it. Cardinal Salviati entreated Clement to satisfy the English demands. Wolsey, on whom the Pope had lavished every token of his confidence ; Warham, the sullen and jealous opponent of Wolsey, who had been primate for a quarter of a century, and who was now an old man drawing near the grave ; Longland, the Bishop of Lincoln,[1] the King's confessor, and a bulwark against heresy — all believed that the marriage was void. The English bishops, with one memorable exception, confirmed the King's doubts. The Queen's advisers, Clerk, Standish, Ridley, successively deserted her. Lee, the adversary of Erasmus, who followed Wolsey at York, and Tunstall, the Bishop of London, who followed him at Durham, went against her. The most serious defection was that of Tunstall ; for the school of Erasmus were known to oppose the Divorce, and of the friends of Erasmus among the English clergy, Cuthbert Tunstall was the most eminent. He is the only Englishman whose public life extended through all the changes of religion, from the publication of the Theses to the Act of Uniformity. The love and admiration of his greatest contemporaries, the persecution which he endured under Edward, his tolerance under Mary, have preserved his name in honour. Yet we may suspect that a want of generous and definite conviction had something to do with the moderation which is the mark of his career. He reproved[2] Erasmus for his imprudence in making accessible the writings of the early Fathers ; and in the deliberations touching the separation from Rome, in the most important Session of the Parliament of England, when he was, by his position, his character, and his learning, the first man in the House of Lords, he allowed himself to be silenced by an order from the King. Tunstall informed Catharine that he had abandoned her cause because he believed that she had sworn a false oath.
- ↑ Chapuys calls him : "Principal Promoteur et brasseur de ce Divorce" (Legrand, Lettres à Burnet, 141).
- ↑ "Cui etiam si germana sit Origenis, et non ab aemulis addita, veteres omnes refragantur. Quare optassem magis delituisse non versam" (Tunstall to Erasmus, 24th October 1529. Burscher, Spicilegium, xviii. 13).
