repealed and it was Enacted That from the first of May none should eat Flesh on Fridays Saturdays Ember-days in Lent or any other days that should be declared Fish-days under several Penalties A Proviso was added for excepting such as should obtain the Kings Licence or were sick or weak and that none should be indicted but within three Months after the Offence Christ had told his Disciples that when he should be taken from them then they should fast Accordingly the Primitive Christians used to fast oft more particularly before the Anniversary of the Passion of Christ which ended in a high Festivity at Easter Yet this was differently observed as to the number of days Some abstained 40 days in imitation of Christs Fast others only that Week and others had only an entire Fast from the time of Christs death till his Resurrection On these Fasts they eat nothing till the Evening and then they eat most commonly Herbs and Roots Afterwards the Fridays were kept as Fasts because on that day Christ suffered Saturdays were also added in the Roman Church but not without contradiction Ember-weeks came in afterwards being some days before those Sundays in which Orders were given And a General Rule being laid down that every Christian Festival should be preceded by a Fast thereupon the Vigils of Holy-days came though not so soon into the Number But this with the other good Institutions of the Primitive times became degenerate even in St. Austins time Religion came to be placed in these observances and anxious Rules were made about them Afterwards in the Church of Rome they were turned into a Mockery for as on Fast-days they dined which the Ancients did not so the use of the most delicious Fish drest in the most exquisite manner with the richest Wines that could be had was allowed which made it ridiculous So now they resolved to take off the severities of the former Laws and yet to keep up such Laws about Fasting and Abstinence as might be agreeable to its true end which is to subdue the Flesh to the Spirit and not to gratifie it by a change of one sort of diet into another which may be both more delicate and more inflaming So fond a thing is Superstition that it will help Men to deceive themselves by the slightest Pretences that can be imagined It was much lamented then and there is as much cause for it still that carnal Men have taken advantages from the abuses that were formerly practised to throw off good and profitable Institutions since the frequent use of Fasting with Prayer and true Devotion joyned to it is perhaps one of the greatest helps that can be devised to advance one to a spiritual temper of Mind and to promote a holy course of Life And the mockery that is discernable in the way of some Mens Fasting is a very slight excuse for any to lay aside the use of that which the Scriptures have so much recommended Some Bills were rejected There were other Bills put in into both Houses but did not pass One was for declaring it Treason to marry the Kings Sisters without consent of the King and his Council but it was thought that King Henry's Will disabling them from the Succession in that case would be a stronger restraint and so it was laid aside Another Bill was put in for Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Great Complaints were made of the abounding of Vices and Immoralities which the Clergy could neither restrain nor punish and so they had nothing left but to preach against them which was done by many with great freedom In some of these Sermons the Preachers expressed their apprehensions of signal and speedy Judgments from Heaven if the People did not repent but their Sermons had no great effect for the Nation grew very corrupt and this brought on them severe punishments The Temporal Lords were so jealous of putting power in Church-mens hands especially to correct those vices of which themselves perhaps were most guilty that the Bill was laid aside The pretence of opposing it was that the greatest part of the Bishops and Clergy were still Papists in their Hearts so that if Power were put into such Mens hands it was reasonable to expect they would employ it chiefly against those who favoured the Reformation and would vex them on that score though with Pretences fetched from other things A design for digesting the Common Law into a Body There was also put into the House of Commons a Bill for reforming of Processes at Common Law which was sent up by the Commons to the Lords but it fell in that House I have seen a large Discourse written then upon that Argument in which it is set forth that the Law of England was a barbarous kind of Study and did not lead Men into a finer sort of Learning which made the Common Lawyers to be generally so ignorant of Forreign Matters and so unable to negotiate in them therefore it was proposed that the Common and Statute Laws should be in imitation of the Roman Law digested into a Body under Titles and Heads and put in good Latin But this was too great a Design to be set on or finished under an Infant King If it was then necessary it will be readily acknowledged to be much more so now the Volume of our Statutes being so much swell'd since that time besides the vast number of Reports and Cases and the Pleadings growing much longer than formerly yet whether this is a thing to be much expected or desired I refer it to the learned and wise Men of that Robe The only Act that remains of this Session of Parliament The Admirals Attainder about which I shall inform the Reader is the Attainder of the Admiral The Queen Dowager that had married him died in September last not without suspition of Poison She was a good and vertuous Lady and in her whole Life had done nothing unseemly but the marrying him so indecently and so soon after the Kings death There was found among her Papers a Discourse written by her concerning her self entituled The Lamentation of a Sinner which was published by Cecil who writ a Preface to it In it she with great sincerity acknowledges the sinful course of her Life for many years in which she relying on External Performances such as Fasts and Pilgrimages was all that while a Stranger to the Internal and True Power of Religion which she came afterwards to feel by the study of the Scripture and the calling upon God for his Holy Spirit She explains clearly the Notion she had of Justification by Faith so that Holiness necessarily followed upon it but lamented the great scandal given by many Gospellers So were all these called who were given to the reading of the Scriptures She being thus dead The Queen Dowager dying he courted the Lady Eliz. the Admiral renewed his Addresses to the Lady Elizabeth but in vain for as he could not expect that his Brother and the Council
same Writer also informs us that in many places of the Country Men were chosen by Force and Threats in other places those imployed by the Court Great disorder in Elections did by violence hinder the Commons from coming to chuse in many places false Returns were made and that some were violently turned out of the House of Commons upon which reasons he concludes that it was no Parliament since it was under a Force and so might be annulled as the Parliament held at Coventry in the 38th year of King Henry the 6th was upon Evidence of the like Force declared afterwards to be no Parliament The Journals of the House of Lords in this Parliament are lost so there is no light to be had of their proceedings but from the imperfect Journals of the House of Commons On the second day of the Session one moved in the House of Commons for a review of King Edwards Laws But that being a while argued was at this time laid aside and the Bill for Tonnage and Poundage was put in Then followed a Debate upon Dr. Nowell's being returned from Loo in Cornwal whether he being a Prebendary of Westminster could sit in that House and the Committee being appointed to search fot Precedents it was reported that he being represented in the Convocation House could not be a Member of that House so he was cast out The Bill of Tonnage and Poundage was sent up to the Lords who sent it down to the Commons to be reformed in two proviso's that were not according to former Precedents How far this was contrary to the Rights of the Commons who now say that the Lords cannot alter a Bill of Money I am not able to determine The only publick Bill that passed in this short Session was for a Declaration of Treasons and Felonies An Act for moderating some severe Laws by which it was ordained that nothing should be judged Treason but what was within the Statute of Treasons in the twenty fifth of Edward the third and nothing should be so judged Felony that was not so before the 1st year of King Henry the eight excepting from any benefit of this Act all such as had been in Prison before the last of September who were also excepted out of the Qeens Pardon at her Coronation Two private Bills also passed the one for the restoring of the Wife of the late Marquess of Exeter who had been Attainted in the 32 year of King Henry's Reign and the other for her Son Edward Courtney Earl of Devonshire And so the Parliament was Prorogued from the 21 to the 24 of October that their might be a Session of Parliament consisting only of Acts of Mercy though this Repeal of additional Treasons and Felonies was not more than what had passed in the beginning of King Edwards Reign without the clogg of so severe a proviso by which many were cut off from the Favour designed by it Some have thought that since Treasons had been reduced by the second Act of Edward the 6th to the standard of the 25th of Edward the third that therefore there was somewhat else designed by this Act then barely the repealing some late severe Acts which being done the 1st of Edward 6th needed not be now repealed if it imported no more And since this Act as it is worded mentions or rather excepts those Treasons that are declared and expressed in the 25th of Edward the 3d they have inferred that the power of Parliaments declaring of Treasons ex Post facto which was reserved by that Statute is hereby taken away and that nothing is now to be held Treason but what is ennumerated in that Statute Yet this is still liable to Debate since the one may be thought to be declared and expressed in general words as well as the other specialties are in more particular words and is also still in force So nothing seems comprehended within this Repeal but the Acts passed in King Edwards Reign declaring other Crimes to be Treason some are added in the same Act and others in that of the 3d and 4th of his Reign chap. 5. Nor is it likely that if the Parliament had intended to have delivered the Subjects from the apprehensions of all Acts of Attainder upon a Declaration of new Treasons they would not have expressed it more plainly since it must have been very grateful to the Nation which had groaned heavily under Arbitrary Attainders of late years When the Parliament met again the first Bill the Commons entred on was that of Tonnage and Poundage which they passed in two days The Mariage of Queen Katherine to King Henry Confirmed Then was the Bill about King Henry's Marriage with the Queens Mother sent down on the 26th by the Lords and the Commons passed it no the 28th so strangly was the stream turned that a Divorce that had been for seven years much desired by the Nation was now repealed upon fewer days consultation In the Preamble it was said That truth how much soever obscured and born down will in the end break out and that therefore they declared that King Henry the 8th being lawfully married to Queen Katherine by the consent of both their Parents and the advice of the wisest Men in the Realm and of the best and notablest Men for learning in Christendom did continue that state twenty years in which God blessed them with her Majesty and other issue and a course of great happiness but then a very few malicious Persons did endeavour to break that happy agreement between them and studied to possess the King with a scruple in his Conscience about it and to support that caused the Seals of some Vniversities to be got against it a few Persons being corrupted with money for that end They had also by sinistrous ways and secret threatnings procured the Seals of the Vniversities of this Kingdom and finally Thomas Cranmer did most ungodlily and against Law judge the Divorce upon his own unadvised understanding of the Scriptures upon the Testimonies of the Vniversities and some bare and most untrue conjectures and that was afterwards confirmed by two Acts of Parliament in which was contained the Illegitimacy of her Majesty But that Marriage not being prohibited by the Law of God and lawfully made could not be so broken since what God hath joyned together no Man could put asunder all which they considering together with the many miseries that had fallen on the Kingdom since that time which they did esteem Plagues sent from God for it therefore they declare that Sentence given by Cranmer to be unlawful and of no force from the begining and do also repeal the Acts of Parliament that had confirmed it By this Act Gardiner had performed his Promise to the Queen of getting her Illegitimation taken off Which was much Censured without any relation to the Popes Authority But in the drawing of it he shewed that he was past all shame when he could frame such an Act of a
of vertue and that it was an encouragement for sensual Persons to practise by false allegations that they might be separated from their Wives rather then a Precedent to induce People to live with their Wives in a godly sort thereupon the Act was repealed and declared void and of no effect In this it seems the Arguments that were against it in the House of Commons had so moderated the Stile of it that it was not repealed as an Act sinful in it self but it was only declared that in that particular case the Divorce was unlawfully made for it is reasonable to believe that the Bishops had puâ— in the first draught of the Bill a simple repeal of it and of all such Divorces founded on the indissolubleness of the Marriage Bond. And the Duke of Norfolks Attainder The other Act was about the Duke of Norfolk for declaring his Attainder void The Patentees that had purchased some parts of his Estate from the Crown desired to be heard to plead against it But the Session of the Parliament being near at an end the Duke came down himself to the House of Commons on the 4th of December and desired them earnestly to pass his Bill and said that the difference between him and the Patentees was referred to Arbiters and if they could not agree it he would refer it to the Queen It was long argued after that but in the end it was agreed to It sets forth that the Act by which he was Attainted had no special matter in it but only Treasons in general and a pretence that out of the Parliaments care for the King and his Son the Prince it was necessary to attaint him That the Reasons they pretended were his using Coats of Arms which he and his Ancestors had and might lawfully use It further says That the King died the next night after the Commission was given for passing the Bill and that it did not appear that the King had given his Assent to it That the Commission was not signed by the King's hand but only by his Stamp and that was put to the neather end and not to the upper part of the Bill which shewed it was done in disorder and that it did not appear that these commissioned for it had given the Royal Assent to it Upon which Considerations that pretended Act is declared void and null by the common Laws of the Land And it is further declared That the Law was and ever hath been that the Royal Assent should be given either by the King being present or in his absence by a Commission under the Great Seal signed with his hand and publickly notified to the Lords and Commons The last Act of which I shall give an account was the Confirmation of the Attainders that had been made On the 3d of November Cranmer and others attainted Arch-Bishop Cranmer the Lord Guilford Dudley and the Lady Jane his Wife with two other Sons of the Duke of Northumberland which were all except the Lord Robert who was reserved for greater