But among all other, as soon as the pope was taken? the cardinal wrote unto the emperor that he should make him pope. And when he had got an answer that pleased him not, according unto his deservings toward the emperor, then he waxed furious mad, and sought all means to displease the [3 Polydore Vergil, in reference to the circumstance, says: Quamvis re vera princeps illa, mulier optima, noluerit quicquam audire de nuptiis, que nuptive non possent conjungi sine miserabili Catharinze casu.’—p. 1735. It is well known that Margaret was favourable to the reformation.]
[4 Grafton says, The 22d day of July [1527] the cardinal departed out of Calice, and with him was the lord Cutberd Tunstall, bishop of London, Sir Thomas More, &c.’—p. 1151.]
[5 The treaty which the cardinal made with Francis is given in Rymer.]
[6 Day had omitted all the previous part of this chapter; and begins this paragraph as follows; But at that time the pope, taking part with the French king, had war with the emperor; and at the last the pope was taken, &c.’ The text of Day then proceeds in agreement with that of the first, or Marburg edition, to the close of the next - paragraph, with which Day finishes the chapter.] ol
emperor!, and imagined this? divorcement between the king and the queen, and wrote sharply unto the emperor with menacing letters, that if he would not make him pope, he would make such ruffling between christian princes as was not this hundred year, to make the emperor repent: yea, though it should cost the whole realm of England.
The Lord Jesus be our shield! What a fierce wrath of God is this upon us, that a misshapen monster should spring out of a dunghill into such a height that, the dread of God and man laid apart, he should be so malapert, not only to defy utterly the majesty of so mighty an emperor, whose authority both Christ and all his apostles obeyed, and taught all other to obey, threatening damnation to all them that of would not; but should also set so little by the whole realm οὗ England, which hath bestowed so great cost and shed so much blood to exalt and maintain such proud, churlish, and unthankful hypocrites, that he should not care to destroy it utterly for the satisfying of his villainous lusts.
The emperor sent forth a little book in print, both in Spanish and also in Dutch, in which he answereth unto the eardinal’s menacing, and unto many articles that the cardinal layeth against him, and among all other repeateth this threatening of the cardinal Ye will (saith the emperor) to do me displeasure, if I will not make you pope, set such a ruffling among christian princes as was not this hundred year, though it should cost you the whole realm of England.’ Whereunto the emperor answereth, saying, Ye go about to give your king another wife, which if you do, it may be the next way to cost you the realm of England. And I believe verily, that the prophecy of this caitiff Caiaphas, the cardinal, through the mischief that he hath wrought for the diyorcement of the marriage, shall be fulfilled, and that it will cost the whole realm of England, if it be not seen to betimes. By what means, I will shew you after that I have spoken a word or two of this divorcement.: [! See Sh. Turner, Hist. Hen. VIII. ch. xx. Vol. m. p. 150—1.] ὁ [2 So M. ed., but D. has the.]
Of the divorcement
If the king’s most noble grace will needs have another wife, then let him search the laws of God, whether it be lawful or not; forasmuch as he himself is baptized to keep the laws of God, and hath proposed them and hath sworn them. If the law of God suffer it, then let his grace put forth a little treatise in print, and even in the English tongue, that all men may see it, for his excuse and the defence of his deed, and say, Lo, by the authority of God’s word do I this’ And then let not his grace be afraid either of the emperor, or of his lords, or of his commons and subjects: ~ for God hath promised to keep them that keep his laws. If we care to keep his laws, he will care for the keeping of us, for the truth of his promises. If it be found unlawful, then let his grace fear God, and cease to shame himself and his blood, his lords, his subjects, and his realm, and specially the blessed name of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and his holy doctrine, and the profession of our faith: for whosoever professeth the faith of Christ, and liveth contrary unto his doctrine, shameth the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Moreover whatsoever God coupled, man may not loose, no, though he name himself pope. — Wherefore, if this marriage be of God, the pope cannot dispense with it: for God hath given no power against himself; but to preach his ordinances only hath he given power. Therefore if we will see what is right and what is wrong, let us bring it unto the light of God’s law, and let us submit our causes unto the judgment thereof, and be content to have our appetites slain thereby, that we lust no farther than God’s ordinance giveth us liberty. For verily to desire more than God permitteth, is to tempt God, and to provoke wrath and indignation upon us, unto our destruction, as the children of Israel did under Moses, and perished: whose froward deeds are warning for us (saith Paul, 1 Cor. x.) that we, feared with the terrible ensample of their fall, should abstain from like wickednesses.
The controversy and strife of the matter, and all the doubt and difficulty, standeth in this, that Moses in the xviiith of Leviticus saith, “Thou shalt not unhele? the secrets of thy brother’s wife, for they are thy brother’s secrets.” Which is as
[[ Unhele, i. e. uncover.] 21—2]
much to say as, thou shalt not take thy brother’s wife. And ἴῃ the xxvth of Deuteronomy he saith, “That if a man die with- out issue, his brother must marry his wife.” Which two texts seem contrary, the one forbidding, the other commanding, a man to take his brother’s wife. Wherefore, that we may come unto the true sense and clear meaning of these two texts, and that we may perceive also the ground of the reason that may be made by both parties by the occasion of these texts, and — see which reasons do conclude, ye shall understand that the — law of Moses is divided into three parts. Part of his laws — — are ceremonies, that is to say, signs that put men in remem- — brance either of the benefits of God done already, as the Easter lamb; either signs of the promise and appointment made between God and man, as circumcision; or signs that testify unto the people that the wrath of God is peaced, and their sins forgiven, as all manner sacrifices: which all ceased as soon as Christ had offered up the sacrifice of his body and — blood for us; and instead of them come the open preaching of Christ, and our signs which we call sacraments. of Another sort are laws of penalty or punishment to avenge —— sin, if it break out and hurt a man’s neighbour, as tooth for tooth, eye for eye, and that the blood-shedder must have his blood shed again, and the breaker of wedlock must be stoned: which laws were given unto the Jews only, and we heathen or Gentiles are not bound unto them, that we should punish every sin after the same manner; but it is enough that every land punish their trespassers as it seemeth best for the commonwealth there, some of one manner and some of another. 2 Another part pertain unto faith and love; and that a man believe how that there is but one God, and that he is true, good and merciful in all things; and therefore ought to be believed, trusted and loved with all a man’s heart, soul, mind and strength; and that a man love his neighbour as himself, for God’s sake, which hath created him and made him. And this is the law of nature, and pertaineth unto all nations in- — differently, with all that dependeth or followeth thereof. This law was also before Moses; insomuch that though Moses had never written it, yet had the Jews been no less bound thereto by nature and by natural right and equity. For whosoever is of God, the same consenteth unto this law, and unto all that followeth thereof naturally, when he heareth it preached;
as he consenteth that the fire is hot, when he putteth his finger in it.
