OF the birth and parentage of Latimer not much is known for certain beyond what is contained in the oft-quoted passage, which has almost acquired a prescriptive right to stand at the outset of his biography. Preaching before King Edward VI the Reformer thus recounts the circumstances of his early life:-
" My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a farm of three or four pounds by year at the uttermost; and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep; and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the King a harness, with himself and his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the King's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went unto Blackheath Field. 1 He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the King's majesty now. He married my sisters with five pound or twenty nobles apiece; so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours; and some alms he gave to the poor." 2
Latimer's ancestors have not been traced further back than this honest yeoman, whose little farm was in the neighbourhood of Thurcastone, a small village in Leicestershire. The name Latimer was not uncommon in England; 3 and in Leicestershire, for upwards of two centuries before the birth of the Reformer, there had flourished a family of Latimers, powerful knights and wealthy proprietors. 4 Coming apparently from the neighbouring county of Northampton, where their name is still preserved in the village of Burton Latimer, near Kettering, they had, by fortunate intermarriages, acquired extensive possessions in the south-eastern parts of Leicestershire. They were Lords of the Manors of Smeton, Westerby, and Foxton; and the armorial cognisance of the family, the gold cross in a red field, 5 which had followed Edward Longshanks to the Scottish wars, may still be seen in the windows of some village churches in the county, the sole memento of squires, whose very name has almost perished. For, before the commencement of the Wars of the Roses, the Leicestershire Latimers, so far, at least, as heralds took cognisance of them, had become extinct; but, in the North of England, a younger branch of the family, who had settled in Yorkshire, and become allied with the great Westmoreland Nevilles, produced a race of Latimers, who rose to conspicuous eminence in the State; and, through them, the name is still preserved in existence in the peerage of England. 6
There is much probability that the Reformer was descended in some way from this once powerful family of Leicestershire Latimers. Some younger son, driven from the home of his ancestors, or self-exiled, may have retired to the pastoral seclusion of Thurcastone, and there founded a family of yeomen Latimers, destined in a few generations to surround the name with a more abiding glory than any of the achievements of heraldry.
Thurcastone, anciently Turchitelestone, is one of those peaceful villages which remain almost undisturbed by the tide of manufacturing energy that has overflowed England. It lies in the valley of the Soar, at the foot of the Charnwood Hills, sheltered on all sides by gentle eminences, and surrounded by places of historical interest. To the south the ancient county town of Leicester can be descried, with the ruins of that renowned abbey where the dust of Wolsey reposes. Rothley Temple, the birth-place of Macaulay (one of the earliest of modern writers to recognise the merits of Latimer), is just behind the village on the north. To the east there is a glorious prospect across the fertile vale of Belvoir; while westward, beneath Barden Hill, wave the stately forests of Bradgate Park, once the home of Lady Jane Grey.
The village is of unknown antiquity. It may have existed when the Roman legions marched along the neighbouring Fossway. It is mentioned in Domesday; and at the Conquest the manor was given to Hugh de Grent-maisnil, who made over the patronage of the parish church to the Abbey of St. Evraux, in Normandy, in whose hands it remained almost to the era of the Reformation. 7 The village has never been very populous. When Elizabeth ascended the throne it numbered only twenty-five families; and at the period of Latimer's birth, some seventy years before, its inhabitants probably did not amount to much above a hundred souls. Tradition points to a rude substantial farm-house in the village, near the church, as the very home in which Hugh Latimer was born. Possibly this building may occupy the site of his birth-place; but an inscription on the house itself, assigning it to the first year of Elizabeth's reign - three years, that is, after Latimer was burned at Oxford - must be considered a conclusive disproof of the fond tradition of the villagers.
The precise year of Latimer's birth is a subject much debated. The authorities for fixing this important point are few, and are unfortunately not easily reconcilable. Foxe states that Latimer was sent to Cambridge at the age of fourteen. Now, from the University Register, it appears that he took his Bachelor's degree in 1510, after the four years' residence then customary. In 1510, therefore, he would be, according to Foxe's statement, eighteen years of age; and his birth would thus be assigned to the year 1491 or 1492. This has accordingly been assumed as the correct date by the most recent inquirers. 8 There is, however, another contemporary authority more intimately acquainted with Latimer's history than Foxe; and his account would lead us to assign Latimer's birth to a somewhat earlier period. Augustine Bernher, Latimer's servant, constantly in attendance upon him, and to whom, indeed, we owe the preservation of many of his sermons, speaks of his master as being "above threescore and seven years of age" 9 in the reign of Edward VI. Edward's reign extended from 1547 to 1553; and this statement of Bernher's would, therefore, place Latimer's birth somewhere between 1479 and 1486. It is unquestionable that Latimer's contemporaries uniformly speak of him as having attained an extreme old age. "Old Hugh Latimer" was his familiar appellation among the people for many years before his martyrdom. But if he was born, as has been maintained in 1491, he was not more than sixty-four at his death; and it seems incredible that he should have acquired the reputation of extreme age when he was still under sixty. Probability seems, therefore, to incline to an earlier date than 1491; and with due regard to all that is known of Latimer, his birth may be assigned to the year 1484 or 1485. An earlier date would leave a large part of his life a total blank; a later date is at variance with the uniform tradition of contemporaries as to his age.
Towards the close, therefore, of the brief reign of Richard III., when men were everywhere looking for some one to deliver them from the tyranny of the usurper, or, perhaps, when the din of war was sweeping across the Leicester Downs, and the armies were mustering for the last fight in the Wars of the Roses, the little farm-house of the Thurcastone yeoman was gladdened by the birth of a son, who was duly christened in the old font at the parish church, and named Hugh, after his father. He was, it is believed, the youngest child, and the family consisted of six daughters, and several other sons. The children do not seem to have been robust. Latimer's brothers all died in early childhood; and he himself inherited a weakly constitution, which often, in later years, sadly interfered with his labours. Some of his sisters, we have heard Latimer declare before Edward, grew up to womanhood, and were married, probably to neighbouring yeomen or thriving citizens of Leicester; but even tradition has not preserved the names of any of their husbands. The only fact discovered concerning their families is that a daughter of one of these sisters, a niece consequently of the great Reformer, was married to Dr. Thomas Sampson, 10 a well-known Divine, who was ordained by Ridley, and in Elizabeth's time was Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, but was subsequently removed for Nonconformity, and appointed Master of Wigston's Hospital, in Leicester. Latimer himself was never married, 11 and it is to this family of the Sampsons, therefore, that we must look as the only persons entitled, so far as has been ascertained, to claim kindred with the great English Reformer.
