Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/507

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ENGLAND
445
ENGLAND

which are of primary importance in more than one field. Hia Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (1S98) is of the very highest value as correctly stating the position of the English Church in regard to the Holy See. His History of English Law (1895), Domesday Book and Beyond (1897), and various contri- butions to Traill, Social England (^1901), areof great moment from a legal and constitutional pomt of view. For the later period ending in the reign of Henry VIII or Mary, the writings of J. S. Brewer, particularly the Prefaces to the Calendars re- edited under the title of The Reign of Henry VIII to the Death of WoUey (2 vols., 1884), and of Dr. J. Gairdner are of primary importance, especially as correcting the reckless inaccuracy of Froude. Dr. Gairdner in particular has recently published a work entitled Lollardy and the Reformation (2 vols., 1908), which does fullest justice to the Catholic position.

Among other works of note may be mentioned: Bohmer, Kirche und Slaat in England vnd in der Normandie (Leipzig, 1899): Id., Die Fdlschungen Erzbischof Lanfranks (Leipzig, 1902) — inconclusive, as Saltet and others have shown; Round, Feudal England (London, 1895); Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings (2 vols., London, 1887); Id., John Lackland (London, 1902); bTEvENSON, Robert Grosseteste (London, 1899); Bliss and Twemlow, Calendars of Entries in Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland (8 vols, already published); tlENSEN, Der englische Peterspfennig (Heidelberg, 1903); Creighton, Historical Essays (London, 1902); Id., Historical Lectures (London, 1903) — both tnese able works are much biased by the writer's Anglican standpoint; Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars (London, 1889); Brewer, Preface to the Monumenta Franciscana in R. S., and to the works of Giraldus Cambren- 818; Makower, Constitutional History of the Church of England (London, 1895); Wylie, History of England under Henry IV (4 vols., 1882-96); Workman, John Wyclif (London, 1902); Dr. Gasquet and the Old English Bible in the Church Quarterly Review, Vol. LI (1901); Lang, The Maid of France (London, 1908); Gairdner, The Paston Letters (3 vols., London, 1872-5); Dixon, History of the Church of England from 1529 (6 vols., Lon- don, 1878-1902); Ehses, Rom. Dok. zur Gesch. der Ehescheidung Heinrichs VIII (Paderborn, 1902)— a Oath. work. Of the Divorce the best account is by G.airdner, New Lights on the Divorce in Eng. Hist. Rev., XI-XII (1896-97). Tytleh, £71^- land under Edward Viand Alary (2 vols., London, 1839); Leach, English Schools at the Reformation (London, 1896); PocoCK, on The Reign of Edward VI in English Historical Review.Jaly, 1895.

For social and economic condition of England, see Ashley, An Introd. to Eng. Economic Hist, and Theory (2 vols., London, 1893); Cunningham. The Growth of Eng. Industry and Commerce (2 vols., Cambridge, 1896); Thorold Rogers, Hist, of Eng. Agriculture and Prices (6 vols., London, 1866-87); Id., Six Cen- turies of Work and Wages (2 vols., 1891); Rashdall, Universi- ties of the M. A. (3 vols.. Oxford. 1895); Chambers, The Medie- val Stage (2 vols., Oxford, 1903).

Herbert Thurston.

ENGLAND SINCE THE REFORMATION.—The Protestant Reformation is the great dividing line in the history of England, as of Europe generally. This momentous Revolution, the outcome of many causes, assumed varying shapes in different countries. The Anglican Reformation did not spring from any religious motive. Lord Macaulay is well warranted in saying in his essay on Hallam's "Constitutional History", that "of those who had any important share in bringing it about, Ridley was, perhaps, the only person who did not consider it a mere political job", and that "Ridley did not play a very prominent part". We shall now proceed, first, to trace the history of the so-called Reformation in England, and then to indicate some of its results.

