HENRY IS DECLARED GODHEAD

 

About the beginning of this campaign, the elector of Saxony died [Aug. 16], and was succeeded by his son John Frederick. The reformation rather gained than lost by that event; the new elector, no less attached than his predecessors to the opinions of Luther, occupied the station which they had held at the head of the protestant party, and defended, with the bold­ness and zeal of youth, that cause which they had fostered and reared with the caution of more advanced age.

Immediately after the retreat of the Turks, Charles, impatient to revisit Spain, set out on his way thither, for Italy. As he was extremely desirous of an interview with the pope, they met a second time at Bologna, with the same external demonstrations of respect and friendship, but with little of that confidence which had subsisted between them during their late negotiations there. Clement was much dissatisfied with the emperor’s proceedings at Augsburg; his concessions with regard to the speedy convocation of a council, having more than cancelled all the merit of the severe decree against the doctrines of the reformers. The toleration granted to the protestants at Ratisbon, and the more explicit promise concerning a council, with which it was accompanied, had irritated him still farther. Charles, however, partly from conviction that the meeting of a council would be attended with salutary effects, and partly from his desire to please the Germans, having solicited the pope by his ambassadors to call that assembly without delay, and now urging the same thing in person, Clement was greatly embarrassed what reply he should make to a request which it was indecent to refuse, and dangerous to grant. He endeavored at first to divert Charles from the measure; but, finding him inflexible, he had recourse to artifices, which he knew would delay, if not entirely defeat, the calling of that assembly. Under the plausible pretext of its being previously necessary to settle, with all parties concerned, the place of the council's meeting; the manner of its proceedings; the right of the persons who should be admitted to vote, and the authority of their decisions; he despatched a nuncio, accompanied by an ambassador from the emperor, to the elector of Saxony as head of the protestants. With regard to each of these articles, inextricable difficulties and contests arose. The protestants demanded a council to be held in Germany; the pope insisted that it should meet in Italy: they contended that all points in dispute should be determined by the words of holy scripture alone; he considered not only the decrees of the church, but the opinions of fathers and doctors, as of equal authority; they required a free council, in which the divines, commissioned by different churches, should be allowed a voice; he aimed at modeling the council in such a manner as would render it entirely dependent on his pleasure. Above all, the protestants thought it unreasonable that they should hind themselves to submit to the decrees of a council, before they knew on what principles these decrees were to be founded, by what persons they were to be pronounced, and what forms of proceeding they would observe. The pope maintained it to be altogether unnecessary to call a council, if those who demanded it did not previously declare their resolution to acquiesce in its decrees. In order to adjust such a variety of points, many expedients were proposed, and the negotiations spun out to such a length, as effectually answered Clement's purpose of putting off the meeting of a council, without drawing on himself the whole infamy of obstructing a measure which all Europe deemed so essential to the good of the church.

Together with this negotiation about calling a council, the emperor carried on another, which he had still more at heart, for securing the peace established in Italy. As Francis had renounced his pretensions in that country with great reluctance, Charles made no doubt but that he would lay hold on the first pretext afforded him, or embrace the first opportunity which presented itself, of recovering what he had lost. It became necessary on this account to take measures for assembling an army able to oppose him. As his treasury, drained by a long war, could not supply the sums requisite for keeping such a body constantly on foot, he attempted to throw that burden upon his allies, and to provide for the safety of his own dominions, at their expense, by proposing that the Italian states should enter into a league of defence against all invaders; that, on the first appearance of danger, an army should be raised and maintained at the common charge; and that Antonio de Leyva should be appointed the generalissimo. Nor was the proposal unacceptable to Clement, though for a reason very different from that which induced the emperor to make it. He hoped by this expedient, to deliver Italy from the German and Spanish veterans, which had so long filled all the powers in that country with terror, and still kept them in subjection to the Imperial yoke. A league was accordingly concluded [Feb. 24, 1533]; all the Italian states, the Venetians excepted, acceded to it the sum which each of the contracting parties should furnish towards maintaining the army was fixed; the emperor agreed to withdraw the troops which gave so much umbrage to his allies, and which he was unable any longer to support. Having disbanded part of them, and removed the rest to Sicily and Spain, he embarked on board Doria’s galleys, and arrived at Barcelona [April 22].