Latimer's father belonged to that class of sturdy, well-to-do yeomen, who formed at that period the best representatives of the general intelligence and character of the English nation. As yet manufactures were few and unimportant; trade was in its infancy; large towns had not become the chief and almost exclusive centres of action and influence: the bulk of the population lived in such villages as Thurcastone. The yeomanry constituted the real strength of the country, the glory of England, the envy of other nations. From this class, too, most of the great leaders of the sixteenth century proceeded. Luther and Knox, Zwingle and Melancthon, More and Wolsey, Latimer and Erasmus, all sprang from the sturdy yeomanry or the simple handicraftsmen of the day. It was no unimportant element, therefore, in that discipline by which Latimer was prepared for his great function as the popular Reformer of England, that his birth and early education threw him amongst those whom he was afterwards to instruct and influence. A man of the people, his eloquence was all the more likely to touch the chords of popular sympathy.
The early training of Latimer would be such as became the son of a pious, hospitable yeoman, of "right good estimation." Book-learning would constitute but a small part of his education. In his earliest years we may fancy him following his mother to milk her "thirty kine;" or accompanying his father to the fields. As he grew older, we may suppose him repairing with the rest of the family to the fairs and festivals of Leicester, amused at the sports of that ancient city, and amazed at the elaborate religious performances. In the long winter evenings he would listen to reminiscences of Bosworth Field, where many of the neighbours must have fought, or perhaps to older traditions of the bloody fights of the Yorkists and Lancastrians, or the glorious victories of their ancestors at Cressy and Agincourt. The piety of his father would ensure an early acquaintance with the legends of the Church, and a careful practice of such religious exercises as were deemed appropriate to his tender years. One point it is important to observe. Leicestershire had been the cradle of Lollardism: Lutterworth, the scene of Wickliffe's labours was but a day's journey from Thurcastone; and, doubtless, there were some secret Wickliffites among the neighbouring villages. Latimer's home, however, was, we know, kept free from any taint of what the Church called heresy; and it was not till he had reached mature life that he heard the infallibility of the Church assailed. To his mother he only once alludes, in the passage already quoted: and it may be assumed as probable that she died in his childhood, and that he thus never enjoyed that gentle training which a child receives from the lips of a loving mother. His father survived her for many years; lived long enough to witness his son's triumphs in the University; long enough, let us hope, to he cheered by that purer faith which his son was one of the first to publish in England.
The young Latimer, like many other delicate children, was a precocious boy. Even " at the age of four or thereabouts," according to Foxe, 12 he had such "a ready, prompt, and sharp wit, that his parents purposed to train him up in erudition and knowledge of good literature." Schools were rare in those days, and good literature was still rarer even at such schools as there were: but the parish priest would be able to communicate some instruction to the young scholar; and Leicester was at hand, and its lordly abbey, with its well-furnished library, and numerous monks, would surely be able to supply such knowledge as was then cultivated.
Of one part of his education the law took cognisance; and that was carefully superintended by his father, as Latimer afterwards gratefully acknowledged:-
" My poor father was as diligent to teach me to shoot, as to learn me any other thing; and so I think other men did their children; he taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow, and not to draw with strength of arms, as other nations do, but with strength of the body. I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength; as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger; for men shall never shoot well, except they be brought up in it; it is a goodly art, a wholesome kind of exercise, and much commended in physic." 13
In this calm eventless routine the first fifteen or twenty years of Latimer's life were passed. Only on one occasion did anything occur to break in upon the tranquil monotony of this peaceful existence. It was the occasion alluded to by Latimer in the sermon already cited. The Cornishmen, enraged at a heavy subsidy imposed to meet the invasion of the partisans of Perkin Warbeck, rose in rebellion; marched with little opposition through the southern counties; and encamped on Blackheath, preparatory to an attack on London and the Tower. Henry VII hastily raised an army, and amongst others, Latimer's father was summoned to the field. It was the young Latimer's first contact with war; and we may well fancy that it was with no ordinary emotion that the precocious boy of twelve, nursed up in the traditions of an English yeoman's home, buckled his father's armour, and saw him depart for the conflict. The war was soon over. The insurgents were defeated on Blackheath, June 22, 1497. Warbeck, the source of the disturbance, was taken prisoner in September, and there was no further danger that threatened the throne: we may suppose, therefore, that Latimer's father would be at his home again in time to secure his harvest; and the long evenings in the Thurcastone farm-house, would, that winter, be beguiled by a fresh budget of adventures in the field, and new tales of the wealth and wonders of London. Meantime, in the great world beyond the Leicestershire village, there were many indications that some mighty change was at hand. For ages torpor and mental inactivity had prevailed, and the current of thought seemed, as it were, to have been ice-bound; but now the atmosphere was instinct with life and motion, and the long-frozen stream was beginning again to flow. Not long before Latimer's birth printing had been invented; and the press was silently but irresistibly preparing the way for the downfall of medievalism and the revival of religion and letters. While Latimer was at school, America was discovered; the very limits of the globe seemed to have expanded, and a spirit of adventure, and enterprise was evoked which communicated itself to the age, and made men restless and predisposed to change. On the Continent there had been a great revival of learning. The scholars of the day, abandoning the barren disputations of the schoolmen, and the dreary theology of the time, had devoted themselves to the study of the great classical writers of Greece and Rome, long buried in oblivion, but now disinterred and made accessible through the press. Polite letters and sound knowledge received a vast impulse, the full effect of which was not even imagined by the great patrons of learning. As yet, however, this movement had not reached England; though a few Englishmen, enthusiastic in the pursuit of knowledge, had travelled to Italy and France to drink at the pure fountains of revived taste.
