HENRY VIII. Cranmer. Benefits of } 46. It is very likely, as we have intimated, that exaggeration marked the reports of the visitors as to the state of the monasteries; and there is no doubt that unfair arts were occasionally adopted to procure evidence hostile to them. But monastic institutions, amid all the profligacy that no doubt existed in connection with them, had their benefits. (1) They were the refuge for the destitute, and the effect of their suppression was much the same in that respect as would now follow from the sudden abolition of the poor laws: (2) they were the alms-houses, where aged servants and decayed artificers retired to a home: (3) they were the county infirmaries and dispensaries, a knowledge of medicine and of the virtues of herbs being a department of monkish learning: (4) they were foundling asylums, relieving the state of many orphan and outcast children: (5) they were inns for the way-faring man: and (6) they filled up the gap in which public libraries have since stood.* But, on the whole, the country has, doubtless, been a gainer by the dissolution of the monasteries. So much land in the hands of such corporations was calculated to cripple the energies and suppress the efforts of the people. Nor did it seem likely that these societies could be so reformed as to efface the memory of the superstitions they had cherished, and to promote the interests of true religion."t 66 Blunt's Sketch of the Reformation in England. † Massingberd's English Reformation. 46. State what benefits you conceive monasteries to have conferred upon the country. Has the country been a gainer by their dissolution ? The Six Articles. Cranmer. 47. The supremacy and the suppression of HENRY VIII, the monasteries having been carried, the king almost deserted the cause in which he had been so actively engaged, and for the rest of his reign surrendered himself for the most part into the hands of Romanist advisers. Cromwell, the political agent of the Reformation, fell into disgrace, for the part he had taken in promoting the king's marriage with a German princess, Anne of Cleves, and subsequently suffered as a traitor. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, the most astute politician of his time, succeeded him in the king's favour; and against such a man as Gardiner, the single-hearted primate could exert but little influence over the conduct of Henry. Under the influence of the new advisers of the crown, A.D. 1539. in May, 1539, the same Parliament which confirmed the dissolution of the larger monasteries decreed that royal proclamations should have the force of law, and proceeded to pass, on the motion of the Duke of Norfolk, an act to establish the following "Six Articles" of faith :(1) The doctrine of transubstantiation. (2) Communion in one kind.* (3) The celibacy of clergy. (4) The observation of vows of chastity. (5) The efficacy of private masses. (6) The necessity of auricular confession. The penalty for the breach of the first of these articles was burning as a heretic; and of any of the others, hang *This was to establish the laity. custom of denying the cup to the 47. What was the conduct of Henry after the supremacy and the supp ession of the monastries had been carried? Who succeeded the political agent of the Reformation in the king's favour? When was the Act of the Six HENRY VIII. ing as a felon. Against five* lashes of this "whip with Cranmer. six strings," Cranmer argued with so much temper and Paul III. ability that he won the applause even of his opponents. But the king supported the sanguinary bill in person, and the enemies of the Reformation succeeded in getting it passed. The effect of the act of "Six Articles" was soon visible. Latimer, now Bishop of Worcester, and Shaxton, now Bishop of Salisbury, were driven from their bishoprics; and Cranmer himself was only rescued from its full operation by the interference of the king. Many of the clergy were forced to separate from their wives: Cranmer was amongst the number, and he sent his wife and children into Germany. The commissioners appointed to carry the act into execution erected themselves into a kind of inquisition-general, and brought within the compass of it every thing that savoured of what they called heresy. The prisons of London were therefore gorged with culprits, and Smithfield witnessed many of those dreadful scenes which have made its name so infamous. Among the victims were Barnes, a divine of some character, (whose real offence was an attack upon a sermon by Gardiner, and his Lutheran views of justification,) and two other clergymen, Garratt and Jerome. Soon after their execution, a boy of fifteen, named Mekin, was burnt for heresy, although he recanted Cranmer at that time was in favour of the doctrine of transubstantiation; but his opinions underwent a change. +Featherstone, Abel, and Powell were tied to the same stake for denying the royal supremacy. Articles passed? Who was its proposer? State briefly its contents; and the penalties attached to a breach of it. What was Cranmer's conduct during the discussion of the Act? Give an account of the persecution which followed Cranmer. at the stake, through the influence of the infamous Bon- HENRY VIII. ner, Bishop of London. At a subsequent period, a young gentlewoman of distinction, named Ann Askew, or Ayscough, heroically endured the rack without a groan; and declining to retract her denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation, was carried, while yet suffering from the cruelties inflicted on her frame, and burnt in Smithfield, together with several others animated by a like spirit.* Indeed, the executions were so numerous that it has been said more men were put to death in this reign, than afterwards suffered in that of Mary. In the years 1540 and 1544 the severities of the act of the "Six Articles" were mitigated through the instrumentality of Cranmer; and the penalties in some cases were commuted into confiscation of property; and no accusation was to be made upon a sermon after forty days, nor upon words spoken after a year. In 1547 the act itself was revoked. (See par. 56.) Queen Catharine Parr. 18. After his divorce from Anne of Cleves, the king married Catharine Howard, a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, who was condemned and executed for treason. In July, 1543, he married his sixth and last wife, Catharine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer. This event was *Shaxton, Bishop of Salis- | bury, who was condemned to be burnt for words spoken against transubstantation, but saved his life by recantation, was forced to the passing of the Act. What Act was passed through Cranmer's exertions for mitigating the severity of this statute? When, and by whom, was the Act repealed. 48. When did Henry marry hls sixth and last wife? Show that this marriage was encouraging to the Reformers. Cranmer. Paul III. HENRY VIII. looked upon with pleasure by the Reformers; for Catharine favonred their doctrines, and was a woman of some learning and a religious frame of mind. She was herself the writer of a religious treatise, The Lamentation of a Sinner, and procured the translation into English of Erasmus' Commentary on the New Testament, which was afterwards set up in Churches together with the Bible. Printed Translations A.D. 1526. 49. It was in Henry's reign that an authorized translation of the Bible into English was made, and ordered to be set up in the Churches. (1) William Tyndale was the first person who printed any part of the Bible in the English tongue. Having been driven to Antwerp by persecntion, he there, in conjunction with Joy and Constantine, published a translation of the New Testament from the Greek, A.D. 1526. Most of the copies were bought up by Bishop Tonstall and Sir Thomas More, and burnt in Cheapside. This afforded Tyndale an opportunity of enlarging and improving his translation in another edition, in 1530, which was prohibited by the Court of Star Chamber, and many copies of it were burnt. (2) Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, has the glory of having put forth the first printed English translation of the whole Bible in the A.D. 1535. year 1535. This was a special translation, dedicated to the king, in consequence of his assent to the petition of convocation for an authorised translation. A.D. 1530. 49. In what reign was the first authorized translation of the Bible into English made ? When, where, and by whom was the first English Bible |