Moreover, whosoever hath this law graven in his heart, this same keepeth all laws; and whosoever hath it not written in his heart, the same keepeth no law. For whosoever believeth that there is one God, and loveth him with all his heart, with all his soul, mind and strength, (which is the first of the ten commandments pertaining unto the person of God,) the same will worship nothing of his own imagination without God’s word; and then he can make none image to worship it: which is the second commandment pertaining unto the person of God, He cannot also, for very love sake, take the name of God in vain and swear by it unreverently: and so thou hast the third commandment pertaining unto the person of God. Furthermore, he that believeth God and hath his trust only in him, and loveth him as I said, cannot but keep his holy day, not after Moses’s fashion, but spiritually: that is, he cannot but observe a time to wait on God’s word, to hear it, and learn it, and to knowledge his sins to God, and to desire him of mercy, according to his promises and testament which he hath made with us: and so thou hast the fourth commandment pertaining unto the person of God. Last of all, he that so loveth God cannot disobey father and mother, in which two names are eontained all high powers; as grandfather, grandmother, aunt, uncle, king, lord, master, husband, and so forth, persons here in God’s stead, by which he made us, and by which he feedeth us, clotheth us, governeth us, teacheth and ruleth us, And thus thou hast the five commandments, which all pertain unto the person of God: for the obedience of father and mother, and of all high powers which rule the world in God’s stead, pertaineth unto the person of God, and must be done with love as unto God’s self.
Furthermore, he that loveth God hath this commandment also, that he love his brother or neighbour, in the fourth chapter of the first epistle of John. For how can a man love the father, and hate the son, whom the father loveth? Even so how canst thou love God the Creator, and hate that creature whom he hath created and made after his own likeness; and so loveth him, that he hath made him lord over all other creatures, and thereto hath given his own Son unto the death for his sake, to shew him kindness, that he might
see love, and to love again? How also can I love our Saviour — Jesus Christ, and hate him whom he hath bought with his — blood? Though the son be never so evil, yet if I love his father heartily, I cannot but be sorry that the son is evil, and. wish him good in mine heart, and help to the uttermost of my power to make him better, even for his father’s sake: until I — see him run so far that he go about to slay his father; which — thing if he do, then I resist him unto the uttermost of my power. Even so, though my neighbour be never so evil, yet — as long as I love God, and Christ our Saviour, with all mine heart, I cannot but love him, and help to better him with all — my power; until he run so far, that he beginneth to fight against God, and to destroy the law of God, and the testament that God hath made unto man: then I resist him with all my power, as God hath taught me to resist.
Now if I love my neighbour in God faithfully and unfeignedly, then I cannot find in my heart to slay him: neither to defile his wife: neither to steal his goods: nor to bear false witness against him: neither can mine heart covet his house, wife, man-servant or maid from him, -either ox, ass, or whatsoever is his. And thus hast thou other five of the ten commandments, pertaining all unto the person of thy neighbour. This is the law of nature, whose servants Moses and the prophets were, to teach it the Jews; and whose servant Christ our Saviour was, for our sakes, with his apostles, to teach it us. nd it is an everlasting law, and pertaineth indifferently to all nations, with all that hangeth thereof; insomuch that though a man be never taught it, yet if it be not found written in his heart, he is the heir of damnation.
Now they that study to make this divorcement between the king’s grace and the queen, will haply say, that the first text is a law depending of the law natural, (for, undoubted, it isno ceremony, nor yet law of penalty,) and therefore pertaineth unto all men indifferently, and ought to be kept of all nations; and that the second is a ceremony, and therefore ceaseth at — the coming of Christ. I answer: If it be a ceremony, then it is a sign, and must have a signification. It must signify some benefit of God done already, or some vengeance taken for sin, or some promise, or something that I must do or leave undone at the commandment of God. Now the signification of it they will shew me, when our lady hath a new son.
Moreover, there is no ceremony of Moses, but that I may keep it this day as an indifferent thing; howbeit, not as a thing so necessary unto my soul’s health, that I should think that I sinned if I did not. But I may eat the Easter lamb of passover every year, when the time cometh, if I will. And I may circumeise myself for my pleasure, as well as pare my nails, if I list. And I may burn the blood and fat of oxen and calves unto this day without sin, as an indifferent thing; and give this signification thereto, that as the fat consumeth in the fire, even so doth the sin of all men that repent consume in the hot fire of the love of God to us-ward in Christ Jesus the Lord; and so forth. If it be a ceremony, then, how happeneth it that this one ceremony is unlawful among all other?