The reign of Henry VII, after the suppression of the disturbances excited by Symnel and Warbeck, was not marked by any transaction of importance. One event, however, destined in the next generation to produce the most momentous results, was in those last years of the fifteenth century, slowly advancing to its accomplishment. Henry, a shrewd and politic monarch, was anxious to strengthen his family by some powerful foreign alliance; and proposed a marriage between Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catherine of Arragon, daughter of the wealthy and powerful sovereigns of Spain. There were difficulties however in the way. Henry's title to the throne was a doubtful one. Warwick, son of the Clarence who had been, according to tradition, drowned in a butt of wine, was still in existence, and though of weak intellect, was the unquestionable representative of the Plantagenets. But Henry had already imbrued his hands in kindred blood; and in 1498 Warwick perished on the scaffold. The nuptials were still deferred, however, on account of the youth of the bridegroom; and not until November 14, 1501, was the long-meditated alliance completed. Four months afterwards Prince Arthur died; and Henry, fully determined at all risks to retain in his coffers the enormous dower of the Spanish princess, proposed that the widow should be married to his second son. Such a proposal had many obstacles to encounter. The young prince was only eleven years of age, and resolutely protested against the match. It was besides opposed to the canon law of the Church, and was contemplated with horror by most people as abominable and incestuous. Long years of intrigue followed; Henry even offering to marry Catherine himself, and so terminate the negotiations. At length a dispensation for the marriage was procured from Borne; and it was agreed that the nuptials, which had occupied the Courts of England and Spain since the year 1488, should be solemnised when the youthful Henry attained maturer years. 14
At his schools Latimer had made such progress, and exhibited such a decided bent for study, that his father determined to send him to the University of Cambridge. His delicate constitution was unsuited for the labours of a yeoman; and everything pointed to the Church as the proper profession for one so studious and so zealously attached to the services of religion. And whatever were the corruptions of the Church, it was her boast, and one grand source of her strength, that her doors were open to all comers, and that in her service the son of the humblest peasant might rise by merit alone to rank above the proudest peer of the realm: indeed, there was at that very time, a young chaplain at Calais, Thomas Wolsey, by name, the son of a butcher in Ipswich, who by sheer force of superior intellect was to rule England for nearly a quarter of a century. It may have been because some of the colleges in Cambridge possessed property not far from Thurcastone, that Latimer was sent to study at that University rather than at Oxford; or some other consideration, unknown to us, may have determined his choice; it is certain, however, that in the spring of 1506, the young scholar removed from his home, and became a student at Cambridge.
The Cambridge of Latimer's time was not the Cambridge of our day. Scarcely one-half of the seventeen colleges of which that University now boasts, were then in existence: there were, however, plenty of hostels or college boarding-houses; students were probably more numerous than at present, and there were several religious houses filled with troops of monks. The older writers uniformly speak of Latimer as a student of Christ's College, an old foundation which had fallen into decay, but which was, in 1506, rising from its ruins under the fostering care of the great patroness of learning of that day, Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of the sovereign who then ruled in England. There is not, however, any record preserved in any of the Cambridge Registers which confirms this opinion of the older writers; it would rather seem, indeed, that Latimer was entered a student in Clare Hall, for Ridley, when officially visiting Cambridge in the reign of Edward VI., speaks of Clare Hall as the place of his education; and the earliest record of his presence in the University, associates him with the same college. About the beginning of February, 1510, 15 while still an undergraduate, Latimer was elected to a fellowship in Clare Hall. At the period of his election he was what is in the University styled Quaestionista, that is, he was just preparing to obtain his Bachelor's degree, or was an undergraduate in his last or twelfth term, for in those times twelve full terms were kept before proceeding to the degree of Bachelor. His election to a fellowship at this early period of his University career, may fairly enough be considered a confirmation of the uniform traditional account of his high reputation for learning and ability. The neighbours of old Hugh Latimer at Thurcastone, had loudly condemned his extravagance in spending so much money on his son's education; this election to a fellowship would silence the objectors, for though it only entitled Latimer to one shilling and fourpence per week for commons, and an additional sum of one pound three and fourpence a year, 16 yet in those frugal times it was not impossible to live decently even on this slender income. If Latimer had hitherto studied at Christ's College, as the older writers maintain, his election to a fellowship would, of course, compel him to remove to Clare Hall, and continue his studies there; curiously enough, however, the only person ever spoken of as his tutor was Dr. Watson, who certainly belonged to Christ's College, and was indeed its fourth Master.
A few weeks after his election to the fellowship, he proceeded to his degree of Bachelor of Arts. The Grace for this degree is preserved in the University Grace Book, and runs in the usual form, 17 except that it is noted that Latimer had, in one of his terms, not attended the customary instruction, from what cause is not stated.
Three years more spent in study, he proceeded to the higher degree of Master of Arts, the Grace for which, in the customary form, is preserved in the University Grace Book, for the year ending at Michaelmas, 1514. 18 In the years intervening between the two degrees, he had made choice of the profession to which his life should be devoted, and had entered the Church. He was ordained at Lincoln, his birth-place being in that very extensive diocese; but as no record of his ordination is preserved in the Register of Lincoln, the exact date cannot be fixed; the locality, however, is placed beyond doubt by his own testimony. 19 It may be assumed, in the absence of any positive statement, that he was ordained shortly after he had taken his Bachelor's degree; for he had then attained the canonical age, and there was no reason therefore for any delay. On graduating as Master of Arts, he became what was styled a Regent in the University, and would naturally take some share in instructing the undergraduates: we know scarcely anything, however, of any of his pupils, except that in a later part of this Biography, we shall find one of them, Brigenden by name, among the bitterest of his opponents, when he began to preach the doctrines of the Reformation.
