Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Pretended Divorce Between Henry VIII & Catharine of Aragon

Harpsfield, Nicholas.  The Pretended Divorce Between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. No location: Hardpress Publishing, 2013.

It should be noted that Mr. Harpsfield was also a Marian and Papal Romanist who wrote several volumes and supervised 100s of criminal trials against Reformed Churchmen. Foxe says he was “pitiless.” He also replaced Mr. Cranmer’s brother as the Archdeacon of Canterbury. He wrote The Six Dialogues as well as this volume. Mr. Harpsfield did brig time under Ms. (Queen) Elizabeth 1.

Wikipedia, an unscholarly source, said this: “Harpsfield defiantly opposed the new regime of Elizabeth I, opposing the election of Matthew Parker and refusing to subscribe to the Book of Common Prayer. At some point between 1559 and 1562, he was committed to Fleet Prison, together with his brother John Harpsfield for his refusal to swear the Oath of Supremacy. He remained in prison until his release on health grounds in 1574, sixteen months before his death.”

The Pretended Divorce is available at:
http://www.amazon.com/Treatise-Pretended-Divorce-Between-Catharine/dp/131452285X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374952856&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=nicholas+harpsfield+the+pretended+divorce+of+catherine+of+aragon

It is also available online at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=z_gIAAAAIAAJ&dq=nicholas+harpsfield+the+pretended+divorce+of+catherine+of+aragon&source=gbs_book_similarbooks

There is no Table of Contents. It appears, upon perusal, to be structured into four books. It is allegedly written during Queen Mary’s time.

However, before getting to Mr. Harpsfield’s work, there are a few peculiarities:

1. An odd “Preface” by Mr. Nicholas Pocock from 1878,

2. A “Last Will,” of all things, dated 1707 and a book recommendation from a father to a son, a Charles Eyston Sr. to Charles Eyston Jr., to wit, The Pretended Divorce,

3. A hagiographical “Introduction to the Life of Nicholas Harpsfield” by Mr. Nicholas Sanders, our old friend, who wrote in Elizabeth’s times as an exile from England (1585).

All of this before one gets to Mr. Harpsfield's work.

The Preface by Mr. Pocock in 1878:

Mr. Pocock read a paper at the Bristol Branch of the English Church Union (ECU) in 1875.  Lord Acton responds to Mr. Pocock.

We insert this immediately. Mr. Pocock was already a Tractarian. The English Church Union was Anglo-Catholic...that is, 2.0 Anglicans, or Non-Papal Romanists like Misters Iker, Ackerman and Sutton of the ACNA. For Americans, it is difficult to understand this neo-Puritan, Romanticized, and atavistic movement within the Reformed Church of England...or an alleged Reformed Church.  That must be discounted, if not dismissed, these days.

The ECU was an advocacy group within the Church of England. It was founded on May 12, 1859 to challenge the authority of the English civil courts to determine questions of doctrine. It was active in defending Anglo-Catholic, or Tractarian and Ritualistic priests such as Arthur Tooth, Sidney Faithorn Green and Richard William Enraght against legal action brought under the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874. In 1933 it merged with the Anglo-Catholic Congress to form the present organization.

Mr. Pocock read his paper at an ECU meeting. He casually alluded to the story of Mrs. Cranmer “being carried about in a chest with breathing holes during the time when the Six Articles were in force.” Lord Acton challenged Mr. Pocock, to wit, that the story rested on the report of Mr. Nicholas Sanders (Sander, Nicholas. The Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism. Charlotte, NC: Tan Book and Publishers, 2009) whom Bishop Burnet had rebutted. Burnet’s view had prevailed since the late 17th century, but Mr. Pocock in the late 19th century changed his opinion on the story in favor of Sanders. He changed his views on Burnet's rebuttal of Sanders. Unfortunately, he doesn't tell us why. Just that Sanders-Harpsfield are right and Burnet wrong.

Pocock gratuitously slams Merle D’Aubigne’s apology as “a ridiculous remark.” Mr. D’Aubigne apologized for “Mrs. Cranmer not being presented at the court…unnecessary…and might have embarrassed the pious German lady.”

Although, as an aside, this does raise questions worth pursuing in a few other directions.

Then, Mr. Pocock discovers that the Sanders-story was thinly supported but went back to his earlier source, Mr. Harpsfield, author of the present volume under review.

He did further research and found 4 texts of Harpsfield. Each version had 314, 115, 107, and 92 pages, respectively. The "Preface" is largely Mr. Pocock’s discussion of the textual history.

The will and letter to a son dated 1707:

It contains a letter to his son, Charles Eyston, from his father, Charles Eyston, recommending the bequeathed manuscript to junior. It will enlarge the son’s mind. It has “inconsiderable value to a Catholic” because the Reformation was “Interest and not Religion” which began the “schism.” Mr. Harpsfield was the “last Catholic Archdeacon of Canterbury” he tells his son. He then tells us that the printer was William Cartar, the amanuensis for Harpsfield during Mary’s time. But, this was made known in Elizabeth’s time. The printer was seized in 1583, tried, convicted, and “hanged, drawn, and quartered.” The father writes this from East Hendred, January 19th, 1707.


This gives a sense of recusancy, or English Papal Romanism, in the early 18th century.  It still existed.

"Introduction on the Life of Nicholas Harpsfield" by Nicholas Sanders:

1. Born in London. No date is given.
2. His brother was an Archdeacon during Mary’s reign.
3. Nicholas is chosen a Fellow at New College, Oxford.
4. 1544, Principal of White Hall, Oxford.
5. 1544, the King’s Professor of Greek at Oxford.
6. Upon Edward’s accession, he voluntarily fled England.
7. Upon Mary’s accession, he returned and completed the Doctorate of Law at Oxford.
8. Went to London and Court of Arches.
9. 1554, his brother replaced Cranmer’s brother, Edmund Cranmer, as the Archdeacon of Canterbury.
10. At the Court of Arches, he held countless trials. “Heresy had spread itself throughout the diocese of Canterbury that Dr. Harpsfield was forced to use more than ordinary rigour to suppress it.”
11. Foxe charged Harpsfield “with cruelty.”
12. Upon Elizabeth’s accession, he was chosen by Elizabeth to be the first Prolocutor of the Convocation.
13. In March 1559, he is ordered to dispute as a Romanist articles of religion. He refused and he, along with six others, went to the Tower.
14. The other six clerics were: Dr. Bayne (bp. of Litchfield), Dr. Scot (bp. of Chester), Dr. Oglethorpe (bp. of Carlisle), Dr. Cole (Dean of St. Paul’s), Dr. Chadsey (Archdeacon of Middlesex), and Dr. Langdale (Archdeacon of Lewes).
15. July 1559, he was deprived of ecclesiastical preferments and imprisoned.
He was imprisoned until his release in 1574 on grounds of health, months before his death in 1575.
Mr. Sanders summarizes Mr. Harpsfield:
1. “Grace and prudent man”
2. “Sincere and candid in his behavior”
3. “An able divine”
4. “An inexhausted fountain of all good literature”

Before getting to Mr. Harpsfield's "Pretended Divorce," we get a "Preface by Nicholas Pocock," a "Letter and Will," and an "Introduction to the Life of Nicholas Harpsfield" by Nicholas Sanders.

A Protestant Reformation with modest Reformed credentials arose out of this chaos and disorder? Well, "something" of "some kind" of Reformed Church of England emerged for perhaps 80 years...until William Laud's "Anti-Calvinism," repressions, arrogances, and slight learnedness. What a mess!

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