Thereto, inasmuch as Moses in all his laws sought the glory of God and the pureness of his people, as he boasteth of himself, (Deut. iv.), saying, What nation hath ordinances and laws so righteous as all this law, which I set before you?” how cometh it that Moses was driven into so great a strait, that he would find nought to make a ceremony of, but that which of his own nature is damnable sin, and filthy among the heathen; which heathen made as just laws, out of the law natural graven in their hearts, as Moses did? Might not the heathen of good right say, “See what a filthy nation it is, they marry every one his brother’s wife, as hounds?” And so the law shamed the name of God, and honoured it not. If Moses gave his people two contrary commandments, then he was an indiscreet lawgiver, yea, and devilish thereto; for then I cannot but be damned whatsoever I do. If a man say that the first pertaineth unto us heathen, and the last unto the people of Israel, that soundeth not; for when all the other laws contained in the same chapter, and in all his books, pertained unto the same people, how should he, among so many belonging unto them, mingle one for us heathen only, to whom he was no lawgiver; and namely when he wist that one as wise as he should come and teach us, which is our Saviour Jesus Christ?
If a man will say, the first is a law, and the second a permission, as the permission of divorcements, when a man did hate his wife: nay, verily, it is not a permission, but a flat commandment, and that under pain of great shame and
rebuke unto the man, if he did it not, and under the loss of —— — “all her husband’s possession unto the woman, if she offered not herself. Of which law, also, because thou needest not to Ξ dream of a ceremony, a man may shew a good natural reason, profitable unto the commonwealth. For a woman, when she is married, she forsaketh her father’s kin, and bringeth her dowry with her, and taketh her name among her husband’s kin. Now if her husband die childless, it is not reason that she should be cast out of the kin empty, neither is it right that she should carry her husband’s possessions out of his kin away with her, and that a stranger should get a child of her, to possess them. Thou wilt say, that the lands might return unto the next of his kin, and the wife have a portion E her lifelong only. Then should great possessions come into the hands of one man, and so should there many tyrants rise among the people: which to avoid, God ordained that! the lands should be scattered ever among as many as might 3 be of the same kin; and for the same cause would suffer no man to buy any lands for ever. For God thinketh it better for his commonwealth, that twenty should spend twenty Τὸ. forty shillings apiece, than that one should spend twenty or forty pounds, and nineteen never ἃ whit: for then must many poor hang on one rich; which rich for the most part € be of corrupt minds, and so sensual that they will look on no man to do him good, except it will be on such as will - follow their lusts. And so should the people follow the will of man, and not of God; and be compelled to live wickedly, and to murder, steal, and oppress their brethren, to fill their 3 bellies withal. tT Moreover, it was a law in the time of the law natural, four hundred years before Moses, that a man should marry his brother’s wife, as thou seest Genesis xxxviii. Also, Moses forbiddeth not a man, when his wife is dead, to marry her sister. If one man may marry two sisters, why may not 3 one woman marry two brethren? Are not two sisters as T nigh of kin as two brethren? Wherefore I see no remedy, but that a man must understand the text thus: That Moses forbiddeth a man to take his brother’s wife as long as his brother liveth; as in the text following, when he forbiddeth a man to take his neighbour’s wife, he meaneth while his neighbour liveth; for
L: after his death it is lawful. And therefore John rebuked Herod for taking his brother’s wife from him, his brother being yet alive. Or at the uttermost, if they will strive and shew no cause why, it can extend no further than that a man may not take his brother’s wife, if he have issue by her; which I suppose an indifferent thing to have her or not, as they can agree: but if his brother die childless, then he ought to have her, and that she is bound to offer herself to the other brother, by the law of Moses; and that it is lawful now, though no commandment.
If it be understood of a man’s brother’s wife, he being alive, then haply ye will say that it is superfluously added of Moses; for it is included in that which followeth immediately, that a man shall not take his neighbour’s wife. Nay, verily: for it is another sin, and a more greater sin for a man to take his brother’s wife than his neighbour’s wife, that is no kin to him; because that my neighbour’s shame is not my shame. For let my neighbour be hanged, and no man casteth that in my teeth. But my brother’s shame is my shame, and the shame of my father and mother, and of all my kin. For let whatsoever rebuke bechance my brother, and it is cast in my teeth, and in the teeth of my father and mother, and of all my kin immediately. Wherefore, to be so forgetful of natural honesty, that I should defile my brother’s wife unto mine own shame and all my kin, is more grievous and heinous (as they say), and springeth of greater lewdness or malice, than to take my neighbour’s wife which is not of my kin. And this doth the xxth chapter of the said Leviticus prove, where Moses saith, If a man lie with his brother’s wife, they shall die immediately, and not tarry the birth: as Judah would have burnt Tamar, his daughter-inlaw, being yet great with child.
They will haply say also, that if it be to be understood of a man’s brother’s wife, while his brother liveth, then they will understand of the father’s and uncle’s wives also, while the father and uncle live. Nay, verily, it is far unlike. For my father’s wife and mine uncle’s wife are my superiors, and persons unto whom I owe obedience by the means of my father and uncle. Now if I should marry them, then I should make them my servants, (for the wife must obey her husband;) and so pervert I the law of nature and natural equity and
honesty. Ye wil say that when my father and uncle be dead, the obedience is loosed. Verily, it might well stand — with the pope’s doctrine; for he thrusteth kings down and emperors thereto, and exalteth their sworn subjects ἱπίο their rooms: he raketh one out of the dunghill on the one 1 day, and out of the most low and vile kind of subjection, a and maketh him on the morrow superior unto his own prince, — and to all the lords of his realm, in worldly pomp and dignity. But God teacheth his children to humble themselves; and Christ teacheth his disciples to come lower and lower. I 1 suppose, therefore, that à man ought much more to do them 1 service, and obey them, and to give them honour and reverence now after the deaths of their husbands, than before. ] Moreover, ye see that a man may not marry his daughter- i in-law after his son’s death, by the story of Judah. And again, ye see that David, after the death of his son Absalom, would not meddle with his own wives, which his son Absalom ἶ had before corrupt, but shut them up in perpetual widowhood. Now if the father, after the death of his son, abstain from her that was one flesh with his son, for natural reverence; j how much more ought the son, after the death of his father, to abstain from her that was one flesh with his father, to whom also, by the reason of his father, he oweth obedience E thereto!
