Albert Frederick Pollard

“ Henry’s egotism was profound, and personal motives underlay his public action. While political and ecclesiastical conditions made the breach with Rome possible—and in the view of most Englishmen desirable—Henry VIII. was led to adopt the policy by private considerations. He worked for the good of the state because he thought his interests were bound up with those of the nation; and it was the real coincidence of this private and public point of view that made it possible for so selfish a man to achieve so much for his country. ”

“ He frankly disbelieved in toleration; “that state,” he said, “could never be in safety where there was a toleration of two religions. For there is no enmity so great as that for religion; and therefore they that differ in the service of their God can never agree in the service of their country.” ”

“ There was nothing heroic about Cecil or his policy; it involved a callous attitude towards struggling Protestants abroad. Huguenots and Dutch Were aided just enough to keep them going in the struggles which warded danger off from England’s shores. But Cecil never developed that passionate aversion from decided measures which became a second nature to his mistress. His intervention in Scotland in 1559–1560 showed that he could strike on occasion; and his action over the execution of Mary, queen of Scots, proved that he was willing to take responsibility from which Elizabeth shrank. ”

“ With Cromwell’s help he secured parliamentary support, and its usefulness led him to extend parliamentary representation to Wales and Calais, to defend the privileges of Parliament, and to yield rather than forfeit its confidence. He had little difficulty in securing the Acts of Annates, Appeals and Supremacy which completed the separation from Rome, or the dissolution of the monasteries which, by transferring enormous wealth from the church to the crown, really, in Cecil’s opinion, ensured the reformation. ”

“ Mary Stuart was ignored as being under Scottish, Catholic and French influence; the duchess of Suffolk, Lady Jane’s mother, was excluded because she was married, and the duke her husband might claim the crown matrimonial. In fact, all females were excluded, except Jane, on the ground that no woman could reign; even she was excluded in the first draft, and the crown was left to “the Lady Jane’s heirs male.” But this draft was manipulated so as to read “the Lady Jane and her heirs male.” That Edward himself was responsible for these delirious provisions is improbable. ”

“ It was necessary for the future development of England that its governmental system should be centralized and unified, that the authority of the monarchy should be more firmly extended over Wales and the western and northern borders, and that the still existing feudal franchises should be crushed; and these objects were worth the price paid in the methods of the Star Chamber and of the Councils of the North and of Wales. Henry’s work on the navy requires no apology ”

“ His judgment was more at fault when he conquered Boulogne and sought by violence to bring Scotland into union with England. But at least Henry appreciated the necessity of union within the British Isles; and his work in Ireland relaid the foundations of English rule. No less important was his development of the parliamentary system. Representation was extended to Wales, Cheshire, Berwick and Calais; and parliamentary authority was enhanced, largely that it might deal with the church, until men began to complain of this new parliamentary infallibility. ”

“ The king was the emblem, the focus and the bond of national unity; and to preserve it men were ready to put up with vagaries which to other ages seem intolerable. Henry could thus behead ministers and divorce wives with comparative impunity, because the individual appeared to be of little importance compared with the state. ”

“ His industry, his remarkable political insight, his lack of scruple, and his combined strength of will and subtlety of intellect enabled him to utilize all the forces which tended at that time towards strong government throughout western Europe. In Michelet’s words, “le nouveau Messie est le roi”; and the monarchy alone seemed capable of guiding the state through the social and political anarchy which threatened all nations in their transition from medieval to modern organization. ”

“ Laymen who had resented their exclusion from power were now promoted to offices such as those of lord chancellor and lord privy seal which they had rarely held before; and parliament was encouraged to propound lay grievances against the church. On the support of the laity Henry relied to abolish papal jurisdiction and reduce clerical privilege and property in England; and by a close alliance with Francis I. he insured himself against the enmity of Charles V. But it was only gradually that the breach was completed with Rome. ”

