January 2007

Parish History Episode 69 - The King's Divorce

Divorce is expressly forbidden by the words of Jesus (MARK 102-12). Nevertheless, the Courts of Rome were always, in the later Middle Ages, clogged up with matrimonial and divorce cases, and much money was made by Church lawyers, and even sometimes by the Pope himself, in granting dispensations and annulments which in practice permitted the Faithful to disregard the teachings of the Church - the teachings, for that matter, of Christ - and to commence or terminate marriages according to their own needs or convenience. Prince Henry, the second son of King Henry VII, had, in 1502 (six weeks after the death of his older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales), obtained, from Rome, both an annulment of his deceased older brother’s marriage to the Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon, and a dispensation to marry her (his brother’s widow) himself; and now he saw no reason why he could not obtain further dispensations. After all he needed to be rid of his wife, who seemed unable to produce a son and heir, and he wished to replace her with a younger and comelier woman. He had what would then have been regarded as a good case, better than that of most litigants, and his purse was fatter than most, and he was probably genuinely surprised that Wolsey had met with such difficulty in presenting the King’s case at Rome. Henry’s wrath was to result not only in the death of the Cardinal, but in a schism between the Churches of Rome and of Canterbury which was to prove permanent. To this day, separate churches, both dedicated to the Archangel Michael, stand in Houghton-le-Spring, a short distance apart, and communion between them is still gravely impaired.

Wolsey having, in his view, failed him, the King looked around for more reliable servants to carry out his mission. As Archbishop Warham of Canterbury died shortly after Wolsey, King Henry found a learnèd priest, one who appeared to be sympathetic and helpful, called Thomas Cranmer, to succeed Warham. Cranmer was duly installed as Archbishop of Canterbury, with the reluctant connivance of Pope Clement VII. To replace Wolsey as Chancellor, the King found an even more learnèd layman, Thomas More. More, the first layman ever to hold this office, was one of the most brilliant men in England, and his household had been the centre of a circle of scholars, which had at one time included Erasmus, together with several leading churchmen prominent in the introduction of Greek studies into the English Church, including John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Cuthbert Tunstall, then Bishop of London, but later to be Bishop of Durham. King Henry no doubt hoped that such men could help him where Wolsey had failed. He was to be disappointed in More (and in Fisher), but not in Cranmer.

Before continuing with this narrative, it might be as well, considering the enduring schism which was to arise out of this divorce, to assess the right and wrongs of the affair. First, Henry’s action was morally wrong. He had made vows to Catherine, and, though he may have wished to end the marriage, she did not, and he was still bound by the promises he had made. Secondly, it is undeniable that divorce is denied by the express words of the Lord. Henry would, of course, have pointed out that marriage to a man’s brother’s widow is also ruled out by the Bible (LEV 20:21): but a man who had been preparing to be an archbishop should have known that; and even if he didn’t, the fact that he had sinned before did not justify him in committing further sin. But, yes, by Roman standards he had a case for an annulment: but then, a former pope (Alexander VI) having once given him a dispensation to marry his brother’s widow, the Vatican would look a bit silly if the present pope (Clement VII) granted an annulment on the grounds that such a marriage was illegal. Nor was the bullying of popes and cardinals the right way to go about it. And no-one believed that the King’s motive was shock at discovering an obscure text in Leviticus. Those who knew what was going on assumed that his real motive was his infatuation with a maidof- honour at his court, a young woman called Anne Boleyn.

Why then did devout and respectable men like More and Cranmer seek positions of responsibility under such dubious circumstances? Ambition, of course: both men believed that they were the right man for their respective offices. Both men felt, like Erasmus, shame at the superstitious practices of the Church, and at the avarice of so many of the clergy, their eyes having so to speak been opened by their discoveries in reading the New Testament in the original Greek, and their realisation of the gulf that lay between the Church as portrayed therein, and the Church of their own time. A hundred years before, such men would have devoted their energies to ending the schism between Rome and Avignon. But that schism was over now, and the Latin Church appeared to be in no better shape. Many were now despairing of the Papacy as an agent of reform, and were beginning to look for the leadership of a godly prince, a Defender of the Faith maybe, as God’s instrument in renewing the Church. So men in Germany had looked to their princes. So men in Scandinavia had looked to their kings. And so now scholars in England had hopes of their king.

The Pope of Rome had failed Henry - so the King believed. In 1533 the crisis came to a head at last. Cranmer first married Henry and Anne (probably because she was already pregnant; they were already living together). Then he, Archbishop of Canterbury, did what Rome had not dared: he annulled the King’s previous marriage. Then Queen Anne was delivered of a live, healthy child: not the longed-for son and heir, but a girl, the future Elizabeth I. By this time, the Pope had excommunicated King, Queen and Archbishop.