Fortunes were brought to their Trial. These all confessed their Endictments Only Cranmer appealed to those that judged him how unwillingly he had consented to the exclusion of the Queen that he had not done it till those whose profession it was to know the Law had signed it upon which he submitted himself to the Queen's Mercy But they were all attainted of High-Treason for levying War against the Queen and conspiring to set up another in her room So these Judgments with those that had passed before were now confirmed by Act of Parliament And now Cranmer was legally devested of his Arch-Bishoprick But the See of Canterbury is not declared void which was hereupon void in Law since a Man that is attainted can have no right to any Church-Benefice his Life was also at the Queen's Mercy But it being now designed to restore the Ecclesiastical Exemption and Dignity to what it had been anciently it was resolved that he should be still esteemed Archbishop till he were solemnly degraded according to the Canon Law The Queen was also inclined to give him his Life at this time reckoning that thereby she was acquitted of all the Obligations she had to him and was resolved to have him proceeded against for Heresy that so it might appear she did not act out of revenge or on any personal account So all that followed on this against Cranmer was a Sequestration of all the Fruits of his Arch-Bishoprick himself was still kept in Prison Nor were the other Prisoners proceeded against at this time The Queen was desirous to seem willing to pardon Injuries done against her self but was so heated in the Matters of Religion that she was always inexorable on that Head Having given this Account of Publick Transactions I must relate next what were more secretly carried on but breaking out at this time occasioned the sudden Dissolution of the Parliament Cardinal Dandino The Queen treats about a Reconciliation with Rome that was then the Pope's Legate at the Emperor's Court sent over Commendone afterwards a Cardinal to bring him a certain Account of the Queen's Intentions concerning Religion he gave him in charge to endeavour to speak with her in private and to persuade her to reconcile her Kingdom to the Apostolick See This was to be managed with great secrecy for they did not know whom to trust in so important a Negotiation It seems they neither confided in Gardiner nor in any of the other Bishops Commendone being thus instructed went to Newport where he gave himself out to be the Nephew of a Merchant that was lately dead at London and hired two Servants to whom he was unknown and so he came over unsuspected to London There he was so much a Stranger that he did not know to whom he should address himself By accident he met with one Lee a Servant of the Queen's that had fled beyond Sea during the former Reign and had been then known to him so he trusted him with the Secret of his Business in England He procured him a secret Audience of the Queen in which she freely owned to him her Resolution of reconciling her Kingdom to the See of Rome and so of bringing all things back to the state in which they had been before the Breach made by her Father but she said It was absolutely necessary to manage that Design with great Prudence and Secresy lest in that Confusion of Affairs the discovery of it might much disturb her Government and obstruct her Design She writ by him to the Pope giving him assurance of her filial Obedience and so sent Commendone to Rome She also writ by him to Cardinal Pool and ordered Commendone to move the Pope that he might be sent over with a Legatine Power Yet he that writ that Cardinal's Life insinuates that the Queen had another design in desiring that Pool might be sent over for she ask'd him Whether the Pope might not dispence with the
for it but the Author's word and Poets must make Circumstances as well as more signal Contrivances to set off their Fables But there was no occasion for Bucer's saying this since he never declared against the Corporal Presence but was for taking up that Controversy in some general Expressions So it was not suitable to his Opinion in that Matter for him to talk so loosely of the Scriptures And is it credible that a Story of this nature should not have been published in Queen Mary's Time and been made use of when he was condemned for an Heretick and his Body raised and burnt But our Author perhaps did not think of that 15. He says Pag. 191. Peter Martyr was a while in suspence concerning the Eucharist and stayed till he should see what the Parliament should appoint in that Matter P. Martyr argued and read in the Chair against the Corporal Presence four Years before the Parliament medled with it For the second Common-Prayer Book which contained the first publick Declaration that the Parliament made in this Matter was enacted in the fifth Year of King Edward and Peter Martyr from his first coming to England had appeared against it 16. He said The first Parliament under King Edward Pag. 193. appointed a new Form to be used in ordaining Priests and Bishops who till that time had been Ordained according to the Old Rites save only that they did not swear Obedience to the Pope This is a further Evidence of our Author's care in searching the printed Statutes since what was done in the Fifth Year of this Reign he represents as done in the First His Design in this was clear he had a mind to possess all his own Party with an Opinion that the Orders given in this Church were of no force and therefore he thought it a decent piece of his Poem to set down this Change as done so early since if he had mentioned it in its proper place he knew not how to deny the validity of the Orders that were given the first four Years of this Reign which continued to be conferred according to the old Forms 17. He says The Parliament did also at the same time Ibid. confirm a new Book of Common-Prayer and of the Administration of the Sacraments This is of a piece with the former for the Act confirming the Common-Prayer Book which is also among the Printed Statutes passed not in this Session of Parliament but in a second Session a Year after this These are Indications sufficient to shew what an Historian Sanders was that did not so much as read the Publick Acts of the Time concerning which he writ 18. He says They ordered all Images to be removed Ibid. and sent some lewd Men over England for that effect who either brake or burnt the Images of our Saviour the Blessed Virgin and the Saints therein declaring against whom they made War and they ordered the King's Arms three Leopards and three Lillies with the Supporters a Dog and a Serpent to be set in the place where the Cross of Christ stood thereby owning that they were no longer to worship Jesus Christ whose Images they broke but the King whose Arms they set up in the room of those Images In this Period there is an equal mixture of Falshood and Malice 1. The Parliament did not order the removal of Images It was done by the King's Visitors before the Parliament sat 2. The total removal of Images was not done the first Year only those Images that were abused to Superstition were taken down and a Year after the total removal followed 3. They took care that this should be done regularly not by the Visitors who only carried the King's Injunctions about it but by the Curats themselves 4. They did not order the King's Arms to be put in the place where the Cross had stood It grew indeed to be a custom to set them up in all Churches thereby expressing that they acknowledged the King's Authority reached even to their Churches but there was no Order made about it 5. I leave him to the Correction of the Heraulds for saying the King's Arms are Three Leopards when every Body knows they are three Lions and a Lion not a Dog is one Supporter and the other is a Dragon not a Serpent 6. By their setting up the King's Arms and not his Picture it is plain they had no thought of worshipping their King but did only acknowledg his Authority 7. It was no less clear that they had no design against the Worship due to Jesus Christ nor that inferiour respect due to the Blessed Virgin and Saints but intended only to wean the People from that which at best was but Pageantry but as it was practised was manifest Idolatry And the painting on the Walls of the Churches the Ten Commandments the Creed the Lord's Prayer with many other passages of Scripture that were of most general use shewed they intended only to cleanse their Churches from those mixtures of Heathenism that had been brought into the Christian Religion Pag. 193. 19. He says They took away the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ that they might thereby give some colour to the converting of the Sacred Vessels to the King's use They took away no part of the Institution of Christ for they set it down in the Act past about it and recited all the words of the first Institution of the Sacrament they only condemned private Masses as contrary to Christ's Institution They did not convert the Holy Vessels to the King's use nor were they taken out of the Churches till five Years after this that the Necessities of the Government either real or pretended were alleged to excuse the taking away the superfluous Plate that was in Churches But this was not done by Act of Parliament but by Commissioners empowred by the King who were ordered to leave in every Church such Vessels as were necessary for the Administration of the Sacraments Ibid. 20. He says The Parliament ordered the Prayers to be in the Vulgar Tongue and upon that he infers that the Irish the Welsh and the Cornish-men were now in a much worse condition than before since they understood no English so that the Worship was to them in a Tongue more unknown than it had formerly been The Parliament made no such Order at this Time the Book of Common Prayer was set out first by the King's Authority and ratified by the subsequent Session of Parliament There was also a Design which though it was then accomplished yet it was done afterwards of translating the Liturgy into these Tongues but still the English was much more understood by all sorts of Men among them than the Latin had been 21. He says The Office of the Communion Pag. 194. appointed by this Parliament differed very little from the Mass save that it was in English The Error of the Parliaments appointing the new Offices runs through all he says on this
than to make a new one which might give occasion to more Objections and he was the most indifferent Writer they knew Afterwards Cranmer knowing what was likely to work most on him let fall some words as Gardiner writ to the Protector of bringing him into the Privy-Council if he would concur in what they were carrying on But that not having its ordinary effect on him he was carried back to the Fleet. There were also many complaints brought by some Clergy-men of such as had used them ill for their obeying the Kings Injunctions and for removing Images Many were upon their submission sent away with a severe rebuke others that offended more hainously were put in the Fleet for some time and afterwards giving Bond for their good behaviour were discharged But upon the Protectors return the Bishop of Winchester writ him a long Letter in his own vindication He complained of the Visitors proceeding in his absence in so great a matter He said the Injunctions were contrary to themselves for they appointed the Homilies to be read and Erasmus's Paraphrase to be put in all Churches so he selected many passages out of these that were contrary to one another He also gathered many things out of Erasmus's Paraphrase that were contrary to the Power of Princes and several other censurable things in that Work which Erasmus wrote when he was young being of a far different strain from what he writ when he grew older and better acquainted with the World But he concluded his Letter with a discourse of the extent of the King and Councils Power Collection Number 14. which is all I transcribed of it being very long and full of things of no great consequence He questions how far the King could command against Common or Statute Law of which himself had many occasions to be well informed Cardinal Wolsey had obtained his Legatine Power at the Kings desire but notwithstanding that he was brought into a Praemunire and the Lawyers upon that Argument cited many Precedents of Judges that were fined when they transgressed the Laws though commanded by Warrants from the King and Earl Typteft who was Chancellor lost his Head for acting upon the Kings Warrant against Law In the late Kings time the Judges would not set Fines on the breakers of the Kings Proclamations when they were contrary to Law till the Act concerning them was passed about which there were many hot words when it was debated He mentions a Discourse that passed between him and the Lord Audley in the Parliament concerning the Kings Supremacy Audley bid him look the Act of Supremacy and he would see the Kings doings were restrained to Spiritual Jurisdiction and by another Act no Spiritual Law could take place against the Common Law or an Act of Parliament otherwise the Bishops would strike in with the King and by means of the Supremacy would order the Law as they pleased but we will provide said he that the Praemunire shall never go off of your backs In some late Cases he heard the Judges declare what the King might do against an Act of Parliament and what danger they were in that medled in such matters These things being so fresh in his memory he thought he might write what he did to the Lords of Council But by this it appears that no sort of Men is so much for the Kings Prerogative but when it becomes in any instance uneasie to them they will shelter themselves under the Law He continued afterwards by many Letters to the Protector to complain of his ill usage That he had been then seven weeks in the Fleet without Servants a Chaplain or a Physician that though he had his Writ of Summons he was not suffered to come to the Parliament which might be a ground afterwards of questioning their Proceedings He advised the Protector not to make himself a Party in these matters and used all the insinuations of decent flattery that he could invent with many sharp reflections on Cranmer and stood much on the force of Laws that they could not be repealed by the Kings Will. Concerning which he mentions a Passage that fell out between Cromwel and himself before the late King Cromwel said That the King might make or repeal Laws as the Roman Emperors did and asked his opinion about it whether the Kings Will was not a Law To which he answered facetiously That he thought it was much better for the King to make the Law his Will than to make his Will a Law But notwithstanding all his Letters which are printed in the second Volume of Acts and Monum Edit 1641. yet he continued a Prisoner till the Parliament was over and then by the Act of Pardon he was set at liberty This was much censured as an invasion of Liberty and it was said these at Court durst not suffer him to come to the House lest he had confounded them in all they did And the explaining Justification with so much nicety in Homilies that were to be read to the People was thought a needless subtilty But the former abuses of trusting to the Acts of Charity that Men did by which they fancied they bought Heaven made Cranmer judge it necessary to express the matter so nicely though the expounding those Places of St. Paul was as many thought rather according to the strain of the Germans than to the meaning of these Epistles And upon the whole matter they knew Gardiners haughty temper and that it was necessary to mortifie him a little though the pretence on which they did it seemed too slight for such severities But it is ordinary when a thing is once resolved on to make use of the first occasion that offers for effecting it The Party that opposed the Reformation The Lady Mary dissatisfied with the Reformation finding these attempts so unsuccessful engaged the Lady Mary to appear for them She therefore wrote to the Protector that she thought all changes in Religion till the King came to be of Age were very much contrary to the respect they owed the memory of her Father if they went about to shake what he had setled and against their duty to their young Master to hazard the Peace of his Kingdom and engage his Authority in such Points before he was capable of judging them The Protector writ to her Collection Number 15. I gather this to have been the substance of her Letter from the Answer which the Protector wrote which is in the Collection In it he wrote That he believed her Letter flowed not immediately from her self but from the instigation of some malicious Persons He protests they had no other design but the Glory of God and the Honour and Safety of the King and that what they had done was so well considered that all good Subjects ought rather to rejoyce at it than find fault with it And whereas she had said That her Father had brought Religion to a godly order and quietness to which both Spiritualty
