Foundations of the Anglican Church LVI

Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London 

In our last entry on the Church of England we looked at Cuthbert Tunstall, the Bishop of Durham who, though a friend of Queen Katherine and supportive of her marriage to the King, when the chips were down sided with Henry in the break from Rome.  When Henry died and England began to move towards a more Protestant—Calvinist—position in matters religious, Tunstall objected and lost his diocese.  Restored to his bishopric under Queen Mary and reconciled to Rome, he stood fast in the Catholic camp when Elizabeth I reversed her half-sister’s Catholic policy in favor of a return to Protestantism.  We will look at these various twists and turns as England Protestantizes under Edward, reverts to Catholicism under Mary, and then goes Protestant again under Elizabeth, but today I want to look at another of Henry’s compliant churchmen who would later regret his choices, 

Edmund Bonner was born in or about 1500—possibly illegitimately—in circumstances of relative poverty in Worcestershire.  Despite his lower-class background he was admitted to Broadgates Hall, a hostel for law students, at Oxford. (Broadgates Hall was re-constituted as Pembroke College in the 17^th century and is still a constituent college of the University.)  Actually, before the gentrification of England—one of the fruits of the English Reformation—it was not at all unusual for even the poorest of young men to be able to find a place at Oxford or Cambridge and use that as a propellant into political, ecclesiastical, and economic advancement.  It was Calvinism, with its tying of material prosperity to the idea of God’s predestination, which contributed to the rigid stratification of English society, but that topic  is for another day.  Bonner earned his doctorate in Canon Law and became a chaplain to Cardinal Wolsey.  To Bonner’s credit, he remained loyal to Wolsey when the Cardinal fell in disgrace and was with him when Wolsey died at Leicester Abbey in the late autumn of 1530.  Taken into the King’s service as a protégé of Thomas Cromwell, Bonner went to Rome in 1532 to try to win Henry’s case for annulment, or at least to prevent the Pope and Curia from taking any action against Henry for his divorcing Katherine.  He suggested to Pope Clement that the Pope should allow Henry to appeal to a General Council for an annulment—a route that would let the Pope off the hook with the Emperor, Queen Katherine’s nephew, who opposed the annulment.

Of course, what Bonner—and back in England, Henry and Cromwell—did not understand was Clement’s policy of allying himself to the Emperor to further Medici policy in central Italy.  That policy opposed any annulment be it from the Pope or a Council.  But it was all in vain anyway as events were moving faster than Bonner’s diplomacy and Anne Boleyn’s 1533 pregnancy made it imperative that Henry marry her in time for the expected child—a hoped for son—to be a legitimate heir to the throne.  Of course the child was a daughter, but Henry was married and excommunicate and Bonner summoned home as Henry was losing interest in the papacy anyway.  Bonner was rewarded by Henry for his efforts with a number of well-salaried Church positions and entrusted with further diplomatic duties in embassies to the Emperor and to the King of France.  His rabid anti-papal tirades annoyed the French King but delighted Henry who in 1540 named him bishop of Hereford.  (By this time, of course, Henry had broken completely with the papacy and thus was naming bishops himself.)  Before he could be consecrated, however, Henry decided to name him to the far more prestigious see of London.  He was consecrated bishop in April 1540. 

Now Henry had broken with Rome but he was not inclined to introduce Protestant ideas into his Church.  The Church was Catholic—it just wasn’t papal anymore.  (It had never been “Roman,” from antiquity having its own Rites and peculiarities as outlined in previous postings.) Mass remained unchanged (except that the prayer for the Pope was dropped) and in Latin, clergy remained unmarried, prayers to the saints continued to be said, holy water and incense to be used.  As Bishop of London, Bonner was always vigilant against any Protestant ideas seeping into his diocese.  He was not a theologian—as he himself admitted—but a canon lawyer and he was very distrustful of any theological novelties.  London and Norwich, because of their being the primary ports, were always the first point where new ideas would come in and take root.  Londoners had long been disgusted with the Church and its clergy (as we saw in the entries about Richard Hunne) and consequently very open to the new Protestant ideas coming from Germany.  When Henry died and the new King, Edward VI—acting under the tutelage of his guardians, Thomas Cranmer and the Duke of Somerset—began to introduce Protestant practices, Bonner ardently resisted, but by then it was too late.  He was deprived of his see and thrown into the Marshalsea prison.  Upon the accession of Mary and the restoration of Catholicism, he was returned to his see where he was vigorous in searching out Protestants and handing them over for prosecution and execution.  His most famous prisoner was Thomas Cranmer, the deposed Archbishop of Canterbury, who was executed at Oxford in March 1556. 