Moreover, if a woman should find a man-child by the streets, and bring him in, and find him up of nought; I — would not by my will that she should after marry with him, for perverting of due obedience, which she should haply as unnaturally, even so shrewdly, give unto him again. If she Ι obeyed not, with what face should he correct her? If he - corrected her, what would she cast in his teeth, and what wondering would neighbours make? What reverence and — — service then suppose ye would nature (if we were not so cor-: rupt-minded) teach us to give unto the father’s and uncle’s wife? And to go through all the degrees that are forbidden: the mother, grandmother, aunts, father’s wife and uncle’s wife, are persons to be obeyed as God, with all reverence and service. The daughter and daughter’s daughter, and! son’s daughter, are a man’s wife’s flesh. The wife’s mother and grandmother are persons to be obeyed, besides that the 3
wife is your flesh. Now between a man and his wife’s sister, when she is dead, and his brother’s wife, when his brother is dead, is there no such cause as between these persons,
And concerning the maid-children, though they be under the obedience of their uncles; yet because, if any be married unto her uncle, she bideth in obedience still, therefore it is not utterly forbidden. And ensamples there be, that maidens have married unto their uncles: which thing yet I could not have drawn into a common use without necessity, or for a commonwealth.
And concerning the sister; she is of egal birth to her brother. It is to be feared, therefore, lest her obedience would be less to her brother than to a stranger. Then note “the grief of father and mother, if they agreed not. Moreover, if he were an unkind husband, then had she double sorrow; first, because he is unkind, and also because she hath lost the comfort of a brother. Then the familiar bringing up together. And beside all those and such like, there is yet another, (which I think the chiefest of all) that the sending out of daughters into another kin, and receiving again out of another kin, is the greatest cause of peace and unity that is in the world. And therefore the heathen people forbad that degree in the laws.
Nevertheless, the marriage of the brother with the sister is not so grievous against the law of nature (thinketh me) as the degrees above rehearsed. And therefore it seemeth me, that it might be dispensed with in certain cases, and for divers considerations. It would be hard to prove that Sarah was not Abraham’s sister, whom I think he married because there was none other faithful woman that believed in God. Moreover, the greatest cause to send the daughter out is unity and peace between divers kindreds.
Wherefore, if greater peace and unity might be made with keeping her at home, I durst dispense with it: as, if the king of England had a son by one wife, heir to England, and a daughter by another, heir to Wales; then, because of the great war that was ever wont to be between those two countries, I would not fear to marry them together, for the making of a perpetual unity, and to make both countries one, for to avoid so great effusion of blood. For which cause, I would God that our princess had been married unto the king
of Scots. And I doubt not but that had been concluded long ago, if it had been as greatly unto the profit of the pope and his pilpates, (I would say prelates,) as it were to the honour of God. But it is not profitable for them that any kingdom should be strong and mighty, lest, if God should open the eyes of the king, the pope should have too much ado t resist him, and to send in other kings upon him, to conquer his realm. I did my diligenee a long season, to know what reasons our holy prelates should make for their divorcement; but I could not come by them. I searched what might be said for - their part, but I could find no lawful cause of myself, by any scripture that I ever read: I communed with divers learned men of the matter, which also could tell me no other way than I have shewed. Then I considered the falsehood of our spiritualty, how that it is but their old practice, and a common custom; yea, and a sport to separate matrimony, for to make division where such marriage made unity and peace. Where- E! fore I could not but declare my mind, to discharge my con- 1 science withal; which thing I had done long since, if I could τ have brought it to pass. Howbeit, I had lever now do it at a the last, than that any man should east me in the teeth in ΓΙ time to come, when this old marriage were broken, and a new made, why I had not spoken rather!? Neither can the king’s 2 grace, or any other christian man, of right be discontent with me. For it is not possible that any person baptized in the heart with repentance of evil, and with faith of forgiveness in the blood of Christ, and stedfast purpose and profession of heart to walk henceforth after the steps of Christ, in the law E of God, should once desire or will to do aught openly, with long deliberation, that he would not have compared with the law of God, to see whether it were right or not. 2 Some man might haply say, that though a great man would be content to have his deeds compared unto the laws 2 of God, he would disdain yet to have so vile a wretch as I am T to dispute of them. 2 I answer, that it is not my fault, but God’s, which for the most part even chooseth of the vilest to confound the glorious; which not only clothed his Son with our vile nature, but made him also of the very lowest sort of man, even five hundred
That is, earlier.]
Steps beneath the degree of a cardinal, and sent him to rebuke the scribes and the Pharisees which sat on Moses’ seat, for their evil doing and false doctrine, beside the law of Moses, And the glorious scribes and the Pharisees, for all their holiness, rebuked not Herod; nor Caiphas and Annas, for all their highness; but vile John the Baptist. By what authority? Verily, by the authority of God’s word; which only, whatsoever garment she wear, ought to have all authority among them that have professed it. That word is the chiefest of the apostles, and pope, and Christ’s vicar, and head of the church, and the head of the general council. And unto the authority of that ought the children of God to hearken without respect of person; for they that are of God, hear God’s word. (John vi.) And Christ’s sheep hear Christ’s voice (John x.), yea, though he speak by a calf.
Ye will haply say, my reasons be not good. They may be the sooner solved, and shall thereto make the contrary part better, and set it out, and make it appear to all men’s sight, and stablish it; and so they shall do good every way.
