West, 1515-1533. Latimer's sermon. West, who at this time filled the see of Ely, was now nearly CHAP. VI. sixty years of age. His university education had been Nicholas received at King's College, of which he was for some time bp. of Ely, fellow; and his later life had been largely devoted to political affairs and the discharge of important embassies. As a prelate he was distinguished for his ostentation, and for a splendid style of living, inferior only to that of Wolsey himself. One morning when Latimer as the appointed preacher for the day was about to commence a sermon at St. Mary's Church, the audience were startled by the sudden and unanticipated appearance of the bishop. The manœuvre, for West attends such it undoubtedly was, failed to disconcert Latimer, but it university roused his spirit. Gravely observing that the advent of so august an auditor called for a change of subject, he selected another text, and proceeded to discourse from Hebrews ix. 11',-a passage which enabled him to take for his theme the one subject which at that time most employed the tongues and pens alike of the friends, the foes, and the satirists of the Church, the shortcomings of the superior clergy, and the contrast that their lives presented to the teaching and practice of their great Exemplar. West listened with attention, disguised his chagrin, and, when the sermon was over, sent for Latimer, and thanked him for the admirable manner in which he had expounded the duties of the episcopal office. There was but one favour that he had yet to beg of him. 'What is your lordship's pleasure that I should do for you?' said the Reformer. 'Marry!' said West, 'that you will He requests preach me, in this place, one sermon against Martin Luther preach and his doctrine.' 'My lord,' replied Latimer, 'I am not Luther. acquainted with the doctrine of Luther, nor are we permitted here to read his works, and therefore it were but a vain thing for me to refute his doctrine, not understanding what he hath written, nor what opinion he holdeth. Sure I am that I have preached before you this day no man's doctrine, but only the doctrine of God out of the Scriptures. And if Luther do none otherwise than I have done, there needeth no confutation of his doctrine. Otherwise, when I under1 'But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come.' Latimer to against CHAP. VI. stand that he doth teach against the Scripture, I will be ready with all my heart to confound his doctrine as much as lieth in me'.' Latimer from preaches at the Augustinian friars. The dexterity with which Latimer at once eluded the request and returned the thrust, upset the bishop's composure; bishop Nix's phrase, the phrase of the time, rose irrepressibly to his lips :- Well, well, Mr. Latimer,' said he, 'I perceive that you somewhat smell of the pan: you will repent this gear one day.' It was accordingly not long before the West inhibits bishop's voice was uplifted against Latimer at Barnwell preaching. Abbey; and he finally inhibited him from preaching any where in the diocese or in any of the pulpits of the university. Latimer It was then that Barnes invited Latimer to preach in the the church of church of the Augustinian friars, where the episcopal veto could not reach him; and it was thus that, as before narrated, on Christmas Eve, 1525, Barnes happened to be preaching at St. Edward's Church, his own pulpit being filled by Latimer. Eventually Latimer too was summoned before Wolsey in London. But his language had throughout been far more discreet than that of Barnes, and he was also, what was much more in his favour, guiltless of having uttered aught that touched the cardinal himself. He found accordingly a fair and even a courteous hearing. Wolsey's brow relaxed when he found that the accused was well read in Duns Scotus; he cross-examined him at some length with reference to his whole treatment at the bishop's hands; and at last said, 'If the bishop of Ely cannot abide such doctrine as you have here repeated, you shall have my licence, and shall preach it unto his beard, let him say what he will.' And from this ordeal Latimer returned unscathed and triumphant to Cambridge2. Latimer is summoned before Wol sey in London. Wolsey licenses La timer to preach. Sir Thomas More elected high stew ard. Towards the close of the year 1525, the high stewardship was offered to and accepted by Sir Thomas More, who continued to hold the office for several years; and with Fisher 1 Latimer-Corrie, pp. xxviii, xxix. 2 Demaus, Life of Latimer, pp. 55-58. 3 More was to have been elected in the preceding year, but Sir Richard "Wingfield, 'a sad and ancient Knight' (see Cooper, Athena, 1 32), had set his heart upon succeeding to the honour, and More, at the request of king Henry, retired from the candi attention ther's writ out Europe. for chancellor, and the statutes of the university at the dis- CHAP. VI. cretion of Wolsey, the friends of the new learning could now have felt little misgiving respecting the ultimate issue of the contest in which they had so long been engaged. But throughout Europe the battles of the Humanists were for a time lost sight of in the graver struggle that had supervened. The writings of Luther absorbed almost the Absorbing whole attention of educated Europe, and created a demand given to Luunparalleled in the previous experience of the publishing ings throughworld. From a letter written by Erasmus to Vives in December, 1524, we find that the latter had applied to Frobenius, to know whether he would undertake the printing of a new edition of his works. The illustrious Iberian was then at the height of his reputation; but the printer sent word that it was useless at that time to print anything but what bore upon the Lutheran controvery. It is said that there were nearly two thousand pamphlets circulating against the doctrine of transubstantiation alone. It was a General disseason of deep disquiet, fierce excitement, and gloomy fore- the times. bodings; and the universal