the Schmalkaldic League offered to place him at its head, and even to alter, if possible, the Augsburg Confession so as to make it a common basis of union for all the elements of opposition to Rome, Henry was well inclined to obtain the political advantages of the position tendered him, but hesitated to accept it until all doctrinal questions should be settled. The three points on which the Germans insisted were the communion in both elements, the worship in the vulgar tongue, and the marriage of the clergy. In the Convocation of that year a series of questions was submitted for decision embracing the contested points, and the clergy decided in favour of celibacy, private masses, and communion in one element.1 Thus sustained, Henry was firm, and the ambassadors of the League spent two months in conferences with the English bishops and doctors without result. On their departure (5 August, 1538), they addressed him a letter arguing the subjects in debate the refusal of the cup, private masses, and sacerdotal celibacy-to which Henry replied at some length, defending his position on these topics with no little skill and dexterity, and refusing his assent finally." The reformers, however, did not yet despair, and the royal preachers even ventured occasionally to debate the propriety of clerical marriage freely before him in their sermons, but in vain. An epistle which Melanchthon addressed to him in April 1539, arguing the same questions again, had no better effect."

3

In the spring of 1539 Henry renewed negotiations with the German princes, and his envoys, in soliciting another visit from deputies of the League, held out some vague promises of his yielding on the point of celibacy. The

1 Strype's Eccles. Memor. I. 320.

2 Burnet I. 254-55; Collect. 332, 347.

> Nothing has yet been settled concerning the marriage of the clergy, although some persons have very freely preached before the king upon the subject."-John Butler to Conrad Pellican (Froude, III. 381).

• Burnet, Collect. I. 329.

Germans in turn, to show their earnest desire for union with England, submitted a series of propositions in which they suggested that the marriage of priests might be left to the discretion of the Pope, and that if it were to be prohibited only persons advanced in life should be ordained.1 Both parties, however, were too firmly set in their opinions for accord to be possible. Notwithstanding any seeming hesitation caused by the policy of the moment, Henry's mind was fully made up, and the consequences of endeavouring to persuade him against his prejudices soon became apparent. Even while the negotiations were in progress he had issued a series of injunctions degrading from the priesthood all married clergy, and threatening with imprisonment and his displeasure all who should thereafter marry. Argumentation confirmed his opinions, and he proceeded to enforce them on his subjects in his own savage manner, " for though on all other points he had set up the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession," yet on these he had committed himself as a controversialist, and the worst passions of polemical authorship—the true "odium theologicum "-acting through his irresponsible despotism, rendered him the cruellest of persecutors.

But a few weeks after receiving the letter of Melanchthon, he answered it in cruel fashion.

In May a new Parliament met, chosen under great excitement, for the people were inflamed on the subject of religion, and animosities ran high. The principal object of the session was known to be a settlement of the national Church, and as the reformers were in a minority against the court, the temper of the Houses was not likely to be encouraging for them. On May 5, a week after its

3

1 Strype's Eccles. Memor. I. 339, 343.

2 Ibid. 344.-Wilkins III. 847.

3 Yet the moderate party ventured to submit to Parliament "A Device for extirpating Heresies among the People," among the suggestions of which was a bill for abolishing ecclesiastical celibacy, legalising all existing marriages, and permitting

assembling, a committee was appointed, at the King's request, to take into consideration the differences of religious opinion, On the 16th, the Duke of Norfolk, who was not a member of the committee, reported that no agreement could be arrived at, and he therefore laid before the House of Lords, for full discussion, articles embracing — 1. Transubstantiation; 2. Communion in both kinds; 3. Vows of Chastity; 4. Private Masses; 5. Sacerdotal Marriages; and 6. Auricular Confession. Cranmer opposed them stoutly, arguing against them for three days, and especially endeavouring to controvert the third and fifth, which enjoined celibacy, but his efforts and those of his friends were vain, when pitted against the known wishes of the King, who himself took an active part in the debate, and argued in favour of the articles with much vigour. Under such circumstances, the adoption of the Six Articles was a foregone conclusion. On May 30 the Chancellor reported that the House had agreed upon them, and that it was the King's pleasure "that some penal statute should be enacted to compel all his subjects who were in any way dissenters or contradicters of these articles to obey them." The framing of such a bill was entrusted to two committees, one under the lead of Cranmer, the other under that of the Archbishop of York, and they were instructed to lay their respective plans before the King within forty-eight hours. Of course the report of the Archbishop of York was adopted. Introduced on June 7, Cranmer again resisted it gallantly, but it passed both Houses by the 14th, and received the royal assent on the 28th. It was entitled An Act for abolishing Diversity of Opinions in certain Articles concerning Christian Religion," and it stands as a monument of the cruel legislation of a barbarous age.

the clergy in general "to have wives and work for their living "-Rolls House MS. (Froude, III. 381.)

