view, but as soon as the King and Anne Boleyn had CHAP made up their minds as to the course to be pursued for the attainment of their wish, the former sought A.D. 1527 the advice of his chief minister as to the best means of bringing about the intended divorce. Wolsey Wolsey re resolutely declined to give any individual opinion or fuses to de advice, and recommended the King to give him his the legalauthority "to ask counsel of men of ancient study, King's and famous learning, both in the divine and civil marriage laws;" and thus we pass from the more domestic to the political and national aspect of the divorce. The first step was taken by summoning some of the bishops to Westminster that they might hold a consultation on the subject. This was done by the you, as our Lord knoweth; to whom I beseech thee to send you long life, with continuance in honour. Written with the hand of her that is most bound to be "Your humble and obedient servant, ANNE BOLEYN." A third is in Fiddes' Wolsey, Collect. p. 256, as follows: "My Lord after my most humble recommendations this shall be to give unto your Grace as I am most bound my humble thanks for the great pain and travail that your Grace doth take in studying by your wisdom and great diligence how to bring to pass honourably the greatest wealth that is possible to come to any creature living and in especial remembering how wretched and unworthy I am in comparing to his Highness. And for you I do know myself never to have deserved by my deserts that you should take this great pain for ine yet daily of your goodness I do perceive by all my friends and though that I had not knowledge by them the daily proof of your deeds doth declare your words and writing toward me to be true. Now good my Lord your discretion "ANNE BOLEYN." cide as to ity of the a learned assembly it CHAP Cardinal under his authority as legate, and CavenIII dish says that all the bishops who were learned in A.D. 1527 divinity or in the civil law were required to attend the council.2 "Then was the matter of the King's case Summons debated, reasoned, argued, and consulted of from day to day, and time to time," from which it appears to discuss that there was a prolonged deliberation: and it also appears to have been in some degree a public discussion, for he adds "that it was to the learned a goodly hearing." The King is stated by Foxe and Lord Herbert to have said in the following year that "all the clerks of his kingdom, except two, had lately declared for him," and also produced before the legatine court an instrument in his favour, signed and sealed by all the bishops (of which mention will be made hereafter); but he must have referred to some other assembly than that summoned by Wolsey. For Cavendish, who is also the authority for what the King said before the legates, declares that no decision was, on this occasion, arrived at. "In the conclusion, as it seemed to me and other, the ancient fathers of both the laws, by my small estimation at their departure, departed with one judgement contrary to the principal expectation. I heard then the opinion of some of the most famous persons among But no decision given 2 In an early Life of Archbishop Cranmer, of which the MS. [Harl., 417, fol. 90] was used by Foxe, it is said that when the King's doubts arose, he "sent for six of the best learned men of Cambridge, and six of Oxford, to debate this question, whether it were lawful for one brother to marry his brother's wife, being known of his brother; of the which twelve doctors Cranmer was appointed for one, but because be was not then at Cambridge there was another chosen in his stead: which twelve learned men agreed fully, with one consent, that it was lawful, with the Pope's dispensation, so to do" [Nichol's Narratives of the Reformation, p. 219]. This may have been done before the Bishops were called together, for it is plain that the decision would lead the King to seek for other counsel. 3 Herbert's Hen. VIII., 245. Foxe, i. 49, Cattley's Ed. II[ that sort report that the King's case was too obscure CHAP for any learned man to discuss, the points thereof were so doubtful to have any true understanding or A.D. 1527 intelligence. And therefore they departed without any resolution or judgement." This seems to show that the King called one assembly after another until he obtained opinions favourable to his wishes. ties Cavendish goes on to state (but not now as of his King preown knowledge as one present) that this assembly of Consult Bishops recommended the King to take the opinions universiof all the universities in Christendom, and that commissions were at once drawn up for the purpose of doing so. Cranmer ble The usual story is that this plan was suggested by Story of Cranmer in the year 1529, but although this story improba comes to us on the authority of Cranmer's secretary, Ralph Morice, it was not written down by him until many years later, and he does not say, as he does of some of his anecdotes, that he had it from the Archbishop himself. It is certain that this important suggestion was made to the King in the year 1527, as the following letter, written in that year, will show: 4 This story is "dressed up," after his fashion, by Foxe, who winds it up with a coarse expression of the King's, to the effect that if he had known this device two years before he could have saved much money, and rid himself of much disquietness. But it is quite clear that the King did know of this device two years before 1529, from the letter of Wakefield, if not from the advice of the bishops. The original narrative of Morice is still in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge [MS. 128, f. 405], and is printed in Nichol's Narratives of the Refor mation, p. 240. Foxe's romancing The writer of it was at the time CHAP III Wake course 130 OPINIONS OF UNIVERSITIES TO BE TAKEN "Please it your Grace, I, as your true and faithful subject, will, and can defend your cause or question in all the univerA.D. 1527 sities in Christendom against all men, by good and sufficient authority of the Scripture of God, and the words of the best field's early learned and most excellent authors of the interpreters of the suggestion of such a Hebrews, and the Holy Doctors, both Greeks and Latins, in Christ's faith: Humbly beseeching your Grace to keep the thing secret from all persons living, both man and woman, unto such time as I shall show unto you the time of publication thereof, or else Master Paice, signifying unto your Highness that it shall make much for the furtherance of your cause, and that otherwise I neither will nor can do anything therein, for if the people should know that I, which began to defend the Queen's cause, not knowing that she was carnally known of Prince Arthur, your brother, should now write against it, surely I should be stoned of them to death, or else have such a slander and obloquy raised upon me that I had rather to die a thousand times or suffer it. I have and will, in such manner, answer to the Bishop of Rochester's book that I trust he shall be ashamed to wade or meddle any further in the matter. The thing which I am making will be ingens volumen, and I shall take no rest till I have brought it, by the grace of God, who always helpeth the truth, to a good and perfect end. I have showed somewhat of my book to Master Paice, and I trust he will confirm the same unto your Grace. No more to your Highness at this time, but Jesu preserve you. From Syon this present morning, "By your Graces Faithful "Subject and Scholar, "R. WAKFELDE." Whether Wakefield or the bishops first suggested this course to the King, it may be considered as certain that the idea of consulting the English and foreign universities was entertained two years earlier gate. On the following day, Pace ferring to the divorce, and dated 1527. They are also printed in Knight's Life of Erasmus, App. p. xxviii.; and by Le Grand, iii. 1. CHAP than has commonly been stated, although not im- III mediately acted upon. And when it is remembered A.D. 1527 that the object in view was that of repudiating the authority of a papal bull, which was looked upon as the highest possible expression of the Pope's authority, the delay in taking so decided a step will not seem very surprising. hesitates But the King's applications to the learned men of The King his realm, and especially to those of Oxford and Cambridge, had been anything but encouraging, and he seems to have then thought (though his mind changed afterwards) that there was no probability of getting such support from those or any other universities as would be a sufficient justification for his setting aside the dispensation of Julius II., and acting as if his marriage with Catherine was null and void ab initio. He therefore resolved to seek the Pope's and comco-operation, and request the same authority which with the had declared the marriage lawful with one stroke of Pope the pen to declare it unlawful with another. The time seemed propitious for such an application on quod Regina fratris sui uterini Lord Herbert states that Wol- municates |