With the Accession of Elizabeth, Catholicism was out and Protestantism back in.  Bonner was again deprived of his see and imprisoned.  Despite calls for his execution by the radical Protestant party, he remained in prison until his death in 1569.  Four times each year he was called out and given the opportunity to adjure his Catholic faith in favor of the Reformed Church of England with a promise of release, and each time he refused. 

Bonner, like Tunstall, and like Stephen Gardiner (with whom we have yet to deal) was very typical of the Churchmen of Henry’s time.  Only one bishop in England went to his death rather than give in to Henry’s demands to be recognized as head of the Church of England.  Most priests likewise acquiesced.  They were naïve in failing to see where the Church would go once it got mixed into the political machinations of rabid nationalists.  Thomas More and John Fisher, on the other hand, stood firm not so much because they believed in the papacy per se but because they knew that the Church by its very nature needs to transcend the political, cultural, and geographic limits that would otherwise divide it.  Catholics must always have an international outlook that sees the good of the entire human family as trumping the interests of any particular nation or society.    

Foundations of the Anglican Church XLI

St John Fisher

At this point, matters become very complex.  We need to watch three separate strands of development which are inter-related but independent of each other.  The two major strands are the matter of Henry’s annulment and Henry’s separation of the Anglican Church from the Roman Communion.  The third strand, somewhat less important but also central to the developments was Henry’s relationship with Anne Boleyn.  While no one of these three can be studied in isolation from the others, each must be considered in and of itself as it is likely that each would have happened even if the others had not.  And it is important to know that each of these events was not a “flash in the pan” but a somewhat drawn out affair lasting over a period of years. 
Let’s look at the annulment matter first.  Henry began having serious doubts about the “rightness” of his marriage as early as 1524.  His wife, Katherine, had borne him six children, including three sons.   All but one, a daughter, did not survive infancy.  By 1524 the royal physicians had told Henry that Katherine would have no more children.  There would be no sons.  That did not bode well for the Tudor dynasty.  It did not bode well for England.  The only previous time a woman had succeeded to the throne, the Empress Maude (sometimes known as Matilda) in the early 12^th century, was a time of dynastic rivalry and civil war when various male claimants to the throne tried to seize it from her.  One of them, her cousin, Stephen of Blois, was successful.  Thousands died in the long wars between Maude and Stephen.   Henry feared that should his daughter Mary ascend the throne, there could be another period of instability as the Tudors were a new dynasty and there were others whose claim to the throne  had more legitimacy than that of the Tudors. 
Henry’s marriage to Katherine was theologically problematic.  Katherine was the widow of Henry’s older brother, Arthur.  Katherine, and her chaperone, claimed that the marriage—between two teens and lasting only a few months—had never been consummated. The problem with the marriage is this: Deuteronomy commands that should a man die childless, his widow must marry his brother and raise up children to the dead brother’s memory; Leviticus prohibits such a marriage.  In practice, the Christian Church had never followed the prescript of Deuteronomy that a widow should marry her brother-in-law and in fact the Church had always, following Leviticus, prohibited such marriages.  Dispensations were given however when requested. 
When Katherine and Henry had married, a papal dispensation had been obtained from Julius II to ensure that any improprieties in the marriage should not render it invalid.  But could a Pope annul the Law of God as commanded in Leviticus?   It would seem, to devout Catholics, that the Pope had such power, especially since the scriptural norms were ambiguous.  But Henry began to wonder: was God punishing him for marrying his brother’s widow by depriving him of a viable heir. 
Now politics get into every argument.  Henry’s marriage to Katherine represented an alliance with Spain—Katherine’s parents being the famous Ferdinand and Isabella, the most powerful rulers in Europe in its day.   England’s long time enemy was France.  An alliance with Spain provided England with an alliance against their common enemy—France.   But there were Englishmen who saw the future for England as being an alliance with France against Spain.  Spain was gobbling up this new world of the Americas—there would be no room for England to grow and expand overseas.  France and England together could check the growing power of Spain, a power that threatened to squeeze out everyone else and dominate the world.  The French party in English politics saw their chance to break the Spanish influence over Henry if they could break his marriage to Katherine.  They fed Henry doubts about his marriage.  Maybe the King should take a new wife to provide the needed heir.  Retire the Spanish princess and put a French princess in her place.  The King of France had sisters who could provide an heir and ally England and France.
