THE CATHOLIC REACTION AND THE ALLIANCE WITH CLEVES

The first few months of the new year brought no improvement in the state of England’s foreign affairs. Having postponed the Lutheran alliance which Cromwell had so strongly advocated in the end of 1538, for fear of losing his position of neutrality between France and Spain, Henry was driven back on his own policy of seeking safety for England in direct negotiations with Charles and Francis. Matrimonial agitations had failed—malicious tale-bearing had not borne fruit, so the King took the more straightforward course of making direct complaints that he was spoken of with too little respect in foreign parts. He sent grumbling letters to his neighbours, accusing them of permitting evil reports to be circulated about him. He caused the President of the Council of the North to request James of Scotland to suppress and punish the authors of several ‘spyttfull ballades,’ which had been published about the wrongfully usurped authority of the King of England, and also wrote to Wyatt in Spain, commanding him to protest against the malicious and unreasonable lies of the ‘barking prechers ther’ who slandered him behind his back[604]. But these petty remonstrances had no effect in diminishing the growing cordiality of Francis and Charles, or their hatred of England: in fact the two continental sovereigns seemed better friends than ever. On January 12, representatives of both monarchs met at Toledo and concluded an agreement not to make any new alliances, either political or matrimonial, with the King of England, without each other’s consent[605]. The news of this treaty was a deathblow to Henry’s hopes; and the King was reluctantly forced to admit that his minister’s scheme of a German alliance offered better chances of safety for England than any other. So he again gave his consent to a renewal of negotiations for an outside league, though, as we shall soon see, it was on a basis somewhat different from that of the previous ones.

Disappointed by the King’s refusal definitely to accept the alliance for which he had laboured so hard, Cromwell had meantime been amusing himself with a very feeble plan for gaining friends against the Pope, the chimerical nature of which was quite at variance with the direct and practical character of most of his schemes. He had proposed a league of England with the Dukes of Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino against his Holiness, who had just challenged the title of the latter to the dukedom of Camerino. An interesting set of instructions to Cromwell’s friend Edmund Harvell at Venice tells the story of this negotiation very vividly[606]. But the princes of northern Italy were too weak and the scheme itself was too remote and far-fetched to promise any real advantage, and Cromwell doubtless lost all interest in it as soon as the King again consented to approach the Germans. The fact that three months had been suffered to elapse since the return of the envoys in 1538, without an acceptance of the King’s invitation to send other representatives to discuss theological points, simply proves that Henry’s treatment of the first embassy had not been such as to encourage the Lutherans to persevere[607]. But now that the King had again veered round to Cromwell’s policy, he ‘mervayled not a litel’ at the slowness of the Germans, and sent Christopher Mont over to the Court of the Elector of Saxony on January 25 to discover the feelings of John Frederic and the Landgrave of Hesse, the leaders of the Schmalkaldic League, towards the Emperor, to inquire further into their attitude on the tenets about which they had so fruitlessly disputed with the English bishops in the preceding summer, and finally to learn whether the Duke of Cleves and his son were of the ‘old popisshe fasshyon’ or no[608]. Appended to these very non-committal injunctions are certain others from Cromwell himself of quite a different nature[609]. Completely dodging the theological issue, which he wisely left entirely in the King’s hands, Cromwell took up the question of the German alliance from a new and far more practical side, the matrimonial. He instructed Mont to suggest to the Vice-Chancellor Burckhard the possibility of two marriages; one between the young Duke of Cleves and the Princess Mary, and the other between Anne, the elder of the two unmarried daughters of the old Duke, and the King himself[610]. It appears that Cromwell had already discussed the feasibility of the first of these two matches with the Vice-Chancellor, when the latter had been in England in the previous summer, and John Frederic had subsequently written to the King’s minister that the plan met with his entire approval. The proposal for Henry’s marriage, on the contrary, was now brought forward for the first time. We shall soon see why it was that Mont was sent to the Elector of Saxony, rather than to the Duke of Cleves himself, to feel the way for these two alliances.