with a hot Iron on their Breast A great many Provisoes follow concerning Clerks so convict which shew that this Act was chiefly levelled at the idle Monks and Friars who went about the Country and would betake themselves to no employment but finding the People apt to have compassion on them they continued in that course of life Which was of very ill consequence to the State For these Vagrants did every where alienate the Peoples Minds from the Government and perswaded them that things would never be well setled till they were again restored to their Houses Some of these came often to London on pretence of suing for their Pensions but really to practise up and down through the Country To prevent this there was a Proclamation set out on the 18th of September requiring them to stay in the Places where they lived and to send up a Certificate where they were to the Court of Augmentations who should thereupon give order for their constant payment Some thought this Law against Vagabonds was too severe and contrary to that common liberty of which the English Nation has been always very sensible both in their own and their Neighbours particulars Yet it could not be denied but extream Diseases required extream Remedies and perhaps there is no punishment too severe for Persons that are in health and yet prefer a loitering course of life to an honest employment There followed in the Act many excellent Rules for providing for the truly poor and indigent in the several Places where they were born and had their abode Of which this can only be said That as no Nation has laid down more effectual Rules for the supplying the Poor than England so that indeed none can be in absolute want so the neglect of these Laws is a just and great reproach on those who are charged with the execution of them when such numbers of poor Vagabonds swarm every where without the due restraints that the Laws have appointed On the 6th of December the Bill for giving the Chantries to the King was brought into the House of Lords An Act giving the Chantries to the King It was read the second time on the 12th the third time on the 13th and the fourth time on the 14th of that Month. It was much opposed both by Cranmer on the one hand and the Popish Bishops on the other The late Kings Executors saw they could not pay his Debts nor satisfie themselves in their own pretensions formerly mentioned out of the Kings Revenue and so intended to have these to be divided among them Cranmer opposed it long For the Clergy being much empoverished by the Sale of the impropriated Tithes that ought in all reason to have return'd into the Church but upon the dissolution of the Abbies were all sold among the Laity he saw no probable way remaining for their supply but to save these Endowments till the King were of Age being confident he was so piously disposed that they should easily perswade him to convert them all to the bettering of the Condition of the poor Clergy that were now brought into extream misery And therefore he was for reforming and preserving these Foundations till the Kings full Age. The Popish Bishops liked these Endowments so well that upon far different Motives they were for continuing them in the state they were in But those who were to gain by it were so many that the Act passed the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Bishops of London Duresme Ely Norwich Hereford Worcester and Chichester dissenting So it being sent down to the House of Commons was there much opposed by some Burgesses who represented that the Boroughs for which they served could not maintain their Churches and other publick Works of the Guilds and Fraternities if the Rents belonging to them were given to the King for these were likewise in the Act. This was chiefly done by the Burgesses of Linn and Coventry who were so active that the whole House was much set against that part of the Bill for the Guild-Lands Therefore those who managed that House for the Court took these off by an assurance that their Guild-Lands should be restored to them And so they desisted from their opposition and the Bill passed on the promise given to them which was afterwards made good by the Protector In the Preamble of the Act it is set forth That the great superstition of Christians rising out of their ignorance of the true way of Salvation by the death of Christ in stead of which they had set up the vain conceits of Purgatory and Masses satisfactory was much supported by Trentals and Chantries And since the converting these to godly uses such as the endowing of Schools Provisions for the Poor and the augmenting of Places in the Universities could not be done by Parliament they therefore committed it to the care of the King And then reciting the Act made in the 37th year of his Fathers Reign they give the King all such Chantries Colledges and Chappels as were not possessed by the late King and all that had been in being any time these five years last past as also all Revenues belonging to any Church for Anniversaries Obits and Lights together with all Guild-Lands which any Fraternity of Men enjoyed for Obits or the like and appoint these to be converted to the maintenance of Gramar-Schools or Preachers and for the encrease of Vicarages After this followed the Act giving the King the Customs known by the Name of Tonnage and Poundage besides some other Laws of Matters that are not needful to be remembred in this History Last of all came the Kings general Pardon with the common mon Exceptions among which one was of these who were then Prisoners in the Tower of London in which the Duke of Norfolk was included So all business being ended the Parliament was Prorogued from the 24th of December to the 20th of April following Acts that were proposed but not carried But having given this account of these Bills that were passed I shall not esteem it an unfruitful piece of History to shew what other Bills were designed There were put into the House of Lords two Bills that were stifled The one was for the use of the Scriptures which came not to a second reading The other was a Bill for erecting a new Court of Chancery for Ecclesiastical and Civil Causes which was committed to some Bishops and Temporal Lords but never more mentioned The Commons sent up also some Bills which the Lords did not agree to One was about Benefices with Cure and Residence It was committed but never reported Another was for the Reformation of divers Laws and of the Courts of Common-Law and a third was that married Men might be Priests and have Benefices To this the Commons did so readily agree that it being put in on the 19th of December and read then for the first time it was read twice the next day and sent up to the Lords on the 21st But
being read there once it was like to have raised such debates that it being resolved to end the Session before Christmas the Lords laid it aside But while the Parliament was sitting The Convocation meets they were not idle in the Convocation though the Popish Party was yet so prevalent in both Houses that Cranmer had no hopes of doing any thing till they were freed of the trouble which some of the great Bishops gave them The lower House made some Petitions Number 16. The most important thing they did was the carrying up four Petitions to the Bishops which will be found in the Collection 1. That according to the Statute made in the Reign of the late King there might be Persons empow'red for reforming the Ecclesiastical Laws The second That according to the ancient Custom of the Nation and the Tenor of the Bishops Writ to the Parliament the inferior Clergy might be admitted again to sit in the House of Commons or that no Acts concerning matters of Religion might pass without the sight and assent of the Clergy The third That since divers Prelates and other Divines had been in the late Kings time appointed to alter the Service of the Church and had made some progress in it that this might be brought to its full perfection The fourth That some consideration might be had for the maintenance of the Clergy the first year they came into their Livings in which they were charged with the First-fruits to which they added a desire to know whether they might safely speak their minds about Religion without the danger of any Law For the first of these four Petitions an account of it shall be given hereafter As to the second it was a thing of great consequence and deserves to be farther considered in this place Anciently all the free Men of England The Inferior Clergy desire to be admited to have Representatives in the House of Commons or at least those that held of the Crown in chief came to Parliament and then the inferior Clergy had Writs as well as the Superior and the first of the three Estates of the Kingdom were the Bishops the other Prelates and the Inferior Clergy But when the Parliament was divided into two Houses then the Clergy made likewise a Body of their own and sate in Convocation which was the third Estate But the Bishops having a double capacity the one of Ecclesiastical Prelature the other of being the Kings Barons they had a Right to sit with the Lords as a part of their Estate as well as in the Convocation And though by parity of reason it might seem that the rest of the Clergy being Freeholders as well as Clarks had an equal Right to choose or be chosen into the House of Commons yet whether they were ever in possession of it or whether according to the Clause Premonentes in the Bishops Writ they were ever a part of the House of Commons is a just doubt For besides this assertion in the Petition that was mentioned and a more large one in the second Petition which they presented to the same purpose which is likewise in the Collection Number 17. I have never met with any good reason to satisfie me in it There was a general Tradition in Queen Elizabeths Reign that the Inferior Clergy departed from their Right of being in the House of Commons when they were all brought into the Praemunire upon Cardinal Wolsey's Legatine Power and made their submission to the King But that is not credible for as there is no footstep of it which in a time of so much writing and printing must have remained if so great a change had been then made so it cannot be thought that those who made this Address but 17 years after that Submission many being alive in this who were of that Convocation Polidore Virgil in particular a curious observer since he was maintained here to write the History of England none of them should have remembred a thing that was so fresh but have appealed to Writs and ancient Practises But though this design of bringing the Inferior Clergy into the House of Commons did not take at this time yet it was again set on foot in the end of Queen Elizabeths Reign and Reasons were offered to perswade her to set it forward Which not being then successful these same Reasons were again offered to King James to induce him to endeavour it The Paper that discovers this was communicated to me by Dr. Borlace the Worthy Author of the History of the Irish Rebellion It is corrected in many places by the Hand of Bishop Ravis then Bishop of London a Man of great Worth This for the affinity of the matter and the curiosity of the thing I have put into the Collection Number 18. with a large Marginal Note as it was designed to be transcribed for King James But whether this Matter was ever much considered or lightly laid aside as a thing unfit and unpracticable does not appear certain it is that it came to nothing Upon the whole matter it is not certain what was the Power or Right of these Proctors of the Clergy in former times Some are of opinion that they were only assistants to the Bishops Coke 4. Inst 3.4 but had no Voice in either House of Parliament This is much confirmed by an Act pass'd in the Parliament of Ireland in the 28th Year of the former Reign which sets forth in the Preamble That though the Proctors of the Clergy were always summoned to Parliament yet they were no part of it nor had they any right to Vote in it but were only Assistants in case Matters of Controversie or Learning came before them as the Convocation was in England which had been determined by the Judges of England after much enquiry made about it But the Proctors were then pretending to so high an Authority that nothing could pass without their consents and it was presumed they were set on to it by the Bishops whose Chaplains they were for the most part Therefore they were by that Act declared to have no right to Vote From this some infer they were no other in England and that they were only the Bishops Assistants and Council But as the Clause Premonentes in the Writ seems to make them a part of the Parliament so these Petitions suppose that they sate in the House of Commons anciently where it cannot be imagined they could sit if they came only to be Assistants to the Bishops for then they must have sate in the House of Lords rather as the Judges the Masters of Chancery and the Kings Council do Nor is it reasonable to think they had no Voice for then their sitting in Parliament had been so insignificant a thing that it is not likely they would have used such endeavours to be restored to it since their coming to Parliament upon such an account must have been only a charge to them There is against this Opinion an
