect, of entering on a career which in different directions gratified equally both minister and monarch.

Wolsey soon became master of all the offices at home and treaties abroad, so that all affairs went as he directed them. He it seems became soon obnoxious to parliaments, and therefore tried but one during his ministry, where the supply was granted so scantily, that afterwards he chose rather to raise money by loans and benevolences, than by the free gift of the people in parliament. He in time became so scandalous for his ill life, that he grew to be a disgrace to his profession; for he not only served the king, but also shared with him in his pleasures, and became a prey to distempers of a sensual life. He was first made bishop of Tournay in Flanders, then of Lincoln, after that he was promoted to the see of York, and had both the abbey of St. Albans and the bishopric of Bath and Wells in commendam; the last he afterwards exchanged for Durham, and upon Fox's death, he quitted Durham that he might take Winchester; and besides all this, the king by a special grant, gave him power to dispose of all the ecclesiastical preferments in England; so that in effect he was the pope of this reforming country, as was said anciently of an archbishop of Canterbury, and no doubt but he copied skillfully enough those patterns that were set him at Rome. Being made a cardinal, and setting up a legatine court, he found it fit for his ambition to have the great seal likewise, that there might be no clashing between those two jurisdictions. He had, in one word, all the qualities necessary for a great minister, and all the vices common to a great favourite.

The manner of promotion to bishoprics and abbeys was then the same that had taken place ever since the investitures by the ring and staff were taken out of the hands of princes. Upon a vacancy the king seized on all the temporalities, and granted a licence for an election, with a special recommendation of the person; which being returned, the royal assent was given, and it was sent to Rome, that bulls might be issued, and then the bishop elect was consecrated: after that he came to the king and renounced every clause in the bulls that was contrary to the king's prerogative, or to the law, and swore fealty; and then were the temporalities restored. Nor could bulls be sued out at Rome without a licence under the great seal; so that the kings of England had reserved the power to themselves of promoting to ecclesiastical benefices, notwithstanding all the invasions the popes had made on their temporal authority.

The immunity of churchmen for crimes committed by them, till they were first degraded by the spirituality, occasioned the only contest that occurred in the beginning of this reign between the secular and ecclesiastical courts. Henry VIII. had passed a law, that convicted clerks should be burnt in the hand. A temporary law was also made in the beginning of his reign, that murderers and robbers, not being bishops, priests, nor deacons, should be denied the benefit of the clergy: but this was to last only to the next parliament, and so being not continued by it, the act determined. The abbot of Winchelsea preached severely against it, as being contrary to the laws of God, and the liberties of the holy church, and said that all who assented to it had fallen under ecclesiastical censure. Afterwards he published a book to prove that all clerks, even of the lower orders, were sacred, and could not be judged by the temporal courts. This being done in parliament, the temporal lords and the commons addressed the king, desiring him to repress the insolence of the clergy. Accordingly a public hearing was appointed before his majesty and all the judges. Dr. Standish, a Franciscan, argued against the immunity, and proved that the judging clerks had in all times been practised in England; and that it was necessary for the peace and safety of mankind that all criminals should be punished. The abbot argued on the other side and said, it was contrary to a decree of the church, and was a sin in itself. Standish answered, that all decrees were not observed: for notwithstanding the decree for residence, bishops did not reside at their cathedrals. And since no decree was binding till it was received, this concerning immunity, which was never received in England, did not bind. After they had fully argued the matter, the laity were of opinion that the friar had the best of the argument; and therefore moved the king that the bishops might be ordered to make him preach a recantation sermon. But they refused to do it, and said they were bound by their oaths to maintain his opinion. Standish was upon this much hated by the clergy, but the matter was allowed to fall; yet the clergy carried the point, for the law was not continued.