In order to understand the precise bearing on the foreign affairs of England of the two marriages which Cromwell proposed, and of the political league which would naturally go with them, we must make a slight digression here and examine the very peculiar position in which the Duke of Cleves found himself at this juncture. Various political considerations, above all an increasing jealousy of the power of the House of Saxony, had led the Emperor Maximilian in 1496 to declare Maria, the only child of the Duke of Juliers and Berg, to be the lawful heiress of these two provinces; a step which was in direct contravention of a grant which Maximilian, at his election as King of the Romans, had made to Frederic the Wise of the reversion of Juliers and Berg in case of failure of male heirs in the ducal line there. This grant was definitely revoked in various documents of the years 1508 and 1509; and Duke John of Cleves, who in the meantime had married the heiress Maria of Juliers and Berg, was permitted to unite these three rich provinces in his own hand, and to establish a strong power on the Lower Rhine which prevented undue preponderance of the House of Wettin, and furnished a useful support for the Hapsburgs in the western part of the Empire[611]. The peace-loving Duke John lived and died in friendship with Maximilian and his grandson, although his desire to see a reform in the Church had prevented his definite acceptance of the Imperial invitation to join a Catholic League against the Schmalkaldner in 1537. Instead he devoted himself to strengthening his power in his own possessions by a series of wise and prudent measures, through which he welded the three component parts of his dominions into one[612]. But during the last year of his life (which ended on February 6, 1539, while Mont was on his way to the Saxon Court) affairs took a turn which was destined to bring his son and heir William into direct conflict with the Empire. In June, 1538, the warlike Duke Charles of Gelderland, whose possessions lay next to the province of Cleves on the north, died leaving no children. His life had been spent in a struggle against the pretensions to his hereditary dominions brought forward by the Emperor as heir of Charles the Bold, and in order to prevent the substantiation of the Imperial claims at his death he had planned to leave his lands to the King of France[613]. This scheme however had encountered strong opposition from the estates of Gelderland, who regarded with little favour a proposal so threatening to their comparatively independent position, and Duke Charles was finally forced, much against his will, to designate young William of Cleves as his successor. The latter, though by nature weak and irresolute, was not in a position to refuse the chance which fortune had thrown in his way: he accepted the proffered inheritance, and the death of his father soon after left him in full possession of the four rich provinces[614].

The result was that he immediately became involved in a serious quarrel with the Emperor, who realizing how dangerous a rival to his own power had been created by the events just recounted, reasserted his claims to Gelderland even more strongly than before. In looking for allies against Charles, Duke William naturally turned to the Elector of Saxony, whose rights to Juliers and Berg, once rudely revoked by Maximilian, had not been forgotten, but who seems to have preserved sufficiently friendly relations with the family in favour of which his claims had been set aside, to marry Sibylla, one of the sisters of the Duke[615]. Common enmity to Charles V. now drew them very close together, and at the Imperial Court it was actually thought that Cleves had been formally admitted to the Schmalkaldic League[616]. This however was a mistake. Though Duke William was certainly not opposed to the Lutheran doctrines, he had not as yet made open confession of the Protestant faith; and for that reason the Elector and the Landgrave had steadily refused to make a political alliance with him[617]. Still he was on very intimate terms with John Frederic, who had promised, when he wedded Sibylla of Cleves, to advance money for the marriage of her sisters, and thus had a certain right to be consulted when husbands were to be chosen for them. Henry was doubtless well aware of all this, and it was consequently at the Saxon Court that Mont was instructed to obtain information about the Duke of Cleves, and if possible to pave the way for the two matrimonial alliances from which Cromwell hoped so much.