By what means the divorcement should cost the realm
Now to that I promised, how that I would shew you by what means this marriage might cost the realm of England, according to Caiphas the cardinal’s blind prophecy. This is first as sure as the winter followeth the summer, that our prelates have utterly determined that this marriage that is between the king and the queen must be broken; and so is the princess disinherited, and the king of Scots next to the crown. And we may fortune to find one at home, which, because he is near hand, would look to step in before him; and it may chance thereto that another yet will look to come in, as soon as any of both: peradventure, the third born at home may make friends likewise; yea, and so forth. And then, while ye shed each other’s blood, our prelates will sit and laugh, and look upon you out of sanctuary; and when every man hath done his best, they will think to make them a defender, wheresoever shall please them best.
The king’s grace, will ye say, shall have another wife, and she shall bear him a prince, and he shall break strife. Who hath promised him a prince? Moreover, if his new marriage be not well proved, and go forth with good authority,
so shall we yet follow the princess still; or, if she be sent — another way, some other, whom we shall suppose more righteous inheritor: and so the new prince is like to go after Ὗ οι king Henry of Windsor’s prince, and king Edward’s children. 3 And I will tell you yet another sport. As soon as the cardinal had sent the emperor a defiance, and upon that defi- — — ance had arrested the emperor’s ships in England, and our ships and men were arrested also in all regions of the emperor; —— — then went the common fame throughout all Dutchland, that 1 the emperor’s council, Holland, Braband, and Zealand, had determined, if the war had proceeded, to have set up the king d of Denmark that was, to have challenged his right in England. 1 For the Danes challenge England, as we challenge France; and the king of Denmark writeth himself king of England, as f our king writeth himself king of England and France. And this is once: the old king of Denmark, with his son, a goodly 1 prince if he had lands, shall never come in Denmark again, of — any likelihood!, Wherefore, if ye fall together by the ears, may he not by some chance, if God be angry with you, make 1 an appointment with the king of Scots to come in upon you: on the one side, and make for his part what friends he can in Dutchland, and send unto the new king of Denmark, and give up his title for ever to get rid of him, so to come in on = the other side, and conquer you? And twenty other ways are ye like to come in danger; which I commit unto your own consideration.
The putting down of the cardinal?
And finally, concerning the cardinal’s putting down, I con- a gider many things: first, that I never heard or read that 2 any man, being so great a traitor, was so easily put to death: then the natural disposition and inclination of the man, how that his chief study, yea, and all his felicity and inward joy, hath ever been to exercise that angel’s wit of his’ (as my lord of Lincoln was wont to praise him) in driving of such drifts to μ
[1 Christiern IL, king of Denmark and Norway, and at the beginning “y]
[of his reign king of Sweden also, had lost all his kingdoms by disgusting]
[his subjects with his cruelty and treachery. He reigned over Denmark 3]
[from 1513 to 1523; when he was finally expelled, and superseded by]
[his uncle, Frederic duke of Sleswick.] [? Day’s edition resumes the Marburg text again with the words, 1]
[concerning the cardinals putting down.] E]
beguile all men, and to bind the whole world withal. Wherefore I can none otherwise judge by an hundred tokens, evident unto whomsoever hath a natural wit, but that this is also nothing save a cast? of his old practice; so that when God had wrapped him in his own wiles, that he wist not which way out, (for the emperor prevailed for all the cardinal’s treason, and the French children might not come home,) and he had learned also of his necromancy, this would be a jeopardous year for him, what for the treason that he had wrought against the emperor, and what for the money which he had borrowed of the commons, lest any rising should be against him, then he thought to undo his destiny with his policies, and went and put down himself under a colour (which the process - of the tragedy well declareth), and set up in his room, to minister forth, and to fight against God as he had begun, the chiefest of all his secretaries, one nothing inferior unto his master in lying, feigning, and bearing two faces in one hood; a whelp that goeth not out of kind from his sire; the chiefest tasle wherewith the cardinal caught the king’s grace, whom he called unto the confirmation of all that he intended to persuade, saying, If it like your grace, More is a learned man, and knoweth it, and is also a layman, wherefore he will not say otherwise than it is, for any partiality to us-ward: which secretary yet must first deserve it with writing against Martin, and against The Obedience,’ and Mammon,’ and become the proctor of purgatory, to write against ‘ The supplication of And then, to blind the world withal, many quarrels were picked: the cardinal might not speak with the king’s grace; the broad seal was fetched away; high treason was laid to his charge: first, that he had breathed (heard I say) in the king’s face, when he had the French pox: (O hypocrites!) but the very treason that he had wrought was not spoken of at all, nor ought worthy of a traitor done to him at all.
[ A calculated contrivance.]
[ Martin Luther.]
[5 A sarcastic attack on the mendicant friars, composed by Simon Fish. It may be seen in Foxe’s Acts aud Mon ] à idaibjet 6 The disgust e noticed in this paragraph was of T 6 in the e ern preferred against Wolsey in parliamentFiddes’ Life of Wolsey, App. of documents, pp. 215—23.]
