The Burning Time

by Virginia Rounding

  And so to another pivotal question, concerning the authority of the Church to determine doctrine: are all things necessary for salvation contained in holy scripture, Lambert was asked, or are there other things which ought to be believed, that are not written in scripture? Lambert knew he was again on dangerous ground. ‘This is the question,’ he replied, ‘as I have been told by great learned men, whom I count as my friends, since the time I appeared in your chapel at Lambeth, when these questions were first put to me: this, I say, is the question – as they told me – which is the most important and sums up everything of which I am accused.’ But despite all the warnings of ‘great learned men’, this was one question over which Lambert refused to compromise or cavil, declaring that the truth was more important than friendship, and he affirmed that ‘all things needful for man’s salvation’ are indeed to be found in the Bible. He was happy to concede that there were many other things that ought to be observed and believed – such as the law of the land – but that such things were not necessary for salvation. And here, despite the seriousness of his position, he poked fun at his interrogators, remarking that he had, for instance, believed Dr Warham to be Archbishop of Canterbury before he had ever set eyes upon him, and that he believed he knew who his own father and mother were, even though he knew nothing about his conception. And so, while on the one hand he appeared to give a straight answer, on the other he continued to obfuscate.

  The questions went on and on. Did Lambert believe in the existence of purgatory and that departed souls went to be tormented and purged there? (‘I say that there is a Purgatory in this world, and that doth the Scripture and also the holy doctors call the fire of tribulation, through which all Christians shall pass … Other Purgatory know I none, that you can prove by Scripture …’) Should holy martyrs, apostles and confessors be prayed to? Do the saints in heaven intercede for us? Should pilgrimages be made to shrines and relics? Should the Lenten fast be kept? Should images be placed in churches to remind people of Christ and his saints? Was it right to pray for the dead? Could people obtain merit through fasting and other deeds of devotion? (another question touching on ‘justification by faith alone’). Should priests who had been forbidden by bishops to preach, as they were suspected of heresy, duly desist from preaching until they had been cleared of suspicion? (This presumably applied to Lambert himself.) Was it lawful for all priests to preach? Was it lawful for both laymen and laywomen to celebrate the Mass and to preach? Were all priests bound to say Matins and Evensong every day? Were rulers duty-bound to provide their people with translations of the Bible? Or might they reasonably make the decision that the people should not have the opportunity to read the Bible in their own language? Did excommunication pronounced by the Pope against all heretics bind them before God? (This was a very interesting question, considering when it was posed.) Other questions invoking the Pope included: ‘Whether he believed that the Pope could make laws and statutes that would bind all Christian men to observe them, under pain of deadly sin, provided such laws and statutes were not contrary to the law of God’; ‘Whether he believed that the Pope and other prelates … had the power to excommunicate priests and lay people who were disobedient’; and, most significantly, whether the Pope was the successor of St Peter and consequently, as the vicar of Christ, had ‘power upon earth to bind and loose’. These questions, which seemed to demand the answer ‘yes’, were posed to Lambert in 1532, shortly before Archbishop Warham’s death on 22 August; there could be no clearer indication of how far the archbishop was from accepting the changes being foisted upon the English Church by Henry VIII.

  Several questions addressed the issue of clerical marriage. Lambert was asked more than once whether he thought it lawful for a priest to marry. He said it was indeed lawful, and even necessary for a man who had not been given the gift of chastity, as St Paul had written. Was a priest who married without papal dispensation (again the assumption that the Pope’s authority was valid) and had children by his wife committing a deadly sin? Was a priest who found himself troubled ‘with pricking of lust and lechery’ right to take a wife as a remedy? (Yes, said Lambert.)

  Some of the questions were attempts to get Lambert tainted by association, asking whether he had ever prayed for John Wycliffe, John Hus or Jerome of Prague who had all been condemned as heretics. Did he count any of them as saints, he was asked, and did he believe everything that was affirmed at the Council of Constance (the ecumenical council held from 1414 to 1418, at which these men had been condemned)?