Nevertheless, for most people in 1525 or 1526 the idea that the King would renounce Katherine was beyond imagination.  Katherine was popular with the people.  She was a good wife who quietly tolerated her husband’s serial infidelities.  She had left Spain with its wealth and luxuries, its sunny climate and orange groves for cold and dreary England where she had performed her duties with elegance and grace.  Katherine and Henry were good Catholics.  Moreover, his infidelities aside, they had a good marriage.  They sincerely loved one another.  How could she be cast off?   What was really surprising is that Wolsey, the King’s chief minister, wasn’t more aware of the dangers to the marriage.  Wolsey ran England.  He normally anticipated Henry’s every whim and arranged matters accordingly.  Wolsey’s attention to detail permitted Henry to play while Wolsey governed.  But when Henry came to Wolsey and said he wanted to have his marriage annulled, it was a bolt out of the blue to Wolsey.   Wolsey recovered quickly and promised Henry that it could be arranged.
And it probably could have been arranged save for European politics.  Henry  could not have picked a worse time to ask for an annulment.  As seen in previous postings, it was just at this time (1527) that the troops of Katherine’s nephew, Charles V, sacked Rome and holed the Pope up in the Castel Sant’Angelo.  And it was just at this time that the people of Florence expelled the Medici, leading the Pope to forge an alliance with the Emperor—the Sack of Rome not withstanding—to restore the Medici to Florence.  Clement was in no position to satisfy Henry if he wanted to keep Charles on his side. 
Clement didn’t come right out and say no to Henry.  In April 1528 Clement declared that the matter would be referred to a commission to examine the matter and the following June he appointed Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio and Wolsey to be the ecclesiastical judges to examine the validity of the marriage. 
Campeggio was an interesting choice.  In 1524, with Henry’s encouragement, he had been elected Bishop of Salisbury.  Of course he did not live in England.  His English Vicar General administered the diocese, but Campeggio, living in Rome, collected the income—and it was a considerable income –of the diocese.  So he was in Henry’s debt.  But Campeggio had already written an opinion supporting the validity of the marriage.  So how would he go on this matter?  Would he stay true to his principles or would he be faithful to his English benefactor?
In fact, Campeggio had been given instructions from Clement that he was not to grant the annulment but neither was he to refuse it.  He was to stall for time.  It was a typically Italian strategy.  Promise everything, but do nothing. Keep everyone happy.   
By the autumn of 1528 Campeggio had arrive in England and convened the court at Blackfriars (the Dominican convent in London).  Katherine made a dramatic appearance, declaring that she would not recognize its jurisdiction and producing the original dispensation permitting the marriage.  She threw herself at Henry’s feet stating she had always been a good queen and a faithful wife and he had no reason to put her aside.  She then left the court and refused any summons to return.  Henry, for his part, gave a speech in November 1528 , praising Katherine as a good wife and declaring he would marry her again if circumstances were different.   Henry was both sincere and false in making this declaration.  There is no doubt that he had loved her and probably in 1528 loved her still—though more as a matter of gratitude and respect than in any romantic sense.  Nevertheless, by this point, he was determined on a new marriage—though not necessarily to Anne Boleyn.   
Katherine found a champion in John Fisher, the aged prelate who had been Henry’s childhood tutor and was now Bishop of Rochester.  Fisher was an old man but he had fire in his belly.  He defended the marriage and excoriated Henry, comparing him to Herod declaring that he, like John the Baptist, would surrender his head to defend the marriage.  He would, in due time, be taken up on this offer but the irony is that John the Baptist had lost his head for attacking a king for marrying his brother’s wife and John Fisher was attacking a king for trying to separate from his brother’s wife.  Rhetoric does not always follow logic. 
Campeggio dragged the matter out for months and Wolsey was in a panic.  He began to realize that there would be no annulment and the security of his own position depended on their being an annulment.   Meanwhile, Henry had become infatuated with Anne Boleyn.  We will say more about this in the next posting but suffice it to say that initially Henry had no intention of marrying Anne, only bedding her.  But Anne was not about to be bedded and discarded by Henry as her sister Mary had been.  Anne was bold enough to see a chance at becoming Queen and she led Henry on while fending him off at the same time.  As Henry was not yet thinking of marriage to Anne he was willing to put up with Campeggio’s delays.  The French princess or whoever else might be his bride could wait until this was all sorted out.  Henry was still fairly young;  there was still time for him to sire an heir.
In July 1529, after about nine months of hearings, Campeggio recessed the court until  October but it never reconvened.  It was not that Henry had become impatient and dismissed the Court, but Clement—afraid that pressure might be put on Campeggio to yield—reserved the matter to himself.  Campeggio left England for Italy and as of Christmas 1529 there was still no resolution of “The King’s Great Matter.”  