From 1514, when he graduated as Master of Arts, we have no further official record of him till 1522, when he appears in the Proctors' Books, as one of twelve preachers, appointed by the University in accordance with an old custom, and licensed, in virtue of a peculiar privilege of Cambridge, to officiate in any part of England. In this appointment we have the first recognition of Latimer's ability in that special sphere of labour for which he possessed so many eminent qualifications, and in which he was destined to be so signal a benefactor to his country. In the same year he was also selected to carry the silver cross of the University in all solemn processions, a graceful tribute to the uprightness of his character, for this office was usually "reserved for such an one as in sanctimony of life excelled all other." 20 In the regular course he next proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. The Grace for this degree has not been preserved in the University Records, which were not very carefully kept in those times; but the following curious entry in reference to this degree occurs in the Proctors' Books for the year ending Michaelmas, 1524 :-
" Baccalaurei in Theologia -
M. Latymer. }
M. Stafforth. } nihil
M. Rogers. }
M. Thyxtyll. }
&c., &c." 21that is, the Masters of Arts whose names are thus given, had graduated as Bachelors in Theology, but had not paid the customary fees, perhaps from poverty, or because they had been excused for some special ground, or for some other reason, which it is, of course, idle to conjecture.
Such are all the authentic official notices of Latimer's career at Cambridge, from his entering the University in 1506 up to the year 1524. They are few, yet what more could be expected to be recorded of the uneventful life of an earnest student? The real life of Latimer, the growth of his intellect, the development of his character, these went on silently, and left no external record. Under any circumstances, these eighteen years, at the critical period of a man's, life, when he passes from boyhood into the matured intellect and the serious responsibilities of manhood, are of the utmost importance. Spent in a University, they would naturally be expected to form and fix Latimer's opinions, and fashion his life and character on a type from which he would not afterwards materially vary. These eighteen years, moreover, were not years of ordinary calm academic routine. Within the University, and without, all was in a tumult of excitement. The greatest revolution that had occurred in Europe since the Christian era was shaking society to its very centre; every heart was stirred to its depths; an earnest controversy was everywhere waged, in which it was impossible to stand neutral; every man was roused to think, and to decide, and to act; and life became instinct with a vigour and reality which had been unknown for many years. Into the nature of this great movement we shall have to glance before proceeding further with the narrative of Latimer's life; first of all, however, let us fill up the meagre picture of his early college years with some of those incidents, forgotten now, which in their day filled the University with excitement, and formed the theme of Latimer's thoughts and conversation with his fellow-students.
In the spring of 1506, just after Latimer had entered the University, and before the first edge of the novelty of everything around had been blunted, there were great doings at Cambridge, filling the undergraduate world with excitement and amazement. On St. George's Eve, April 22, the King (Henry VII.) came to visit Cambridge, accompanied by his mother, the Countess of Richmond, the foundress of Christ's College, where (if we believe the old writers), Latimer was studying. The Mayor and other municipal officials rode out two or three miles to welcome the distinguished visitors; " and as he approached the University, within a quarter of a mile, there stood first of all the four orders of friars, and after, other religious, and the King, on horseback, kissed the cross of every of the religious, and then there stood all along all the graduates after their degrees, in their habits, and at the end of them was the University Cross" [which Latimer himself was to bear one day], "where was a form and a cushion, as accustomed; there the King did alight, and the Bishop of Rochester [Fisher] then being Chancellor of the University, accompanied with other doctors, censed the King, and after made a little proposition, and welcomed him." 22 The young freshman from Thurcastone was, of course, among the wondering crowd, and for the first time beheld the royalty of England, and witnessed the stately ceremony which attends on kings. The same year, without pomp or state, a shrewd-looking diminutive Dutchman, Erasmus by name, arrived at Cambridge; and his coming, scarcely noticed at the time, produced much more abiding consequences than the royal progress, with its procession and censing, and nine-days' wonder. In 1509, both Henry VII. and the Countess of Richmond died, and the scholars of the University, Latimer amongst them, would be invoking the muses to celebrate in woeful elegies the decease of those patrons of learning.
In 1520, Wolsey, then in " full-blown dignity," paid a visit to Cambridge, and was received with the honour due to his rank and influence. Indeed, the University authorities carried servile flattery almost to the verge of blasphemy in their entertainment of the great King Cardinal. Bryan Roo, Fellow of King's College, was appointed to welcome him in a Latin oration, and, among other compliments, he applied to Wolsey the declaration of the Psalmist concerning the Messiah - "Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedeck." 23 An altar was erected, and a magnificent entertainment was provided, the bill of fare including " two oxen, six swans, six great pikes, six shell fish, and a great river fish called a breme," 24 for which six and eightpence, an exorbitant price in those days, was paid. Not uncommonly the reception of such visitors was followed by a plague, so severe as to compel the discontinuance of the ordinary University work; and the explanation of this phenomenon throws a curious light (or shade ?) upon the domestic manners of our ancestors. When any visitor of rank was expected, special care was taken to clean the streets; and as they were usually dirty and unscavenged as those of an Oriental city, the common receptacle for the filth and debris of the town, it is not surprising that the occasional stirring of this accumulated litter should beget a plague. In this same year of Wolsey's visit, Luther's works were ignominiously burned at Cambridge, Latimer, no doubt, looking on with delighted approbation, as Saul did at the stoning of Stephen; but, as we shall see, this burning of Luther's books could not prevent his opinions spreading rapidly among the students. Queen Catherine also visited Cambridge about this time, but she had not yet become the great apple of discord, dividing England into hostile camps. Finally, in 1522, Henry VIII. himself came to the University, and was received as he loved to be received, with profuse and magnificent pomp. The University Cross was borne solemnly before him, on this occasion probably by Latimer himself, who was rewarded with the very modest sum of sixteen pence 25 for performing this duty.
