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Characters of the Reformation CHARACTERS OF THE REFORMATION CHARACTERS OF THE REFORMATION By HILAIRE BELLOC SHEED AND WARD LONDON AND NEW YORK FIRST PUBLISHED I936 BY SHEED AND WARD LTD. 33 MAIDEN LANE LONDON, W.0.3 AND SHEED AND WARD, INC. 84O BROADWAY NEW YORK, 3 REPRINTED 1955 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PURNELL AND SONS, LTD. PAULTON (SOMERSET) AND LONDON CONTENTS PAGE NATURE OF THE REFORMATION .... I KING VIII . HENRY . -17 CATHERINE OF ARAGON ..... 30 ANNE BOLEYN ....... 42 THOMAS CROMWELL . -53 SAINT THOMAS MORE ...... 63 POPE CLEMENT THE SEVENTH .... 72 "THOMAS CRANMER ...... 80 STEPHEN GARDINER ...... 90 MARY TUDOR ....... 99 QUEEN ELIZABETH ...... I08 MARY STUART . 1 16 WILLIAM CECIL . 1 25 HENRY IV OF FRANCE . -133 JAMES I OF ENGLAND ...... I4I FERDINAND II ...... 149 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS . -159 RICHELIEU ........ l66 LAUD . .172 OLIVER CROMWELL . 180 RENE DESCARTES . 1 88 BLAISE PASCAL ....... I94 WILLIAM OF ORANGE ...... 200 LOUIS XIV . .211 V ; NATURE OF THE REFORMATION The break-up of united western Christendom with, the corning of the Reformation was by far the most important thing in history since the foundation of the Catholic Church fifteen hundred years before. Men of foresight perceived at the time that if catastrophe were allowed to consummate itself, if the revolt were to be successful (and it was successful) our civilization would certainly be imperilled and possibly, in the long run, destroyed. That indeed is what has happened. Europe with all its culture is now seriously imperilled and stands no small chance of being destroyed by its own internal disruption and all this is ultimately the fruit of the great religious revolution which began four hundred years ago. That being so, the Reformation being of this importance, it ought to form the chief object of historical study in modern times, and its nature should be clearly understood even if only in outline. Now to understand the Reformation it is not enough to appreciate how it arose and what sort of men conducted the battle on either side when the struggle had broken out. It is equally important and, perhaps, more important to appreciate that the affair went, like all great conflicts in history, through certain phases which perpetually recur in human disputes. All great conflicts begin with an uncertain phase during which one does not know which side will prevail, or whether either will prevail. After that phase comes a second phase which may be one of two things : it may be the increasingly apparent victory of one side over the other, or it may be stalemate—a drawn batde. Even if one of the two conflicting original opponents, i 2 CHARACTERS OF THE REFORMATION either those who are for change or those who are for tradition, secures a victory, the result is affected by the struggle. No victory, however complete on the part of the conservatives, can make things return to exactly the same state as they were in before the challenge was thrown down. No victory, however complete on the part of the revolu- tionaries, can ever wholly get rid of the past, which will always remain intertwined with the fibre of the men who were moulded by it. But still, a complete victory on one side or the other does usually produce an enduring state of things. When there is a stalemate, that is, a drawn battle, the result is otherwise. In that case there continues a further series of changes due to the survival in power of either combatant. The two camps remain in activity—the one opposed to the other, reacting one against the other—and there will be consequently a chain of developments which continuously produces new effects as the generations proceed. As an example of the first sort of thing—a complete victory—we have the success of our civilization against the Albigenses. That sect at one moment bid fair to break up Europe, but the orthodox armies, the orthodox monarchs and leaders and the Papacy won. The result was the secure state of affairs which made the western world safe for Catholicism for centuries. An example of the opposite—of the drawn battle or stalemate—was the great Mahommedan effort beginning in the seventh century. It failed to over- whelm Christendom, but it had a sufficient success to establish a great new culture over against Europe and hostile to Europe, with the result that for centuries the two opponents remained intact, and perpetually reacted one upon the other. In the case of the Reformation it looked at one moment as though the side of authority and tradition was going to have a complete victory; in which case we should have today a settled and secure Europe, united again in the Catholic Faith. — NATURE OF THE REFORMATION 3 Unfortunately that victory was never won, and the upshot of the struggle, after a hundred and thirty years, was the division of European civilization into two halves, the