Objection of great force from the Acts pass'd in the 21st Year of Richard the second 's Reign In the second Act of that Parliament it is said That it was first prayed by the Commons and that the Lords Spiritual and the Proctors of the Clergy did assent to it upon which the King by the assent of all the Lords and Commons did enact it The 12th Act of that Parliament was a Repeal of the whole Parliament that was held in the 11th Year of that Reign and concerning it it is expressed That the Lords Spiritual and Temporal the Proctors of the Clergy and the Commons being severally examined did all agree to it From hence it appears that these Proctors were then not only a part of the Parliament but were a distinct Body of Men that did severally from all the rest deliver their Opinions It may seem strange that if they were then considered as a part of either House of Parliament this should be the only time in which they should be mentioned as bearing their share in the Legislative Power In a matter that is so perplexed and dark I shall presume to offer a Conjecture which will not appear perhaps improbable In the 129th Page of the former part I gave the Reasons that made me think the lower House of Convocation consisted at first only of the Proctors of the Clergy So that by the Proctors of the Clergy both in the Statute of Ireland and in those made by Richard the second is perhaps to be understood the lower House of Convocation and it is not unreasonable to think that upon so great an occasion as the annulling a whole Parliament to make it pass the better in an Age in which the People payed so blind a Submission to the Clergy the concurrence of the whole Representative of the Church might have been thought necessary It is generally believed that the whole Parliament sate together in one House before Edward the thirds time and then the Inferior Clergy were a part of that Body without question But when the Lords and Commons sate a-part the Clergy likewise sate in two Houses and granted Subsidies as well as the Temporalty It may pass for no unlikely conjecture that the Clause Premonentes was first put in the Bishops Writ for the summoning of the lower House of Convocation consisting of these Proctors and afterwards though there was a special Writ for the Convocation yet this might at first have been continued in the Bishops Writ by the neglect of a Clark and from thence be still used So that it seems to me most probable that the Proctors of the Clergy were both in England and Ireland the lower House of Convocation Now before the Submission which the Clergy made to King Henry as the Convocation gave the King great Subsidies so the whole business of Religion lay within their Sphere But after the Submission they were cut off from medling with it except as they were authorized by the King So that having now so little power left them it is no wonder they desired to be put in the state they had been in before the Convocation was separated from the Parliament or at least that Matters of Religion should not be determined till they had been consulted and had reported their Opinions and Reasons The Extreme of raising the Ecclesiastical Power too high in the Times of Popery had now produced another of depressing it too much For seldom is the Counterpoise so justly ballanced that Extremes are reduced to a well-tempered Mediocrity For the third Petition it was resolved that many Bishops and Divines should be sent to Windsor to labour in the Matter of the Church-Service But that required so much consideration that they could not enter on it during a Session of Parliament And for the fourth what Answer was given to it doth not appear On the 29th of November a Declaration was sent down from the Bishops concerning the Sacraments being to be received in both kinds To which Jo. Tyler the Prolocutor and several others set their Hands and being again brought before them it was agreed to by all without a contradictory Vote 64 being present among whom I find Polidore Virgil was one And on the 17th of December the Proposition concerning the Marriage of the Clergy was also sent to them and subscribed by 35 affirmatively and by 14 negatively so it was ordered that a Bill should be drawn concerning it I shall not here digress to give an account of what was alledged for or against this reserving that to its proper place when the thing was finally setled And this is all the account I could recover of this Convocation I have chiefly gathered it from some Notes and other Papers of the then Dr. Parker afterwards Arch-bishop of Canterbury which are carefully preserved with his other MSS. in Corpus Christi Colledge Library at Cambridge To which Library I had free access by the favour of the most learned Master Dr. Spencer with the other Worthy Fellows of that House and from thence I collected many remarkable things in this History The Parliament being brought to so good a Conclusion the Protector took out a new Commission in which all the Addition that is made to that Authority he formerly had is that in his absence he is empow'red to substitute another to whom he might delegate his Power The state of Affairs in Germany And thus this Year ended in England but as they were carrying on the Reformation here it was declining apace in Germany The Duke of Saxe and the Landgrave were this Year to command their Armies apart The Duke of Saxe kept within his own Country but having there unfortunately divided his Forces the Emperor overtook him near the Alb at Mulberg where the Emperors Soldiers crossing the River and pursuing him with great fury after some resistance in which he himself performed all that could be expected from so great a Captain was taken Prisoner 1547. Apr. 24. Duke of Saxe taken and his Country all possessed by Maurice who was now to be invested with the Electoral Dignity He bore his misfortunes with a greatness and equality of mind that is scarce to be parallel'd in History Neither could the insolence with which the Emperor treated him nor the fears of death to which he adjudged him nor that tedious imprisonment which he suffered so long ever shake or disorder a Mind that was raised so far above the inconstancies of Humane Affairs And though he was forced to submit to the hardest Conditions possible of renouncing his Dignity and Dominions some few Places being only reserved for his Family yet no Entreaties nor Fears could ever bring him to yield any thing in Matters of Religion He made the Bible his chief Companion and Comfort in his sharp Afflictions which he bore so as if he had been raised up to that end to let the World see how much he was above it It seemed unimitable and therefore engaged Thuanus with the other
Dutchess of Somerset should be so foolish as to think that she ought to have the precedence of the Queen Dowager Therefore I look upon this Story as a meer Fiction though it is probable enough there might upon some other accounts have been some Animosities between the two high-spirited Ladies which might have afterwards be thought to have occasioned their Husbands quarrel It is plain in the whole thread of this Affair that the Protector was at first very easie to be reconciled to his Brother and was only assaulted by him but bore the trouble he gave him with much patience for a great while though in the end seeing his factious temper was incurable he laid off Nature too much when he consented to his Execution Yet all along till then he had rather too much encouraged his Brother to go on by his readiness to be after every breach reconciled to him When the Protector was in Scotland the Admiral then began to act more avowedly and was making a Party for himself of which Paget took notice and charged him with it in plain terms He asked him why he would go about to reverse that which himself and others had consented to under their Hands Their Family was now so great that nothing but their mutual quarrelling could do them any prejudice But there would not be wanting officious Men to inflame them if they once divided among themselves and the Breaches among near Friends commonly turn to the most irreconcilable Quarrels Yet all was ineffectual for the Admiral was resolved to go on and either get himself advanced higher or to perish in the Attempt It was the knowledge of this which forced the Protector to return from Scotland so abruptly and disadvantageously for the securing of his Interest with the King on whom his Brothers Artifices had made some impression Whether there was any reconciliation made between them before the Parliament met is not certain But during the Session the Admiral got the King to write with his own Hand a Message to the House of Commons for the making of him the Governour of his Person and he intended to have gone with it to the House and had a Party there by whose means he was confident to have carried his business He dealt also with many of the Lords and Counsellors to assist him in it When this was known before he had gone with it to the House some were sent to him in his Brothers Name to see if they could prevail with him to proceed no further He refused to hearken to them and said That if he were cross'd in his attempt he would make this the blackest Parliament that ever was in England Upon that he was sent for by Order from the Council but refused to come Then they threatned him severely and told him the Kings Writing was nothing in Law but that he who had procured it was punishable for doing an Act of such a nature to the disturbance of the Government and for engaging the young King in it So they resolved to have sent him to the Tower and to have turned him out of all his Offices But he submitted himself to the Protector and Council and his Brother and he seemed to be perfectly reconciled Yet as the Protector had reason to have a watchful Eye over him so it was too soon visible that he had not laid down but only put off his high Projects till a fitter conjuncture For he began the next Christmas to deal Money again among the Kings Servants and was on all occasions infusing into the King a dislike of every thing that was done and did often perswade him to assume the Government himself But the sequel of this Quarrel proved fatal to him as shall be told in its proper place And thus ended the Year 1547. On the 8th of Jan. 1548. Jan. 8. next year Gardiner was brought before the Council Where it was told him that his former Offences being included in the Kings general Pardon he was thereupon discharged a grave admonition was given him to carry himself reverently and obediently and he was desired to declare whether he would receive the Injunctions and Homilies and the Doctrine to be set forth from time to time by the King and Clergy of the Realm He answered he would conform himself as the other Bishops did and only excepted to the Homily of Justification and desired four or five days to consider of it What he did at the end of that time does not appear from the Council-Book no farther mention being made of this matter for the Clerks of Council did not then enter every thing with that exactness that is since used He went home to his Diocess where there still appeared in his whole behaviour great malignity to Cranmer and to all motions for Reformation yet he gave such outward compliance that it was not easie to find any advantage against him especially now since the Councils great Power was so much abridged The Marquess of Northampton sues a Divorce for Adultery In the end of Jan. the Council made an Order concerning the Marquess of Northampton which will oblige me to look back a little for the clear account of it This Lord who was Brother to the Queen Dowager had married Anne Bourchier Daughter to the Earl of Essex the last of that Name But she being convicted of Adultery he was divorced from her which according to the Law of the Ecclesiastical Courts was only a separation from Bed and Board Upon which Divorce it was proposed in King Henry's time to consider what might be done in favour of the Innocent Person when the other was convicted of Adultery So in the beginning of King Edward's Reign on the 7th of May a Commission was granted to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Duresme and Rochester this was Holbeack who was not then translated to Lincoln to Dr. Ridley and six more ten in all of whom six were a Quorum to try whether the Lady Anne was not by the Word of God so lawfully divorced that she was no more his Wife and whether thereupon he might not marry another Wife This being a new Case and of great importance Cranmer resolved to examine it with his ordinary diligence and searched into the Opinions of the Fathers and Doctors Ex MSS. D. Stillingfleet so copiously that his Collections about it grew into a large Book the Original whereof I have perused the greatest part of it being either written or marked and interlined with his own Hand This required a longer time than the Marquess of Northampton could stay and therefore presuming on his great Power without waiting for Judgment he solemnly married Eliz. Daughter to Brooke Lord Cobham On the 28th of Jan. Information was brought to the Council of this which gave great scandal since his first Marriage stood yet firm in Law So he being put to answer for himself said he thought that by the Word of God he was discharged of his tie to
a Park there what they did should be no prejudice to him There was also a Commission issued out to enquire about Inclosures and Farms and whether those who had purchased the Abbey-Lands kept Hospitality to which they were bound by the Grants they had of them and whether they encouraged Husbandry But I find no effect of this And indeed there seemed to have been a general design among the Nobility and Gentry to bring the Inferior sort to that low and servile state to which the Peasants in many other Kingdoms are reduced In the Parliament an Act was carried in the House of Lords for imparking Grounds but was cast out by the Commons yet Gentlemen went on every where taking their Lands into their own Hands and enclosing them Many are easily quieted In May the Commons did rise first in Wilt-shire where Sir William Herbert gathered some resolute Men about him and dispersed them and slew some of them Soon after that they rose in Sussex Hamp-shire Kent Glocester-shire Suffolk Warwick-shire Essex Hartford-shire Leicester-shire Worcester-shire and Rutland-shire but by fair perswasions the fury of the People was a little stopt till the matter should be represented to the Council The Protector said he did not wonder the Commons were in such distempers they being so oppressed that it was easier to die once than to perish for want and therefore he set out a Proclamation contrary to the mind of the whole Council against all new Inclosures with another indempnifying the People for what was past so they carried themselves obediently for the future Commissions were also sent every where with an unlimited Power to the Commissioners to hear and determine all Causes about Inclosures High-ways and Cottages The vast Power these Commissioners assumed was much complained of the Landlords said it was an Invasion of their Property to subject them thus to the pleasure of those who were sent to examine the Matters without proceeding in the ordinary Courts according to Law The Commons being encouraged by the favour they heard the Protector bore them and not able to govern their heat or stay for a more peaceable issue did rise again but were anew quieted Yet the Protector being opposed much by the Council he was not able to redress this Grievance so fully as the People hoped So in Oxford-shire and Devon-shire they rose again and also in Norfolk and York-shire Those in Oxford-shire were dissipated by a Force of 1500 Men led against them by the Lord Gray Some of them were taken and hanged by Martial Law as being in a state of War the greatest part ran home to their Dwellings In Devon-shire the Insurrection grew to be better formed But those of Devon-shire grew formidable for that County was not only far from the Court but it was generally inclined to the former superstition and many of the old Priests run in among them They came together on the 10th of June being Whit-Munday and in a short time they grew to be 10000 strong At Court it was hoped this might be as easily dispersed as the other Risings were but the Protector was against running into extremities and so did not move so speedily as the thing required He after some days at last sent the Lord Russel with a small Force to stop their Proceedings And that Lord remembring well how the Duke of Norfolk had with a very small Army broken a formidable Rebellion in the former Reign hoped that time would likewise weaken and dis-unite these and therefore he kept at some distance and offered to receive their Complaints and to send them to the Council But these delays gave advantage and strength to the Rebels who were now led on by some Gentlemen Arundel of Cornwall being in chief Command among them and in answer to the Lord Russel they agreed on fifteen Articles the Substance of which was as follows 1. That all the General Councils Their Demands and the Decrees of their Forefathers should be observed 2. That the Act of the Six Articles should be again in force 3. That the Mass should be in Latin and that the Priests alone should receive 4. That the Sacrament should be hanged up and worshiped and those who refused to do it should suffer as Hereticks 5. That the Sacrament should only be given to the People at Easter in one kind 6. That Baptism should be done at all times 7. That Holy Bread Holy Water and Palms be again used and that Images be set up with all the other ancient Ceremonies 8. That the new Service should be laid aside since it was like a Christmas Game and the old Service again should be used with the Procession in Latin 9. That all Preachers in their Sermons and Priests in the Mass should pray for the Souls in Purgatory 10. That the Bible should be called in since otherwise the Clergy could not easily confound the Hereticks 11. That Dr. Moreman and Crispin should be sent to them and put in their Livings 12. That Cardinal Pool should be restored and made of the Kings Council 13. That every Gentleman might have only one Servant for every hundred Marks of yearly Rent that belonged to him 14. That the half of the Abbey and Church-Lands should be taken back and restored to two of the chief Abbeys in every County and all the Church Boxes for seven years should be given to such Houses that so devout Persons might live in them who should pray for the King and the Common-wealth 15. And that for their particular grievances they should be redressed as Humphrey Arundel and the Major of Bodmyn should inform the King for whom they desired a safe conduct These Articles being sent to the Council the Arch-bishop of Canterbury was ordered to draw an Answer to them which I have seen corrected with his own Hand Cranmer drew an Answer to them Ex MS. Col. C. C. Cantab. The Substance of it was That their Demands were insolent such as were dictated to them by some seditious Priests they did not know what General Councils had decreed nor was there any thing in the Church of England contrary to them though many things had been formerly received which were so and for the Decrees they were framed by the Popes to enslave the World of which he gave several Instances For the Six Articles he says They had not been carried in Parliament if the late King had not gone thither in Person and procured that Act and yet of his own accord he slackened the execution of it To the third it was strange that they did not desire to know in what terms they worshiped God and for the Mass the ancient Canons required the People to communicate in it and the Prayers in the Office of the Mass did still imply that they were to do it For the hanging up and adoring the Host it was but lately set up by Pope Innocent and Honorius and in some Places it had never been received For the fifth the Ancient
