considerations were accessory,) demanded of the assembled Prelates, and first of his own Confessor, Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, whether his present course were not taken with their advice and approbation, signified under their own seals." Whereupon, if we believe the biographer of Wolsey, a singular scene took place, in which Fisher displayed uncommon boldness of soul and bluntness of speech. The Archbishop of Canterbury obsequiously assented to the King's assertion. "That

is the truth if it please your Highness; I doubt not but all my brethren here present will affirm the same." "No sir, not I," quoth the Bishop of Rochester, " ye have not my consent thereto." No! ha! the!! quoth the King, "look here upon this; is not this your hand and seal ?" and shewed him the instrument with seals. "No forsooth, sire," quoth the Bishop of Rochester, "it is not my hand nor seal." To that quoth the King to my Lord of Canterbury, "Sir, how say ye? Is it not his hand and seal ?" "Yes, sir," quoth my Lord of Canterbury. "That

is not so," quoth the Bishop of Rochester, "for indeed you were in hand with me to have both my hand and seal, as other of my Lords had already done; but then I said to you, that I would never consent to no such act, for it were much against my conscience, nor my hand and seal should never be seen at no such instrument, God willing, with much more matter touching the same communication between us." "You say truth," quoth the Bishop of Canterbury, "such words ye said unto me; but at the last ye were fully persuaded that I should for you subscribe your name, and put to a seal myself, and ye would allow the same," "All which words and matter," quoth the Bishop of Rochester, "under your correction my Lord, and supportation of this noble audience, there is no thing more untrue." Well, well," quoth the king, "it shall make no matter, we will not stand with you in argument herein, for you are but one man." And with that the court was adjourned to the next day of session.

The next court day the Cardinals met again, but neither the King nor the Queen were present. The discussions, which are given at great length by some historians, respected chiefly the circumstances of the marriage between the Prince Arthur and the Lady Catherine, which was positively declared by the Queen and her counsel to have been a mere ceremony. The evidence of course was circumstantial, and the conclusion come to by the one side, seemingly very just, that it was impossible to know the truth: But this, though urged by his own party, did not satisfy Fisher.

"Yes," quoth the Bishop of Rochester, "Ego nosco veritatem, I know the truth." "How know you the truth," quoth my Lord Cardinal. Forsooth, my Lord," quoth he, "Ego sum professor veritatis, I know

that God is truth itself, nor he never spake but truth that saith, "whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder, and forasmuch as this marriage was made and joined by God to a good intent, I say that I know, the which cannot be broken or loosed by the power of man upon no feigned occasion." "So much do all faithful men know, quoth the Lord Cardinal, as well as you. Yet this reason is not sufficient in this case, for the King's counsel doth alledge divers presumptions to prove the marriage not good at the beginning, ergo, say they, it was not joined by God at the beginning, and therefore it is not lawful; for God ordaineth nor joineth nothing without a just order. Therefore it is not to be doubted but that these presumptions must be true, as it plainly appeareth; and nothing can be more true in case these allegations cannot be avoided; therefore to say that the matrimony was joined of God, ye must prove it further than by that text which ye have alledged for your matter; for ye must first avoid the presumptions." "Then," quoth one Doctor Ridley, "it is a shame and a great dishonour to this honourable presence, that any such presumptions should be alledged in this open court, which be to all good and honest men most detestable to be rehearsed." "What," quoth my Lord Cardinal, " Domine Doctor, magis reverenter.” "No, no, my Lord," quoth he "there belongeth no reverence to be given to these abominable presumptions; for an unreverend tale would be unreverently answered." And there they left, and proceeded no farther at that time."

The exertions of Fisher in defence of the legality of the Queen's marriage, were not confined to these altercations, to which divorce causes have ever been disgracefully liable. He addressed a letter to Wolsey in her favour, and presented to the legates a book entitled “De causa matrimonii Regis Angliæ." "The Case of the King of England's marriage." But it was neither books nor legates that were to stop the course of Henry's will. The separation of Britain from the Roman communion was decreed, and providence ordered that the passions of men should minister to the mighty end, that so the glory might be God's alone.