Then they called a parliament (as though the golden world should come again) wherein the hypocrites, to blear men’s eyes withal, made a reformation of mortuaries, and probates of testaments; the root yet left behind, whence ail that they have for a time weeded out will spring again by little and little as before, if they, as their hope is, may stop - this light of God’s word that is now abroad. They made [ also a reformation of pluralities of benefices, ordaining that henceforth no man may come by plurality of benefices with ~~ virtue and cunning, but with serving for them in the court’. Ld Which what other thing is it save plain simony? Ὁ blind buzzards and shameless hypocrites! what care they to do, whether against God or their own laws, to flatter great men; withal and to blind them! But hark here: the tithes were = ordained, at the beginning, to find the preachers and the poor people, which now go a begging; so that the church- wardens ought to take the benefices into their hands in the — name of the parishens, and to deliver the preachers of God’s — word their dwelling and present a sufficient living, and divide IB the rest among the poor people. And the king is bound to — maintain that order, and not to resist them, except he will be ἰ an open tyrant. Now I appeal to the consciences of the king’s grace and of his lords. What answer will they give, sg when they come before Christ in the last judgment, for their ^ robbing of so many souls in so many parishes of God’s - word, with holding every man so many chaplains in their —— have. houses with pluralities of benefices, and for the robbing of so E many poor and needy of their due and daily food; whose D need, for lack of succour, crieth to God continually for vengeance against them, which we see daily, by a thousand mis- Im fortunes, fall on them and on their wives and children? Let them read Exodus and Deuteronomy, and see what they find E there. Yea, and what shall so many chaplains do? First —
[[! Cunning is here used for learning. Tyndale alludes to the E]
[statute 21 Henry VIII. c. 13, which had just been enacted, to abridge 1]
[Spiritual persons from having pluralities of livings;’ but its seeming i]
[stringency was rendered nugatory by the proviso in 28, which said,]
[Provided alway that this act shall not in any way extend, ne be pre- 1]
[judicial to any such chaplains as shall be daily or quarterly attending t]
[and abiding in the king’s or queen’s most honorable housholds’— and]
[so for chaplains of nobles, &c.’] LET p!]
slay their souls, and then defile their wives, their daughters, their maidens, and last of all betray them.
When this reformation, the colour and cloak of their hypocrisy, was made, then the spiritualty came ducking before the king’s grace, and forgave him the money which they had lent their pope to bring in the temporalty; and to make them after their example to do likewise, as loving subjects, and no less kind unto their prince than the spiritualty?, Whereupon the temporalty forgave their part also, in hope of that they obtained not: for as soon as the loan was forgiven, the parliament broke up; because our prelates, and their confederate friends, had found that they sought, and caught the fish for which they laid the bait of all those faces of reformations; and for which the cardinal, to bring the world into a fool’s paradise, was compelled even with his own good will to resign his chancellorship, and that to whom he listed himself. And as for the bishoprick of Durham, to say the very truth, he could not of good congruity but reward his old chaplain, and one of the chief of all his secrétaries withal, still Saturn, that so seldom speaketh, but walketh up and down all day musing and imagining mischief, a ducking hypocrite, made to dissemble?: which, for what service done in Christ’s gospel came he to the bishoprick of London; or what such service did he therein? He burnt the new Testament, calling it Doctrinam peregrinam, strange learning£’ Yea, verily, look how strange his living, in whose blood that testament was made, was from the living of the pope; even so strange is that doctrine from the pope’s law, in which only, and in the practice thereof, is Tunstal learned. Which also, for what cause left he the bishoprick of London? Even for the same cause he took it, after that he had long served for it, covetousness and ambition, Neither is it possible naturally, that there should be any good bishop, so long [2 A coarse expression is here omitted.]
[8 Wolsey held the bishoprick of Durham in commendam with the archbishoprick of York from 1523 to 1529, when he resigned Durbam in favour of Tonstal, but took possession of the see of Winchester. He also held the rich abbey of St Alban’s in commendam; and the bishopries of Bath, Worcester, and Hereford in farm, because the incumbents were foreigners.—Cavendish’s Wolsey, Vol. 1. p. 32. Singer’s ed. Also Lord Herbert’s Hen. VIIL p. 57.]
[4 See Life of Tyndale, p. xxxviii.] 2
as the bishopricks be nothing save worldly pomp and honour, ana Superfluous abundance of all manner riches, and liberty to do what a man listeth unpunished; things which only the evil desire, and all good men abhor.
And as soon as the parliament was ended, the cardinal ^ had his charter, and gat him home; and all bishops gat them every fox to his hole; leaving yet their attornies behind them, to come again themselves as soon as the constellation is somewhat overrun, whereof they be afraid.
What the cause of all this mischief is
Whence cometh all this mischief? Verily it is the hand of God to avenge the wantonness of great men, which will walk without the fear of God, following the steps of the high prelates, contrary unto their profession; and to avenge also the wrongs, the blasphemies, and subtle persecuting of his word.
For when Martin Luther had uttered the abominations of the pope and his clergy with God’s word, and divers books were come into England, our cardinal thought to find a remedy against that well enough, and sent to Rome for this of vain title, Defender of the faith; which the vicar of Croydon preached that the king’s grace would not lose for all London, and twenty miles round about it. Neither is it marvel: for it had cost more than London and forty miles about it is able to make (I think) at this hour; beside the effusion of innocent blood that was offered unto the idol, and daily is offered thereto. When this glorious name was come from our holy father, the cardinal brought it unto the king’s grace at Greenwich. And though the king had it already, and had read it, yet against the morning were all the lords and gentlemen that could in so short space be gathered together, sent for, to come and receive it in with honour. And in the morning after the cardinal gat him, through the back side, into the friars Observants. And part of the gentles went round about, and welcomed him from Rome, as representing the pope’s ^ person; part met him half way, part at the court gate, and last of all the king’s grace himself met him in the hall, and brought him up into a great chamber, where was a seat prepared on high for the king’s grace and the cardinal, while the bul was read; insomuch that not the wise only, but
men of mean understanding, laughed the vain pomp to scorn, not far unlike to the receiving of the cardinal’s hat: which when a ruffian had brought unto him to Westminster under his cloak, he clothed the messenger in rich array, and sent him back to Dover again; and appointed the bishop of Canterbury to meet him, and then another company of lords and gentles, I wot not how oft, ere it came to Westminster; where it was set on a cupboard, and tapers about, so that the greatest duke in the land must make courtesy thereto, yea, and to his empty seat, he being away.
