ENGLAND. (ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.) 



21 



unlawful, and that men ought not to be restricted to 

 a prescribed form of prayer. All these opinions of 

 Wicklift" were condemned at Rome, as might be 

 expected, and positive orders were sent to England to 

 stop the progress of Wickliffism. But the reformer, 

 supported by the powerful protection of John, duke 

 of Lancaster, though his books were burned, and him- 

 self deprived of his professorship, got leave to end 

 his days in peace, at his rectory of Lutterworth. He 

 wrote about two hundred volumes, all of which were 

 called in, condemned, and ordered to be burned, 

 together with his bones, by the council of Constance, 

 in 1 425, nearly forty -one years after his death. But 

 his doctrine remained ; and his disciples, called Lol- 

 lards, a nickname, as Mosheim observes, generally 

 affixed to pious persons in these times, by their 

 adversaries, as Pietist, Puritan, and Methodist in after 

 times, increased after his death ; although several 

 sanguinary laws were passed against them, by several 

 successive parliaments ; and many, at different 

 intervals, were committed to the flames. 



The pillars of papal despotism were shaken in 

 England by an unexpected event,;namely, the wrath of 

 Henry VIII. against the pope, for refusing to sanction 

 a divorce between him and his queen. Educated in all 

 the superstitions of an idolatrous communion, and 

 possessed of more literature than most of the princes 

 in his day, Henry employed his royal pen to arrest, if 

 possible, the progress of the Saxon reformer. This 

 performance, lauded by a servile priesthood, and pre- 

 sented to his holiness, received the papal benediction ; 

 and Henry, in reward of his pious attempt, was dig- 

 nified with the title of defender of the faith. Cardi- 

 nal Wolsey, his favourite, was invested by the pope 

 with legatine authority, which, combined with the 

 absolute disposal of all ecclesiastical benefices within 

 the gift of the crown, and a visitorial power over all 

 clergy, colleges, and monasteries, exempt or not 

 exempt, rendered him the existing sovereign of the 

 English church ; and, therefore, from such a monarch 

 as Henry, and such a minister as Wolsey, neither a 

 reformation of religion, nor a separation from Rome, 

 could be expected. But what human wisdom could 

 not foresee, and what human power could not effect, 

 was accomplished by Him who has the hearts of 

 monarchs in his hands. Henry, whether from a disgust 

 he had taken at his queen, with whom he had cohabit- 

 ed nearly twenty years, or whether from scruples of 

 conscience about his supposed incestuous connexion, 

 because he had married his brother's wife, and the 

 aspersions of illegitimacy cast upon his daughter by 

 some foreign princes, separated from his wife's bed, and 

 applied to the pope for a divorce. This circumstance 

 perplexed the pontiff, who, from fear of offending the 

 emperor, Charles V., nephew to Henry's hated spouse, 

 was compelled to steer a middle course, and keep 

 the matter as long as possible in suspense. But 

 Henry, impatient of delay, and irritated at the pro- 

 crastinating conduct of pope Clement, appealed to 

 the principal continental universities, and desired 

 their opinions upon the two following queries, viz., 

 first, Whether it was agreeable to the law of God for 

 a man to marry his brother's wife ? and, secondly, 

 Whether the pope could dispense with the law of 

 jGod ? From all the universities of Europe, and most 

 of the continental literati, whether Lutherans or Pa- 

 pists, those of Rome excepted, he received an answer 

 congenial to his wishes, which was afterwards con- 

 firmed by parliament, and the clergy in convocation 

 assembled. This happy expedient was suggested 

 by the famous Cranmer, a secret friend and convert 

 to the opinions of Luther ; and eased the real or 

 pretended scruples of the monarch. Catharine was, 

 accordingly, divorced from the royal bed ; and Anne 

 Boleyn, a friend to the Reformation, was publicly 



married to Henry, and the succession to the crown 

 settled upon the heirs of her body by act of parlia- 

 ment, in spite of all the remonstrances of the pope. 

 Wolsey being suspected of insincerity in the affair of 

 the divorce, was disgraced, and stript of all his 

 wealth and power. The clergy shared in the fall of 

 their lord ; and Henry revenged himself on the pope, 

 by a proclamation, forbidding all spiritual and eccle- 

 siastical commerce with Rome, and declaring his 

 resolution to annex the supremacy of the English 

 church to himself. However startled the clergy 

 were at this unusual stretch of power, they were yet 

 glad ultimately to submit to Henry's mercy ; as, by 

 their owning Wolsey's legatine authority, they had 

 become guuty of a breach of statute, it being con- 

 trary to an express law of Richard II. to procure 

 bulls from Rome for legatine power. This pardon 

 they could not obtain, but by acknowledging the 

 king as sole and supreme head of the English 

 church, next to, and immediately under, Christ ; so 

 that, in fact, the churcli of England merely changed 

 heads, and Henry was the new pope. Thus, while 

 the pretended successor of St Peter stood trifling 

 about a contested marriage, he lost all his revenues 

 and authority in England in one day, and from that 

 hour to this, the royal supremacy has continued as a 

 fundamental article of the Episcopal church. 



Henry, by his profuse expenditure, had dissipated 

 all his treasures, and nothing, therefore, could have 

 happened so opportunely for replenishing his ex- 

 hausted funds, as his breach with the pope, and his 

 arbitrary assumption of ecclesiastical supremacy. In 

 virtue of it, he seized all the first-fruits and tenths 

 of the church livings, which formerly belonged to 

 his holiness, and converted them to his own use, 

 and compelled the two provinces of Canterbury and 

 York to pay into his exchequer 11 8,840, avast 

 sum in these days. He also appointed Cromwell, 

 his vicar-general, to employ commissaries to visit 

 the monasteries, and examine their morals, but 

 especially their wealth. The result of this inspec- 

 tion was, as might have been expected, unfavourable 

 to the monks. The relics, so long a fruitful source 

 of revenue, were exposed and destroyed. The 

 images of a great many pretended saints were taken 

 down, and publicly burned, and all the rich offerings 

 at their shrines were seized. The visitors having 

 declared the impossibility of reforming the vices of 

 the monks, the dissolution of all monasteries, under 

 200 a year, was passed by act of parliament, in 

 1536, and given to the crown ; 376 monasteries were 

 thus suppressed, whose landed property produced 

 .32,000 yearly rent ; and whose personal property 

 yielded above 100,000 sterling. All the religious 

 monks, thus turned out of their cells, and who 

 amounted to 10,000 persons, had forty-five shillings 

 each given them, and every governor got a small 

 pension. But, to ease the crown of this expense, 

 the monks and friars were inducted into benefices as 

 fast as they became vacant ; which proved prejudi- 

 cial to the church, as, by these means, the bulk of the 

 lower clergy were disguised papists and secret ene- 

 mies to the reformation. In two years afterwards, 

 all the monasteries were suppressed, and 605 great 

 abbeys, together with 90 colleges, and 110 hospi- 

 tals, for the relief of the poor, were dissolved by 

 one act. Under pretence of regulating the duties of 

 the clergy, many of the bishops were compelled to sur- 

 render the landed property of their sees into the hands 

 of the new pontiff; who, out of tender concern for their 

 morals, judged that poverty was the best way to pre- 

 serve their purity. No fewer than seventy manors 

 were taken from the archbishopric of York, and 

 other dioceses suffered in proportion. All the mon- 

 asteries in Ireland, and the knights of St John of 