The investigation was protracted from sitting to sitting, and no real progress made, or intended to be made. Henry, weary and impatient,

"This work of Fisher's was long supposed to exist only in MS. but in the public auction of Don Jos Antonio Conde's library, a printed copy was purchased for Mr. Heber, which appears to have issued from the press of Alcala (Complutum) in Spain, the printer of which says, that the manuscript copy was given him by the Archbishop of Toledo. It is probable that the Spanish agents in England contrived to obtain a copy, and sent it to the Emperor Charles V. It would not have been permitted to issue from the press in England."...Singer.

*

at the suggestion, it is said, of the Earl of Wiltshire, father to Anne Boleyn, urged, and in a manner compelled the two Cardinals to repair to the Queen's apartments, and persuade her by their politic and ghostly counsels, to avoid the scandal and mortification of the public trial, by surrendering the whole matter, with her own free consent, to the King's discretion. This was, in effect, commanding her to resign her connubial rights and royal dignity, and to retire into a convent, or any other place, where she might be out of the way. She remonstrated with much dignity, and shewed much unwillingness to trust the two churchmen, who pretended to advise her for the best. She complained that she was 66 a simple woman, destitute and barren of friendship and counsel in a foreign region," and never could be brought to gratify the King by confessing herself to have lived for so many years in unholy matrimony. Her reliance on her nephew, the Emperor, whose influence over the vacillating Pope Clement had alone prevented the dissolution of her marriage by Papal authority, emboldened her to avoid the snare, which was laid before her eyes. To the Pope she had privily appealed, and the Imperial interest now preponderating at the Vatican, Campeggio received secret instructions, unknown, it is said, to Wolsey, to adjourn the court and advoke the cause to Rome. The artful Italian spun out the trial till the 23rd of July, when there was a general expectation that the definitive sentence would be passed.

The King was seated in a gallery, where " he might both see and

* According to the narrative of his attendant, Wolsey was very indignant at being forced into this service; not the less probably, though Cavendish does not admit it, because he saw that Anne Boleyn was to reap the fruit of all his intrigues in first setting the divorce on foot, and then delaying its completion till his own schemes were perfected. The Earl of Wiltshire, therefore, was naturally the most unwelcome messenger that could have been despatched to him.

"To fulfil the King's pleasure my Lord said he was ready, and would prepare him to go thither out of hand," (he was in bed when the King's commands were brought him,) saying further to my Lord of Wiltshire, "Ye, and other my Lords of the council, which be near unto the King, are not a little to blame and misadvised to put any such phantasies into his head, whereby ye are the causes of great trouble to all the realm, and in the end get you but small thanks either of God or of the world," with many other vehement words and sentences that were like to ensue of this matter, which caused my Lord of Wiltshire to water his eyes, kneeling all this while by my Lord's bedside, and in conclusion departed."---Singer's Cavendish, p. 226.

It appears from the following passage, that George Cavendish himself attended his master, the Cardinal, on this visit, and was ear witness to the first part of the conference, which Shakspeare has versified. "And with that she took my Lord by the hand, and led him into her privy chamber, with the other Cardinal; where they were in long communication; we, in the other chamber, might sometime hear the Queen speak very loud, but what it was we could not understand."

