To Chapuys, perhaps, and to his faithful imitators later in the century--De Quadra and Mendoza--the country owes the completeness of the success of the Reformation. It was a battle fought out gallantly between two principles--a crisis in the eternal struggle between the old and the new. The Catholics may boast legitimately of their martyrs. But the Protestants have a martyrology longer far and no less honourable, and those who continue to believe that the victory won in England in the sixteenth century was a victory of right over wrong, have no need to blush for the actions of the brave men who, in the pulpit or in the Council Chamber, on the scaffold or at the stake, won for mankind the spiritual liberty which is now the law of the world.

Footnotes:

[1] _Calendar of State Papers, Hen. VIII., Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv.

Introduction, p. 223.

[2] _Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, Hen. VIII._, vol. iv. p. 1112.--Hen.

VIII. to Clement VII., Oct. 23, 1526.--_Ib._ p. 1145. Giberto to Gambara, Dec. 20, 1526.--_Ib._ p. 1207.

[3] Giberto, Bishop of Verona, to Wolsey, Feb. 10, 1527.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. pp. 1282-3.

[4] Giberto, Bishop of Verona, to Wolsey, Feb. 10, 1527.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, April 26, 1527, vol. iv. p. 1386.

[5] Inigo de Mendoza to the Emperor, Jan. 19, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. iii. pt. 2, p. 24.

[6] Alonzo Sanchez to Charles V., May 7, 1527.--_Ib._ p. 176.

[7] Mendoza to Charles V., March 18, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. iii.

part 2, p. 110.

[8] Report from England, Nov. 10, 1531.--_Venetian Calendar._ Falieri arrived in England in 1528, and the general parts of the Report cover the intervening period.

[9] Inigo de Mendoza to Charles V., May 18, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. iii. part 2, p. 193.

[10] Lope de Soria to Charles V., May 25, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol.

iii. part 2, p. 209.

[11] Mendoza to Charles V., July 13, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. ii.

part 2, p. 276.

[12] _Ib._ vol. iii. part 2, p. 273.

[13] Andrea Navagero to the Signory, July 17, 1527.--_Venetian Calendar._

[14] Mendoza to Charles V., July 17, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar._

[15] Wolsey to Henry VIII., July 5.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2. Bishop Fisher to Paul, _ibid._, p. 1471.

[16] Charles V. to Inigo de Mendoza, July 29.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2, p. 1500.

[17] _Ibid._

[18] Charles V. to Mendoza, Sept. 30, 1527.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. p. 1569.

[19] The Emperor to the Cardinal of York, Aug. 31, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. iii. part 2, p. 357.

[20] Wolsey to Henry VIII., Aug. --, 1527.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2.

[21] The Cardinals of France to Clement VII., Sept. 16, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. iii. part 2, p. 383.

[22] Mendoza to Charles V., Aug. 16, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. iii.

part 2, p. 327.

[23] The date of Henry's resolution to marry Anne is of some consequence, since the general a.s.sumption is that it was the origin of the divorce.

Rumour, of course, said so afterwards, but there is no evidence for it.

The early love-letters written by the King to her are a.s.signed by Mr.

Brewer to the midsummer of 1527. But they are undated, and therefore the period a.s.signed to them is conjecture merely.

[24] Mendoza to Charles V., Oct. 26, 1527.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. iii.

part 2, p. 432.

[25] _Ibid._

[26] Knight to Henry VIII., Dec. 4.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2, pp. 1633-4.

[27] I follow Mr. Brewer's translation.

[28] 1. When he says, "It is thought," let him be examined whom he ever heard say any such thing of the King. 2. Where, when, and why he spoke those words to Sir Wm. Ess.e.x and Sir Wm. Barentyne. 3. Whether he communicated the matter to any other. 5, 6. Whether he thought the words true and why. 7, 8. Whether he did not think the words very slanderous to any man's good name. 10, 15. Whether he thinks such reports conducive to the peace of the Commonwealth, or fitting for a true subject to spread.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, 1537, p. 333.

[29] _Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2, p. 1672.

[30] _Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2, p. 1672.

[31] Casalis to Wolsey, January 13, 1528.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2, p. 1694.

[32] Three foreigners held English sees, not one of which either of them had probably ever visited. Campeggio was Bishop of Salisbury; Ghinucci, the auditor of the Rota, was Bishop of Worcester; and Catherine's Spanish confessor, who had come with her to England, was Bishop of Llandaff.

[33] Wolsey to Gardiner and Fox, February --, 1528.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2, p. 1740.

[34] Emba.s.sy to the German Princes, January 5, 1534.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. vii. p. 10.

[35] Casalis to Peter Vannes, April, 1538.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2, p. 1842.

[36] Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, June or July, 1528.--_Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv. part 2, p. 1960.

[37] Eleanor Carey was the sister of Mary Boleyn's husband.

[38] _Calendar, Foreign and Domestic_, vol. iv., Introduction, pp. 388-9.

[39] The Emperor to Mendoza, July 5, 1528.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. iii.

part 2, p. 728.

[40] Mendoza to the Emperor, September 18, 1528.--_Ibid._ vol. iii. part 2, p. 788.

[41] Charles V. to Queen Catherine, September 1, 1528.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. iii. part 2, p. 779.