Having completed this preliminary survey of the position of the Duke of Cleves, we are enabled to make some interesting observations on the instructions to the English ambassador. It is very significant that the inquiries which Mont was ordered to make concerning the religious tendencies of Duke William were concerned only with his attitude towards the Pope. Of course the King could not consistently ally himself with firm adherents of the Holy See after the events of the past ten years; but it is also of the utmost importance to notice that he apparently preferred a league with powers which he knew had not definitely committed themselves to the New Faith to an alliance with the Schmalkaldner. Else why did he rather seek to unite with Cleves than with Saxony? Both were politically valuable, as enemies of the Emperor; the only difference was that Cleves was not as yet avowedly Protestant, and Saxony was. It is possible that the idea which bore fruit five months later in the Six Articles had already taken shape in Henry’s mind; at least it seems certain that he was determined to keep a perfectly free hand in religious affairs, so as not to be hampered in his political relations with France and Spain. Thus when Cromwell at last succeeded in persuading him reluctantly to return to a German alliance, it was really only half a victory for the minister. There was this great difference between the league with the Lutherans which Cromwell had proposed and which never succeeded, and the Cleves alliance which was now sought. The one would have been necessarily both political and religious (for we have seen that the Lutherans had always refused to join with England until a satisfactory theological agreement could be made), while the other was solely political. It was simply another expression of the old disagreement between Henry and Cromwell. The King, always looking for a chance of reconciliation with Charles and Francis, refused to enter an alliance the religious conditions of which would greatly enhance the difficulty of a return to his favourite scheme. He was only induced to enter a purely political league, which he doubtless felt he could throw over at any moment if he wished to do so; an agreement both political and religious he might have found it more difficult to escape from. Cromwell on the other hand, having definitely given up all ideas of direct negotiations with France and Spain, wished to plunge headlong into the Lutheran alliance, caring little what he was committed to provided he gained solid support. But, as we have seen, the King would not agree to this, and the alliance with Cleves can thus only be regarded as a compromise between the royal and Cromwellian policies, which the King could abandon whenever affairs in France and Spain took a more favourable turn. Later events in the same year furnish further proofs of this most important fact.

Furthermore the King had contrived that the responsibility for the proposed league with Cleves should fall almost entirely on his minister’s shoulders, in order that he himself might the more easily renounce it if occasion served. The fact that the new alliance, if accomplished, would from its very nature commit him to far less than the Lutheran league which he had put off in 1538, was not enough for Henry; he must needs have other safeguards, and determined to make Cromwell his scapegoat. All the practical and important parts of the instructions to Mont were given by the King’s minister. The conciliatory expressions with which Henry had directed the ambassador to sound the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse on the question of theology were merely empty words, as is proved by the utter failure of an attempted agreement four months later. Their sole object was to induce John Frederic more favourably to receive the practical proposals which followed. But the King purposely left to Cromwell the task of framing the vital part of the message, and it is evident that he gave his consent to the proposals it contained only in the most guarded and non-committal manner. We are merely told that as regards the match proposed for the Princess Mary, Cromwell perceived ‘the kinges hieghnes ... by his graces countenaunce and exterior Visage ... to be of good Inclinacion[618].’ On the more vital question of the King’s attitude concerning his own marriage, the instructions of Cromwell to Mont give us even vaguer information. The fact was that the King was willing definitely to bind Cromwell, but not himself, to a plan which he had resolved to abandon the moment that any favourable alteration should take place in his relations with France and Spain. From the day that Mont departed on his mission, the fate of the alliance with Cleves and the fate of Thomas Cromwell were joined together beyond the possibility of separation.

We unfortunately do not possess the letter in which Mont and his companion, a certain Thomas Paynell, reported their first reception at the Saxon Court, but the reply of Cromwell on March 10 gives us considerable information about the success of the ambassadors[619]. John Frederic had apparently welcomed the prospect of the two marriages by which Henry proposed to bind himself to Cleves, and had promised, through Burckhard, to do his best to bring them about. Cromwell’s letter goes on to direct Mont to follow up the advantage already gained by telling bad stories about Charles, and to ‘inculcate and persuade vnto the said duke and landisgrave the moment & importance of that grudge, which themperour doth beire, for the Bishop of Romes pleasure against them and other of the avangelik sorte, which they may nowe easely perceive by that he worketh and goeth aboute.’ At the same time, another embassy, headed by a certain Dr. Nicholas Wotton, was sent to Cleves to obtain confirmation of the promises of Burckhard, and further to carry on negotiations for a supply of gunners and artillerymen to be furnished to Henry in case he should need them; and finally to signify the King’s willingness to make an offensive and defensive league with Duke William[620]. The latter was at first less eager to accept the alliance which England offered than his brother-in-law was to promote it: he wanted to postpone a definite answer in the hope that he might yet come to a peaceful solution of his difficulty with the Emperor[621]. But as this prospect daily grew more and more remote, he became correspondingly willing to entertain Henry’s proposals, and the outlook for the accomplishment of the practical part of Cromwell’s plan seemed very favourable. The comparatively unimportant overtures for theological reconciliation with the Elector and the Landgrave were apparently at first received with less enthusiasm by the Lutherans, who had already had some experience of the King’s vacillating policy and evidently thought it a little suspicious that Henry had suddenly become so very urgent. We have seen that the King’s proposals for a religious agreement were chiefly intended as a blind to cover the more practical matrimonial proposals which had followed, but Cromwell evidently thought it worth while to keep up the deception as a precaution. A second letter from the King’s minister directs Mont and Paynell to continue to urge on the Elector and Landgrave the importance of theological unity, and to ‘conduce to haue them somw[hat reproved for] ouersight & slakenes, in shewing [so little] gratuite, and by that for to pryk th[em to] redubb the same and give you more f[avourable] answer.’