Foundations of the Anglican Church XL

Pope Clement VII

Well, enough about Judie Brown and Michael Voris and their ilk for now, let’s get back to ol’ Henry and his annulment problems.  We left off that story with the 1527 Sack of Rome by the troops of the Emperor Charles V.  The troops were mostly German followers of Martin Luther, recent converts to the Protestant movement Luther had established less than ten years previously, and all their religious bile came out as they had the chance to sack the papal capital.  It was, as I wrote, a sickening sight with about 12,000 people murdered, from priests at their altars and nuns in their monasteries to women and children in the streets and alleys of Rome.  The Swiss Guard were massacred as they protected the Pope, permitting him to escape through a secret passageway in Leonine Wall to the Castle Sant’ Angelo where he was holed up for months like a rat in his warren until a hefty ransom could be paid to call off the German troops. 
Historians often say that Clement refused Henry his annulment because he was afraid that Charles—the nephew of Henry’s Queen, Katherine of Aragon—would return and revenge his aunt’s disgrace.  But the story is a bit more complicated.  We need to remember that Clement, like Luther’s Pope Leo X, was a Medici.  And the Medici were, as usual, “up to something.”
The Medici had been country folk from the Mugello, an area just north of Florence, who moved into the city sometime around 1200.  It was a time of urban expansion in Europe, and in the cities of Italy in particular.  From the very beginning the Medici began advancing up the social ladder.  They married into some of the better families.  They forged business alliances with some of the more successful families.  Little by little and generation after generation they did better and better.  Actually their rise was comparatively rapid.  In 1397 Giovanni di Bicci Medici established a bank which soon became the leading Bank not only in Florence but in Europe.  The family had had some previous experience in banking but it was when Giovanni di Bicci took his operation in Rome and moved it back to Florence that it really took off.  In the fifteenth century it was Florence that was the center of the Renaissance and indeed the economic center of Europe.  And the Medici were bankrolling it to their profit.
The Medici knew not only how to run a good bank but how to use a bank to advance themselves not only socially to become the premier family in Florence but politically to control the policies of the Republic.  Ironically few Medici ever held civil office and yet the family were the puppet masters of the great Republic.  Florence had longed been governed as a republic but with a rather clumsy governmental structure of a Council known as the Signoria and composed of representatives of the various guilds.   Members of the Signoria were chosen by the respective guilds to serve terms of two months during which they were sequestered in the municipal palace with little or no contact with the outside world so that they could not be influenced in their decision making by individuals or corporations that might want the city government to go this way or that.  So it worked in theory.  In practice the Medici were always able to make their will known to the officials and officials dutifully followed Medici policy.  So important was their position in society that Cosimo the Elder (1389-1464) became known as Pater Patriae (Father of the Fatherland) though the highest office he ever held was a brief term as Priore della Republica—one of the “priors” or members of the Signoria, the city council.  Cosimo’s grandson was Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492)
On Easter Day 1478 Lorenzo and his brother Guiliano were attacked while they were at Easter Mass in the Cathedral of Florence by a coalition of political rivals under the leadership of the Pazzi Family and with the support of Pope Sixtus IV.  Guiliano died, Lorenzo survived.  The plot failed and the Medici emerged victorious.  Lorenzo’s son went on to become Pope Leo X, the Pope with whom Luther struggled.  Giuliano’s illegitimate son, Giulio, became Pope Clement VII, the Pope Henry would petition for his annulment.
While they successfully staved off the attack by the Pazzi and Pope Sixtus, the Medici eventually ran afoul of the Republic and were banned from the city from 1494 until 1512 when Leo X Medici was able to use his power as pope to have the ban lifted and the family return from exile and restored to power.  They were again sent into exile in 1527 as the Florentines realized that their political machinations were a danger to the Republic.
Now this is where the story will intersect with the Annulment—or lack thereof—requested by Henry VIII.
When the Medici were exiled from Florence in 1527 there was a Medici—Clement VII—on the papal throne.  He was determined to have his family restored to power in Florence as his cousin Leo X had  managed to have them restored after their earlier exile.  But how?  Rome was in ruins after the sack by the troops of Charles VII.  Clement’s Swiss guards had been all but wiped out and indeed the papal armies were not only beaten but decimated.  There was no money to hire mercenaries.   What did Clement have to use as a bargaining chip.
Well, fortunately he had a bastard son, Allesandro (1510-1537).  And fortunately for Clement, the Emperor Charles V had an illegitimate daughter, Margaret of Austria (1522-1586).  Now illegitimate children, especially daughters, can be a bit tricky to place as far as marriages go and Clement—a bastard himself—was not one to quibble about which side of the blanket one had been born on (or actually conceived).   Charles had, of course, just beaten Clement silly in the Sack of Rome but Clement wasn’t one to hold a grudge when it came to family politics.  And besides, Charles himself was horrified that his troops had behaved so sacrilegiously and he needed to make things up to the Pope.  Of course the girl was only five or six, but marriages were arranged that early.  The wedding itself wouldn’t take place until 1536 but negations were underway throughout this period and the deal was this:  Charles should take his army and beat the cr** out of Florence just as he had Rome.  Then he should put an end to this pesky Republic and install the young couple in Florence as the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of a Florence that was now, in name, a fief of the Empire.  Thus the Medici would be restored to Florence and secure in their position.  There was only one problem.  That pesky King of England kept petitioning for an annulment of his marriage to Charles’ aunt.  For the Pope to grant an annulment to Henry would scotch his ambitions for the Medici to be restored in Florence.  Florence or England?  Hmmm.  Which should it be?  In the end Clement was willing to give up England rather than for his family to lose Florence.  As Jesus said, “A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep.” (John 10:12-13)