  It seems that on this occasion Lambert was saved by Archbishop Warham’s death, after which he was released. It is possible that at this point he resigned his priesthood; Foxe records that he began teaching Latin and Greek, living in London by the Stocks Market, and that he considered getting married and also joining the Worshipful Company of Grocers. But it appears that he did neither of these things. Thomas Cranmer having succeeded to the see of Canterbury and being more inclined than his predecessor towards the cause of reform (not to mention being secretly married and the father of a family), it looked for the time being as though Lambert was safe.

  But no vocal reformer was safe for long in these years, and Lambert was very vocal (more so than his fellow reformers liked). In the spring of 1536 he was once again in trouble, having been accused of heresy by the Duke of Norfolk. He was questioned by Archbishop Cranmer and Bishops Nicholas Shaxton and Hugh Latimer (all three men generally sympathetic to reform), particularly about intercession to the saints. It seems he was offered a compromise (to agree that praying to the saints, though not necessary, was not sinful either) by his examiners, who were anxious lest his extreme views should endanger their more moderate reforms, but he did not prove tractable. Thomas Dorset, vicar of the City church of St Margaret Lothbury, writing to the Mayor of Plymouth about various ecclesiastical matters and events in London in March 1536, included an account of what he had heard about Lambert and his questioning by the bishops. It is clear from what he writes that Dorset was himself a reformer:

  One Lambert … was ‘detected of heresy’ to the three bishops for saying it was sin to pray to saints. The bishops could not say it was necessary, but he might not make sin of it. If he would have agreed to this he might have gone; but he refused, and was committed to the porter’s lodge from that Monday till Friday night, when he was set at large. He came back again next day, to know the Bishops’ pleasure, whether he were all free or not, when they opposed him again. He stood firm, and they could find by no Scripture that we ought to do it. The Bishop of Worcester [Latimer] was most extreme against him, and he was sent to ward again. Next morning, Sunday, they sent him and his articles to my Lord Chancellor [Thomas Audley], and there he remains in prison. My lords of Norfolk and Essex, and the Countess of Oxford, wrote to these bishops against him; and it is supposed they handled him so to please them, which has done great hurt to the truth.

  Lambert once again escaped imminent danger, the three bishops being reluctant to take matters further, and was active in evangelical circles in London for the next two years. He continued to express uncompromising views, with no regard for politics or the art of the possible, and in 1538, after hearing the reformer Dr John Taylor preach at the church of St Peter Cornhill, he challenged his teaching on the Eucharist. At this point Lambert’s fellow reformers had finally had enough of him, fearing that such an extremist would jeopardize their own freedom to preach and minister, and it was another future martyr, Robert Barnes, who reported him to Archbishop Cranmer as a holder of heretical views on the sacrament of the altar – of being, in short, a ‘sacramentarian’, who denied the real presence in the Eucharist. On being imprisoned by Cranmer, Lambert – never one to shy away from a fight – made the extraordinary decision to appeal to the King.

  In doing so, Lambert played straight into the King’s hands, for Henry was at this time anxious to prove his orthodoxy in doctrinal terms, in order to demonstrate that the Pope, in excommunicating him, was doing so for political an
d malicious, rather than religious, reasons. He was also trying to avert the possibility of the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of France joining forces to launch a crusade against a heretic and schismatic England. Lambert had chosen the worst possible time to ask Henry to support Protestant reform or the cause of free speech.

  And so the King took Lambert up on his challenge, and decided to lay on a show trial, at which he himself would play a leading role. This duly took place on 16 November 1538, with Henry dressed all in white and accompanied by a number of bishops including Cranmer (Canterbury), Stokesley (London), Tunstall (Durham) and Gardiner (Winchester). Lawyers in their purple robes were also in attendance, as were many peers of the realm and other nobles, along with the Gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber. John Husee wrote an account of the event for his employer, Lord Lisle:

  This day, in the King’s Hall at York Place, certain scaffolds, bars, and seats were erected on both sides the hall, and at the highest end a ‘haut place’ for the King. The hall was richly hung, and about noon His Majesty being seated, with the most part of the lords temporal and spiritual, bishops, doctors, judges, serjeants at law, the mayor and aldermen of London, and others, John Nicholson, clerk, alias Lambert, sometime chaplain to the English nation in Antwerp, was brought before His Grace, and certain articles concerning the Sacrament of the Altar objected to him. He held to his opinions, denying the very body of God to be in the said Sacrament in corporal substance, but only to be there spiritually. The King’s Majesty reasoned with him in person, sundry times confounding him, so that he alone would have been sufficient to confute a thousand such. It was not a little rejoicing unto all his commons and to all others that saw and heard how His Grace handled the matter; for it shall be a precedent whilst the world stands; and no one will be so bold hereafter to attempt the like cause. After the King had confounded him by Scripture, so that Lambert had nothing to say for himself, the bishops and doctors exhorted him to abandon his opinions, as His Grace did also: but he refused, and will have his deserts. The matter lasted from noon till 5, when he was conveyed to the Marshalsea.

  Husee was obviously writing from the point of view of a loyal supporter of the King. The more detailed account of Lambert’s trial given by Foxe in his Acts and Monuments has as its source the recollections of one A. G., believed to have been Anthon Gilby, a fellow sacramentarian who shared a residence with Foxe in Frankfurt in the mid-1550s. Foxe conveys a sense of the drama of the occasion as he sets the scene: ‘When the King was set on his throne, he beheld Lambert with a stern countenance, and then turning himself unto his councillors, he called forth Dr Day, Bishop of Chichester, commanding him to declare unto the people, the causes of this present assembly and judgment.’ The opening speech made it clear that the King’s intention was to demonstrate that, having abolished the authority of the Pope in his realm, he would himself rule his Church with a firm hand, upholding sound doctrine and not allowing heretics to flourish. He would, in other words, out-pope the Pope. This firm line having been established, the proceedings commenced, with Henry at his most majestic: ‘When he had made an end of his oration, the King standing upon his feet leaning upon a cushion of white cloth of tissue, turning himself toward Lambert with his brows bent, as it were threatening some grievous thing unto him, said these words: “How, good fellow, what is thy name?”‘ Lambert, going down on one knee, replied: ‘My name is John Nicolson, though many people call me Lambert.’ ‘What?’ expostulated the King. ‘Have you two names? I would not trust someone with two names, even if he was my brother!’ After this unpromising beginning, Henry instructed Lambert to explain his views concerning the sacrament of the altar.

  Lambert began by thanking God that the King himself was prepared to listen to and understand religious controversies, flattering Henry in the process, but the King was having none of it. ‘I didn’t come here to hear myself being praised,’ he interrupted angrily, and he told Lambert to get on with his explanation. Lambert seemed taken aback by such vehemence, and paused for a moment, trying to work out the best way to reply. Such hesitation only increased the King’s anger. ‘Why are you just standing there?’ he demanded. ‘Answer concerning the sacrament of the altar – is it the body of Christ?’ And on saying this, the King doffed his cap, indicating his own reverence for the sacrament.

  Lambert attempted to prevaricate, stating that he agreed with St Augustine – that it was the body of Christ, ‘after a certain manner’. This, unsurprisingly, did not satisfy the King, who snapped: ‘Don’t tell me what St Augustine or anyone else says, tell me what you say – is it, or is it not, the body of Christ?’ The King’s bullying manner succeeded where the careful questioning by bishops had not, and Lambert spoke plainly: ‘Then I deny it to be the body of Christ.’

  One might have thought the matter could have ended there, but the show trial had not been organized for nothing, and the King would make the most of the next few hours to demonstrate both his orthodoxy and his authority. Archbishop Cranmer was now ordered to refute Lambert’s assertion, and he set about doing so in a mild manner, addressing the defendant as ‘Brother Lambert’ and suggesting they defend their relative positions by means of scripture. Lambert knowing his Bible quite as well as did Cranmer, the two men were pretty equally matched in their ability to discuss it, and it began to look as though Lambert might actually get the better of Cranmer – not least because Cranmer may already have been tending towards Lambert’s viewpoint, but could not as yet admit it. (One sign of the covert nature of the Archbishop’s Protestantism was his clean-shaven chin; only later, after the death of Henry, did he start to grow the beard favoured by many reformers.) And so the more robust and anti-reformist Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, leapt in to take over, despite it not yet being his turn. After Gardiner, Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, made a long speech in defence of the traditional doctrine. By now even Lambert seemed to have realized the extent to which the odds were stacked against him; he was also getting very tired:

  Lambert in the meantime being compassed in with so many and great perplexities, vexed on the one side with checks and taunts, and pressed on the other side, with the authority and threats of the personages, and partly being amazed with the majesty of the place in the presence of the King, and especially being wearied with long standing, which continued no less than five hours, from twelve of the clock, until five at night, being brought in despair that he should nothing profit in this purpose, and seeing no hope at all in speaking, [it] was at this point that he chose rather to hold his peace.

  In Foxe’s description of the silent Lambert before the powerful bishops and the King himself, one cannot help but discern the pattern of the silent Christ before Pontius Pilate; this can have been no accident, Foxe using the parallel to emphasize the righteousness of ‘his’ martyrs.

  Several more bishops delivered their allotted speeches, but Lambert hardly bothered to argue with them, just making a few further allusions to St Augustine but otherwise choosing to remain silent. The trial ended in as stylized a way as it had begun, the whole event conveying the sense of a set piece, despite the King’s words about freedom of choice:

  At last, when the day was past, and torches began to be lit, the King, intending to break up this pretended disputation, said to Lambert as follows: ‘What do you say now (he said), after all these great labours which you have taken upon you, and all the reasons and instructions of these learned men, are you not yet satisfied? Will you live or die? What do you say? You still have free choice.’ Lambert answered: ‘I yield and submit myself wholly unto the will of Your Majesty.’ Then said the King: ‘Commit yourself into the hands of God, and not into mine.’

  Lambert: ‘I commend my soul into the hands of God, but my body I wholly yield and submit to your clemency.’ Then said the King, ‘If you do commit yourself to my judgment, you must die, for I will not be a patron to heretics’, and by and by turning himself to Cromwell, he said: ‘Cromwell, read the sentence of condemnation against him.�
�

  That sentence of condemnation was that Lambert should burn.

  Not the least mysterious element of Lambert’s strange story – that of a reformer persecuted by other reformers for being too radical – is the detour he made en route to his execution. For he was taken, on the day he was to die, to Thomas Cromwell’s house in Austin Friars where the two men engaged in a protracted conversation. What they said to one another is not known. On 28 November Cromwell had written to Thomas Wyatt in Spain of Henry having triumphed in disputation over this ‘miserable heretic sacramentary’ and had extolled the conduct of the King at the trial: ‘It was a wonder to see how princely, with how excellent gravity and inestimable majesty his Highness exercised there the very office of a supreme head of his Church of England, how benignly his Grace assayed to convert the miserable man, how strong and manifest reasons his Highness alleged against him.’ This was of course the official line which Cromwell would be expected to promote, particularly as he had himself been central to the whole enterprise of establishing Henry as ‘supreme head of his Church of England’. But had the Lord Privy Seal, in many ways a supporter of reform, also hoped to be able to save Lambert and, in this lastminute interview, did he seek forgiveness for not having been able to do so? He had been silent throughout the trial, only speaking to read out the sentence against Lambert, on the King’s orders. Or did he use these moments to try to persuade Lambert to recant, aware that his death was to be a lingering one, again by express order of the King? Lambert had written to Cromwell from prison before his trial, telling him of a ‘rude letter’ he had sent to the King expressing his views on the sacrament, and alluding to having previously received much comfort from Cromwell’s ‘causing the Gospel to be spread’. It is likely that Cromwell was as conflicted as other reformers over the matter of Lambert, who by his radicalism and intransigence threatened to endanger the very cause he supported. It is nevertheless possible that Foxe invented this whole anecdote, in an attempt ‘to alleviate the embarrassment caused by Lambert’s having been denounced by other evangelicals’. Whatever was – or was not – said between the two men, it made no difference to Lambert’s fate, and he resumed his journey to Smithfield.