between come quasi-pope of England that he might reform the CHAP clergy, turn some useless monasteries into useful bishoprics, colleges, and schools, revive learning, and Contrast make the Church more efficient and more suited for Wolsey its work in the coming order of things. Henry and Henry VIII. made himself quasi-pope of England that he might lay his grasping hand upon the property of the Church, and have his own will-no matter whither it tended-in the control of all its concerns. VIII. failed But, looking from the highest ground, and remembering that there is a Divine Providence to assist and to restrain the actions of men, we cannot fail to ask the question, Why, if Wolsey had such excellent objects in view, why was it that he failed? It has been so, often, before and since. The better man fails in doing the good he seeks to do in the better way the worse man steps in and does it to a partial extent in a worse way. There are secret springs concealing the machinery of events which the historian cannot always touch; and that machinery must often still lie hidden. But Wolsey's failure- Wolsey so far as it was a failure-is to be partly explained through by the fact that he tried to work out his good ends using Papal authority by means of an external authority which essentially invaded the rights of the Church, instead of by the inherent authority which the Church of England and every other national Church possesses for reforming itself. There is some reason to believethe strongest of us are but weak,-that he saw the better way and chose the worse. He was only Archbishop of York, and the northern Archbishops have little constitutional power. It was simply impossible, so it must have seemed, to attempt a reformation of the Church when possessed of so have suc he been more pa tient CHAP little general authority: and so he sought to be, and became legate a latere, the Pope's Vicar in England, wielding, as others had done before him, an authority which he had no just right to wield, because, on no principle of ecclesiastical justice had He might the Pope any right to confer it. Had Wolsey ceeded had known better how to wait, he might have carried out his plans to their full extent by means of an authority which had just claims upon the obedience of the Church and people. He chose instead to attempt the attainment of the same good and noble ends by means of an authority delegated to him by the Pope; consequently his plans broke down, a great opportunity was lost, and the Reformation never became in the hands of others what it had given fair promise of becoming in those of the most honest, the noblest, and the wisest of our Church reformers. CHAPTER III THE DIVORCE OF HENRY VIII. FROM CATHERINE OF ARRAGON [A.D. 1527-1533] THE the Courts of England and Rome, and HE great and engrossing subject of discussion CHAP indeed, throughout every rank of English society also, from the year 1528 to the year 1533, was the divorce of Henry VIII. from Catherine of Arragon, the first of his six wires. It was in connection with this unhappy scandal that steps were taken by the King on the one hand, and the Pope on the other, which led to the final repudiation of the papal jurisdiction by the Church and State of England. The narrative of all the events connected with this divorce must ever, therefore, form an important chapter of reformation history, and must necessarily be set forth at considerable length. The marriage of Henry and Catherine had been originally arranged purely as a matter of political expediency; and, apparently, without any regard whatever to the wishes of either of the persons prinpally concerned. Even the measure of happiness which attended it for the first few years was more than could be expected from the circumstances of the III CHAP case; and both the King and the Queen must be considered as victims of a statecraft which seems to have had no better motive than avarice to plead in its favour on one hand and convenience on the other. Catherine's to Prince Arthur Catherine of Arragon was the fourth daughter of marriage Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, or, according to their proper style, of Castile and Arragon. She was born in 1483, and at the age of eighteen was sent into England to become the wife of Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII., who was three years her junior, having been born on September 20, 1486. This youth of fifteen was married to the Spanish Princess at St. Paul's Cathedral, on November 14, 1501, and he died in a little more than three months afterwards, on April 2, 1502, being even then seven months under sixteen years Iler state. of age. In later years Catherine asserted that this ment as to was a marriage only in form, for that she and Arthur mation had never become husband and wife in the full sense of the word. This she declared in the most solemn terms, and in the presence of the King, whose silence appeared to give assent to her declaration. On the other hand, there were those who deposed that Prince Arthur had given reason to believe the contrary, and Henry himself writes, in his "Glass of Truth," that he was not called Prince for "a month and more" after his brother's death, because Catherine had an expectation that there might be a posthumous son born to her deceased boy-husband. its consum The amount of Catherine's dower (about £40,000 1 West, Bishop of Ely, stated before the Legates, in 1529, that the Queen had often sub testimonio conscientiæ suæ, said this to him. 2 This book was probably writ ten in 1527, and shown to the Pope in March 1528. The Queen's distinct asseveration to the contrary of the statement contained in it was publicly made in 1529. III Henry op Warham of the money of that day), and the advantages at- CHAP tending a family alliance with Ferdinand and Isabella, induced Henry VII. to look forward to a marriage between his widowed daughter-in-law and his younger son Henry, who was under eleven years of age at the time of Arthur's death, and was, therefore, eight years younger than Catherine. Such a marriage Her marbeing within the forbidden degrees, there was much riage with discussion as to its lawfulness or expediency under posed by any circumstances whatever; and Archbishop Warham boldly set himself at the head of those who protested altogether against its taking place. It was decided in the end that the Pope could grant a dispensation even for the marriage of a brother and sister-in-law. This dispensation was applied for, and reluctantly given by Julius II., in a Brief dated but December 26, 1503. There can be very little doubt by Pope that the Pope acted thus for political reasons, hop- Julius II. ing to strengthen his hands for the wars in which he had resolved to engage; and that he legalised a marriage which would have been disapproved of by almost all the best divines of the period. Submission to this highest form of a Pope's judicial utterances being then, however, the rule of the Church, Warham and the opposing party which he headed, gave way. The betrothal was solemnised at once, but Henry being only twelve years of age, the marriage itself was not celebrated. 3 mitted Henry VII. Yet although he had gone so far, Henry VII. Change of seems afterwards to have changed his mind about mind of the marriage either by Warham's persuasions, or, most strange to say, because he had formed an intention of himself marrying his own daughter-inlaw, an intention of which there is historical evidence. 8 Herbert's Hen. VIII., p. 271. |