Not long after this, an accident occurred that drew great consequences after it. Richard Hunne, a merchant in London, was sued by his parish priest for a mortuary in the legate's court; on this, his friends advised him to sue the priest in the temporal court for a premunire for bringing the king's subjects before a foreign and illegal bar. This incensed the clergy so much that they contrived his destruction. Accordingly, hearing that he had Wickliffe's Bible in his house, he was upon that put into the bishop's prison for heresy; but being examined upon sundry articles, he confessed some things, and submitted himself to mercy. On this they ought, according to the law, to have enjoined him penance and discharged him, it being his first crime: but he could not be prevailed on to let his suit fall in the temporal court; so one night his neck was broken with an iron chain, and he was wounded in other parts of his body, and then knit up in his own girdle, and it was given out that he had hanged himself; but the coroner's inquest by examining the body, and by several other evidences, particularly by the confession of the sumner, gave their verdict, that he was murdered by the bishop's chancellor, Dr. Horsey, the sumner, and the bell-ringer. The spiritual court proceeded against the dead body, and charged Hunne with all the heresy in Wickliffe's preface to the Bible, because that was found in his possession: thus he was condemned as a heretic, and his body was burnt.

The indignation of the people was raised to the highest pitch against this action, in which they implicated the whole body of the clergy, whom they esteemed no longer their pastors, but barbarous murderers. The rage went so high that the bishop of London complained he was not safe in his own house. The bishops, the chancellor, and the sumner were indicted as principals in the murder. In parliament an act passed restoring Hunne's children; but the commons sent up a bill concerning his murder, which, however, was laid aside by the lords, where the clergy were the majority. The clergy looked on the opposition that Standish had made in the point of their immunities, as that which gave the rise to Hunne's first suit; and the convocation cited him to answer for his conduct; but he claimed the king's protection, since he had done nothing, but only pleaded in the king's name. The clergy pretended they did not prosecute him for his pleading, but for some of his divinity lectures, contrary to the liberty of the church, which the king was bound to maintain by his coronation oath: but the temporal lords, the judges, and commons, prayed the king also to maintain the laws according to his coronation oath, and to give Standish his protection. The king upon this being in great perplexity, required Veysy, afterwards of bishop of Exeter, to declare upon his conscience and allegiance the truth in that matter. His opinion was against the immunity; so another public hearing being appointed, Standish was accused for teaching; that the inferior orders were not sacred; that their exemption was not founded on a divine right, but that the laity might punish them; that the canons of the church did not bind till they were received; and that the study of the canon law was useless. Of these opinions he denied some, and justified others. Veysy being required to give his opinion, alleged; that the laws of the church did only oblige where they were received; as the law of the celibate of the clergy, received in the West, did not bind the Greek churches that never received it, so the exemption of the clerks not being received did not bind in England. The judges gave their opinion next, which was; that those who prosecuted Standish were all in a praemunire. So the court broke up. But in another hearing, in the presence of the greatest part of both houses of parliament, the cardinal said in the name of the clergy; that though they intended to do nothing against the king's prerogative, yet the trying of clerks seemed to be contrary to the liberty of the church, which they were bound by their oaths to maintain. So they prayed that the matter might be referred to the pope.

The king said, that he thought Standish had answered them fully: the bishop of Winchester replied he would not stand to his opinion at his peril. Standish upon that asked, "What can one poor friar do against all the clergy of England?" The archbishop of Canterbury answered, "Some of the fathers of the church have suffered martyrdom upon that account;" but the chief-justice replied, "Many holy kings have maintained that law, and many holy bishops have obeyed it." In conclusion, the king declared, that he would maintain his rights, and would not submit them to the decrees of the church, otherwise than as his ancestors had done. Horsey was appointed to be brought to his trial for Hunne's murder, and upon his pleading not guilty, no evidence was to be brought, and so he was to be discharged. The discontent of the people greatly increased at this, and very much disposed them to all that was done afterwards, for pulling down the ecclesiastical tyranny in this country, and dissolving the establishment by which it was chiefly sustained.

This was the first disturbance in this king's reign, till the suit for his divorce commenced. In all other points he was constantly in the pope's interests, who sent him the common compliments of roses, and such other trifles, by which that see had treated princes so long as children. But no compliment wrought so much on the king's vanity, as the title of "Defender of the Faith," sent him by pope Leo upon the book which he wrote against Luther concerning the sacraments.

Continued: Historical Account of the Progress of the Reformation in the Reign of King Henry VIII