to emply his Money in the way of Trade or Manufacture for which they were sure to have vent since they lay near Tyre and Sidon that were then the chief Places of Traffick and Navigation of the World and without such Industry the Soil of Judea could not possibly have fed such vast numbers as lived on it So that it seemed clear that this Law in the Old Testament properly belonged to that policy Yet it came to be looked on by many Christians as a Law of perpetual obligation It came also to be made a part of the Canon Law and Absolution could not be given to the breakers of it without a special faculty from Rome But for avoiding the severity of the Law the invention of Mortgages was fallen on which at first were only Purchases made and let back to the owner for such Rent as the use of the Money came to so that the use was taken as the Rent of the Land thus bought And those who had no Land to sell thus fell upon another way The Borrower bought their Goods to be payed within a Year for instance an hundred and ten Pound and sold them back for a Sum to be presently laid down as they should agree it may be a hundred Pound by this means the one had a hundred Pound in hand and the other was to have ten Pound or more at a years end But this being in the way of Sale was not called Usury This Law was look'd on as impossible to be observed in a Country like England and it could not easily appear where the immorality lay of lending Money upon moderate gain such as held proportion to the value of Land provided that the perpetual Rule of Christian Equity and Charity were observed which is not to exact above the proportion duly limited by the Law and to be merciful in not exacting severely of Persons who by inevitable accidents have been disabled from making payment This digression I thought the more necessary because of the scruples that many good and strict Persons have still in that matter Another Act passed both Houses against all Simoniacal Pactions A Bill against Simony the reservation of Pensions out of Benefices and the granting Advowsons while the Incumbent was yet alive It was agreed to by the Lords the Earls of Derby Rutland and Sussex the Viscount Hereford and the Lords Mounteagle Sands Wharton and Evers dissenting But upon what reason I do not know the Bill was not assented to by the King who being then sick there was a Collection made of the Titles of the Bills which were to have the Royal Assent and those the King Signed and gave Commission to some Lords to pass them in his Name These abuses have been oft complained of but there have been still new contrivances found out to elude all Laws against Simony either bargains being made by the Friends of the Parties concerned without their express knowledge or Bonds of Resignation given by which Incumbents lie at the mercy of their Patrons and in these the faultiness of some Clergy-men is made the colour of imposing such hard terms upon others and of robbing the Church oftentimes by that means There was a private Bill put in about the Duke of Somersets Estate which had been by Act of Parliament entailed on his Son in the 23d Year of the last Kings Reign A Repeal of the Entail of the Duke of Somersets Estate On the third of March it was sent to the House of Commons Signed by the King it was for the Repeal of that Act. Whether the King was so alienated from his Unkle that this extraordinary thing was done by him for the utter ruine of his Family or not I cannot determine but I rather incline to think it was done in hatred to the Dutchess of Somerset and her Issue For the Estate was entailed on them by that Act of Parliament in prejudice of the Issue of the former Marriage of whom are descended the Seimours of Devon-shire who were disinherited and excluded from the Duke of Somersets Honours by his Patents and from his Estate by Act of Parliament partly upon some jealousies he had of his former Wife but chiefly by the power his second Wife had over him This Bill of Repeal was much opposed in the House though sent to them in so unusual a way by the King himself And though there was on the 8th of March a Message sent from the Lords that they should make hast towards an end of the Parliament yet still they stuck long upon it looking on the breaking of Entails that were made by Act of Parliament as a thing of such consequence that it dissolved the greatest security that the Law of England gives for property It was long argued by the Commons and was fifteen several days brought in At last a new Bill was devised and that was much altered too it was not quite ended till the day before the Parliament was dissolved But near the end of the Session a Proviso was sent from the Lords to be added to the Bill confirming the Attainder of the Duke and his Complices It seems his Enemies would not try this at first till they had by other things measured their strength in that House and finding their interest grew there they adventured on it but they mistook their measures for the Commons would not agree to it In conclusion the Bill of Repeal was agreed to But whereas there had been some Writings for a Marriage between the Earl of Oxfords Daughter and the Duke of Somersets Son and a Bill was put in for voiding these upon a division of the House the 28th of March there were sixty eight that agreed and sixty nine that rejected it so this Bill was cast out By this we see what a thin House of Commons there was at that time the whole being but 137 Members But this was a natural effect of a long Parliament many of those who were at first chosen being infirm and others not willing to put themselves to the charge and trouble of such constant and long attendance It is also from hence clear how great an interest the Duke of Somerset had in the affections of the Parliament The Commons refuse to attaint the Bishop of Duresme by Bill Another Bill gave a more evident discovery how hateful the Duke of Northumberland was to them The Bishop of Duresme was upon some complaint brought against him of misprision of Treason put into the Tower about the end of December last year What the Particulars were I do not find but it was visible that the secret reason was that he being Attainted the Duke of Northumberland intended to have had the Dignities and Jurisdiction of that Principality conferred on himself so that he should have been made Count Palatine of Duresme Tonstall had in all Points given obedience to every Law and to all the Injunctions that had been made but had always in Parliament protested against the changes in
It was long argued at first and at the passing the Bill it was again argued but at last the Commons agreed to it The Preamble of it is a long Accusation of the Duke of Somerset for involving the King in Wars wasting his Treasure engaging him in much Debt embasing the Coin and having given occasion to a most terrible Rebellion In fine considering the great Debt the King was left in by his Father the loss he put himself to in the reforming the Coin and they finding his temper to be set wholly on the good of his Subjects and not on enriching himself therefore they give him two Tenths and two Fifteenths with one Subsidy for two years Whether the debate in the House of Commons was against the Subsidies in this Act or against the Preamble cannot be certainly known but it is probable the Debate at the engrossing the Bill was about the Preamble which the Duke of Northumberland and his Party were the more earnestly set on to let the King see how acceptable they were and how hateful the Duke of Somerset had been The Clergy did also for an expression of their affection and duty give the King six Shillings in the Pound of their Benefices There was also a Bill sent down from the Lords That none might hold any Spiritual Promotion unless he were either Priest or Deacon But after the third reading it was cast out The reason of it was because many Noblemen and Gentlemens Sons had Prebends given them on this pretence that they intended to fit themselves by Study for entring into Orders but they kept these and never advanced in their Studies upon which the Bishops prevailed to have the Bill agreed to by the Lords but could carry it no further Another Act passed for the suppressing the Bishoprick of Duresme The Bishoprick of Duresme suppressed and two new ones appon ed. which is so strangely mis-represented by those who never read more than the Title of it that I shall therefore give a more full account of it It is set forth in the Preamble That that Bishoprick being then void of a Prelate so that the Gift thereof was in the Kings pleasure and the compass of it being so large extending to so many Shires so far distant that it could not be sufficiently served by one Bishop and since the King according to his godly disposition was desirous to have Gods Holy Word preached in these Parts which were wild and barbarous for lack of good Preaching and good Learning therefore he intended to have two Bishopricks for that Diocess the one at Duresme which should have 2000 Marks Revenue and another at Newcastle which should have 1000 Marks Revenue and also to Found a Cathedral Church at Newcastle with a Deanry and Chapter out of the Revenues of the Bishoprick therefore the Bishoprick of Duresme is utterly extinguished and dissolved and Authority is given for Letters Patents to erect the two new Bishopricks together with the Deanry and Chapter at Newcastle with a Proviso that the Rights of the Deanry Chapter and Cathedral of Duresme should suffer nothing by this Act. When this Bill is considered that dissolution that was designed by it will not appear to be so sacrilegious a thing as some Writers have represented it For whosoever understands the value of old Rents especially such as these were near the Marches of an Enemy where the Service of the Tenants in the War made their Lands be set at very low rates will know that 3000 Marks of Rent being reserved besides the endowing of the Cathedral which could hardly be done under another thousand Marks there could not be so great a Prey of that Bishoprick as has been imagined Ridley as himself writes in one of his Letters was named to be Bishop of Duresme being one of the Natives of that Country but the thing never took effect For in May and no sooner was the Temporalty of the Bishoprick turned into a County-Palatine and given to the Duke of Northumberland But the Kings sickness and soon after his death made that and all the rest of these designs prove abortive How Tonstall was deprived I cannot understand It was for misprision of Treason and done by Secular Men. For Cranmer refused to meddle in it I have seen the Commission given by Queen Mary to some Delegates to examine it in which it is said That the Sentence was given only by Lay-men and that Tonstal being kept Prisoner long in the Tower was brought to his Trial in which he had neither Counsel assigned him nor convenient time given him for clearing himself and that after divers Protestations they had notwithstanding his Appeal deprived him of his Bishoprick He was not only turned out but kept Prisoner till Queen Mary set him at liberty At the end of this Parliament the King granted a free Pardon concerning which this is only remarkable That whereas it goes for a Maxime that the Acts of Pardon must be passed without changing any thing in them the Commons when they sent up this Act of Pardon to the Lords desired that some words might be amended in it but it is not clear what was done for that same day the Acts were passed and the Parliament was dissolved In it the Duke of Northumberland had carried this Point That the Nation made a publick Declaration of their dislike of the Duke of Somersets Proceedings which was the more necessary because the King had let fall words concerning his death by which he seemed to reflect on it with some concern and look'd on it as Northumberlands deed But the Act had passed with such difficulty that either the Duke did not think the Parliament well enough disposed for him or else he resolved totally to vary from the Measures of the Duke of Somerset who continued the same Parliament long whereas this that was opened on the first was dissolved on the last day of March. A Visitation for the Plate in the Churches Visitors were soon after appointed to examine what Church-plate Jewels and other Furniture was in all Cathedrals and Churches and to compare their account with the Inventories made in former Visitations and to see what was embezeled and how it was done And because the King was resolved to have Churches and Chappels furnished with that that was comely and convenient for the Administration of the Sacraments they were to give one or two Chalices of Silver or more to every Church Chappel or Cathedral as their discretions should direct them and to distribute comely Furniture for the Communion-Table and for Surplices and to sell the rest of the Linen and give it to the Poor and to sell Copes and Altar-Cloaths and deliver all the rest of the Plate and Jewels to the Kings Treasurer Sir Edm. Pecham This is spitefully urged by one of our Writers who would have his Reader infer from it that the King was ill principled as to the matters of the Church because when this Order was given by