The Third Article was "that Priests after the order of Priesthood might not marry by the Law of God"; the Fourth, "that Vows of Chastity ought to be observed by the Law of God," and those who obstinately preached or disputed against them were adjudged felons, to suffer death without benefit of clergy. Any opposition, either in word or writing, subjected the offender to imprisonment during the King's pleasure, and a repetition of the offence constituted a felony, to be expiated with the life of the culprit. Priestly marriages were declared void, and a priest persisting in living with his wife was to be executed as a felon. Concubinage was punishable with deprivation of benefice and property, and imprisonment, for a first offence; a second lapse was visited with a felon's death, while in all cases the wife or concubine shared the fate of her partner in guilt, Quarterly sessions were provided, to be held by the bishops and other commissioners appointed by the King, for the purpose of enforcing these laws, and the accused were entitled to trial by jury. Vows of chastity were only binding on those who had taken them of their own free will when over twenty-one years of age. According to the Act, the wives of priests were to be put away by

1 Burnet, I. 258-9.-31 Henry VIII. c. xiv. Mr. Froude endeavours to relieve Henry of the responsibility of this measure, and quotes Melanchthon to show that its cruelty is attributable to Gardiner (Hist. Engl. III. 395). He admits, however, that the bill as passed differs but slightly from that presented by the king himself, with whom the committee which framed it must have acted in concert. According to Strype, "The Parliament men said little against this bill, but seemed all unanimous for it; neither did the Lord Chancellor Audley, no, nor the Lord Privy Seal, Cromwel, speak against it: the reason being, no question, because they saw the king so resolved upon it. Nay, at the very same time it passed, he (Cranmer) stayed and protested against it, though the king desired him to go out, since he could not consent to it. Worcester (Latimer) also, as well as Sarum (Shaxton), was committed to prison; and he, as well as the other, resigned up his bishopric upon the act.”(Memorials of Cranmer, Book 1. Chap. 19.) This shows us how the royal influence was used. Cranmer, indeed, in his reply to the Devonshire rebels, when in 1549 they demanded the restoration of the Six Articles, expressly asserts "that if the king's majesty himself had not come personally into the Parliament house, those lawes had never passed" (Ibid. App. No. XL.).

...

2 31 Henry VIII. c. 6 (Parl. Hist. I. 536-40).

June 24, but on that day, as the Act was not yet signed, an order was mercifully made extending the time to July 12.1

Cranmer argued, reasonably enough, that it was a great hardship, in the case of the ejected monks, to insist on the observance of the vow of chastity, when those of poverty and obedience were dispensed with, and when the unfortunates had been forcibly deprived of all the advantages, safeguards, and protection of monastic life. The matter, however, was not decided by reason, but by the whimsical perversity of a self-opinionated man, who unfortunately had the power to condense his polemical notions in the blood of his subjects.

To comprehend the full iniquity of this savage measure, we must remember the rapid progress which the new opinions had been making in England for twenty years; the tacit encouragement given them by the suppression of the religious houses, and by the influence of the King's confidential advisers; and the hopes naturally excited by Henry's quarrel with Rome and negotiations with the League of Schmalkalden. In spite, therefore, of the comparatively mild punishments hitherto imposed on priestly marriage, which were no doubt practically almost obsolete, such unions may safely be assumed as numerous. Even Cranmer himself, the primate of Henry's Church,

1 Parl. Hist. I. 540.

There is a story current that soon after the passage of the Act, the Duke of Norfolk, who had had so much to do with it, on meeting a former chaplain of his named Lawney, jocularly said to him, "Oh, my Lawney" (knowing him of old much to favour priests' matrimony), "whether may priests now have wives or no?" "If it please your grace," replied he, "I cannot well tell whether priests may have wives or no, but well I wot, and am sure of it, for all your Act, that wives will have priests."Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, book i. chap. viii.

Dr. London chronicles the troubles of this class. "I perceyve many of the other sortt, monkes and chanons, whiche be yonge lustie men, allways fatt fedde, lyving in ydelnes and at rest, be sore perplexide that now being prestes they may nott retorn and marye" (Suppression of Monasteries, p. 215).

Nicander Nucius asserts that many did marry openly-ἄλλους δὲ γυναῖκας ἐννόμως συνεύνους εἰσαγομένους ” (op. cit. p. 71).

VOL. II.

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