XXXIV.

CHAP. the prisoner, covered himself with almost equal infamy as when he was driven to commit perjury on the trial of More. He had the baseness voluntarily to swear, that, in a private conversation he had held with the Bishop when he paid him a friendly visit in the Tower, he heard the Bishop declare "that he believed in his conscience, and by his learning he assuredly knew, that the King neither was nor by right could be supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England.”

Fisher, without the assistance of counsel, which could not be permitted against the Crown, objected to Audley and the other Judges that this declaration ought not be received in evidence, or be considered as supporting the charge in the indictment, considering the circumstances under which it was elicited from him. "Mr. Rich," said he, "I cannot but marvel to hear you come and bear witness against me of these words. This man, my Lords, came to me from the King, as he said, on a secret message, with commendations from his Grace declaring what good opinion his Majesty had of me, and how sorry he was of my trouble, and many more words not now fit to be recited, as I was not only ashamed to hear them, but also knew right well that I could no way deserve them. At last he broke to me the matter of the King's supremacy, telling me that the King, for better satisfaction of his own conscience, had sent him unto me in this secret manner to know my full opinion in the matter for the great affiance he had in me more than any other. When I had heard this message, I put him in mind of the new act of parliament, which standing in force as it does, might thereby endanger me very much in case I should utter any thing against its provisions. To that he made answer, that the King willed him to assure me, upon his honour, and on the word of a King, that whatsoever I should say unto him by this his secret messenger, I should abide no peril for it, although my words were ever so directly against the statute, seeing it was only a declaration of my mind secretly as to his own person.' And the messenger gave me his solemn promise that he never would mention my words to living soul, save the King alone. Now, therefore, my Lords, seeing it pleased the King's majesty to send to me thus secretly to

XXXIV.

know my poor advice and opinion, which I most gladly was CHAP. and ever will be ready to offer to him when so commanded, methinks it very hard to allow the same as sufficient testimony against me to prove me guilty of high treason."

General

Rich did not contradict this statement, observing only, Solicitor that "he said no more to him than his Majesty commanded," Rich's and then, as counsel for the Crown, argued, that assuming the statement to be true, it was no discharge in law against his Majesty for a direct violation of the statute.

commencounsel on

tary as

his own evidence as

Audley ruled, and the other Judges concurred, "that this witness. message or promise from the King neither did nor could, by rigour of law, discharge him, but in so declaring his mind and conscience against the supremacy, yea, though it were at the King's own request or commandment, he committed treason by the statute, and nothing could save him from death but the King's pardon."

Fisher still argued, that as the statute only made it treason maliciously to deny the King's supremacy, he could not be guilty by merely expressing an opinion to the King himself by his own order; - to which Audley answered, that malice did not mean spite or ill-will in the vulgar sense, but was an inference of law; for if a man speak against the King's supremacy by any manner of means, that speaking is to be understood and taken in law as malicious.

The right reverend prisoner then took an objection, which seems to have rather puzzled the Court,—that here there was but one witness, which in treason is insufficient.

conduct of the Lord

Chancellor

and Judges.

Audley and the Judges, after some hesitation, answered, Scandalous that as this was a case in which the King was personally concerned, the rule requiring two witnesses did not apply; that the jury would consider the evidence, the truth of which was not disputed, and as they believed or disbelieved it the prisoner should be acquitted or condemned. "The case was so aggravated to the jury, by my Lord Chancellor making it so heinous and dangerous a treason, that they easily perceived what verdict they must return; otherwise heap such danger on their own heads as none of them were willing to undergo." Yet many of his hearers, and some of his judges, were melted to tears, to see such a venerable father of the church in danger

CHAP. XXXIV.

Lord

pronounces

death on

Bishop Fisher.

of being sentenced to a cruel death upon such evidence given, contrary to all faith, and the promise of the King himself.

The jury having withdrawn for a short time, brought in a Chancellor verdict of guilty. The Bishop prayed to God to forgive sentence of them; but the Lord Chancellor, "framing himself to a solemnity of countenance," passed sentence of death upon him in the revolting terms used on such occasions; ordering that his head and four quarters should be set up where the King should appoint, and piously concluding with a prayer, that God might have mercy on his soul. This wicked Judge had not the apology of having any taste for blood himself, and he would probably have been much better pleased to have sustained the objections, and directed an acquittal: he was merely a tool of the tyrant, who, hearing that Pope Paul III. had sent Fisher a Cardinal's hat, exclaimed, "I will take care that he has not a head to put it upon."

Trial of

Audley's demeanour on the trial of Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas which took place a fortnight afterwards, we have already com

More.