afraid of burdening her Conscience by assuming that which belonged to them and that she was unwilling to enrich her self by the spoils of others But they told her all that had been done was according to the Law to which all the Judges and Counsellors had set their Hands This joined with their Persuasions and the Importunities of her Husband who had more of his Fathers temper than of her Philosophy in him at length prevailed with her to submit to it Of which her Father-in-Law did afterwards say in Council She was rather by enticement of the Counsellors and force made to accept of the Crown then came to it by her own seeking and request Upon this order was given for proclaiming her Queen the next day And an Answer was writ to Queen Mary signed by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Lord Chancellor the Dukes of Suffolk and Northumberland the Marquesses of Winchester and Northampton the Earls of Arundel Shrewsbury Huntington Bedford and Pembrook the Lords Cobham and Darcy Sir Thomas Cheyney Sir Robert Cotton Sir William Petre Sir William Cecil Sir John Cheek Sir John Mason Sir Edward North and Sir Robert Bowes in all one and twenty Council writes to Q. Mary letting her know That Queen Jane was now their Soveraign according to the Ancient Laws of the Land and the late King's Letters Patents to whom they were now bound by their Allegiance They told her That the Marriage between her Father and Mother was dissolved by the Ecclesiastical Courts according to the Laws of God and of the Land That many noble Universities in Christendom had consented to it That the Sentence had been confirmed in Parliaments and she had been declared illegitimate and uninheritable to the Crown They therefore required her to give over her Pretences and not to disturb the Government and promised that if she shewed her self Obedient she should find them all ready to do her any Service which in Duty they could The day following they proclaimed Queen Jane Lady Jane proclaimed Queen Collection Number 1. The Proclamation will be found in the Collection It sets forth That the late King had by his Letters Patents limited the Crown that it should not descend to his two Sisters since they were both illegitimated by Sentences in the Spiritual Courts and Acts of Parliament and were only his Sisters by the Half-Blood who though it were granted they had been legitimate are not inheritable by the Law of England It was added That there was also great cause to fear that the King's Sisters might marry Strangers and so change the Laws of the Kingdom and subject it to the Tyranny of the Bishops of Rome and other Forreign Laws For these Reasons they were excluded from the Succession and the Lady Frances Dutchess of Suffolk being next the Crown it was provided that if she had no Sons at the death of the King the Crown should devolve immediately on her eldest Daughter Jane and after her and her Issue to her Sisters since she was born within the Kingdom and already married in it Therefore she was proclaimed Queen promising to be most benign and gracious to all her People to maintain God's Holy Word and the Laws of the Land requiring all the Subjects to obey and acknowledg her When this was proclaimed great multitudes were gathered to hear it but there were very few that shouted with the Acclamations ordinary on such Occasions And whereas a Vintner's Boy did some-way express his scorn at that which was done it was ordered that he should be made an Example the next day by being set on a Pillory and having his Ears nail'd to it and cut off from his Head which was accordingly done a Herauld in his Coat reading to the multitude that was called together by sound of Trumpet the nature of his Offence Censures past upon it Upon this all People were in great distraction The Proclamation opening the new Queen's Title came to be variously descanted on Some who thought the Crown descended by right of Blood and that it could not be limited by Parliament argued that the King having his Power from God it was only to descend in the natural way of Inheritance therefore they thought the next Heir was to succeed And whereas the King 's two Sisters were both by several Sentences and Acts of Parliament declared Bastards and whether that was well judged or not they were to be reputed such as the Law declared them to be so long as it stood in force therefore they held that the Queen of Scotland was to succeed who though she pretended this upon Queen Mary's Death yet did not claim now because by the Papal Law the Sentence against Queen Mary was declared Null Others argued that though a Prince were named by an immediate appointment from Heaven yet he might change the course of Succession as David did preferring Solomon before Adonijah But this it was said did not belong to the King 's of England whose right to the Crown with the extent of their Prerogative did not come from any Divine Designation but from a long Possession and the Laws of the Land and that therefore the King might by Law limit the Succession as well as he and other Kings had in some Points limited the Prerogative which was clearly Sir Thomas More 's Opinion and that therefore the Act of Parliament for the Succession of the King's Sisters was still strong in Law It was also said That if the Kinâ—'â— Sisters were to be excluded for Bastardy all Charles Brandon's Issue were in the same predicament since he was not lawfully married to the French Queen his former Wife Mortimer being then alive and his Marriage with her was never dissolved for though some English Writers say they were divorced yet those who wrote for the Queen of Scots Title in the next Reign denied it But in this the difference was great between them since the King's Sisters were declared Bastards in Law whereas this against Charles Brandon's Issue was only a Surmise Others objected That if the Blood gave an Indefeasible Title How came it that the L. Jane's Mother did not Reign It is true Maud the Empress and Margaret Countess of Richmond were satisfied that their Sons Henry the Second and Henry the Seventh should reign in their Rights but it had never been heard of that a Mother had resigned to her Daughter especially when she was yet under Age. But this was imputed to the Duke of Suffolk's weakness and the Ambition of the Duke of Northumberland That Objection concerning the Half-Blood being a Rule of Common Law in the Families of Subjects to cut off from Step-Mothers the Inclinations and Advantages of destroying their Husbands Children was not thought applicable to the Crown Nor was that of Ones being born out of the Kingdom which was hinted at to exclude the Queen of Scotland thought pertinent to this Case since there was an Exception made in the Law for the King's Children which was thought to
extend to all their Issue But all People agreed in this that though by Act of Parliament King Henry was empowred to provide or limit the Crown by his Letters Patents yet that was a Grant particularly to him and did not descend to his Heirs So that the Letters Patents made by King Edward could have no force to settle the Crown and much less when they did expresly contradict an Act of Parliament The proceeding so severely against the Vintners Boy was imputed to the violent temper of the Duke of Northumberland And though when a Government is Firm and Factions are weak the making some publick Examples may intimidate a Faction otherwise disheartned yet Severities in such a juncture as this when the Council had no other support but the assistance of the People seemed very unadvised and all thought it was a great Error to punish him in that manner This made them reflect on the rest of Northumberland's Cruelties The Duke of Northumberland much hated His bringing the Duke of Somerset with those Gentlemen that suffered with him to their End by a foul Conspiracy but above all things the Suspitions that lay on him of being the Author of the late King 's untimely Death enraged the People so much against him that without considering what they might suffer under Queen Mary they generally inclined to set her up The Lady Jane was proclaimed in many Towns near London yet the People were generally running to Queen Mary Many declare for Q. Mary Many from Norfolk came to her and a great Body of Suffolk Men gathered about her who were all for the Reformation They desired to know of her whether she would alter the Religion set up in King Edward's Days to whom she gave full Assurances that she would never make any Innovation or Change but be contented with the private Exercise of her own Religion Upon this they were all possessed with such a belief of her sincerity that it made them resolve to hazard their Lives and Estates in her Quarrel The Earls of Bath and Suffolk raised Forces and joined with her so did the Sons of the Lord Wharton and Mordant with many more Upon this the Council resolved to gather Forces for the dispersing of theirs The Council orders Forces to be sent against her and sent the Earl of Huntington's Brother to raise Buckinghamshire and others to other parts ordering them to meet the Forces that should come from London at New-Market It was at first proposed to send the Duke of Suffolk to command them but the Lady Jane was so much concerned in her Father's preservation that she urged he might not be sent and he being but a soft Man was easily excused So it fell next on the Duke of Northumberland who was now much distracted in his Mind He was afraid if he went away the City might declare for Queen Mary nor was he well assured of the Council who seemed all to comply with him rather out of fear than good will Cecil would not officiate as Secretary as himself relates the Judges would do nothing and the Duke plainly saw that if he had not according to the custom of our Princes on their first coming to the Crown gone with the Lady Jane and the Council into the Tower whereby he kept them as Prisoners the Council were inclined to desert him This divided him much in his Thoughts The whole success of his Design depended on the dispersing of the Queen's Forces And it was no less necessary to have a Man of courage continue still in the Tower There was none there whom he could entirely trust but the Duke of Suffolk and he was so mean spirited that he did not depend much on him But the progress the Queen's Forces made pressed him to go and make head against her So he laid all the heavy Charges he could on the Council to look to Queen Jane and to stand firmly to her Interests and left London on the 14th of July marching out with 2000 Horse and 6000 Foot But as he rode through Bishops-gate street and Shoreditch though there were great Crouds looking on none cried out to wish him success which gave a sad indication how ill they were affected to him And write to the Emperor The Council writ to the Emperor by one Shelley whom they sent to give notice of the Lady Jane's Succession complaining that the Lady Mary was making Stirs and that his Ambassador had officiously medled in their Affairs but that they had given Orders for reducing the Lady Mary to her Duty They also desired the continuance of his Friendship and that he would command his Resident to carry himself as became an Ambassador Sir Philip Hobbey was continued Ambassador there the others were ordered to stay and prosecute the Mediation of the Peace but the Emperor would not receive those Letters and in a few days there went over others from Queen Mary Ridley preaches for the L. Jane's Title Ridley was appointed to set out Queen Jane's Title in a Sermon at Pauls and to warn the People of the Dangers they would be in if Queen Mary should reign which he did and gave an account in his Sermon of what had passed between him and her when he went and offered to preach to her At the same time the Duke of Northumberland at Cambridg where himself was both Chancellor of the University and Steward of the Town made the Vice-Chancellor preach to the same purpose But he held in more general terms and managed it so that there was no great Offence taken on either hand Q. Mary's Party grows strong But now the Queen had made her Title be proclaimed at Norwich and sent Letters all over England requiring the Peers and others of great Quality to come to her assistance Some Ships had been sent about to lie on that Coast for intercepting her if she should fly away but those who commanded them were so dealt with that instead of acting against her they declared for her Sir Edward Hastings having raised 4000 Men in Buckinghamshire instead of joining with the Duke of Northumberland went over with them into her Service Many were also from all Places every day running to her and in several Counties of England she was proclaimed Queen But none came in to the Duke of Northumberland so he writ earnestly to the Lords at London to send him more Supplies They understanding from all the Corners of England And the Council turn to her that the Tyde grew every-where strong for the Queen entred into Consultations how to redeem their passed Faults and to reconcile themselves to her The Earl of Arundel hated Northumberland on many accounts The Marquess of Winchester was famous for his dexterity in shifting sides all ways to his own Advantage To them joined the Earl of Pembrook the more closely linked to the Interests of the Lady Jane since his Son had married her Sister which made him the more careful to disentangle himself in
Transgressors of all Canons and Constitutions The Cardinal first declared what his Designs and Powers were to the King and Queen and then on the 27th a Message was sent to the Parliament to come and hear him deliver his Legation which they doing he made them a long Speech And makes a Speech to the Parliament inviting them to a Reconciliation with the Apostolick See from whence he was sent by the common Pastor of Christendom to reduce them who had long strayed from the Inclosure of tâ—â— Church This made some emotion in the Queen which she fondly thought was a Child quickned in her Belly this redoubled the Joy some not sparing to say The Queen is believed to be with Child that as John Baptist leaped in his Mothers Belly at the Salutation of the Virgin so here a happy Omen followed on this Salutation from Christ's Vicar In this her Women seeing that she firmly believed her self with Child flattered her so far that they fully persuaded her of it Notice was given of it to the Council who that night writ a Letter to Bonner about it ordering a Te Deum to be sung at St. Pauls and the other Churches of London and that Collects should be constantly used for bringing this to a happy perfection All that night and next day there was great joy about the Court and City On the 29th the Speaker reported to the Commons the substance of the Cardinal's Speech and a Message coming from the Lords for a Conference of some of their House with the Lord Chancellor four Earls four Bishops and four Lords to prepare a Supplication for their being reconciled to the See of Rome it was consented to and the Petition being agreed on at the Committee was reported and approved of by both Houses It contained an Address to the King and Queen EFFIGIES REGINALDI POLI CARDINALIS R White sculp Natus Anno 1500. Maij. cc Cardinalis S. Marioe in Cosmedin 1536. Maij 22 Consecr Archiepisc Cantuariensis 1555 6. Mar 22. Obijt 1558. Nov 17. Printed for Rich Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Pauls Church yard That whereas they had been guilty of a most horrible Defection and Schism from the Apostolick See The Parliaments Petition to be reconciled to the See of Rome they did now sincerely repent of it and in sign of their Repentance were ready to repeal all the Laws made in prejudice of that See therefore since the King and Queen had been no way defiled by their Schism they pray them to be Intercessors with the Legat to grant them Absolution and to receive them again into the Bosom of the Church So this being presented by both Houses on their Knees to the King and Queen they made their Intercession with the Cardinal who thereupon delivered himself in a long Speech He thanked the Parliament for repealing the Act against him The Cardinal makes a long Speech and making him a Member of the Nation from which he was by that Act cut off In recompence of which he was now to reconcile them to the Body of the Church He told them The Apostolick See cherished Britain most tenderly as the first Nation that had publickly received the Christian Faith The Saxons vvere also afterwards converted by the means of that See and some of their King 's had been so devoted to it that Offa and others had gone to visit the Thresholds of the Apostles That Adrian the fourth an English Pope had given Ireland to the Crown of England and that many mutual Marks of reciprocal kindness had passed between that common Father of Christendom and our Kings their most beloved Sons but none more eminent than the bestowing on the late King the Title of Defender of the Faith He told them That in the Unity with that See consisted the happiness and strength of all Churches that since the Greeks had separated from them they had been abandoned by God and vvere now under the Yoke of Mahometans That the Distractions of Germany did further demonstrate this but most of all the Confusions themselves had