19
August 1531 A.D. Thomas
Bilney Burned at the Stake—Latimer’s Confessor & Colleague, Early Reformer, Friend of Robert Barnes,
“White Horse Inn” Participant, & Nemesis of Anglo-Italian Cardinal Wolsey
While this article focuses
on Latimer, another martyr, the connection to Bilney is this: Bilney was the
preacher of good news to Latimer and was the human instrument in Latimer's illumination
and conversion.
No
author. “Reformation Literature in England: Hugh Latimer.” The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. III:
Renascence and Reformation, 1907-1921.
http://www.bartleby.com/213/0209.html. Accessed 17 May 2014.
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The
increasing stress laid upon edification made itself felt not only through the
press, but even more through the pulpit literature of the day, which showed a
great facility of expression and a command of genuine emotion not reached
before. Medieval oratory, at its best, did not, and could not, equal it,
because it was impossible, in the earlier days, to combine these two elements
to the degree possible at the reformation. Even just before the reformation,
bishop Fisher’s sermons—perhaps the best of their time and delivered by a
most saintly man—did not reach the same force and directness of speech, the
vivid personal appeal, the command of an audience, to which many later
sermons attained. In its sudden rise to excellence, the sermon of the day
may, indeed, be compared with the drama: both were affected by the growth of
the language, and also by a movement of thought able to wield that language
with greater power; both suffered, at a later date, from an excess of fancy,
beginning to appear even in Latimer’s Sermons on the Card (December,
1529). Among popular preachers, John Longland, bishop of Lincoln (1521–38)
and chancellor of Oxford, had a great reputation; so, upon the other side,
had John Hooper, afterwards bishop of Gloucester, whose sermons upon Jonah,
before Edward VI, were vigorous in denunciation and fearless in reproof. But
the reputation of all these capable preachers, speaking, as they did, to a
generation tolerant, or even avaricious, of sermons, was overshadowed by the
greater name of Hugh Latimer.
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Latimer,
the exact year of whose birth is uncertain (1485–91), took his bachelor’s
degree at Cambridge in 1510, and his bachelorship of divinity in 1524. As
crossbearer (1522) to the university and as Fellow of Clare he had some
academical position. Up to 1524, he had opposed the new teaching, and, in his
“act” for B.D., had attacked Melanchthon. But, after that discourse, Thomas
Bilney, desiring to influence him, chose him as confessor and, as a penitent,
gained him over to his own views. Together, they spent their days in works of
mercy; in the evening, they, with Robert Barnes, Stafford and others, met at
“The White Horse” for reading and discussion. “Little Germany,” as the place
was called, became a centre of influence in the university, and remained so
until an abusive sermon of Barnes, preached in St. Edward’s church on
Christmas Eve, 1525, brought danger upon the “Germans.” Hitherto, Wolsey had
been very tolerant and, although urged by the bishops to take steps against
heresy at the universities, had refused to do so. But Barnes, who, like
Latimer, had come under Bilney’s spiritual influence, had not learnt
reverence or discretion, and in this sermon he had attacked Wolsey with
violence. Taken to London and examined before Wolsey, he agreed to recant;
after this he was imprisoned for three years and then escaped to Germany. The
incident scattered the band of Cambridge scholars and was a crisis in their
history. It not only brought them into disrepute, but lent bitterness to
their words and writings.
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When
Barnes preached this celebrated sermon, he had exchanged pulpits with
Latimer, who, although he had just been inhibited by the bishop (West) of
Ely, could still preach in the exempt chapel of the Augustinian priory. The
trouble caused Latimer, also, to be called before Wolsey, who appreciated his
good qualities and his sound old-fashioned learning, and allowed him to
return to Cambridge with a general licence to preach, signed by the cardinal
himself. The incident shows the attitude taken by those in high authority
towards reform; but the bitterness of preachers like Barnes and the
scurrility of some pamphleteers made it hard to maintain this attitude. Up to
this time, the movement in England had been mainly based on learning and was
distinctly English. In spite of the names of Lutherans and Germans loosely
given to them, and of their sympathy for German writers, these Englishmen, as
yet, owed little to foreign influence. But increasing intercourse gradually
brought about a closer unity of opinion: few English theologians became
Lutherans, but some became Zwinglians and other Calvinists. Latimer, however,
may be taken as representing the earlier and more characteristic stage of the
movement. He attacked specially those abuses which Erasmus had
satirised—indulgences, pilgrimages, veneration of images; upon the positive
side, he laid stress upon the life and example of Christ, and help up a high
ideal of conduct. But he did not move of his own accord to any revolutionary
conception of the church, to any assertion of individual liberty, or to an
attack upon the doctrine of the sacraments, although that was the central
topic of his examination at his trial (1555). Even then, however, he leaned
mainly upon Cranmer’s book, and confessed that he had only been of his final
opinion for some seven years.
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His
boldness during the trial, and his determination, both for himself and in
inspiring others, was a strange contrast to the timidity of some of his
earlier Cambridge friends. His arguments were, however, less forceful than
his example: he referred again and again to “my lord of Canterbury’s book”
for proof of his assertions; and discussion of the one subject—that of the
pope’s supremacy—upon which he would have liked to enlarge, was refused him.
The Conferences between him and Ridley (published in 1556) give a
pathetic picture of their imprisonment.
These
were his words to Ridley. To another prisoner, wavering in the peril of
death, he wrote:
Clearly
those were not mistaken who had seen in the great preacher an underlying
strength of manliness, inspired by piety, as the foundation of his character.
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