And shortly, for lack of authority of God’s word, Martin must be condemned by the authority of the king. And the king’s grace, to claw the pope again, must make a book; in which, to prove all that they would have stablished, for lack of scripture, yea, and contrary to the open seripture, is made this mighty reason: Such prelates are the church; and the church cannot err; and therefore, all that they do is right; and we ought to believe them without any scripture!, yea, and though the scripture be contrary. Wherefore God (offended with such blasphemy, to make his enemies feel that they would not see in the open scripture, nor in the practice of their livings and doings, clean contrary unto the scripture and unto the living of Christ and his apostles, this eight hundred years, hath poured this wrath upon us, and hath snared the wise of the world with the subtilty of their own wits. For either the pope and cardinals, with other prelates, that made this first marriage, or they that would break it, err; to speak no more grievously?.
[! Such is the gist of the king’s arguments, where the royal printer, Pynson, has placed in the margin, Lutherus prostratus; and further on (sign. m.) where the king says, Si nihil omnino recipiat [Lutherus] quod non tam aperte legat in evangelio ut tergiversandi non sit locus, quomodo credit (si modo credit, qui nihil fere credit) perpetuam Maris virginitatem? De qua adeo nihil invenit in seripturis, ut Helvidius non aliunde quam ex scripturarum verbis corripuerit ansam decernendi contrarium. Nec aliud opponitur illi quam totius ecclesise fides,’ ete: the margin has, ” Efficax ratio adversus Lutherum, quod recipi oporteat etiam quz nusquam sunt scripta. And, Hie locus fortiter premit College, Cambridge. ] Lutherum, ut veneretur ecclesise traditiones non scriptas.’ — From Henrici Octavi Opera a quarto volume in the library of St John [2 The last sentence is omitted in Day’s ed.]
Moreover, when Martin Luther had submitted himself in an epistle, let his grace consider what answer he gave again. Vill. Where is the glory of that great praise become, that his grace gave the cardinal for his goodly acts and benefits, which all the commonwealth of the whole realm should feel!? And let his grace remember, how he inveigheth against Martin’s wedlock, and fear lest God, to avenge wilful blindness, tangle his grace with matrimony (beside the destruction of the realm that is like to follow) much more dishonourable than his grace thinketh Martin shameful. His grace promised to keep his wedlock, as well as Martin did his chastity: and his grace’s vow hath authority of God, and Martin’s not, but is damned by the word of God as he did vow, and as the hypocrites do yet teach to vow.
And More, among his other blasphemies in his dialogue, saith, that none of us dare abide by our faith unto the death. But shortly thereafter God, to prove More that he hath ever heen a false liar, gave strength unto his servant, Sir Thomas Hitton, to confess, and that unto the death, the faith of his holy Son Jesus; which Thomas the bishops of Canterbury and Rochester, after they had dieted and tormented him secretly, murdered at Maidstone most cruelly
I beseech the king’s most noble grace, therefore, to consider all the ways by which the cardinal and our holy bishops have led him, since he was first king; and to see whereunto all the pride, pomp, and vain boast of the cardinal is come, and how God hath resisted him and our prelates in all their wiles. We, having nothing to do at all, have meddled yet in all matters, and have spent for our prelates’ causes more than all Christendom, even unto the utter beggaring of ourselves, and have gotten nothing but rebuke and shame and hate among all nations, and a mock, and a scorn thereto, of them whom we have most holpen.
For the Frenchmen (as the saying is) of late days made 3 play, or a disguising, at Paris, in which the emperor danced
[1 Day omits the remainder of this paragraph.] [2 This sufferer is here called Sir Thomas, after the usual manner]
[of styling priests in Tyndale’s time; but Foxe only calls Hitton an]
[honest poor man and religious” The Archbishop of Canterbury was]
[Warham; and the bishop of Rochester was Fisher. ‘The date of]
[Hitton’s marytrdom is said by Foxe to have been Feb. 20, 1529.]]
E THE KING AND NOBLES WARNED. 341 is with the pope and the French king, and wearied them; the “f king of England sitting on a high bench, and looking on. 3 And when it was asked, why he danced not, it was answered, 4 that he sat there but to pay the minstrels their wages onlyE As who should say, we paid for all men’s dancing. We sig monied the emperor openly, and gave the Frenchmen double ES and treble secretly, and to the pope also. Yea, and though D, Ferdinandus had money sent him openly, to blind the world A withal, yet the saying is throughout all Dutchland, that we E sent money to the king of Pole, and to the Turk also; and b. that by help of our money Ferdinandus was driven out of 3 Hungary. Which thing, though it were not true, yet it will x breed us a scab at the last, and get us, with our meddling, k more hate than we shall be able to bear, if a chance come, Π unless that we wax wiser betime. a And I beseech his grace also to have mercy of his own E soul, and not to suffer Christ and his holy testament to be i persecuted under his name any longer; that the sword of the i ” wrath of God may be put up again, which for that cause, no
doubt, is most chiefly drawn
P And I beseech his grace to have compassion on his poor subjects, which have ever been unto his grace both obedient, 3 loving, and kind; that the realm utterly perish not, with the E. wicked counsel of our pestilent prelates. For if his grace, which is but a man, should die, the lords and commons not d knowing who hath most right to enjoy the crown, the realm
could not but stand in great danger
And I exhort the lords temporal of the realm, that they à come and fall before the king’s grace, and humbly desire his B majesty to suffer it to be tried, who of right ought to succeed; and if he or she fail, who next, yea, and who third. And let i it be proclaimed openly: and let all the lords temporal ἐς be sworn thereto, and all the knights, and squires, and gentle- Ἦ men, and the commons, above eighteen years old, that there Ι Ἢ be no strife for the succession. For if they try it by the PF sword, I promise them, I see none other likelihood but that, as the cardinal hath prophesied, it will cost the realm of And all that be sworn unto the cardinal, I warn them yet 5 [3 Ferdinand king of Hungary, who eventually succeeded his bro- Ἢ ther Charles V. as emperor of Germany.)
once again to break their oaths, as I did in The Obedience. mn And all my lord cardinal’s privy secretaries and spies, by o whom he worketh, yet I warn them to beware betime. My Goa. lord cardinal, though he have the name of all, yet he wrought not all of his own brain: but of all wily and exercised in mischief he called unto him the most expert, and of their council and practice gathered that most seemed to serve his wicked purpose. Let them remember Emson and Dudley, and such like in all chronicles!.