Rise of Thomas Cromwell.

memorated.*

The merit has been ascribed to him of favouring the Reformation; but, in reality, he had no opinions of his own, and he was now acting merely as an instrument in the hands of the most remarkable adventurer to be met with in English history; whose rise more resembles that of a slave, at once constituted Grand Vizier in an Eastern despotism, than of a minister of state promoted in a constitutional government,where law, usage, and public opinion, check the capricious humours of the sovereign.

Thomas Cromwell, the son of a fullert, having had a very slender education,-after serving as a trooper in foreign armies, and a clerk in a merchant's counting-house at Antwerp, had picked up a little knowledge of the law in an attorney's office in London, had been taken into the service of Cardinal Wolsey as a steward,-had obtained a seat in parliament,—had acquired a great ascendency in the House of

Ante, p. 576.

He is often called the son of a blacksmith, but whoever has curiosity to investigate the point, will clearly see that his father was a fuller. A true life of Thomas Cromwell might be made as interesting as a fairy tale.

XXXIV.

Commons by his energy and volubility,—had insinuated him- CHAP. self into the favour and confidence of Henry VIII. by his pliancy and dexterity in business;—and having been successively made Clerk of the Hanaper in the Court of Chancery, Master of the Jewel House, Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Knight and a Privy Councillor, was now Lord Chamberlain, Chief Justice in Eyre beyond Trent, Lord Privy Seal, Baron Cromwell of Okeham, in the county of Rutland, Vicar General and Vicegerent of the King as Head of the Church, with precedence in parliament above all temporal and spiritual Peers, and with absolute power in all the civil affairs of the realm. To such subordination was the office of Lord Chancellor reduced, that Audley, unless by some extraordinary ebullition of baseness, seems to have attracted little notice from his contemporaries; and his name is hardly mentioned by the general historian. Yet in the detail and execution of the measures which were brought forward by the VicarGeneral, the Lord Chancellor took a very active and important part. He framed the bills for completing the separation from Rome, and punishing those who went farther than the King, and favoured the doctrines of Luther. He was very efficient in the suppression of the monasteries, his zeal being influenced by the hope of sharing in the plunder. He recommended the commissions, under the Great Seal, for inquiring into the immoralities and abuses alleged to exist in those institutions; and he approved of the plan of first granting to the King the revenues of all under 2007. a year, and then of all above that amount. There was never any difficulty in carrying such bills through parliament. Ministers, in those days, instead of triumphing in a good working majority, could command an absolute unanimity in both Houses. It is a curious fact, that against bills respecting religion, which must have been most highly distasteful to the great body of the prelates, and to many lay peers,—after the execution of Fisher there was not a dissentient voice, or the slightest audible murmur of opposition.*

Some of these bills passed both Houses after being read only once in each House. There was then no certain number of times necessary for a bill to be

CHAP. XXXIV.

Henry

VIII. in love with

Audley had his difficulties, but they arose from the King's conjugal inconstancy. He thought that after witnessing the dissolution of the King's first marriage by the sentence of Archbishop Cranmer, and his union with her to whom, in spite of all obstacles, he had been for six years a devoted lover, and an act of parliament setting aside the Princess Mary and settling the succession on the infant Princess Elizabeth, holding the Great Seal, he was to enjoy peace and freedom from care for the rest of his days, with nothing to think of but his own aggrandisement.

Henry, however, had seen Jane Seymour, one of Anne's maids, more beautiful and attractive than herself, and had Jane Sey- resolved that there should be a vacancy in the office of Queen, that his new favourite might be advanced to it.

mour.

Audley assists in the

of Anne Boleyn.

Audley conformed without hesitation to the royal will, and prosecution took a leading part in the proceedings against the unfortunate Anne, from the first surmise against her at Court till she was beheaded on Tower Hill. He formed one of the Committee of Council to whom the "delicate investigation" was intrusted, and he joined in the report, founded on the mere gossip of the Court, or the representations of suborned witnesses, "that sufficient proof had been discovered to convict her of incontinence, not only with Brereton Norris, and Weston of the Privy Chamber, and Smeaton the King's musician, but even with Lord Rochford, her own brother."

After secretly examining and committing to prison some of the supposed paramours, Audley planned the arrest of the Queen herself at the tilting match at Greenwich, and next day, in his proper person, went down the river, that he might accompany her to the Tower, and try to extract something

read according to parliamentary usage before passing; a bill was sometimes read four, five, six, seven, and even eight times, before it passed or was rejected. Journ., vol. i. 26. 49. 52. 55, 56. But the marvel is that such bills as those for the dissolution of the monasteries and the transfer of the Pope's supremacy to the King passed the House of Lords at all, considering that from the reign of Edward II. till 1539, the spiritual Peers were much more numerous than the temporal. Then twenty-six mitred abbots and two priors being disfranchised, there were forty-one temporal to twenty spiritual peers. But Bishop Fisher's fate had such an effect on the nerves of the prelates, that they offered no opposition to the bills which they abhorred.