And at first Cromwell’s eagerness for the alliance with Cleves seemed to have every justification, for Henry’s policy in other parts of Europe appeared to have failed even more completely than before. Ominous letters were received from Wriothesley, the ambassador in the Netherlands, who did not hesitate to express his fear that war would soon come and that his retreat to England would be cut off[622]. At the same time Chapuys received orders to return to the Court of the Queen Regent, and Cromwell consequently instructed Wriothesley to demand leave to depart[623]. The exchange was finally effected, but that there was deep distrust on both sides is proved by Cromwell’s orders for the detention of Chapuys at Calais, until the safety of Wriothesley was assured, and by the instructions of the Queen Regent to the Provost of Mons to follow the English ambassador to Gravelines[624]. But fortunately these precautions were unnecessary; no open act of hostility took place, and the crisis seemed at least temporarily tided over by the arrival of the Dean of Cambray in London to replace Chapuys, and by the reception of Stephen Vaughan at Brussels in Wriothesley’s stead[625]. But the attitude of France was more disquieting. On February 5 Castillon was recalled, and though he made a vague promise at his departure that another should be sent in his place, the anxiety at the Court was but little relieved thereby. The most that Cromwell could do, was to take care that the French ambassador should carry back to his master full accounts of the excellence of England’s defences, and her readiness for war. So he took him, as he later wrote to the King, to his armoury, showing him a ‘store of harneys and wepens ... the whiche he semed to esteme moche,’ and telling him that there were twenty more armouries in the realm as well or better equipped; ‘wherat he woundred and sayd that he thought your grace the prince best furnished thereof in Christendom[626].’

But though Cromwell may have exaggerated the security of England’s fortifications, his words to Castillon were by no means empty. Though the King and his minister may have had differences of opinion in regard to the conduct of foreign affairs, in the internal management of the kingdom they were, as always, united. Here Henry suffered himself to be guided at all points by Cromwell. And at no time is the masterfulness of the latter’s domestic administration better exhibited, than by his action at home the moment the first rumours of an invasion reached England. Countless memoranda, lists of men fit for military service, arms, ammunition, provisions, and other necessaries of warfare, all in his hand, or in that of one of his clerks, attest his industry and ability in preparing the country to repel the dreaded invasion. All reports of the state of the coast defences at various places were sent to him. General musters were ordered throughout the realm; every precaution was taken to fortify all vulnerable points. Beacons were placed upon all the hills, and no detail that could add to the strength and efficiency of the defences was left out[627].

But just at this very moment, when everything seemed to point to an open rupture with Charles and Francis, when the schemes which Cromwell had opposed to those of the King seemed to have every justification, an event occurred which totally changed the aspect of affairs, and restored Henry’s badly shaken confidence in his own ability to stave off the threatened crisis without the aid of outside alliances or an appeal to arms. This event was the arrival in England on March 28 of a new French ambassador, Charles de Marillac, who had come to replace Castillon. So long a time had elapsed since the departure of the latter that Henry had probably given up all hope of the fulfilment of the vague prospects that had been held out that a successor might be appointed. But the unexpected appearance of Marillac at once revived the King’s drooping spirits. The letters in which the ambassador reported his reception at the English Court to Francis and Montmorency give us a vivid picture of the universal joy with which this apparent reassurance of friendship with France was hailed[628]. Henry was delighted, and his satisfaction was increased when Marillac, at his master’s command, followed up the advantage already gained by renewed assertions of the cordiality of France. The whole Court seemed ‘to wear a new aspect and to be quite delighted[629].’ Had Henry seen the letter of instructions which Marillac received from the French Court, he would have realized that Francis was only endeavouring ‘to keep him in good humour[630],’ while making a little more certain of his own relations with Charles; and he might have been less encouraged. But Marillac’s cordiality seems to have put him off his guard, and he was led, in his exultation, to welcome the apparent friendship of Francis in ways which very nearly resulted in the permanent stultification of all the laborious efforts of Cromwell to maintain amicable relations in Germany. The events which took place in England in the three months following the arrival of the French ambassador furnish ample proof of this new departure in the royal policy.