Notwithstanding all his precautions for securing the peace of Germany, and maintaining that system which he had established in Italy, the emperor became every day more and more apprehensive that both would he soon disturbed by the intrigues or arms of the French king. His apprehensions were well founded, as nothing but the desperate situation of his affairs could have brought Francis to give his consent to a treaty so dishonorable and disadvantageous as that of Cambray: he, at the very time of ratifying it, had formed a resolution to observe it no longer than necessity compelled him, and took a solemn protest, though with the most profound secrecy, against several articles in the treaty, particularly that whereby he renounced all pretensions to the duchy of Milan as unjust, injurious to his heirs, and invalid. One of the crown lawyers, by his command, entered a protest to the same purpose, and with the like secrecy, when the ratification of the treaty was registered in the parliament of Paris. Francis seems to have thought that, by employing an artifice unworthy of a king, destructive of public faith, and of the mutual confidence on which all transactions between nations are founded, he was released from any obligation to perform the most solemn promises, or to adhere to the most sacred engagements. From the moment he concluded the peace of Cambray, he wished and watched for an opportunity of violating it with safety. He endeavored for that reason to strengthen his alliance with the king of England, whose friendship he cultivated with the greatest assiduity. He put the military force of his own kingdom on a better and more respectable footing than ever. He artfully fomented the jealousy and discontent of the German princes.

But above all, Francis labored to break the strict confederacy which subsisted between Charles and Clement; and he had soon the satisfaction to observe the appearances of disgust and alienation arising in the mind of that suspicious and interested pontiff, which gave him hopes that their union would not be lasting. As the emperor's decision in favor of the duke of Ferrara had greatly irritated the pope, Francis aggravated the injustice of that proceeding, and flattered Clement that the papal see would find in him a more impartial and no less powerful protector. As the importunity with which Charles demanded a council was extremely offensive to the pope, Francis artfully created obstacles to prevent it, and attempted to divert the German princes, his allies, from insisting so obstinately on that point. As the emperor had gained such an ascendant over Clement by contributing to aggrandize his family, Francis endeavored to allure him by the same irresistible bait, proposing a marriage between his second son Henry duke of Orleans, and Catharine, the daughter of the pope’s cousin Laurence di Medici. On the first overture of this match, the emperor could not persuade himself that Francis really intended to debase the royal blood of France, by an alliance with Catharine, whose ancestors had been so lately private citizens and merchants in Florence, and believed that he meant only to flatter or amuse the ambitious pontiff. He thought it ne­cessary, however, to efface the impression which such a dazzling offer might have made, by promising to break off the marriage which had been agreed on between his own niece the king of Denmark's daughter, and the duke of Milan, and to substitute Catharine in her place. But the French ambassador producing unexpectedly full powers to conclude the marriage treaty with the Duke of Orleans, this expedient had no effect. Clement was so highly pleased with an honor which added such luster and dignity to the house of Medici, that he offered to grant Catharine the investiture of considerable territories in Italy, by way of portion; he seemed ready to support Francis in prosecuting his ancient claims in that country, and consented to a personal interview with that monareh.

Charles was at the utmost pains to prevent a meeting, in which nothing was likely to pass but what would be of detriment to him; nor could he bear, after he had twice condescended to visit the pope in his own territories, that Clement should bestow such a mark of distinction on his rival, as to venture on a voyage by sea, at an unfavorable season, in order to pay court to Francis in the French dominions. But the pope’s eagerness to accomplish the match overcame all the scruples of pride, or fear, or jealousy, which would probably have influenced him on any other occasion. The interview, notwithstanding several artifices of the emperor to prevent it, took place at Marseilles with extraordinary pomp, and demonstrations of confidence on both sides [October], and the marriage, which the ambition and abilities of Catharine rendered in the sequel as pernicious to France, as it was then thought dishonorable, was consummated. But whatever schemes may have been secretly concerted by the pope and Francis in favor of the duke of Orleans, to whom his father proposed to make over all his rights in Italy; so careful were they to avoid giving any cause of offence to the emperor, that no treaty was concluded between them; and even in the marriage-articles, Catharine renounced all claims and pretensions in Italy, except to the duthy of Urbino.