Foundations of the Anglican Church XXXVIX

Castel Sant'Angelo where Clement VII sought

refuge from the troops of Charles V during the

Sack of Rome in 1527

Luther’s preaching swept Germany as his complaints about the torpid state of the Church spread to other preachers who took up his cry against the superficial and vapid religiosity that was being pedaled to the faithful as authentic Christianity.  Luther’s simple message that salvation is not something that we earn but which is given us freely by a loving and generous God ignited the minds and hearts of countless souls.  Luther had no intention of starting a new Church—indeed he never saw his work as anything more than reforming the One Church—but his excommunication put a divide between him and Papal Christianity.  Many Germans quickly rallied to his side of the divide.  Luther and other German preachers who agreed with him no longer looked to the bishops for leadership but prepared to take the Church out into the deep waters of reform on their own.  The bishops, for the greater part, were a sorry lot.  They held their offices in gift from the Emperor or various German princes.  Their benefices made them princes in their own right and gave them a most comfortable life in their palaces with hordes of servants and every luxury.  They were not loyal to Rome, much less to the Gospel, but only anxious to preserve their own position and saw the evangelical fervor of Luther as a threat that they too might be expected to take the Gospel seriously and give themselves to the work of God’s Kingdom rather than to hunting and whoring and drinking and gluttony and luxury.  Left without leadership from the bishops Luther and other evangelicals bravely struck out to translate their theological principals into reformed pastoral practice.  One of Luther’s first acts was to provide a German translation of the scriptures so that every German who knew how to read, could read the Bible.  He wrote dozens of hymns in German so that they could sing their faith with the same enthusiasm they sang in the beerhalls—and he used many beer-hall tunes that have become to subsequent generations and to us “religious” music.  He translated the Mass into German and while keeping its basic structure of Introit, Confession of Sin, Kyrie, Gloria, Collect etc. he did eliminate any idea that the Mass was a sacrifice independent of Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary.  (In this regard the poor exegetical methodology referred to in the last posting did him and the liturgy harm as he stripped the Anaphora—the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving over the bread and wine—down to the simple words of consecration.)   While he did translate the Mass to German, he did not object to those congregations who preferred the Latin and Latin persisted in many places for several centuries.  Bach, as you may note, wrote Latin settings for the Evangelical Mass.  He also retained the use of altars, candles, crucifixes and was indifferent about retaining vestments.  Luther had a personal devotion to the Mother of God and while by the mid 1520’s he no longer spoke of her as an intercessor, he did preach and speak about her.  Indeed he had no objection to statues of Mary or the saints but he was anxious for his followers to put their faith in Christ alone as our intercessor before God.  This, of course, is harmonious with the scriptures which emphasize, especially the Letter to the Hebrews, that we have but one intercessor and that is Jesus Christ.  (We Catholics see Mary and the saints as sort of secondary intercessors who join their prayers to those of Christ the High Priest on our behalf but who are not intercessors in their own right.) 