It was not until the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Henry the Eighth—the year 1535, that the English Schism was consummated. The instrument by which that consummation was effected was the "Act concerning the King's Highness to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England, and to have authority to reform and redress all errors, heresies and abuses in the same". This statute severed England from the unity of Christendom and transferred the jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff to "the Imperial Crown" of that realm. That is the unique peculiarity of the Anglican Reformation—the bold usurpation of all papal authority by the sovereign. "The clavis potentiae and the clavis scientiae, the universal power of Government in Christ's Church, the power to rule, to distribute, suspend or restore jurisdiction, and the power to define Verities of the Faith and to interpret Holy Scripture has descended on the shoulders of the Kings and Queens of England. The actual bond of the Church of England, her characteristic as a religious communion, that which makes her a whole, is the right of the civil power to be the supreme judge of her doctrine." (Allies, "See of S. Peter", 3rd ed., p, 54.) The Act of Supremacy was the outcome of a struggle between Henry VIII and the pope, extending over six years. Assuredly no such measure was originally contemplated by the king, who, in the early part of his reign, manifested a devotion to the Holy See which Sir Thomas More thought excessive (Roper's Life of More, p. 66). The sole cause of his quarrel with the See of Rome was supplied by the affair of the so-called Divorce. On April 22, 1509, he ascended the English throne, being then eighteen years old; and on June 3 following he was wedded, by dispensation of Pope Julius, to the Spanish princess, Catherine, who had previously gone through the form of marriage with his elder brother Arthur. That prince had died in 1502, at the age of sixteen, five months after this marriage, which was held not to have been consummated; and so Catherine, at her nuptials with Henry, was arrayed not as a widow, but as a virgin, in a white robe, with her hair falling over her shoulders. Henry cohabited with her for sixteen years, and had issue three sons, who died at their birth or shortly afterwards, as well as one daughter, Mary, who survived. At the end of that time the king, never a model of conjugal fidelity, conceived a personal repulsion for his wife, who was six years older than himself, whose physical charms had faded, and whose health was impaired; he also began to entertain scruples as to his union with her. Whether, as an old Catholic tradition avers, these scruples were suggested to him by Cardinal Wolsey, or whether his personal repulsion prepared the way for them, or merely seconded them, is uncertain. But certain it is that about this time, to use Shakespeare's phrase, "the King's conscience crept too near another lady", that lady being Anne Boleyn. Here, again, exact chronology is impossible. We know that in 1522 Cardinal Wolsey repelled Lord Percy from a project of marriage with Anne on the ground that "the King intended to prefer her to another". But there is no evidence that Henry then desired her for himself. However that may have been, several years elapsed before his passion for her, whatever the date of its origin, gathered that overmastering force which led him to resolve with fixed determination to put away Catherine in order to possess her. For marriage was the price on which, warned by experience, she insisted. Henry's relations with her family had been scandalous. There is evidence, strong if not absolutely conclusive—it is summed up in the Introduction to Lewis' translation of Sander's work, "De Schismate Anglicano" (London, 1877)—that he had had an intrigue with her mother, whence the report, at one time widely credited, that she was his own daughter. It is certain that her sister Mary had been his mistress, and had been very poorly provided for by him when the liaison came to an end, a fact which doubtless put Anne upon her guard. That the king had contracted precisely the same affinity with her, by reason of this intrigue, as that which he alleged to be the cause of his conscientious scruples with regard to Catherine, did not in the least weigh with her, or with him.

The first formal step towards the putting away of Catherine appears to have been taken in 1527, when Henry caused himself to be cited before Cardinal Wolsey and Archbishop Warham on the charge of living incestuously with his brother's widow. The proceedings were secret, and the Court held three sessions, then adjourning sine die for the purpose of consulting the most learned bishops of the kingdom on the question whether marriage with a deceased brother's wife was lawful. The majority of the replies were in the affirmative, with the proviso that a papal dispensation had been obtained. Henry, thus baffled, then determined to proceed in common form of law, and Sir Francis Geary in his learned work, "Marriage and Family Relations", has summed up the proceedings as