Protestant culture and the Catholic culture. As for the third-—the eastern part—the culture attaching to the Greek Church, it did not much affect modern times between the outbreak of the Reformation and the rise of Russia two hundred years ago. The universal, spiritual and therefore social upheaval, generally called "The Reformation," lasted from its inception to its conclusion as an open struggle, about two hundred years. You may take 1688, the exile of James II (or 17 15, the failure of the Jacobite effort at a moment when there was still a living Catholic body in England), as the end of a clearly opens in conflict which the German revolt of 15 1 7. It ran through these stages: During the first twenty years or so, from 15 17 onwards, the revolt against the Church was closely intermixed with a very legitimate determination to reform abuses. It was not easy to see on which side a man or a book or an argument lay. There were grave corruptions in the Church and grave discontent with the organization of the Church on the part of masses of men who never dreamed of destroying Church unity or interfering with the great mass of Church doctrine and custom. This was especially the case in England, where the Church was less corrupt than elsewhere and where the people were by nature conservative. But at the end of these twenty years there came:—round about 1536—40—a change in what had hitherto been a confused movement. This change was primarily caused by the great effect of Calvin, who set out with the greatest lucidity and unparalleled energy to form a counter-Church for the destruction of the old Church. He it was who really made the new religion, wholly hostile to the old one. At the same time the temptation to loot Church property and the habit : THE REFORMATION 4, CHARACTERS OF of doing so had appeared and was growing; and this rapidly created a vested interest in promoting the change in in- religion. Those who attacked Catholic doctrine, as, for stance, in the matters of the celibacy in the monastic Orders, or ofa divinely appointed Hierarchy with the Papacy at its summit, opened the door for the seizure of the enormous clerical endowments, monastic, episcopal and parochial, by the Princes and City Corporations. Men already individ- ually powerful through their wealth, especially through their ownership of land, joined in the rapine. The property of convents and monasteries passed wholesale to the looters over great areas of Christendom: Scandinavia, the British Isles, the Northern Netherlands, much of the Germanies and many of the Swiss Cantons. The endowments of hospitals, colleges, schools, guilds, were largely though not wholly seized. Those of the clergy and hierarchy, the lands supporting Bishoprics and Chapters and parish clergy, were robbed of from seven-eighths to half of their value. Such an economic change in so short a time our civiliza- tion had never seen. It had for effect the firm establishment of a permanent motive for confirming the success of the Religious Revolu- tion. The new adventurers and the older gentry who had so suddenly enriched themselves, saw, in the return of Catholicism, peril to their immense new fortunes. It is about this time, therefore, a generation after the first revolt, that there arises a distinct effort to impose in various places new laws and institutions to the destruction of Catholicism. After the middle of the sixteenth century (from 1550-60) that change is clearly apparent, and, with it, fighting begins fighting on the part of Catholic Europe to suppress the new Protestant Governments, fighting on the part of these Governments to suppress Catholicism in their own provinces; and in places civil war between the two parties. That fighting goes on during all the second half of the NATURE OF THE REFORMATION 5 century, roughly from 1550-60 to, say, 1605-1610. There was fighting in Scotland, the beginning of what was to be an unending attempt to destroy Catholicism in Ireland by force; fighting in the Netherlands; but the most critical and violent of all the fighting was in France. On the issue of the religious wars in France depended the preservation or destruction of Catholicism in Europe. Oddly enough, the German Empire, which was nominally ruled from Vienna, was spared, and enjoyed peace compared with these other places. It was there that the Reformation had broken out, and yet successive Emperors—by compromise, also from lack of power because so many of their subordinate Princes and Cities were practically independent—managed to keep the peace. But meanwhile the Catholic forces in Europe had tardily woken up, and there had been started what is generally called the " Counter Reformation." But neither the Counter Reformation nor the active fighting which succeeded in preserving a part of Christen- dom intact, would have been necessary butfor difficult success of the Protestant movement in England.
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