On April 28 Parliament had met, its assembling being indispensable to carrying on the ‘Kinges busynes.’ Cromwell had practically appointed every member, in order that Henry might have a ‘tractable’ House. His usual methods of ‘ordering’ the elections of members have already been described; suffice it to say that in this case he had completely outdone himself; the Parliament of 1539 was undoubtedly his masterpiece[631]. It will be remembered that it was in this session that he first succeeded in forcing the Lords and Commons to sanction the statute by which royal proclamations were given the force of laws. Cromwell’s ‘remembrance’ for other Acts to be passed in the Parliament of 1539 is also noteworthy. It makes casual mention of the attainders of Exeter, Salisbury, and Pole, of plans for the fortification of the coast, and then designates the scheme out of which the Six Articles were later evolved as ‘A devise in the parliament for the vnitie in religion[632].’ It is very improbable that Cromwell had any really accurate information concerning the King’s real intentions in connexion with this last item. Henry had purposely concealed them under a very non-committal statement. Doubtless the King had long cherished the idea of making use of a declaration that in matters of doctrine England still adhered to the Old Faith, to facilitate a reconciliation with Charles and Francis; for such a statement would remove the main pretext of the Emperor and the French King for an attack on him, namely that they were undertaking a crusade to suppress heresy. But so hopeless had been the outlook in the early part of the year, that Henry had not had the courage to try this experiment. He was rather led to shun all moves which would imperil his friendly relations with Germany, so that he had scrupulously avoided any direct statement which could lead to the belief that a Catholic reaction was possible. But the assurances of Marillac had revived all his enthusiasm for his old policy. He now abandoned all caution, and promptly proceeded to disclose his real ideas in regard to the ‘vnitie in religion.’ When Cromwell discovered the true state of affairs he must have been dismayed; he probably already felt how deeply he had become involved in the German alliance, and saw that the new trend which things had taken boded no good to him. His position was now a very uncomfortable one, and the fact that a committee of bishops under his superintendence was utterly unable to cope with the difficulties of the newly presented religious problem, is very significant. Henry was not to be balked however. He quickly took the matter out of the hands of the incompetent bishops, and placed it before the Lords; finally, to make assurance doubly sure, he came to them in person, ‘and confounded them all with Goddes Lerning[633].’ Henry’s theology was of course as unimpeachable as it was confounding, and his energy was rewarded before the middle of June by the definite passage in Parliament of the Statute of the Six Articles. The doctrine of Transubstantiation was confirmed, communion in both kinds was pronounced unnecessary, the marriage of priests was forbidden, all vows of chastity were to be strictly observed, and private masses and auricular confession were adjudged meet and expedient[634].

In spite of the radically Catholic nature of the doctrines proclaimed in this Act, however, Henry took good care that there should be no mistake about his attitude towards the Pope. He was committed to hostility to the See of Rome beyond the possibility of escape, and he knew it. Though political expediency, internal and foreign, had led him to proclaim the catholicity of the Church of England in matters of doctrine, no consideration whatever could induce him to make the least concession to the Papacy. In fact he took measures to show, simultaneously with the passage of the Six Articles, that his contempt of the See of Rome was stronger than ever. Marillac wrote that on June 15 there was played on the river in the King’s presence ‘a game of poor grace, much less invention, of two galleys, one carrying the King’s arms, the other the Pope’s, with several Cardinals’ hats (so he was told, for he would have deemed it contrary to duty to be a spectator). The galleys fought a long time, and ultimately those of the King were victorious, and threw the Pope and Cardinals and their arms into the water, to show people that this King will entirely confound and abolish the power of the Holy Father[635].’ Demonstrations like this were of course mainly intended to impress people at home. Let us now examine the effect of the Six Articles abroad, first in Germany, and then in France and Spain.