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hear all speak;" the whole proceedings were read over in Latin, and then the King's counsel prayed for judgment. But Campeggio absolutely refused to make any decision, before he had laid the whole matter before the Pope, and received his Holiness's orders, declaring “ that he would damn his soul for no prince or potentate alive," and so adjourned the court, which never met again. The cause was in appearance removed to Rome, whither Campeggio soon returned; and so ended the period of Fisher's official advocacy for Queen Catherine; but he continued to the end of his life to maintain the justice of her cause. The Parliament met Nov. 3, 1529. The Commons, who always looked upon the wealth of the clergy with invidious eyes, expecting, without much wisdom, to be gainers by its diminution, however that were brought about, zealously entered into the King's design of humbling the church of Rome. Violent censures were passed upon the vices of the ecclesiastics, the suppression of monasteries began to be rumoured, and no less than six bills were introduced "which at once gratified the present humour of the King, and the constant temper of the people," all tending to depress the sacerdotal order: 1st. Against the extortions of the ecclesiastical courts: 2nd. Against their exactions in mortuaries, &c. 3rd. Their worldly occupations, as tanning, grazing, &c.: 4th. Merchandize: 5th. Non-residence: 6th. Pluralities. Very much the same subjects of complaint that are reiterated to this day. Some of them were abuses which Fisher would gladly have seen the clergy reform in themselves; but, he had so high a notion of the sanctity of priesthood, that he abhorred the attempts of the laity to resist priestly oppression. When the six bills were brought up to the House of Lords, he spoke in his place as follows:

:

Or

My Lords, here are certain bills exhibited against the clergy, wherein there are complaints made against the viciousness, idleness, rapacity, and cruelty of the Bishops, Abbots, Priests, and their officials; but, my Lords, are all idle, all vicious, all ravenous, or cruel Priests and Bishops? And for such as are so, are there no laws already provided against them? Is there any abuse that we do not seek to rectify? Or can there be such a rectification, as that there shall be no abuses? are not clergymen to rectify the abuses of the clergy? Or shall men find fault with other men's manners while they forget their own, and punish where they have no authority to correct? If we be not executive in our laws, let each man suffer for his delinquency; or if we have not power, aid us with your assistance, and we shall give you thanks. But, my Lords, I hear that there is a motion made that the small monasteries shall be taken into the King's hands, which makes me fear that it is not so much the GOOD, as the GOODS of the church, that is

looked after. Truly, my Lords, how this may sound in your cars, I cannot tell; but to me it appears no otherwise than as if our holy mother, the Church, were to become a bond-maid, and be new brought into servility and thraldom, and by little and little to be quite banished out of those dwelling places, which the piety and liberality of our forefathers, as most bountiful benefactors, have conferred upon her; otherwise, to what tendeth these portentous and curious petitions of the Commons? To no other intent or purpose, but to bring the clergy into contempt with the laity, that they may seize their patrimony. But, my Lords, beware of yourselves and your country; beware of your Holy mother the Catholic Church; the people are subject unto novelties, and Lutheranism spreads itself amongst us. Remember Germany and Bohemia, what miseries are befallen them already: and let our neighbours' houses that are now on fire teach us to beware of our own disasters. Wherefore, my Lords, I will tell you plainly what I think; that except ye resist manfully, by your authorities, this violent heap of mischiefs offered by the Commons, ye will see all obedience first drawn from the clergy, and secondly from yourselves. And if you search into the true causes of all these mischiefs which reign among them, you shall find that they all arise through want of faith."

This speech, which was any thing but conciliatory, while it was highly applauded by those who abhorred or dreaded change, excited the alarm and indignation of the Reformers in both Houses, and was not calculated to remove from the King himself those unfavourable dispositions which the Bishop's conduct in the divorce business had occasioned. The Duke of Norfolk, who was nearly connected with Anne Boleyn, arose in his place and said, "My Lord of Rochester, many of these words might well have been spared; but it is often seen, that the greatest clerks are not always the wisest men." Fisher retorted, "My Lord, I do not remember any fools in my time that proved great clerks." But the Commons were particularly scandalized at the conclusion of this harangue, which plainly ascribed their enmity to the clergy to their unbelief in the Catholic doctrines. they were informed of this attack, they sent Sir Thomas Audley, their speaker, with thirty of their members, to complain before the King, to whom, as they shrewdly suspected, complaints against Bishop Fisher were far from unacceptable. The speaker, in the name of the Commons of England, set forth "how shameful and injurious it was that they, the chosen representatives of the English people, selected from among their countrymen for their wisdom, virtue, and good fame, should be taxed (and through them the Commons of all England) with

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