James Aitken Wylie - The History of Protestantism (Complete 24 Books in One Volume)

This request Pope Martin did not send directly to the king or the regent. The Vatican in such cases commonly acts through its spiritual machinery. In the first place, the Pontiff is too exalted above other monarchs to make suit in person to them; and in the second place, he is too politic to do so. It lessens the humiliation of a rebuff that it be given to the servant and not the master. Pope Martin wrote to Archbishop Chicheley, frowning right pontitfically upon him for a state of things which Chicheley could no more prevent than Martin himself could.

"Martin, Bishop, servant of the servants of God," began the Pontiff — it is the usual Papal phraseology, especially when some arrogant demand is to follow — to his reverend brother, the Archbishop of Canterbury, greeting, and apostolic benediction." So far well, but the sweetness exhales in the first sentence; the brotherly kindness of Papal benediction is soon exhausted, and then comes the Papal displeasure. Pope Martin goes on to accuse his "reverend brother" of forgetting what "a strict account he had to give to Almighty God of the flock committed to his care." He upbraids him as "sleepy and negligent," otherwise he would have opposed to the utmost of his power "those who had made a sacrilegious invasion upon the privileges settled by our Savior upon the Roman Church " — the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, to wit. While Archbishop Chicheley was slumbering, "his flock, alas!" the Pope tells him, "were running down a precipice before his face." The flock in the act of hurling themselves over a precipice are seen, in the next sentence, feeding quietly beside their shepherd; for the Pope immediately continues, "You suffer them to feed upon dangerous plants, without warning; and, which is horribly surprising, you seem to put poison in their mouths with your own hands." He had forgotten that Archbishop Chicheley's hands were at that moment folded in sleep, and that he was now uttering a cry to awaken him. But again the scene suddenly shifts, and the Papal pencil displays a new picture to our bewildered sight; for, adds the writer, "you can look on and see the wolves scatter and pull them in pieces, and, like a dumb dog, not so much as bark upon the occasion."

After the rhetoric comes a little business. "What abominable violence has been let loose upon your province, I leave it to yourself to consider. Pray peruse that royal law" the Pope now comes to the point — " if there is anything that is either law or royal belonging to it. For how can that be called a statute which repeals the laws of God and the Church? I desire to know, reverend brother, whether you, who are a Catholic bishop, can think it reasonable such an Act as this should be in force in a Christian country?" Not content with having exhibited the statute of Praemunire under the three similitudes of a "precipice," "poison," and "wolves," Pope Martin goes on thus: —

" Under color of this execrable statute, the King of England reaches into the spiritual jurisdiction, and governs so fully in ecclesiastical matters, as if our Savior had constituted him His Vicar. He makes laws for the Church, as if the keys of the kingdom of heaven were put into his hands.

"Besides this hideous encroachment, he has enacted," continues the Pope, "several terrible penalties against the clergy."

This "rigor," worse, the Pope calls it, than any to which "Jew" or "Turk" was subjected, was the exclusion from the kingdom of those Italians and others whom the Pope had nominated to English livings without the king's consent, and in defiance of the statute.

"Was ever," asks the Pope, "such iniquity as this passed into a law? Can that be styled a Catholic kingdom where such profane laws are made and practised? where St. Peter's successor is not allowed to execute our Savior's commission? For this Act will not allow St. Peter's See to proceed in the functions of government, nor make provisions suitable to the necessities of the Church."

"Is this," asks the Pope, in fine, "a Catholic statute, or can it be endured without dishonor to our Savior, without a breach upon the laws of the Gospel, and the ruin of people's souls? Why, therefore, did you not cry aloud? why did you not lift up your voice like a trumpet? Show your people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins, that their blood may not be required at your hands."

Such were the terms in which Pope Martin deemed it becoming to speak of the Act by which the Parliament prohibited foreigners — many of whom did not know our tongue, and some of whom, too lazy to come in person, sent their cooks or butlers to do duty for them — holding livings in England. He rates the Senate of a great nation as if it were a chapter of friars or a corps of Papal pensioners, who dared not meet till he had given them leave, nor transact the least piece of business till they had first ascertained whether it was agreeable to his Pontifical pleasure. And the primate, the very man who at that moment was enacting new edicts against heresy, deeming the old not severe enough, and was burning Lollards for the "greater glory" of the Church, he indecently scolds as: grossly and traitorously negligent of the interests of the Papal See. This sharp reprimand was followed by an order to the archbishop, under pain of excommunication, instantly to repair to the Privy Council, and exert his utmost influence to have the statute repealed; and he was further enjoined, as soon as Parliament should sit, to apply to it for the same purpose, and to tell the Lords and Commons of England from the Pope, "that all who obeyed that statute were under excommunication." The primate was further required to charge all the clergy to preach the same doctrine. And, lastly, he was ordered to take two grave personages with him to attest his diligence, and to certify the Pope of the result of the matter.

Table of Contents

Embroilment of the Papaey — Why Angry with Archbishop Chicheley — A Former Offence — Advlses the King not to Receive a Legate-a-Latere — Powers of the Legate — Promise exacted of Legate Beaufort — Pope's Displeasure — -Holds the Statutes Void — Commands the Archbishop to Disobey them — Pope's Letter to Duke of Bedford — Chicheley advises Parliament to Repeal the Act — Parliament Refuses — The Pope resumes his Encroachments — Two Currents in England in the Fifteenth Century — Both Radically Protestant — The Evangelic Principle the Master-spring of all Activities then beginning in Society.

WHY this explosion of Papal wrath against the Primate of England? Why this torrent of abusive epithets and violent acusations? Even granting the Act of Praemunire to have been the atrociously wicked thing the Pope held it to be — the very acme of rebellion against God, against St. Peter, and against one whom the Pope seemed to think greater than either — himself — could Archbishop Chicheley have prevented the passing of it? It was passed before his time. And why, we may ask, was this tempest reserved for the head of Arctibishop Chicheley? Why was not the See of Canterbury taxed with cowardice and prevarication before now? Why were not Courtney and Arundel reprimanded upon the same score? Why had the Pope held his peace till this time? The flock in England for half a century had been suffering the treble scourge of being driven over a precipice, of being poisoned, and of being torn by wolves, and yet the Pontiff had not broken silence or uttered a cry of warning all that time. The chief shepherd had been slumbering as well as the under-shepherd, and ought first to have made confession of his own faults before so sharply calling others to a reckoning for theirs. Why was this?

We have already hinted at the reasons. The affairs of the Papal See were in great confusion. The schism was in its vigor. There were at times three claimants of St. Peter's chair. While matters were so embroiled, it would have been the height of imprudence to have ruffled the English bishops; it might have sent them over to a rival interest. But now Martin had borne down all competitors, he had climbed to the sole occupancy of the Papal throne, and he will let both the English Parliament and the English Primate know that he is Pope.