But at the very time when he was carrying on these negotiations, and forming this connection with Francis, which gave so great umbrage to the emperor, such was the artifice and duplicity of Clement's character, that he suffered the latter to direct all his proceedings with regard to the king of England, and was no less attentive to gratify him in that particular, than if the most cordial union had still subsisted between them. Henry's suit for a divorce had now continued near six years; during all which period the pope negotiated, promised, retracted, and concluded nothing. After bearing repeated delays and disappointments longer than could have been expected from a prince of such a choleric and impetuous temper, the patience of Henry was at last so much exhausted, that he applied to another tribunal for that decree which he had solicited in vain at Rome. Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, by a sentence founded on the authority of universities, doctors, and rabbles, who had been consulted with respect to the point, annulled the king's marriage with Catharine; her daughter was declared illegitimate; and Anne Boleyn acknowledged as queen of England.

At the same time Henry began not only to neglect and to threaten the pope, whom he had hitherto courted, but to make innovations in the church, of which he had formerly been such a zealous defender. Clement, who had already seen so many provinces and kingdoms revolt from the holy see, became apprehensive at last that England might imitate their example, and partly from his solicitude to prevent that fatal blow, partly in compliance with the French king's solicitations, determined to give Henry such satisfaction as might still retain him within the bosom of the church [March 23]. But the violence of the cardinals, devoted to the emperor, did not allow the pope leisure for executing this prudent resolution, and hurried him, with a precipitation fatal to the Roman see, to issue a bull rescinding Cranmer's sentence, confirming Henry's marriage with Catharine, and declaring him excommunicated, if, within a time specified, he did not abandon the wife he had taken, and return to her whom he had deserted.

Enraged at this unexpected decree, Henry kept no longer any measures with the court of Rome; his subjects seconded his resentment and indignation; an act of parliament was passed, abolishing the papal power and jurisdiction in England; by another, the king was declared supreme head of the church, and all the authority of which the popes were deprived was vested in him. That vast fabric of ecclesiastical dominion which had been raised with such art, and of which the foundations seemed to have been laid so deep, being no longer supported by the veneration of the people, was overturned in a moment. Henry himself, with the caprice peculiar to his character, continued to defend the doctrines of the Romish church as fiercely as he attacked its jurisdiction. He alternately persecuted the protestants for rejecting the former, and the Catholics for acknowledging the latter. But his subjects, being once permitted to enter into new paths, did not choose to stop short at the precise point prescribed by him. Having been encouraged by his example to bleak some of their fetters, they were so impatient to shake off what still re­mained that, in the following reign, with the applause of the greater part of the nation, a total separation was made from the church of Rome in articles of doctrine, as well as in matters of discipline and jurisdiction.

A short delay might have saved the see of Rome from all the unhappy consequences of Clement’s rashness. Soon after his sentence against Henry, he fell into a languishing distemper, which gradually wasting his constitution, put an end to his pontificate [Sept. 25], the most unfortunate, both during its continuance, and by its effects, that the church had known for many ages. The very day on which the cardinals entered the conclave [Oct. 13], they raised to the papal throne Alexander Farnese, dean of the sacred college, and the oldest member of that body, who assumed the name of Paul III. The account of his promotion was received with extraordinary acclamations of joy by the people of Rome, highly pleased, after an interval of more than a hundred years, to see the crown of St. Peter placed on the head of a Roman citizen. Persons more capable of judging, formed a favorable presage of his administration, from the experience which he had acquired under four pontificates, as well as the character of prudence and moderation which he had uniformly maintained in a station of great eminence, and during an active period that required both talents and address.

Europe, it is probable, owed the continuance of its peace to the death of Clement; for although no traces remain in history of any league concluded between him and Francis, it is scarcely to be doubted but that he would have seconded the operations of the French arms in Italy, that he might have gratified his ambition by seeing one of his family possessed of the supreme power in Florence, and another in Milan. But upon the election of Paul III who had hitherto adhered uniformly to the Imperial interest, Francis found it necessary to suspend his operations for some time, and to put off the commencement of hostilities against the emperor, on which, before the death of Clement, he had been fully determined.

 

THE KINGDOM OF THE ANABAPTISTS