Notwithstanding the desire of a large body of the English people to
remain faithful to Rome, the dangers which menaced their country from
abroad and the ecclesiastical abuses at home, which had been a fruitful
cause for complaint for many years, tended to lessen the ancient horror
of heresy and schism, and inclined them to support their king. Another
factor that assisted in preparing the English people for the
destruction of the monasteries was Lollardism. As an organized sect, the
Lollards had ceased to exist, but the spirit and the doctrines of Wyclif
did not die. A real and a vital connection existed between the Lollards
of the fourteenth, and the reformers of the sixteenth, centuries. In
Henry's time, many Englishmen held practically the same views of Rome
and of the monks that had been taught by Wyclif[I].
[Footnote I: Appendix, Note I.]
A considerable number of Henry's subjects, however, while ostensibly
loyal to him, were inwardly full of hot rebellion. The king was
surrounded with perils. The princes of the Continent were eagerly
awaiting the bull for his excommunication. Henry's throne and his
kingdom might at any moment be given over by the pope to invasion by the
continental sovereigns.
Reginald Pole, afterwards cardinal, a cousin of the king, and a strong
Catholic, stood ready to betray the interests of his country to Rome.
Writing to the king, he said: "Man is against you; God is against you;
the universe is against you; what can you look for but destruction?"
"Dream not, Caesar," he encouragingly declared to Emperor Charles V.
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