felt ever since they had broken that Bond of Perfection That it vvas the Ambition and Craft of some who for their privat Ends began it to vvhich the rest did too submissively comply and that the Apostolick See might have proceeded against them for it by the assistance of other Princes but had stayed looking for that Day and for the Hand of Heaven He run out much on the commendation of the Queen and said God had signally preserved her to procure this great Blessing to the Church At last he enjoined them for Penance to repeal the Laws they had made and so in the Pope's Name And grants them Absolution he granted them a full Absolution vvhich they received on their Knees and he also absolved the vvhole Realm from all Censures The rest of the day vvas spent vvith great solemnity and triumph all that had been done vvas published next Sunday at Pauls There vvas a Committee appointed by both Houses to prepare the Statute of Repeal which vvas not finished before the 25th of December and then the Bishop of London only protesting against it because of a Proviso put in for the Lands which the Lord Wentworth had out of his Bishoprick it vvas agreed to and sent to the Commons They made more hast vvith it for they sent it back the 4th of January with a desire that twenty Lines in it vvhich concerned the See of London and the Lord Wentworth might be put out and two new Proviso's added One of their Proviso's vvas not liked by the Lords who drew a new one to vvhich the Viscount Montacute and the Bishops of London and Coventry dissented The twenty Lines of the Lord Wentworth's Proviso vvere not put out but the Lord Chancellor took a Knife and cut them out of the Parchment and said Now I do truly the Office of a Chancellor the word being ignorantly derived by some from Cancelling It is not mentioned in the Journal that this vvas done by the Order of the House but that must be supposed otherwise it cannot be thought the Parliament vvould have consented to so unlimited a Power in the Lord Chancellor as to raze or cut out Proviso's at his pleasure The Act of Repealing all Laws against that See By the Act is set forth their former Schism from the See of Rome and their Reconciliation to it now upon vvhich all Acts passed since the 20th of Henry the Eighth against that See were specially enumerated and repealed There it is said that for the removing of all Grudges that might arise they desired that the following Articles might through the Cardinal's Intercession be established by the Pope's Authority 1. That all Bishopricks Cathedrals or Colleges now established might be confirmed for ever 2. That Marriages made within such degrees as are not contrary to the Law of God but only to the Laws of the Church might be confirmed and the Issue
Deputies from the Towns one from every Town only Edenburgh sends two were the third Estate Anciently all that held Lands of the Crown were summoned to Parliaments as well the greater as the lesser Barons But in King James the first 's time the lesser Barons finding it a great charge to attend ou such Assemblies desired to be excused from it and procured an Act of Parliament exempting them and giving them power to send from every County two three four or more to represent them but they afterwards thought this rather a Charge than a Priviledge and did not use it so that now the second Estate consisted only of the Nobility But the Gentry finding the prejudice they suffered by this and that the Nobility grew too absolute procured by King James the sixth's favour an Act of Parliament restoring them to that Right of sending Deputies two from every County except some small Counties that send only one But according to the Ancient Law none has a Vote in the Elections but those who hold Lands immediately of the Crown of such a value The difference between a Parliament and a Convention of Estates is that the former must be summoned forty days before it sits and then it meets in State and makes Laws which are to be prepared by a Committee of all the Estates called the Lords of the Articles but a Convention may be called within as few days as are necessary for giving notice to all parts of the Nation to make their Elections They have no Power of making Laws being only called for one particular Emergent which during the division of the Island was chiefly upon the breaking out of War betwixt the two Nations and so their Power was confined to the giving of Money for the occasion which then brought them together In the Convention now held after much debate and opposition whether they should consent to the demand made by the Ambassador sent from France it was carried that the Dolphin should be acknowledged their King great assurances being given that this should be only a bare Title and that he should pretend to no Power over them So the Earl of Argile and the Prior of St. Andrews who had been the main sticklers for the French Interest upon the promises that the Queen Regent made them that they should enjoy the free exercise of their Religion were appointed to carry the Matrimonial Crown into France But as they were preparing for their Journey a great revolution of Affairs fell out in England A Session of Parliament in England The Parliament met on the fifth of November On the seventh the Queen sent for the Speaker of the House of Commons and ordered him to open to them the ill condition the Nation was in for though there was a Treaty begun at Cambray yet it was necessary to put the Kingdom in a posture of defence in case it should miscarry But the Commons were now so dissatisfied that they could come to no resolution So on the 14th day of November the Lord Chancellor the Lord Treasurer the Duke of Norfolk the Earls of Shrewsbury and Pembroke the Bishops of London Winchester Lincoln and Carlisle the Viscount Mountacute the Lords Clinton and Howard came down to the House of Commons and sate in that place of the House where the Privy-Counsellors used to sit The Speaker left his Chair and he with the Privy-Counsellors that were of the House came and sate on low Benches before them The Lord Chancellor shewed the necessity of granting a Subsidy to defend the Nation both from the French and the Scots When he had done the Lords withdrew but though the Commons entred both that and the two following days into the debate they came to no issue in their Consultations The Queen had never enjoyed her health perfectly since the false conception that was formerly spoken of The Queens sickness upon which followed the neglect from her Husband and the despair of Issue that encreased her Melancholly and this receiving a great addition from the loss of Calais and the other misfortunes of this Year she by a long declination of Health and decay of her Spirits was now brought so low that it was visible she had not many days to live and a Dropsie coming on her put a conclusion to her unhappy Reign And death and unfortunate Life on the 17th of November in the 43d Year of her Age after she had reigned five Years four Months and eleven Days At the same time Cardinal Pool Cardinal Pool dies as if one Star had governed both their Nativities was also dying and his end being hastened by the Queens death he followed her within sixteen hours in the 59th Year of his Age. He left his whole estate to Aloisi Prioli a Noble Venetian with whom he had lived six and twenty years in so entire a friendship that as nothing could break it off so neither was any thing able to separate them from one anothers company Prioli being invited by Pope Julius to come and receive a Cardinals Hat preferred Pools company before it and as he had supplied him in his necessities in Italy so he left his Country now to live with him in England Pool made him his Executor But Prioli was of a more Noble temper than to enrich himself by his Friends Wealth for as he took care to pay all the Legacies he left so he gave away all that remained reserving nothing to himself but Pools Breviary and Diary And indeed the Cardinal was not a Man made to raise a Fortune being by the greatness of his Birth and his excellent Vertues carried far above such mean designs He was a Learned His Character Modest Humble and good natured Man and had indeed such Qualities and such a Temper that if he could have brought the other Bishops to follow his Measures or the Pope and Queen to approve of them he might have probably done much to have reduced this Nation to Popery again But God designed better things for it so he gave up the Queen to the Bloody Councils of Gardiner and the rest of the Clergy It was the only thing in which she was not led by the Cardinal But she imputed his Opinion in that Particular rather to the sweetness of his Temper than to his Wisdom and Experience and he seeing he could do nothing of what he projected in England fell into a languishing first of his mind that brought after it a decay of his Health of which he died I have dwelt the more copiously on his Character being willing to deny to none of whom I write the Praises that are due to them and he being the only Man of that whole Party of whom I found any reason to say much good I was the more willing to enlarge about him to let the World see how little I am biassed in the account I give by Interest or Opinion So that if I have written sharply of any others that have been mentioned in
had been left out in his second Liturgy as favouring the Corporal Presence too much and in stead of them these words were ordered to be used in the distribution of that Sacrament Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on him in thy Heart by Faith with Thanksgiving and Drink this in remembrance that Christs Blood was shed for thee and be thankful They now joyned both these in one Some of the Collects were also a little altered and thus was the Book presented to the House But for the Book of Ordination it was not in express terms named in the Act which gave an occasion afterwards to question the lawfulness of the Ordinations made by that Book But by this Act the Book that was set out by King Edward and confirmed by Parliament in the fifth Year of his Reign was again authorized by Law and the Repeal of it in Queen Maries time was made void So the Book of Ordinations being in that Act added to the Book of Common-Prayer it was now legally in force again as was afterwards declared in Parliament upon a Question that was raised about it by Bonner The Bill that was put in on the 15th of February concerning the new Service being laid aside a new one was framed and sent up by the Commons on the 18th of April and debated in the House of Lords Debates about the Act of Ueiformity Heath made a long Speech against it rather Elegant than Learned He enlarged much on the several Changes which had been made in King Edward's time he said that both Cranmer and Ridley changed their Opinions in the matter of Christ's presence he called Ridley the most notably learned Man that was of that way These Changes he imputed to their departing from the Standard of the Catholick Church he complained much of the robbing of Churches the breaking of Images and the Stage-Plays made in mockery of the Catholick Religion Upon all these Reasons he was against the Bill The Bishop of Chester spake also to it He said the Bill was against both Faith and Charity that Points once defined were not to be brought again into question nor were Acts of Parliament Foundations for a Churches Belief he enlarged on the Antiquity of their Forms and said it was an insolent thing to pretend that our Fathers had lived in Ignorance The Prophets oftentimes directed the Israelites to ask of their Fathers Matters of Religion could not be understood by the Laity It was of great consequence to have their Faith well grounded Jeroboam made Israel to Sin when he set up a new way of Worship and not only the Orthodox but even the Arrian Emperours ordered that points of Faith should be examined in Councils Gallio by the light of Nature knew that a Civil Judge ought not to meddle with matters of Religion In the Service-Book that was then before them they had no Sacrifice for their Sins nor were they to adore Christ in the Host and for these reasons he could not agree to it but if any thought he spoke this because of his own concern or pittied him for what he might suffer by it he would say in the words of our Saviour Weep not for me Weep for your selves After him spake Fecknam Abbot of Westminster He proposed three Rules by which they should judge of Religion it 's Antiquity its constancy to it self the influence it had on the Civil Government he said the old Religion began in the time of King Lucius according to Gildas the Book now proposed was not used before the two last years of King Edward the one was always the same the other was changed every second year as appeared in the point of the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament there had been great Order and Obedience in Queen Maries Reign but now every where great Insolences were committed by the People with some very indecent Prophanations of the most holy things he recommended to them in St. Austines words the adhering to the Catholick Church the very name Catholick which Hereticks had not the confidence to assume shewed their Authority The Consent of the whole Church in all Ages with the perpetual Succession of Pastors in St. Peter's Chair ought to weigh more with them than a few new Preachers who had distracted both Germany and England of late Thus I have given the substance of their Speeches being all that I have seen of that side I have seen none at all on the other side tho it is not probable but some were made in defence of the Service as well as these were against it But upon this Occasion I shall set down the substance of the second Paper which the Reformed Divines had prepared on the second point for the Conference about the Authority of every particular Church to change or take away Ceremonies I do not put it in the Collection because I have not that which the Papists prepared in Opposition to it But the heads of this Paper were as followeth Arguments for the Changes made in the Service It is clear by the Epistles which St. Paul writ to the Corinthians and other Churches that every Church has Power in it self to order the Forms of their Worship and the administration of the Sacraments among them so as might best tend to Order Edification and Peace The like Power had also the seven Angels of the Churches to whom St. John writ And for the first three Ages there was no General Meeting of the Church in Synods but in those times the neighbouring Pastors and Bishops by mutual advice rather than Authority ordered their affairs and when Heresies sprung up they condemned them without staying for a General Determination of the whole Church There were also great differences among them in their Customs as about observing Lent and Easter Ceremonies grew too soon to a great number When Errors or Abuses appeared private Bishops reformed their own Diocesses So those who came in the room of Arrian Bishops even when that Heresie was spread over all the East and the See of Rome it self was defiled with it yet reformed their own Churches Ambrose finding the custom of Feasting in Churches on the Anniversaries of the Martyrs gave occasion to great Scandals took it away Even in Queen Maries time many of the old Superstitions of Pilgrimages and Reliques which had been abolish'd in King Henry's time were not then taken up again from which they argued that if some things might be altered why not more So that if there was good reason to make any Changes it could not be doubted but that as Hezekiah and Josiah had made by their own power so the Queen might make Reformations which were not so much the setting up of new things as the restoring of the state of Religion to what it was anciently which had been brought in by consent of Parliament and Convocation in King Edward's time The Rules they offer'd in this Paper about Ceremonies were that
