Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/347

REFORMATION 329 emperor had been given to the publication of certain " pro- visions " in matters of faith which had filled the Lutheran party with alarm. At Gotha and again at Torgau the Protestant leaders began to concert measures for actively repelling the policy of coercion which they anticipated would shortly be commenced. When, however, the diet assembled at Spires in June they found their apprehen- sions dispelled in an unexpected manner by the newly- aroused animosity towards the Roman pontiff and his policy. Never had the electors shown themselves more unanimous in counsel or submitted with better grace to the contributions imposed upon them. It was even pro- posed that the recently issued provisions should be publicly burnt and the Bible adopted as the only rule of faith. However, it was finally resolved that the respective states should be declared to be at full liberty, in relation to all questions of belief raised by the edict of Worms (see LUTHER), "to conduct themselves as each should here- after be ready to answer for towards God and the emperor," terms which virtually implied permission to proceed ac- cording to their own discretion. " Such an enactment," ob- serves Ranke, " containing as it does no mention whatever of the supreme pontiff, may be looked upon as the com- mencement of the Reformation properly so called, involving, in fact, the institution of a new church in Germany." lies The effects of the concurrent action of religious and . in- national sentiment thus brought about were soon to receive i>n of a memorable illustration in Italy. The soldiers who made their way under the leadership of Frondsberg, Ferdinand's lieutenant, across the Alps, in the snows of November 1526, into the plains of Lombardy, and afterwards mingled with the Spanish forces which Bourbon led on to the assault on Rome, were almost entirely avowed supporters of Luther's cause and full of fierce hatred of popery. Fronds- berg himself loudly declared that as soon as he had taken Rome he would hang the pope. The Spaniards, notwith- standing their unshaken devotion to Catholicism, entered the city burning with the spirit of national antipathy, and eager to revenge the long series of wrongs and exactions which their countrymen had suffered at the hands of Italian ecclesiastics. Among the horrors which followed upon the capture of the capital (May 1527) nothing more completely shocked the sense of Latin Christendom than the savage contempt manifested by the German soldiery for everything that symbolized the Roman faith, their wanton destruction of relics and images, mock religious services, and especial brutality in the treatment of priests. Even their Spanish confederates, though equally merciless in their excesses, looked on with indignation as they saw them disguising themselves as cardinals and holding a mock consistory under the windows of St Angelo for the purpose of elect- ing Luther as pope. But even the impressions thus pro- duced were evanescent when compared with the constantly renewed and unavailing regret which filled the breast of the scholar and the churchman in after years, as he realized the irreparable losses inflicted upon art and learning, the destruction of unique manuscripts and ancient records. Nor can it be a matter of surprise that a sentiment of deep revenge should have arisen in Rome against the Lutheran destroyer, and that even the Swabian and the Spanish invader alike should have afterwards been solicit- ous in a manner to disguise their own responsibility, by professing to look upon the blow thus struck at the sanctity and inviolability of the sacred city as a direct judgment of God. For a time, though only for a few months, it was believed, even by politicians so shrewd and well informed as Wolsey, that the emperor himself was designing to aid the Reformation. The approach of the Turks, who had overrun Hungary, and the hostility of France demon- strated the urgent necessity of maintaining concord among his subjects in the empire ; and it is possible that he may really have contemplated placing himself at the head of the Lutheran movement and keeping Clement VII. per- manently a prisoner at Gaeta. But his Spanish blood, his education under Adrian of Utrecht, and the traditions of the imperial dignity proved too powerful a counterpoise, and Charles eventually not only deigned to lay before the courts of Europe a partial explanation and apology for the tragedy at Rome, but in a treaty (26th November 1527) with the pontiff he entered upon an agreement for the adoption of a distinct anti-Reformation policy. It has been asserted that Clement also undertook on this occasion not to declare the marriage of Henry VIII. and Catherine illegal, but no such stipulation appears in the existing treaty. In pursuance of his anti-imperial policy Wolsey did WoLsey's not fail to seek to turn to the best account the sensation policy, caused by the triumph of the imperial arms. He enjoined the observance of a three days' fast and the offering up of prayers in every church in England for the captive pontiffs deliverance. He could not, however, but be conscious that his policy was regarded with but little favour by the nation at large. The young emperor was highly popular among the citizens of London, and the ancient amicable relations with the house of Burgundy and the actual important commercial relations with Flan- ders combined to render Spain in the eyes of Englishmen their natural ally, while France they still regarded as their hereditary foe. An expedient to which he had recourse about this time only served still further to fan this feeling. He had sought to render France, instead of the Low Countries, the main channel of the commerce between England and the Continent by making Calais the chief port for merchandise. The merchants of the Hanse towns took alarm ; and, as it was in their vessels that Luther's writings, which were now eagerly purchased in England, even at exorbitant prices, chiefly found their way across the Channel, the preachers of the Reformation found no difficulty in representing to their countrymen that an Anglo-French alliance could not fail to prove inimical to the gospel. On the other hand, the Catholic party both in England and in Germany, as soon as the project of the divorce became noised abroad, could not but recognize in Catherine the representative of the interests of the true church, while they looked upon the emperor as her champion, and upon Wolsey as a traitor to the cause of truth and justice. During the last five years the cardinal's efforts to reform the clergy and repress the Reformation in England had been strenuous and constant. In the year 1521 he had enjoined all the bishops " to take order that any books, written or printed, of Martin Luther's heresies and errors should be brought in to the bishop of each diocese." l The movement at Cambridge continued, however, to progress, and in 1523 some of the bishops suggested the appointment of a visita- tion to the university "for trying who were the fautors of heresy there." This proposition was not acted upon by Wolsey, who probably in his heart sympathized with the genuine spirit of learning developing in the university, and the matter was subsequently made the ground of an accusation against him by his enemies. 2 We find, accord- ingly, George Stafford, a member of Pembroke Hall, venturing in the following year to adopt the example set by Luther, of taking the Scriptures themselves, instead of the Sentences of Peter Lombard (the theological text- book of the universities), as the basis of a course of divinity lectures. In the following year William Tyndal published at Antwerp the first edition of his translation 1 Strype, Memorials, i. 56. 2 Bumet, Hist, of the Reform., ed. Pocock, i. 70. XX. 42