Luther’s zeal, combined with German temper, led him to excoriate the unreformed Catholicism of the Bishops and especially of the Pope.  The Papal insistence on pomp and the money to maintain the papal pomp led Luther to see the Pope(s) as the prophesied Anti-Christ who would set themselves up as false deities.  Luther had anything but an irenic personality and his quick temper enflamed the minds and hearts of many who followed his reformed evangelicalism and they came to see the pope and papal Catholicism as a demonic cult.
Ok, here is where this story begins to affect Henry and his request for an annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. 
The most powerful monarch of the day was Katherine’s nephew, Charles V.  Charles was the son of Katherine’s sister—Juana the Mad.  (Why she was called “mad” or crazy is a great story in itself but we aren’t going there.)  Charles inherited from her the throne of Spain and the Spanish empire in the New World as well as Naples, southern Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia.  Not a bad inheritance.  But that was only part of it.  Charles’ father—and Juana’s husband—was Philip the Handsome of Burgundy.   Philip’s father died before he could inherit from his father, the Emperor Maximilian, the Holy Roman Empire—a vast empire consisting of today’s Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, and much of Northern Italy.  This inheritance then passed to Charles.  Charles was a devout Catholic and anxious to preserve the Church from Luther but many of his German subjects had embraced Luther’s reforms.  In 1527 Charles led an army down into Italy to quell rebellions brewing there and solidify his power.  In the process he found himself in conflict with a French backed anti-Imperial league consisting of Florence, Milan, Venice and the papacy.  This put Charles at military odds with Pope Clement VII and Charles’ troops ended up sacking Rome.  Clement fled the papal palace and took refuge in the Castle Sant’Angelo.  But Charles’ troops were mostly Germans—and mostly Lutherans.    For them their attack on Rome was an attack on the anti-Christ and the subsequent sack of the city was horrendous.  Priests were murdered at their altars, nuns raped in their convents, and thousands of Romans—believers and non-believers alike—were put to the sword.  The Pope’s Swiss guards were all but wiped out defending the Vatican.  Tons of gold and silver were carried off as the Roman churches and basilicas were stripped of their treasures—and as the houses of Cardinals and bishops were pillaged alongside the monasteries and convents. 
Charles himself was not in command of the army at the time of the siege.  In fact the problem is that no one was in command.  The designated leader, the Duke of Bourbon, had been killed in the opening skirmish; moreover the army was in mutiny because the emperor had been slow in paying them for their Italian campaign.  The Lutheran troops particularly were in a blood frenzy as they saw themselves as God’s avengers.  The 1527 sack of Rome effectively put an end to the Roman Renaissance and there was a tremendous slowdown in the vast programs of building and art that had characterized Rome for the previous three decades. 
It was at this particularly poor time to ask a favor from the Pope that England’s King Henry wanted an annulment from his wife, Katherine of Aragon, aunt to the Emperor Charles.  Clement was in no position to alienate the Emperor by sanctioning his aunt being dumped for a Trophy Wife and Queen.  But there is more to the story—far more—and the real reason may have more to do with Medici politics than Clement’s fear of pissing off Charles. 