So much for the incidents of Latimer's college career. As to the education then given at Cambridge, the ingenuous mind thirsting for knowledge was supplied with the most meagre intellectual provender. Scholastic theology was the supreme study. "For thirty years," says Erasmus, " nothing was taught at Cambridge except the ' Parva Logicalia' of Alexander, 26 and the Questions of the Scotists." 27 Polite letters, pure Latinity, exact science, rational Scriptural theology, were all unknown. Oxford was proverbial for its bad Latin; and Cambridge did not put the sister University out of countenance by its superiority. On the Continent the reviving intellect of the rising generation had rebelled against this barbarism, and had even dared to ridicule the blind teachers who had so long claimed the monopoly of knowledge. It was impossible for men any longer to believe the foolish legends which constituted the bulk of the theology of the age. Men who had studied the great models of classical taste and eloquence, laughed to scorn the idle wrangling of the scholastic divines; and the scandalous lives of many of the clergy furnished an endless theme for raillery and indignant reprobation. This movement for the revival of taste, and the cultivation of true knowledge, had made considerable progress on the Continent before it affected the condition of England. Scholars needed patrons and protectors, and Henry VII. was too parsimonious, and too much engrossed in political affairs, to have leisure or funds for the promotion of learning.
The accession of Henry VIII. introduced an important change. The young sovereign had none of the vices of his father. Handsome, affable, generous; possessed of enormous wealth; enjoying the affection of his subjects, and holding the throne by a title which none could dispute; he had fortunately received an excellent education, which his shrewd practical intellect enabled him to use to the best advantage. He was fond of pleasure and gaiety, as indeed was natural in one elevated to a throne at an early age, and succeeding to almost boundless hoards of money; but he delighted also in learning, and was resolved to make his reign remarkable by his patronage of men of letters. Wolsey, his Prime Minister, "was a scholar, and a ripe and good one," according to the scholarship which was, however, beginning to be superseded, and he was, at all events, a munificent patron of learning. Scholars found favour at Court. Thomas More, one of Henry's chief favourites, was esteemed the greatest genius in England, and enjoyed a splendid reputation even on the Continent for learning and wit. Fisher and Colet, Grocyn, Linacre, and William Latimer, were well known for their zeal in the revival of letters, Henry was looked upon as a second Augustus, the friend and patron of the muses; and Erasmus, writing in a vein of somewhat jubilant anticipation, foretold that " the golden age was again returning to bless mankind," now that the Court of England was "better furnished with learned men than any University." 28 Erasmus himself, the most distinguished scholar of the age, conspicuous for the extent and variety of his learning, his taste, his wit, and his facile and vigorous pen, had paid a short visit to England in the reign of Henry VII., but was now invited to return and settle at one of the English Universities, that he might introduce some of that revived taste which had already been diffused over many parts of the Continent.
In 1510, therefore, just as Latimer was busy preparing for his first degree, Erasmus, the renowned leader of what was commonly styled " the new learning," came a second time to Cambridge. Fisher, the Chancellor of the University, was one of those who had invited him; and there were other friends of the new learning in England who were prepared with open arms to receive the great scholar, and eager to profit by his instructions. But Erasmus had also numerous and determined enemies, for he had called in question the teaching of the Church, and had censured the lives and morals of the clergy; and already the great majority of the ecclesiastics had begun to look askance upon this new learning, as likely to prove in the end a source of mischief and heresy. Shortly after his arrival in Cambridge, Erasmus was appointed Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and this position brought him into more decided conflict with the theologians of the University. In 1511 he published his famous " Encomium Moriae," or " Praise of Folly," an unrivalled satire, directed chiefly against the mendicant friars, the most ignorant and immoral of the religious orders. The exuberant wit of the book, rendered still more piquant by the amusing illustrations of Holbein, which made the jests patent to all readers, secured for it a circulation unprecedented in those times. The friars retaliated as well as they could, and vented many a bitter joke against the conceited little Grecian (" Graeculus iste"), but Erasmus, secure in the protection of his powerful patrons, heeded not their opposition, and continued his lectures on Greek and theology. At first his audience was small, and his scholars, he complains, were so poor that they could not pay for their instruction. Soon, however, the fruit of his labours began to appear. In 1513 he boasts that Cambridge was not inferior to any University in Europe, and he especially rejoices in the vast progress made in theological learning. 29 By way of reward for his ill-requited services, a pension was granted to him from the living of Aldington, in Kent, which was still paid to him when that village attracted the attention of all England, through the revelations of the Nun of Kent.
A continued residence in England did not, however, suit the wandering and unsettled inclinations of Erasmus. In 1514 he left Cambridge and returned to the Continent; but his influence did not cease to operate. Learning had received an impulse which no opposition could stay, and the University was able to supply from its own members illustrious scholars, well qualified to continue the work which Erasmus had begun. Under Croke, Wakefield, Smith, and Cheke, the study of polite letters was carried on with unflagging vigour; and the great number of men of eminence who proceeded from Cambridge at that period, gave the most conclusive proof of the extent to which fresh intellectual life had been infused into the University.
Erasmus, it has been said, attacked the vices of the clergy, and satirised their ignorance; and his labours, and those of his compeers in the revival of letters, were of essential service in preparing the way for the reformation of religion, the other great movement of the period. The two movements were, however, entirely distinct; differing in their aims, and differing more widely in the treatment which they experienced from the great and the powerful. The first twenty years of the sixteenth century was pre-eminently the age of the scholars; and philology and polite letters had a fair field, and ample opportunity to accomplish their mission among men. Unlike the Reformers, the scholars were everywhere courted and patronised by the great. They were the favourites of kings, and the popes were proud to promote their labours. They had the field all to themselves. Luther was still in his monastery, seeking peace with God; Zwingle was at college; Knox and Calvin were in their cradles. Whatever the scholars wished to accomplish was within their power. But it was merely or mainly an intellectual want they endeavoured to supply. They wished to purify the literary taste of the age, to point their contemporaries to the true sources and methods of knowledge and scientific inquiry, to purge the religion of the day from what was barbarous and incredible. Of any deeper necessity for true spiritual life they took no notice; of any heartfelt longing for truth and reality in religion, of any earnest aspiration after the knowledge and love of God, they had nothing to say. These matters were beyond their depths; they only aimed at such an improvement in the language and teaching of theology as might bring it into harmony with the more refined taste of the scholars of the age. They never dreamed of any reformation in religion, which might bring the poor and the ignorant, as well as the learned and refined, into contact with the same everlasting source of peace, and the same all-perfect model of spiritual life. And when the trial came, when the preaching of Luther compelled all men to decide between the contending parties, the great scholars, who had been conspicuous as the revivers of letters, were, in general, found no less averse to the teaching of the Reformers than to the ignorance and immorality of the monks. The Italian scholars seem, in many cases, to have practically relapsed into the Paganism of the old classical authors they so much admired. Linacre, one of the earliest to introduce the new learning into England, glancing at the New Testament for the first time when on his deathbed, read our Lord's words, " swear not at all," and immediately closed the book with the exclamation, " either this is not true, or we are not Christians." Many of the most distinguished English scholars were opposed to the Reformation. Fisher, More, and Gardiner, among the chief patrons of learning in England, were also (especially the last two) chief among the enemies of the Reformers. Erasmus himself, the greatest of all the scholars, who only wanted a little more energy of character to have been one of the greatest of the Reformers, after halting all his life between the two contending parties, died at last in the communion of that Church whose authority he had done so much to shake. Once again, as in the days of St. Paul, it was the "foolish things of the world that were chosen to confound the wise; "simple earnest men found that life and truth which the profoundly wise and learned were too refined and fastidious to seek. The scholars did, indeed, awaken the mind of the age; but when the nations, longing after some better spiritual sustenance for their souls, came asking bread, the scholars did not understand the nature of their wants, they were unable to supply them, and had to give place to the Reformers. Cicero and the humanities were excellent for men who only wanted to gratify a cultivated taste; but Christ and the Gospel alone could suffice for the weary soul that longed for life and peace.
