CHAPTER 11.
THE BISHOPS PLUNDER THE CLERGY, AND
delighted at seeing the clergy quarrelling, sought to fan the flame instead of extinguishing it.
When the 1st of September arrived the bishop entered the chapter-house with his officers, where the conference with the eight priests was to be held. Presently an unusual noise was heard round St. Paul’s; not only the six or eight priests, but six hundred, accompanied by a great number of citizens and common people, made their appearance. The crowd swayed to and fro before the cathedral gates, shouting and clamoring to be admitted into the chapter-house on the same footing as the select few. What was to be done? The prelate’s councilors advised him to add a few of the less violent priests to those he had already chosen. Stokesley adopted their advice, hoping that the gates and bolts would be strong enough to keep out the rest. Accordingly he drew up a list of new members, and one of his officers, going out to the angry crowd, read the names of those whom the bishop had selected. The latter came forward, not without trouble; but at the same time the excluded priests made a vigorous attempt to enter. There was a fierce struggle of men pushing and shouting, but the bishop’s
officials, having passed in quickly, those who had been nominated hurriedly closed the doors. So far the victory seemed to rest with the bishop, and he was about to speak, when the uproar became deafening.
The priests outside, exasperated because their financial matters were to be settled without them, protested that they ought to hold their own purse- strings. Laying hands on whatever they could find, and aided by the laity, they began to batter the door of the chapter-house. They succeeded: the door gave way, and all, priests and citizens, rushed in together. fj132 The bishop’s officials tried in vain to stop them; they were roughly pushed aside. fj133 Their gowns were torn, their faces streamed with perspiration, their features were disfigured, and some even were wounded. The furious priests entered the room at last, storming and shouting. It was more like a pack of hounds rushing on a stag than the reverend clergy of the
metropolis of England appearing before their bishop. The prelate, who had tact, showed no anger, but sought rather to calm the rioters. ‘My
brethren,’ he said, ‘I marvel not a little why ye be so heady. Ye know not what shall be said to you, therefore I pray you hear me patiently. Ye all know that we be men frail of condition, and by our lack of wisdom have misdemeaned ourselves towards the king and fallen in a praemunire, by
reason whereof all our lands, goods, and chattels were to him a forfeit, and our bodies ready to be imprisoned. Yet his Grace of his great clemency is pleased to pardon us, and to accept of a little instead of the whole of our benefices in about one hundred thousand pounds, to be paid in five years.
I exhort you to bear your parts towards payment of this sum granted.’ fj134 This was just what the priests did not want. They thought it strange to be asked for money for an offense they had not committed. ‘My lord,’
answered one, ‘we have never offended against the proemunire, we have never meddled with cardinal’s faculties. fj135 Let the bishops and abbots pay; they committed the offense, and they have good places.’ — ‘My lord,’ added another, ‘twenty nobles fj136 a year is but a bare living for a priest, and yet it is all we have. Everything is now so dear that poverty compels us to say No. Having no need of the king’s pardon we have no desire to pay.’ These words were drowned in applause. ‘No,’ exclaimed the crowd, which was getting noisy again, ‘we will pay nothing.’ The bishop’s officers grew angry, and came to high words; the priests returned abuse for abuse; and the citizens, delighted to see their ‘masters’
quarrelling, fanned the strife. From words they soon came to blows. The episcopal ushers, who tried to restore order, were ‘buffeted and stricken,’
and even the bishop’s life was in danger. At last the meeting broke up in great confusion. Stokesley hastened to complain to the chancellor, Sir Thomas More, who, being a great friend of the prelate’s, sent fifteen priests and five laymen to prison. They deserved it, no doubt; but the bishops, who, to spare their superfluity, robbed poor curates of their necessaries, were more guilty still.
Such was the unity that existed between the bishops and the priests of England at the very time the Reformation was appearing at the doors. The prelates understood the danger to which they were exposed through that evangelical doctrine, the source of light and life. They knew that all their ecclesiastical pretensions would crumble away before the breath of the divine Word. Accordingly, not content with robbing of their little substance the poor pastors to whom they should have been as fathers, they determined to deprive those whom they called heretics, not only of their money, but of their liberty and life. Would Henry permit this?
The king did not wish to withdraw England from the papal jurisdiction without the assent of the clergy. If he did so of his own authority, the priests would rise against him and compare him to Luther. There were at that time three great parties in Christendom: the evangelical, the catholic, and the popish. Henry purposed to overthrow popery, but without going so far as evangelism; he desired to remain in catholicism. One means
occurred of satisfying the clergy. Although they were fanatical partisans of the Church, they had sacrificed the pope; they now imagined that, by sacrificing a few heretics, they would atone for their cowardly submission.
In a later age Louis XIV. did the same to make up for errors of another kind. The provincial synod of Canterbury met and addressed the king:
‘Your Highness one time defended the Church with your pen, when you were only a member of it; now that you are its supreme head, your Majesty should crush its enemies, and so shall your merits exceed all praise.’ fj137
In order to prove that he was not another Luther, Henry VIII. consented to hand over the disciples of that heretic to the priests, and gave them authority to imprison and burn them, provided they would aid the king to resume the power usurped by the pope. The bishops immediately began to hunt down the friends of the Gospel.
A will had given rise to much talk in the county of Gloucester. William Tracy, a gentleman of irreproachable conduct and ‘full of good works, equally generous to the clergy and the laity,’ fj138 had died, praying God to save his soul through the merits of Jesus Christ, but leaving no money to the priests for masses. The primate of England had his bones dug up and burnt. But this was not enough; they must also burn the living.