anxiety and agitation told sensibly on men of earnest and reflecting minds. Melanchthon, writing to Erasmus from Germany, complains that he is a prey to constant sleeplessness; Pace makes a precisely similar complaint; Fisher, seriously ill at Rochester and doubtful of the sequel, writes to Erasmus, urging him to expedite the publication of his De Ratione Concionandi, intimating however that he scarcely expects that it will find him still alive'; Erasmus himself, in whose character dature. Wingfield was accordingly elected; but his death, at Toledo in July of the following year, left the office again vacant, and More was elected his successor. From the following extract from a letter written by Latimer to Dr Green, who was master of Catherine Hall and vicechancellor in 1523, it appears that a salary was at that time attached to the office:...non quod tantillo salario sit opus tam honorifico viro' [Wingfield] 'et rerum omnium affluentia tam insigniter locupletato, sed pro liberali sui animi generositate quam maxime cupit cum litteratis 1 Lewis, Life of Fisher, c. XVII. quietude of CHAP. VL the superstition of his age and his superiority to it were oddly blended, declares that omens so dire and so frequent as those he saw around him, cannot but be looked upon as heralding the final consummation of earthly destinies'; while amid the deepening tumult and alarm there rises up the rugged refrain chanted at Strassburg by Roy and Barlow, nomena. of the almanac makers. -'Alas, alas! The world is worse than ever it was, Natural phe- With these convulsions in the political and religious world nature seemed herself to sympathise; and for nearly two years the greater part of Europe was visited by fearful Predictions storms and disastrous inundations. The predictions of the almanac-makers intensified the prevailing dread. The year 1524 it had been foretold would be marked by wondrous conjunctions of the heavenly bodies and by events of awful moment to all living beings; and the author of a lugubrious production, entitled Epistola Cantabrigiensis, took occasion to descant on the universal corruption and depravity of the age, and chanted once more the forebodings of an Augustine and a Gregory concerning the approaching end of all things2. 1 'Velum templi scissum est, efferuntur omnia, etiam quæ sacerdoti dixeris in sacramentalissima confessione. Caveat sibi quisque; Dominus venit.' Letter to John Cæsarius, (A.D. 1524) Opera, 1 841. 2 After detailing the signs of the corruption of the age, especially of the clergy, the writer goes on to say, Unde nec mirum si nobis plurimum irascitur, in cujus auribus peccatorum nostrorum horrida vox quotidie clamat, eumque ad ultionem provocat: irascuntur quippe et astra ipsa nobisque propinquum minantur interitum. Dudum sane in quibusdam ephemeridibus, seu diariis, quod Vocant' (here Brown stoutly annotates in the margin, nos Cantabrigienses non solemus, ut plurimum, multum almanacographis tribuere; quodcunque hic bonus vir e Monteregio college rit), 'cujusdam Joannis de Monteregio insignissimi astrologi de anno salutiferæ incarnationis quingentesino vicesimo quarto supra millesimum memini me ita legisse, "Hoc anno nec solis nec lunæ eclipsim conspicabimur; sed præsenti anno syderum habitudines miratu dignissimæ accident; in mense enim Februario viginti conjunctiones cum minime mediocres, tum magnæ accident, quarum sedecim signum aqueum possidebunt, quæ universo fere orbi, climatibus, regnis, provinciis, statibus, dignitatibus, brutis, belluis maximis cunctisque terræ nascentibus indubitatam mutationem, variationem, ac alterationem significabunt, talem profecto qualem a pluribus seculis ab historiographis aut natu majoribus vix percepimus,&c." Neque is solum insueta prodigia minatur of William New Such were the characteristics of the times, when in CHAP. VÅ England a new element of controversy, lighting fresh bonfires and evoking renewed denunciations, still further intensified the all-prevailing excitement. The day had come when the scholar and the priest were no longer to be the sole students and interpreters of Scripture, and their dogmas and doctrine were to be brought home to an ultimate test by those whom they had neglected to teach and whose judgement they had despised. If the priest was incompetent or too indolent to instruct the laity in the Scriptures, might not the laity claim the right to study the Scriptures for themselves? Such in reality was the simple question to which Appearance the appearance of William Tyndale's New Testament gave Tyndale's rise, a question answered even by men of noted liberality ment and moderation of sentiment, like Fisher, More, and Tunstal, with so emphatic and passionate a negative. Nor will their vehemence appear less surprising if we recall, that exactly ten years before Tyndale's New Testament was seen in England, the idea which he had carried out had been suggested and enlarged upon in a volume to which these eminent men had given an unreserved sanction and encouragement, the Novum Instrumentum of Erasmus. 'I totally His transladissent,' said the lady Margaret professor, in his admirable what Eras Paraclesis prefixed to the work, 'I totally dissent from pressed the those who are unwilling that the sacred Scriptures, trans- sire to see. lated into the vulgar tongue, should be read by the unlearned, as if Christ had taught such subtle doctrines that they can with difficulty be understood by a very few theologians, or as if the strength of the Christian religion lay in men's ignorance of it. The mysteries of kings it were perhaps better to conceal, but Christ wishes his mysteries to be published as widely as possible. I could wish even all women to read the Gospels and the Epistles mortalibus; audivi jam nuper ex gravissimorum virorum relatu esse modernos aliquos in ea scientia probatissimos qui tantam tamque mirandam ex celestium corporum influxione augurantur brevi eventuram immutationem, ut vix homines diu tion exactly mus had ex greatest de |