Erasmus, by his residence in Cambridge, had wonderfully promoted the revival of learning in England; he was also instrumental in communicating an impulse to the Reformation in this country. "When he left Cambridge he devoted his energy for some time to the production of a good and authoritative edition of the Greek New Testament. After two years' hard labour, this, the editio princeps of the New Testament in the original, appeared at Basle, in 1516, with a Latin translation and notes by Erasmus. The Word of God in any of the vernacular tongues had long been rigorously prohibited by the Church; but no evil consequences were anticipated from a book which was sealed except to scholars; and high ecclesiastical dignitaries approved and patronised it. One college in Cambridge (and that not improbably Latimer's college of Clare Hall, 30) did, indeed, distinguish itself by forbidding the introduction even of this Greek New Testament within its walls; but Erasmus's reputation as a scholar, and kindly recollections of his personal instructions, would naturally secure for it a cordial reception in the University. And it was to a copy of this New Testament, read by a single devout student, that the origin of the Reformation movement in the University may be traced.
Among the students at Cambridge at that time, Thomas Bilney, feeble and diminutive in person ("Little Bilney," Latimer calls him), was conspicuous for his ability, his energy, and his almost ascetic devotion. He had passed through something of the same mental struggle as Luther: like him, he had been intended for the law, and had forsaken it for the Church; and, like him, he, by fasts and mortifications sought peace for his soul. But his story is best told in his own simple words:-
" I also, miserable sinner, before I could come unto Christ, had spent all that I had upon ignorant physicians, that is to say, unlearned hearers of confession; so that there was but small force of strength left in me (who of nature was but weak), small store of money, and very little wit or understanding; for they appointed me fastings, watchings, buying of pardons and masses; in all which things (as I now understand), they sought rather their own gain, then the salvation of my sick and languishing soul. But at last I heard speak of Jesus, even then when the New Testament was first set forth by Erasmus [i.e. A.D. 1516]; which when I understood to be eloquently done by him, being allured rather by the Latin than by the Word of God (for at that time I knew not what it meant), I bought it, even by the providence of God - as I do now well understand and perceive - and, at the first reading, as I well remember, I chanced upon this sentence of St. Paul (Oh most sweet and comfortable sentence to my soul!) in 1 Tim. i.: ' It is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be embraced, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief and principal.' This one sentence, through God's instruction and inward working, which I did not then perceive, did so exhilarate my heart, being before wounded with the guilt of my sins, and being almost in despair, that immediately I felt a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones leaped for joy." 31
It was a repetition of the experience through which Luther had just passed in his cell at Erfurt; but as yet the name of the great German monk had never been mentioned in England. Bilney, having found peace and comfort to himself, became the centre of a new movement in the University. Timid and retiring, his influence was exerted in secret; he never appeared as a public teacher of any new system, but, in private intercourse with his friends, he talked to them of life and hope. Gradually and imperceptibly the leaven of his teaching began to operate. Tyndale was at Cambridge in 1519, and may have learned from Bilney that supreme love for the Word of God, and that intense desire to make it accessible to his countrymen, which were the ruling passions of his life. It was only by slow degrees, indeed, and after the lapse of many years, that the influence of Bilney, in promoting the Reformation, became apparent; and the retiring modesty of the man has prevented his receiving that honour, as the first English Reformer, which so justly belongs to him. There was, no doubt, a movement towards a Reformation external to the Universities, and which may be traced in part to the teaching of Wickliffe; but that grand movement which issued in the establishment of a Reformed Church in England originated in the Universities, and must be ascribed to the simple earnest piety of Bilney.
By-and-by the reputation of Luther spread to England, and his boldness encouraged those who sympathised with his teaching. Copies of his works were eagerly demanded, and were so extensively circulated in England that Wolsey issued a commission to the Bishops, Deans, and heads of colleges, ordering them to make rigorous search for any of Luther's books, and to punish all who refused to deliver them up. 32 The example of Luther was soon followed by greater activity on the part of the students of Scripture in Cambridge. Theology had for centuries been taught from the works of the School-men, and especially from the " Sentences." One of Bilney's disciples, however, George Stafford, introduced an important innovation. When he was appointed Reader of Divinity, he discarded the old text-books, and not only read lectures from St. Augustine, but expounded Holy Scripture itself, both Old Testament and New, in the original languages to crowds of listening students.