“ Ireland had been left by Wolsey to wallow in its own disorder; but disorder was anathema to Henry’s mind, and in 1535 Sir William Skeffington was sent to apply English methods and artillery to the government of Ireland. Sir Anthony St Leger continued his policy from 1540; Henry, instead of being merely lord of Ireland dependent on the pope, was made by an Irish act of parliament king, and supreme head of the Irish church. ”

“ Margaret Beaufort had been passed over in favour of her son in 1485, and there was a popular impression that women were excluded from the throne. No candidate living could have secured the succession without a recurrence of civil war. Moreover the unexampled fatality which had attended Henry’s issue revived the theological scruples which had always existed about the marriage; and the breach with Charles V. in 1527 provoked a renewal of the design of 1514. ”

“ BILNEY, THOMAS (d. 1531) , English martyr, was born at or near Norwich. The exact date of his birth is uncertain, but at all events it was not before 1495. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating LL.B. and taking holy orders in 1519. Finding no satisfaction in the mechanical system of the schoolmen, he turned his attention to the edition of the New Testament published by Erasmus in 1516. ”

“ Their numbers swelled the privy council and sadly impaired its efficiency; but Mary resisted the various attempts to get rid of them because she liked staunch friends, and regarded them as a salutary check upon the abler but less scrupulous members who had served Edward VI. as well as herself. Englefield sat as M.P. for Berkshire in all Mary’s parliaments except that of April 1554, but received no higher political office than the lucrative mastership of the court of wards. ”

“ When it met in 1523 it refused Wolsey’s demands, and forced loans were the result which increased the cardinal’s unpopularity. Nor did success abroad now blunt the edge of domestic discontent. His fate, however, was sealed by his failure to obtain a divorce for Henry from the papal court. The king’s hopes of male issue had been disappointed, and by 1526 it was fairly certain that Henry could have no male heir to the throne while Catherine remained his wife. There was Mary, but no queen regnant had yet ruled in England ”

“ The outward trappings of his system were merely Anabaptist; but he anticipated a good many later speculations, and his followers were accused of asserting that all things were ruled by nature and not directly by God, of denying the dogma of the Trinity, and repudiating infant baptism. ”

“ The Scriptures now became his chief study, and his influence led other young Cambridge men to think along the same lines. Among his friends were Matthew Parker, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and Hugh Latimer. Latimer, previously a strenuous conservative, was completely won over, and a warm friendship sprang up between him and Bilney. “By his confession,” said Latimer, “I learned more than in twenty years before.” In 1525 Bilney obtained a licence to preach throughout the diocese of Ely. ”

“ In 1548 he is described as the protector’s master of requests, which apparently means that he was clerk or registrar of the court of requests which the protector, possibly at Latimer’s instigation, illegally set up in Somerset House “to hear poor men’s complaints.” He also seems to have acted as private secretary to the protector, and was in some danger at the time of the protector’s fall (October 1549) . ”

“ He denounced saint and relic worship, together with pilgrimages to Walsingham and Canterbury, and refused to accept the mediation of the saints. The diocesan authorities raised no objection, for, despite his reforming views in these directions, he was to the last perfectly orthodox on the power of the pope, the sacrifice of the mass, the doctrine of transubstantiation and the authority of the church. ”

“ They held that no man should be put to death for his opinions, and apparently, like the later Quakers, they objected to the carrying of arms and to anything like an oath; and they were quite impartial in their repudiation of all other churches and sects, including Brownists and Barrowists.
Nicholas’s principal disciple in England was one Christopher Vitel, and towards 1579 the progress of the sect especially in the eastern counties provoked literary attacks, proclamations and parliamentary bills. ”

“ He was an ardent believer in persecution, was present at Hooper’s trial, sought Ascham’s ruin, and naturally lost his office and his seat on the privy council at Elizabeth’s succession. He retired to the continent before May 1559, and from that time until his death was an active participant in all schemes for the restoration of Roman Catholicism. ”

“ Of personal incident, apart from his mission to Scotland in 1560, there is little. He represented Lincolnshire in the parliament of 1559, and Northamptonshire in that of 1563, and he took an active part in the proceedings of the House of Commons until his elevation to the peerage ”