The Sack of Rome--which sack???

The passagetto (“secret” passage from

the Vatican to the Castle Sant’ Angelo)

is contained along the wall to the right

of the picture. You can see the Vatican

in the distance at the end. 

Let’s take a look at the Sack of Rome as it affects the progress of the building of Saint Peter’s.  Rome was sacked a number of times in its history.  It was sacked by the Gauls in 387  B.C.E., by the Visigoths in 410 C.E. (aka A.D.), Vandals in 455, Ostrogoths in 546, The Arabs in 846 (Well, just the Vatican, not the city itself), and the Normans in 1084.  To be honest, for much of its history Rome wasn’t worth sacking.  For most of the Middle Ages Rome was only an overgrown cow pasture with ruins of where the mighty Empire had once been, but by 1527 it was the flourishing center of the Renaissance with a booming economy and a rapidly growing economy.

     What triggered the 1527 attack was that in order to check the awesome power of the Emperor Charles V (who ruled what is today Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and much of northern Italy) France, Venice, Milan, Florence and the Papacy teamed up in the League of Cognac.  Great name, but not a great idea.  It was the mice out to kill the cat and it was a disaster.  The Imperial army handily defeated the French—the only ones in the coalition who had a real army (and in those days the French were considered the best fighters in the world—who knows what happened to them)  but the Emperor didn’t have any money to pay the troops for their service.  Their commander, Charles de Bourbon was French—yes, a French commander for the German Army fighting France!  It seems that when Charles’s wife, Suzanne died—she had been the Bourbon heir—the Queen Mother of France, Louise of Savoy, seized the Bourbon lands and wouldn’t give them back to the widowed husband to whom they had been left by Suzanne’s will.  The King refused to intervene against his mother and so Charles, pissed, sided with the enemy despite his position of Marshal of France. (The Marshal was the head of the army.)  Pity because Charles de Bourbon was a good soldier, a great soldier.  Anyway now he had a German army who hasn’t been paid and no money to pay them. The army was restless.  Pope Clement VII knew this was a dangerous situation and that he was in trouble and sued for a truce, but the army was in no mood to pay attention—the loot from Rome would suffice for the money due them from the Emperor.  Charles de Bourbon had excellent command of his army and could have negotiated a settlement with Clement, but the artist Benvenuto Cellini shot and killed Charles in the initial attack.  That was the mistake.  The army was enraged and went wild, storming the city.  With Charles dead there was no one who could bring the army under control.  Rome had only about 12,000 troops to defend it.  The Imperial attack was a massacre—all but 42 of the Pope’s Swiss guard were killed defending the Pope, but because of their bravery Pope Clement was able to flee  through the “secret” passage way linking the Vatican with the Castel Sant’Angelo where he would be safe.  As Clement fled through the passagetto, Imperial soldiers took pot shots at the papal figure as he passed the occasional break in the wall.  The worst of the sack lasted three days but for a month the Imperial troops dominated the city without discipline.  Churches were pillaged of their ornaments and relics.  The palaces of the Cardinals were ransacked, art destroyed, precious objects carried off.  Monasteries and convents were destroyed, monks and nuns killed, the nuns often raped.  Ordinary Romans were not safe—those who took refuge in Churches were often slain as the clung to the altars begging for mercy.  The Emperor had the upper hand.  Clement feared him and was anxious to win his alliance.  The Pope had some dynastic concerns for which he needed the Emperor. (We will talk more about that when we get to Henry VIII and his failure to get an annulment.)   The Emperor Charles V was Catholic—devoutly so—but he wasn’t on the scene and many of the Imperial troops, being German, were recent converts to Lutheranism.  That certainly didn’t help restore unity to Christendom.  Some historians claim that it brought the renaissance to a crashing end, but in fact Rome recovered quickly and went on to bigger and better triumphs of art, architecture, music, literature, and certainly to a papacy that would become imperial in its own right.  As for Saint Peter’s it brought the construction to a temporary halt but by 1534 Clement had commissioned Michelangelo to fresco the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel (it would be frescoed between 1537 and 1541.)  Michelangelo would be named the chief architect of Saint Peter’s in 1546.  And so the work continued.  But don’t let me forget to tell you about Antonio da Sangallo and his stealing from the basilica in the interim before Michelangelo.