Such, therefore, were the movements that were occupying all minds at Cambridge during the years when Latimer was in residence; how, then, it may be asked, was he affected by this revival of learning and of religion that was taking place around him ? It is not difficult to answer this question. The mere fact that his name never occurs in connection with the early stage of either of these movements is a significant indication of the part which he played. 33 And his writings supply abundant evidence as to his opinions in those years of his life. From the first he ranged himself among the opponents of Erasmus and Bilney. He looked with suspicion on all this new learning as a dangerous sign of the times. Greek, which some Churchmen thought the native language of heresy, he never learned. " I understand no Greek," he said, when on his trial at Oxford in the very last year of his life: and, though we may, perhaps, be justified in explaining his assertion in a somewhat qualified sense, yet it is clear, from his occasional references to Greek, that he was the merest tyro in that language. His study lay in those school-doctors whom the Church had for centuries honoured as the pure fountains of wisdom, and the standard of orthodoxy; he was learned in Duns Scotus and Dorbell, in Hugo de Victore, and, above all, in Thomas Aquinas, the "Angel of the Schools." He, too, like Luther, and like Bilney, was seeking rest and peace to his soul; and, for a time, he seemed to find it in devotion to the ceremonies of the Church. He shut his ears resolutely against all proposals to change or reform the traditions of the Fathers; and, when the voice of controversy began to rise high in the University, he sighed for the peace of the cloister, and almost resolved to enter a monastery, and take the vows of a religious. Yet, with all this his mind was not at ease, and death seemed terrible to him; and this fear, also, tended to drive him, as it had driven Luther, into the presumed protection of the sanctity of monastic life. " I have thought, in times past," he wrote in after years, 34 " that if I had been a friar and in a cowl, I could not have been damned nor afraid of death, and I have been minded many times to have been a friar when I was sore sick and diseased."
Never did any priest more conscientiously observe all the rubrics of the missal. " I remember how scrupulous I was in my time of blindness and ignorance: when I should say mass, I have put in water [among the sacramental wine] twice or thrice for failing; insomuch when I have been at my memento, I have had a grudge in my conscience, fearing that I had not put in water enough." 35 One little incident of the period is amusingly characteristic of Latimer's life and belief in those days :-
" I was once called to one of my kinsfolk (it was at that time when I had taken degree in Cambridge, and was made Master of Art), I was called, I say, to one of my kinsfolk which was very sick, and died immediately after my coming. Now there was an old cousin of mine which, after the man was dead, gave me a wax candle in my hand, and commanded me to make certain crosses over him that was dead; for she thought the devil should run away by-and-by. Now I took the candle, but I could not cross him as she would have me to do; for I had never seen it afore. Now she, perceiving that I could not do it, with a great anger took the candle out of my hand, saying, ' It is pity that thy father spendeth so much money upon thee.' And so she took the candle, and crossed and blessed him, so that he was sure enough." 36
Devout and upright himself, and conscious of his own sincerity, he saw no need for any reformation of the lives or teaching of the clergy. His great anxiety was that all men should, like himself, yield implicit obedience to the Church; and as heresy seemed to spread amongst the students, his zeal urged him to warn them of the danger of their proceedings, and to entreat them to follow what he believed to be the only path of security and peace. Stafford's innovations excited his liveliest indignation. " Perceiving the youth of the University inclined to the reading of the Scriptures, and leaving off the school-doctors, he came amongst the youth, gathered together of daily custom to their disputations; and there most eloquently made to them an oration, dissuading them from this new-fangled kind of study of the Scriptures, and vehemently persuaded them to the study of the school-authors." 37 Till the close of 1523, therefore, Latimer was one of the great champions of the Church and the old learning in the University. He was then nearly forty years of age, and apparently there was no great risk of any change taking place in his opinions. The rashness and impetuosity of youth were over. Probably of all the Cambridge men of the time, the devout University Cross-bearer was the very last whose defection the Church would have feared; the very last whom any intelligent observer would have selected as destined to be the great popular preacher of the Reformation in England.
One brief glance at the progress of political affairs in Europe during these eventful years will enable us to understand the position of parties, which was not without its influence upon the great religious changes in England. Two powerful monarchs were then contending for supremacy in Europe - Charles V., King of Spain and the Low Countries, and Emperor of Germany, and Francis I., King of France. Both were young, able and ambitious; and for some time their power seemed equally matched. In this state of affairs on the Continent, the alliance of Henry was eagerly sought by both the rivals; and England once again became of importance in the counsels of Europe. One of the first acts of Henry's reign, destined also to be one of the most momentous, was to consummate his long-projected marriage with Catherine of Arragon; and this naturally inclined him to espouse the interests of Spain. War with France ensued, carried on not without considerable success on the part of Henry, and largely instrumental in dissipating his father's enormous treasures; a result of no small importance in many of the future transactions of his reign. It was during the French war also that Wolsey, already a favourite with Henry, rose to almost supreme power in Church and State. Besides holding many minor lucrative ecclesiastical preferments, he was Archbishop of York, and Papal Legate; and was at the same time Lord High Chancellor of England. His unrivalled talent for business, his indefatigable energy, his skill in discovering men able to serve him, and his happy art of securing their affectionate attachment, made him for many years virtually the sovereign of the kingdom. His ambition, however, aimed at something higher even than this. He aspired to the Popedom; and he hoped, by flattering the ambition of Charles and of Francis, both of whom assiduously courted him, to be elevated to the Papal chair. The election of Wolsey might have altered the history of Europe. Though no friend of the Reformed doctrines, though by no means a model of clerical propriety, yet no one saw more clearly the absolute necessity of some reformation in the lives and teaching of the clergy, and especially of the monastic orders. Under his steady guidance the Church would have presented a firmer and more united front to the rising storms of the sixteenth century; some compromise would have been effected with the demands of the Reformers; and an attempt would have been made to introduce some of those reforms which the condition of the Church so urgently required. Twice Wolsey was filled with the hope of reaching the great object of his ambition. But on both occasions, Charles, after promising his assistance, had secretly used all his energy to oppose his election. Wolsey was not the man to forget this treachery on the part of the Emperor; he excited Henry's jealousy of the growing power of Charles; and after the Battle of Pavia, he induced his sovereign to enter into an alliance with France to oppose the power of Spain. In this rooted hatred of Wolsey to Charles, and his eager desire for some vengeance on the treacherous monarch, another element was contributed towards that complicated strife which in England led to the Reformation.
