disciple, Sir Thomas More, is the best example of this frame of mind in England's worthiest men, the besetting weakness of which made the English Reformation a struggle whose vicissitudes can scarce be said to have even yet reached their final development. Before Luther had raised the standard of revolt, More keenly appreciated the derelictions of the Church, and allowed his wit to satirise its vices with a freedom which showed the scantiest respect for the sanctity claimed by its hierarchy.1 Yet when Luther came with his heresies to sweep away all abuses, More's gentle and tender spirit was roused to a vulgarity of vituperation which earned for him a distinguished place among the foul-mouthed polemics of the time, and which is absolutely unfit for translation. As regards ascetic observances, before the folly—but this heresy of theirs is not so pestilential and pernicious to us and the people as the vicious and depraved lives of the clergy”—and he urges the prelates to revive the ancient canons, the enforcement of which would purify the Church. (See. bohm's Oxford Reformers of 1498, p. 170. London, 1867.) The title of this work seems to me a misnomer. Neither Colet nor Erasmus had the aggressive spirit of martyrdom which was essential to the character of a reformer in those fierce times. They could deplore existing evils, but lacked all practical boldness in applying remedies, and their influence is only to be traced in the minds which they unwittingly trained to do work from which they themselves shrank. 1 Thus in his Epigrams he ridicules the bishops as a class: And he addresses a parish priest: T. Mori Opp. p. 249. Francofurti, 1689. "Quid faciant fugiantve tui, quo cernere possint, See also his epigrams, "In Posthumum Episcopum," "In Episcopum illiteratum,” "De Nautis ejicientibus Monachum," etc. 2 Responsio ad Lutherum, passim: "Pater frater, potator Lutherus," seems to be a favourite expression, but is mild in comparison with others-"novum inferorum Deum," "Satanista Lutherus," "pediculoso fraterculo." Luther's friends are "nebulonum, potatorum, scortatorum, sicariorum, senatum," and More winds up his theological argument with-" furiosum fraterculum et latrinarium nebulonem Lutheran movement More seems to have inclined towards condemning all practices that were not in accordance with human nature, though he appears willing to admit that there may be some special sanctity, though not wisdom, in conquering nature. After the commencement of the Reformation, however, his views underwent a reaction, and he not only defended monastic vows, but he even went so far as to argue that by the recent marriages of the Saxon reformers God had manifested his signal displeasure, for in the old law true priests could be joined only to the chastest virgins, while God permitted these false pastors to take to wife none but public strumpets. If he accused Luther of sweeping away the venerable traditions of man and of God," he showed how conscientious was this rigid conservatism when he laid his head upon the block in testimony for the principal creation and bulwark of tradition-the papal supremacy. 2 A community thus halting between an acute perception of existing evils and a resolute determination not to cum suis furiis et furoribus, cum suis merdis et stercoribus cacantem cacatumque relinquere." Luther was himself a master in theological abuse, but More's admiring biographer, Stapleton, boasts that the German was appalled at the superior vigour of the Englishman, and for the first time in his life he declined further controversy—“magis mutus factus est quam piscis." (Stapletoni Vit. T. Mori, cap. iv.) As More, however, published the tract under the name of William Rosse, an Englishman who had recently died in Rome, Luther's reticence is more easily to be accounted for. 1 In one passage More describes his Utopians as considering virtue to consist in living according to nature. 'Nempe virtutem definiunt, secundum naturam vivere : ad id siquidem a Deo institutos esse nos. . . . Vitam ergo jucundam, inquiunt, id est voluptatem, tanquam operationum omnium finem, ipsa nobis natura præscribit: ex cujus præscripto vivere, virtutem definiunt" (Utopia Lib. II. Tit. de Peregrinatione). In another passage, however, he describes two sects or heresies, the one consisting of men who abstained from marriage and the use of flesh, the other of those who devoted themselves to labour, marrying as a duty and indulging in food to increase their strength, and says of them, "Hos Utopiani prudentiores, at illos sanctiores reputant " (Ibid. Tit. de Religionibus). 2 Respons. ad Lutherum Perorat. It should be borne in mind that this was written after his friend Erasmus had publicly given in his adhesion to marriage as the only remedy for sacerdotal corruption. 