But the Church of England continued to carry on. In 1534, a whole mass of legislation was rushed through what came to be known as the Reformation Parliament. By these acts, the whole system of Papal jurisdiction over the English Church was swept away, the Archbishop of Canterbury assuming the dispensing powers, and many other spiritual powers, previously vested in the Pope, and the King becoming the Head of the Church.

(It is a commonly held fallacy that the title of “Head of the Church” was continued by King Henry’s successors, just as all succeeding monarchs have used the title “Defender of the Faith”. However, Henry’s son, Edward VI, was the only later king to be styled “Head of the Church”. Mary I renounced the title, and Elizabeth I changed the style to that of “Supreme Governor of the Church of England”, and, though some later kings, holding theories of Divine Right and the like, may have been as conceited as Henry VIII, none officially claimed to be more than Governor: and Governor is normally a title used by officials such as the administrator of a colony, who rule as deputies to some greater lord elsewhere.)

But still, in 1534, this title, Head of the Church, was adopted by the King, and recognised by the Reformation Parliament in the Act of Supremacy: and this Act was almost immediately followed by the Act of Succession, by which Parliament recognised Cranmer’s annulment of Queen Catherine’s marriage, bastardised her daughter, the Princess Mary (though both were provided for financially), recognised the legitimacy of the King’s marriage to Queen Anne, and declared her baby daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, to be, until such time as a son would be born to the King, the heir to the Kingdom. But that, some might suggest, was simply the act of a set of bishops, abbots, peers, knights of the shire and burgesses, acting under the pressure of the King. Henry feared that after his death, many might dare to argue as much. Parliament therefore made provision for every man and woman in England, over the age of fourteen, to swear an oath of their own acceptance of the Act of Succession: they did not have to swear to the Act of Supremacy, but the later Act implied the former.

This was an unparalleled consultation of the people, and bore some similarity to referenda held by various Twentieth-Century dictators. There was a great deal of sympathy for Queen Catherine, but most people felt that, though wronged, she had not been left destitute, and the future safety of the Kingdom required a settled succession: nobody wanted to see a replay of the Wars of the Roses. As for the ecclesiastical implications, only the intelligent felt alarm at the prospect of one man being, so to speak, both king and pope. Simple people mostly re·acted like the illiterate yokel in Alison Macleod’s novel, The Heretics, who, when a commissioner demanded that he make his mark on a piece of paper, and read out the contents to him, including the words “the Bishop of Rome hath no authority in this Realm”, interrupted, asking, “The Bishop o’ Rome ? ‘Oo’s ‘ee ? Nivver ‘eard o’ ‘un !”; but when the commissioner explained, “That’s a new title for the Pope”, the yokel just said, “oh, ’im”, and added his mark.

But some there were with more foresight than that yokel. The most famous man to refuse to comply was Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor himself, who first resigned his office, and then, in 1535, was beheaded. The same fate also befell John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, the only bishop to refuse the oath. A few parish priests were also executed, and rather more monks and friars.

Three orders in particular gave notable martyrs to what would be the Romanist cause: these were the Carthusians, the Brigittines, and the Observant Franciscans. All three were orders established relatively recently, at any rate in England, and were still attracting fervent young men, who desired a life in religion distinguished for the traditional monkish virtues, rather than a life of comfort and security in an ancient abbey. One nun, Elizabeth Barton, “the Holy Maid of Kent”, was also executed.

(She may be revered as a martyr for Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience. So also can John Fisher and most of the others. But it is more difficult to see Thomas More as a champion of Freedom of Conscience. Lollards were still being burnt at the stake during the period when More was Lord Chancellor, and he signed their death warrants, and sometimes he had even instigated their prosecutions. But he now died as resolutely and as bravely as his former victims.)

It seems that in our part of the World, the oath was not administered to anyone except the new bishop, Cuthbert Tunstall. The Act only required assent from the people of England. And the Prince-Bishopric of Durham was, like Calais, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Wales and Ireland, not jurisdictionally part of the Kingdom of England. Bishop Tunstall signed, on behalf of his people.

At that time, young Bernard Gilpin was in Oxford University, beginning his second year of study for a degree in Sacred Theology. The commissioners duly arrived at his college (Christ Church), and they presented Gilpin and his fellow students with a copy of the Act of Succession, and demanded that all the young gentlemen, studying to prepare for a life in the priest·hood, should append their signatures.

The consciences of Gilpin and his fellow students would almost certainly have been rather perturbed - much more so than was the conscience of that yokel referred to above - by this discovery that they, in person, were required to affirm a very basic change in the Church’s leadership and style, with King Henry VIII suddenly replacing Pope Paul III as “Head of the Church”. They knew that they would soon be required to lead their parishes into new adventures. Some might be eager for change, some reluctant, and some, like Gilpin himself, puzzled and undecided about where they were going.

Whatever he felt then, he was to grow up, to work, and to work well, as a parish priest serving under God but also under the Royal Supremacy. He was probably never to be happy with the Act of Succession, to which he had consented as a young lad.

Dick Toy

Previous Parish Histories