Such was the position of parties about the year 1525. Henry was still living in peace and love with his Spanish spouse, undisturbed, to all appearance, by any fire of passion, and, so far as was known, by any qualms of conscience. Anne Boleyn, acquiring accomplishments at the Courts of Francis and Margaret of Valois, or secluded from observation in the retirement of Hever Castle, was as yet unvisited by any dreams of her future eminence. "Wolsey, busied with schemes for replenishing his master's empty exchequer, planning magnificent designs for reforming the Church and advancing learning, had not forgotten the intrigues of Charles, and was biding his time for revenge. Luther had burned the Papal decrees, and had defied the power of Rome. The Pope was anxiously deliberating how to stave off the threatened General Council, and to pacify the universal demand for a reformation. In England a few unknown scholars in the Universities, and a few mechanics in the towns and villages of the Eastern Counties, were studying their Bibles in secret, and were perceiving to their own utter amazement, the complete discrepancy between the teaching of Scripture and the doctrines of the Church which pretended to found its teaching upon Scripture. Charles and Francis were occupied with their rivalry for empire and supremacy. All were working out their own designs without concert or common purpose; and yet all were unconsciously " doing whatsoever the hand and counsel of God determined before to be done." (Acts iv. 28.) All were in reality promoting the same great end; and when the appointed time at length arrived, the causes thus operating apart, would be all, by the will of the Great Disposer of Events, compelled to combine their efficacy for the accomplishment of the predestined work.
NOTES:
1.Where the Cornish rebels were defeated, June 22, 1497. BACK
2. Latimer's Sermons, p. 101, of the Parker Society Edition; the edition always referred to in this biography. BACK
3. Latimer, say the etymologists rather fancifully, is the same as Latiner, i.e., one who understood and interpreted Latin, and afterwards an interpreter in general. BACK
4. The history of their acquisitions may be traced in the Inguisitiones post mortem; and their pedigree is given in Nichols' Leicestershire, Lansdowne MSS., and elsewhere, copiously enough, but without in any way throwing light upon our Latimer’s descent. BACK
5. Gules, a cross patonce, or. BACK
6. Viscount Latimer is one of the titles of the Duke of Leeds. BACK
8. e.g. Cooper, Athenoe Cantabrigienses; Froude, vol. ii.; Corrie in the prefatory Memoir to Latimer's Sermons. BACK
9. Latimer's Sermons, p. 320. BACK
10. Nichols’ Leicestershire. BACK
11. Parsons, the Jesuit, indeed, mentions Latimer as one of the pillars of the Reformation, who were married priests or friars; but his authority is worthless. The Duchess of Suffolk also speaks of "the churching of Latimer's wife;" but she seems to be in a joking humour. See, however, infra, under the year 1552. BACK
12. Foxe, vol. v., 437. The edition here (and always in this biography) quoted, is Seeley's, London, 1838. The paging, in general, corresponds with the excellent edition by Prebendary Townsend. BACK
14. The curious reader will find the whole complicated negotiations arranged in Bergenroth's Venetian and Spanish State Papers, published in the series of Calendars of State Papers. BACK
15. "Etiam circa festum Purificationis proxime sequens, eligebantur in socios istius Collegii (viz., Clare Hall), Dominus Johannes Powel, et Dominus Willelmus Pyndar, in artibus Baccalaurei, et Dominus Hugo Latymer Quaestionista." - Cambridge Records, quoted in Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, ii. 446. BACK
16. It is generally agreed that money in those days had fifteen times its present value; the sum in the text would thus amount to upwards of sixty-six pounds of our money. BACK
17. " Conceditur Hugoni Latymer ut duodecim termini, in quorum qnolibet, excepto uno, ordinaria audiverit, etsi non secundum formam statuti, sufficiant sibi ad respondendum quaestioni." - University Grace Book, Michaelmas, 1509, to Michaelmas, 1510. BACK
18. " Conceditur Domino Latymer ut lectiones ordinariae novem terminorum auditae, cum quatuor responsionibus, quorum una erat in die cinerum" (Ash Wednesday), "altera in finali determinatione, et duae aliae in grammatica, quarum altera in die conversationis, altera in scholis publicis, sufficiant sibi ad incipiendum in artibus, sic ut solvat Universitati, 13 sol. iiijd." (13s. 4d.) BACK
20. Strype, Eccl. Mem., from a MS. by Ralph Morice, Secretary to Cranmer. The MS. says, "For his gravity and years he was preferred to keep the cross:" a confirmation of the view here adopted as to Latimer's age. BACK
21. Townsend's Foxe, vol. vii. Appendix. BACK
22. Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, from Baker's MSS. BACK
23. The speech, is given entire in Lamb's Original Documents, etc. BACK
24. Cooper's Annals of Cambridge. BACK
25. Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, I. 306. BACK
26. i.e., Alexander of Aphrodisias, one of the commentators upon Aristotle. BACK
27. Erasmus' Epistles, A.D. 1513. BACK
28. Letters to Banisius, and to Sir H. Guildford. BACK
29. Erasmi Epistoloe, anno 1513. BACK
30. The master of Clare Hall, Nattares, was the most determined of the adherents of the old learning. BACK
31. Foxe, vol. iv., pp. 635, &c.: Bilney's Letters to Tunstal. BACK
32. The commission is in Strype, Eccl Mem. I. pt. ii. p. 20. BACK
33. He has by some writers been confounded with William Latimer of Oxford, and praised for a learning which he did not possess. BACK
34. Letter to Sir Edward Baynton; Remains, p. 332. BACK
35. Sermons I. 138. The memento in the mass occurs shortly before the time when the priest communicates. BACK
'Aussie Outpost' is pleased to be able to present to you this classic work. Please feel free to print this for reading offline at your leisure.
Outpost Homepage
Latimer Contents
NEXT CHAPTER
Library - Church History
Library Homepage
Church History Institute
TOP
10/05/2007
AN OUTPOST PRODUCTION