And all that be confederate with the cardinal and with the bishops upon any secret appointment, be they never so great, I rede? them to break their bonds, and to follow right by the plain and open way, and to be content, and not too ambitious: for it is now evil elimbing; the boughs be brittle. And let them look well on the practice of bishops, how they have served all other men in times past, and into what troubles they have brought them that were quiet. Many a man, both great and small, have they brought to death in England, even in my days, (beside in times past,) whose blood God will seek make Once. Let them learn at the last, that it is but the cast of the bishops to receive the sacrament with one man secretly upon one purpose, and with another man as secretly upon the contrary, to deceive all parties. For of perjury they make as much conscience as a dog of a bone; for they have power to dispense with all things, think they.
At the beginning of the war between the French king and the emperor the prognostication said, year by year, that there should be great labour for peace: but it shall not come to pass; for there is Bicorporeum, or Corpus neutrum?, that cometh between and letteth it; that is to say, a body that is neither-nother, or holdeth on neither part: and that body is im the spiritualty, which hold but of themselves only. For when any ambassadors go between, to entreat of peace, the bishops are ever the chief; which, though they make a goodly oration for the peace openly, to deceive the laymen, yet secretly, by the bishops of the same country, they cast a bone in the way: and there can be no peace, until the peace be for their profit, let it cost in the mean season what blood it will.
[1 So Marb. ed. but this last sentence is wanting in the later eds.] [2 Advise.] [3 Of the nature of two bodies, or a neutral body.] aM [4 That is, neither the one nor the other.] δ]
And as for them which for luere, as Judas, betray the truth, and write against their consciences; and which for honour, as Balaam, enforce to eurse the people of God; I would fain (if their hearts were not too hard) that they did repent. And as fain I would, that our prelates did repent, if it were possible for them to prefer God’s honour before their own. And let them remember what wrong they have done to the queen, and what fruit they have lost her, that never could come unto the right birth, for sorrow which she suffered through their false means; than which what greater treason eould they work unto the realm of England?
And unto all subjects I say, that they repent. For the cause of evil rulers is the sin of the subjects, testifieth the scripture. And the cause of false preachers is, that the people have no love unto the truth, saith Paul in the second chapter of the second epistle to the Thessalonians. We be all sinners, an hundred times greater than all that we suffer. Let us therefore each forgive other, remembering, the greater sinners the more welcome, if we repent; according to the similitude of the riotous son (Luke xv.) For Christ died for sinners, and is their Saviour, and his blood their treasure, to pay for their sins. He is that fatted calf which is slain to make them good cheer withal, if they will repent, and come to their father again; and his merits is that goodly raiment, to cover the naked deformities of our sins.
These be sufficient at this time, although I could say more, and though other have deserved that I more said: yea, and I could more deeply have entered into the practice of our cardinal, but I spare for divers considerations; and namely for his sake, which never spared me, nor any faithful friend of his own, nor any that told him truth; nor spareth to persecute the blood of Christ, in as clear light as ever was, and under as subtle colour of hypoerisy as ever was any persecution since the creation of the world. Neither have I said for hate of any person or persons, (God I take to record,) but of their wickedness only, and to call them to repentance, knowledging that I am a sinner also, and that a grievous. Howbeit, it is a devilish thing, and a merciless, to defend wickedness against [5 The remainder of the paragraph is omitted in Day’s ed]
[$ S. and S. edition does not resume Tyndale’s text, till it comes to the words, These be sufficient.’]
the open truth, and not to have power to repent. And therefore, I doubt not, if men will not be warned hereby, but that God will utter more practice by whom he will, and not cease until he have broken the bond of wily hypocrites which persecute so subtilly. merci And!, finally, if the persecution of the king’s grace, and Of other temporal persons conspiring with the spiritually, be of ignorance, I doubt not but that their eyes shall be opened shortly, and they shall see and repent, and God shall shew them mercy. But and if it be of a set malice against the truth, and of a grounded hate against the law of God by the reason of a full consent they have to sin, and to walk in their old ways of ignorance, whereunto (being now past all repentance) they have utterly yielded themselves, to follow with full lust, without bridle or snaffle, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost; then ye shall see, even shortly, that God shall turn the point of the sword, wherewith they now shed Christ’s blood, homeward to shed their own again, after all the examples of the bible.
And let them remember that I, well toward three years agone?, to prevent all occasions and all carnal beasts that seek fleshly liberty, sent forth The true Obedience of a Christian Man, which yet they condemned, but after they had condemned the new Testament, as right was, whence The Obedience had his authority. Now then, if when the light is come abroad, in which their wickedness cannot be hid, they find no such obedience in the people unto their old tyranny, whose fault is it? This is a sure conclusion: none obedience, that is not of love, can long endure; and in your deeds can no man see any cause of love: and the knowledge of Christ, for whose sake only a man would love you, though ye were never so evil, ye persecute. Now then, if any disobedience rise, are ye not the cause of it yourselves??
Say not but that ye be warned!
[[! S. and S. ed. omits all this paragraph except the first two words, — i]
[which it connects with, And let them remember,” &c.] [2 S. and 8. ed. omits this clause.] [3 So the two old editions; but Day has, ye are the cause of it]
[yourselves. ]]