3 Ibid. Lib. I. cap. iv. remove them was exactly in the temper to render the great movement of the sixteenth century as disastrous to themselves as possible. How to meet the inevitable under such conditions was a problem which might well tax the acutest intellect, and Wolsey, whose fate it was to undertake the task, seems to have been inspired with more than his customary audacious ingenuity in seeking the solution. Wolsey himself was no ascetic, as the popular inscription over the door of his palace-"Domus meretricium Domini Cardinalis "--sufficiently attests. A visitation of the religious houses undertaken in 1511 by Archbishop Warham had revealed all the old iniquities, without calling forth any remedy beyond an admonition. In 1518, Wolsey himself had attempted a systematic reformation in his diocese of York, and had revived the ancient canons punishing concubinage among his priesthood; and in 1519 we find him applying to Leo X. for a bull conferring special power to correct the enormities of the clergy." When, in 1523, he proposed a general visitation for the reformation of the ecclesiastical body, Fox, Bishop of Winchester, urged it as in the highest degree necessary, stating that he himself had for three years been devoting all his energies to restore discipline in his diocese, and that his efforts had been so utterly fruitless that he had abandoned all hope of any change for the better. Cranmer, indeed, in his "Confutation of Unwritten Verities," did not hesitate to say that "within my memory, which is above thirty years, and also by the information of others that be twenty years elder than I, I could never perceive or learn that any one priest, under the Pope's kingdom, 1 Froude's England, ch. x. 2 Wilkins III. 669, 678. 3 Card. Eboracens. Epist. v. (Martene Ampliss. Collect. III. 1289). 4 Strype's Eccles. Memorials, T. I. App. p. 19. VOL. II. F was ever punished for advoutry by his ordinary." It may readily be believed, therefore, that Wolsey fully recognised the utter inefficiency of the worn-out weapons of discipline. Yet he was too shrewd a statesman not to foresee that reformation from within or from without must come, and, in taking the initiative, he commenced by quietly and indirectly attacking the monastic orders. As a munificent patron of letters, it was natural that he should emulate Merton and Wykeham in founding a college at Oxford; and "Cardinal's College," now Christ Church, became the lever with which to topple over the vast monastic system of England. "2 The development of the plan was characteristically insidious. By a bull of 3 April, 1524 (confirmed by Henry, May 10), Clement VII. authorised him to suppress the priory of St. Frediswood at Oxford, and to remove the monks, for the purpose of converting it into a " Collegium Clericorum Seculorum.' This was followed by a bull, dated August 21 of the same year, empowering him as legate to make inquisition and reformation in all religious houses throughout the kingdom, to incarcerate and punish the inmates, and to deprive them of their property and privileges, all grants or charters to the contrary notwithstanding. The real purport of this extraordinary commission is shown by the speedy issue of yet another bull, dated September 11, conceding to him the confiscation of monasteries to the amount of 3000 ducats annual rental, for the endowment of his college, and alleging as a reason for the measure that many establishments had not more than five or six inmates." 3 1 Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, Bk. II. ch. v. 2 Rymer's Foedera, XIV. 15. 3 Wilkins III. 704.-Bishop Burnet says that Wolsey's design in procuring this bull was to suppress all monasteries, but that he was persuaded to abandon his purpose on account of opposition and dread of scandals.-Hist. Reform. Vol. I. p. 20 Ed. 1679). 4 Rymer, XIV. 24.-Confirmed by the King, January 7, 1525 (Ibid. p. 32). The affair was now fully in train, and proceeded with accelerating momentum. On 3 July, 1525, Henry confirmed the incorporation of the college; his letters-patent of 1 May, 1526, enumerate eighteen monasteries suppressed for its benefit, while other letters of May 10 grant seventyone churches or rectories for its support, and yet other grants are alluded to as made in letters which have not been preserved.1 In 1528 these were followed by various other donations of religious houses and manors, and during the same year Wolsey founded another Cardinal's College at Ipswich, which became a fresh source of absorption." Had Henry VIII. entertained any preconceived design of suppressing the religious houses, his impatient temper would scarcely have allowed him to remain so long a witness of this spoliation without taking his share and carrying the matter out with his accustomed boldness and disregard of consequences. At length, however, he claimed his portion, and procured from Clement a bull, dated 2 November, 1528, conceding to him, for the benefit of the old foundations of the King's Colleges at Cambridge and Windsor, the suppression of monasteries to the annual value of 8000 ducats. This was followed by another, a few days later, empowering Wolsey and Campeggio, co-legates in the affair of Queen Katharine's divorce, to unite to other monasteries all those containing less than twelve inmates-thus authorising the suppression of the latter, of which the number was very large. Another bull of the same date (November 12) attacked the larger abbeys, which had thus far escaped. It ordered 1 Rymer XIV. pp. 156-6, 172–5. 3 2 Ibid. pp. 240–44, 250-58. See a letter of the English Ambassadors at Rome to Wolsey, describing a conference on this subject with the Pope, wherein he freely acknowledged the propriety of destroying those houses which were nothing but a "scandalum religionis."-Strype, Eccles. Memorials, I. App. 58. 3 Rymer, XIV. pp. 270-1. 4 Ibid. 272-3. |