r became dark with a host of controversial tracts.
[Sidenote: Controversial tracts] They are half filled with theological
metaphysic, half with the bitterest invective. Luther called Henry
VIII "a damnable and rotten worm, a snivelling, drivelling swine of a
sophist"; More retorted by complaining of the violent language of "this
apostate, this open incestuous lecher, this plain limb of the devil and
manifest messenger of hell." Absurd but natural tactic, with a sure
effect on the people, which relishes both morals and scandal! To prove
that faith justifies, the Protestants pointed to the debauchery of the
friars; to prove the mass a sacrifice their enemies mocked at "Friar
Martin and Gate Callate his nun lusking together in lechery." But with
all the invective there was much solid argument of the kind that
appealed to an age of theological politics. In England as elsewhere
the significance of the Reformation was that it was the first issue of
supreme importance to be argued by means of the press before the bar of
a public opinion sufficiently enlightened to appreciate its importance
and sufficiently strong to make a choice and to enforce its decision.

The party of the Reformation in England at first consisted of two
classes, London tradesmen and certain members of what Bismarck long
afterward called "the learned proletariat." In 1532 the bishops were
able to say:

In the crime of heresy, thanked be God, there hath no
notable person fallen in our time. Truth it is that
certain apostate friars and monks, lewd priests, bankrupt
merchants, vagabonds and lewd, idle fellows of corrupt
nature have embraced the abominable and erroneous
{286}
opinions lately sprung in Germany and by them have
been some seduced in simplicity and ignorance.

[Sidenote: Anti-clerical feeling]

But though both anti-clerical feeling and sympathy with the new
doctrines waxed apace, it is probable that no change would have taken
place for many years had it not been for the king's divorce. The
importance of this episode, born of the most strangely mingled motives
of conscience, policy, and lust, is not that, as sometimes said, it
proved the English people ready to follow their government in religious
matters as sheep follow their shepherd. Its importance is simply that
it loosed England from its ancient moorings of papal supremacy, and
thus established one, though only one, of the cardinal principles of
the Protestant