never defame them so much to be seen to fear it And of what strength an Act of Parliament is the Realm was taught in the case of her that we called Queen Ann where all such as spake against her in the Parliament-House although they did it by special Commandment of the King and spake that was truth yet they were fain to have a Pardon because that speaking was against an Act of Parliament Did you never know or here tell of any Man that for doing that the King our late Soveraign Lord willed devised and required to be done He that took pains and was commanded to do it was fain to sue for his Pardon and such other also as were doers in it and I could tell who it were Sure there hath been such a Case and I have been present when it hath been reasoned That the doing against an Act of Parliament excuseth not a Man even from the Case of Treason although a Man did it by the King's Commandment You can tell this to your remembrance when you think further of it and when it cometh to your remembrance you will not be best content with your self I believe to have advised me to enter the breach of an Act of Parliament without surety of Pardon although the King command it and were such indeed as it were no matter to do it at all And thus I answer the Letters with worldly civil Reasons and take your Mind and Zeal towards me to be as tender as may be and yet you see that the following of your Advice might make me lose my Bishoprick by mine own Act which I am sure you would I should keep and so would I as might stand with my Truth and Honesty and none otherwise as knoweth God who send you heartily well to fare Number 14. The Conclusion of Gardiner's Letter to the Protector against the lawfulness of the Injunctions Cotton Libr. Vesp D. 18. VVHether the King may command against the Common Law or an Act of Parliament there is never a Judg or other Man in the Realm ought to know more by experience of that the Lawyers have said than I. First My Lord Cardinal had obtained his Legacy by our late Soveraign Lord's Request at Rome yet being it was against the Laws of the Realm the Judges censured the Offence of Premunire which Matter I bore away and take it for a Law of the Realm because the Lawyers said so but my Reason digested it not The Lawyers for the confirmation of their Doings brought in a Case of my Lord Typtest an Earl he was and learned in Civil Laws who being Chancellor because in execution of the King's Commission he offended the Laws of the Realm he suffered on Tower-Hill they brought in the Examples of many Judges that had Fines set on their Heads in like case for transgression of the Laws by the King's Commandment and this I learned in this Case Since that time being of the Council when many Proclamations were devised against the Carriers out of Corn when it came to punishing the Offenders the Judges would answer it might not be by the Laws because the Act of Parliament gave liberty Wheat being under a price Whereupon at the last followed the Act of Proclamations in the passing whereof were many large words When the Bishop of Exeter and his Chancellor were by one Body brought into a Premunire I reasoned with the Lord Audley then Chancellor so far as he bad me hold my peace for fear of entring a Premunire my self But I concluded that although I must take it as of their Authority that it is Common Law yet I could not see how a Man authorised by the King as since the King's Majesty hath taken upon him the Supremacy every Bishop is that Man could fall in a Premunire I reasoned once in the Parliament House where was free Speech without danger and there the Lord Audley Chancellor then to satisfie me because I was in some secret estimation as he knew Thou art a good Fellow Bishop quoth he look the Act of the Supremacy and there the King's doings be restrained to Spiritual Jurisdiction And in an other Act No Spiritual Law shall have place contrary to a Common Law or an Act of Parliament And if this were not quoth he the Bishops would enter in with the King and by means of his Supremacy order the Law as you listed but we will provide quoth he that the Premunire shall never go off your Heads This I bare away there and held my peace Since that time in a Case of Jewels I was fain with the Emperor's Ambassador Chapinius when he was here and in the Emperor's Court also to defend and maintain by Commandment that the King's Majesty was not above his Laws and therefore the Jeweller although he had the King's Bill signed yet it would not serve because it was not obtained after the Order of the Law in which Matter I was very much troubled Even this time twelve-month when I was in Commission with my Lord great Master and the Earl of Southampton for the altering of the Court of Augmentations there was my Lord Montague and other of the King 's Learned Council of whom I learned what the King might do against an Act of Parliament and what danger it was to them that medled It is fresh in my Memory and they can tell whether I say true or no and therefore being learned in so notable Causes I wrote in your absence therein as I had learned by hearing the Common Lawyers speak whose Judgments rule these Matters howsoever my reason can digest them When I wrote thereof the Matter was so reasonable as I have been learned by the Lawyers of the Realm that I trusted my Lords would have staied till your Graces return Number 15. A Letter from the Duke of Somerset to the Lady Mary in the beginning of King Edward's Reign Madam my humble Commendations to your Grace premised THese may be to signify unto the same Cotton Libr. Faustin C. 2. that I have received your Letters of the second of this present by Jane your Servant reknowledging my self thereby much bound unto your Grace nevertheless I am very sorry to perceive that your Grace should have or conceive any sinister or wrong Opinion in me and others which were by the King your late Father and our most gracious Master put in trust as Executors of his Will albeit the truth of our doings being known to your Grace as it seemeth by your said Letter not to be I trust there shall be no such fault found in us as in the same your Grace hath alleadged and for my part I know none of us that will willingly neglect the full execution of every Jot of his said Will as far as shall and may stand with the King our Master's Honour and Surety that now is otherwise I am sure that your Grace nor none other his Faithful Subjects would have it take place not doubting but our Doings and
kill the Queen for which he justly suffered Of this I find nothing on Record so it must depend on our Author's Credit which is not infallible 75. He says The Imposture of Elizabeth Crofts Ibid. was set up by the Persuasion of many of the Hereticks and when it was discovered she confessed she had been set on to it by others and by one Drake in particular but they all fled In the Account that was then published of that Imposture Drake only is accused for it what he was does not appear to me for I have never found him mentioned but on this Occasion so there was no reason to transfer the private Guilt of this Conspiracy on a whole Party as our Author does though upon his Credit one of our Writers has also done it 76. He says Those in whose hands the Church-Lands were Pag. 243. had great apprehensions of their being forced to restore them because the Queen had restored all the Land that were in her hands and had again converted the Collegiat Church of Westminster into an Abbey But to prevent the ill Effects that might have followed on this the Cardinal did in the Pope's Name absolve them from all Censures for possessing those Lands and that was confirmed by Letters sent over from the Pope He observes the order of Time very exactly when he sets the Queen's restoring the Church-Lands and founding the Abbey of Westminster as the occasions of the Fears the Laity were in of being forced to restore the rest of the Church-Lands and of the Cardinal 's absolving them from all Censures for keeping them still in their hands The Order in which this was done was thus In Novemb. 1554 in the Act of Reconciliation with the See of Rome there was a special Proviso made for the Church-Lands which the Cardinal confirmed in the Pope's Name In the Year after that the Queen gave up into the Cardinal Hands all the Church-Lands that belonged to the Crown and two Years after she founded the Abbey of Westminster so little influence had these things on the other that were done before But he was grosly mistaken when he said the Pope approved All for he in plain terms refused to ratify what the Cardinal had done and soon after set out a severe Bull Cursing and Condemning all that held any Church-Lands 77. He says Pag. 244. All the Bishops being sensible of their Schismatical way of entring into their Sees did desire and obtain a Confirmation from the Pope Kitchin Bishop of Landaff only excepted who afterwards relapsed into Heresy under Queen Elizabeth and says it is likely the want of this Confirmation made him be more easily overcome This our Author wrote being a thing very probable and seldom do his Authorities for what he asserts rise higher It was also a pretty strain of his Wit to make the omitting of it fall singly on the only Bishop that conformed under Queen Elizabeth But it is certain there was no such thing done at all for if any had done it Bonner was as likely as any other since as none had been more faulty in King Henry's Time so none studied to redeem that with more servile compliances than he did yet there is nothing of this recorded in his Register which continues entire to this day Pag. 246. 78. He says The State of the Universities was restored to what it had been and Oxford in particular by Petrus a Soto's means who was in the Opinion of all much preferred to P. Martyr He that gathered the Antiquities of Oxford though no partial Writer on this occasion represents the state of that University very differently that there were almost no Divines in it and scarce any publick Lectures But when Sanders writ his Poem the Spanish Councils were so much depended on by him and his Party that it was fit to put that Complement on the Nation concerning Petrus a Soto Whether it was true or false was a Circumstance which he generously overlook'd for most part Pag. 248. 79. He says Queen Elizabeth had done many things in Queen Mary's Time both against her Person and Government He knew this was so false that there was never a Circumstance or a Presumption brought against her but the Information which Wiat gave hoping thereby to save himself and yet he denied that on the Scaffold If there had been any colour to have justified the taking away her Life both the Queen and her Counsellors were as much enclined to it as our Author himself was Ibid. 80. He says King Henry said in Parliament she was not and could not be his Daughter for a secret Reason which he had revealed to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury This was aptly enough said by a Writer that had emancipated himself from the Laws of Truth and Veracity to appeal to such a Story yet to have made it pass the better he should have named other Circumstances for such a thing cannot be easily believed since after Ann Boleyn's Death the King continued to treat Elizabeth still as his Daughter so that when she writ to his next Queen she subscribed Daughter she was in all things educated with the Care and State that became a King's Child and was both by Act of Parliament and by his Will declared to be so Now to think that such a King would have done all this after he had in Parliament declared that she could not be his Child is a little too coarse to be believed and so should have been supported with more than ordinary Proofs Ibid. 81. He says She came to the Crown meerly by virtue of the Act of Parliament without being Legitimated In this she and her Sister were upon the same Level for neither of them were declared Legitimate so this was not to be objected to the one more than to the other Sister Pag. 249. 82. He says Queen Mary being declared by Act of Parliament in the beginning of her Reign Legitimate and her Mothers Marriage being declared good Elizabeth was thereby of new Illegitimated yet she never repealed the Laws against her Title but kept the Crown meerly upon the Authority of an Act of Parliament without having any regard to her Birth Queen Mary came to the Crown being in the same Condition and was either a lawful Queen before that Act was made or else that Act was of no force if it had not the Royal Assent given by a lawful Queen So Queen Elizabeth was as much Queen before any such Act could have passed as afterwards and therefore since it was not necessary for the securing her Title it was a sign of her tenderness of her Father's Memory to which Queen Mary had no regard not to revive the remembrance of things that must have turned so much to his dishonour as that would have done 83. He says Pag. 250. Queen Mary not being able to prevent her Sisters Succession sent a Message to her on her Death-Bed desiring her to pay her Debts and
the best Courts we shall find him better than most of them and if some few have carried their Prosperity better many more even of those who are otherwise recorded for extraordinary Persons have been guilty of far greater faults He who is but a little acquainted with History or with the Courts of Princes must needs know so much of this Argument that he will easily cure himself of any ill effects which this Prejudice may have on him A fourth Prejudice is raised from the great Invasions which were then made upon the Church-Lands and things dedicated to Pious Vses which is a thing hated by Men of all Religions and branded with the odious Names of Sacriledge and robbing of God so that the Spoils of Religious Houses and Churches seem to have been the secret Motives that at first drew in and still engage so many to the Reformation This has more weight in it than the former and therefore deserves to be more fully considered The Light of Nature teaches that those who are dedicated to the Service of God and for instructing the People ought to be so well provided for that they may be delivered from the distractions of Secular Cares and secured from the contempt which follows Poverty and be furnished with such means as may both enable them to know that well wherein they are to instruct others and to gain such an Interest in the affections of those among whom they labour as modest Hospitality and liberal Alms-giving may procure In this all Nations and Religions have so generally agreed that it may be well called a Law of Nations if not of Nature Had Church-men been contented with this measure it is very probable things had never run to the other Extream so much as they have done But as the Pope got to himself a great Principality so the rest of his Clergy defigned to imitate him in that as much as was possible they spared no pains nor thought they any Methods too bad that could set forward these Projects The belief of Purgatory and the redeeming of Souls out of it by Masses with many other publick Cheats imposed on the World had brought the Wealth of this and other Nations into their Hands Vpon the discovery of this imposture it was but a reasonable and just proceeding of the Government to re-assume those Lands and dispose otherwise of them which had been for most part fraudulently drawn from the former Ages for indeed the best part of the Soil of England being in such ill Hands it was the Interest of the whole Kingdom to have it put to better uses So that the Abbies being generally raised and endowed by the efficacy of those false Opinions which were infused into the People I can see no just exception against the dissolution of them with the Chantries and other Foundations of like superstition and the fault was not in taking them away but in not applying a greater part of them to uses truly Religious But most of these Monasteries had been enriched by that which was indeed the Spoil of the Church for in many Places the Tithes which belonged to the Secular Clergy were taken from them and by the Authority of Papal Bulls were given to the Monasteries This was the Original of the greatest mischief that came on this Church at the Reformation The Abbots having possessed themselves of the Tithes and having left to those who served the Cure either some small Donative or Stipend and at best the small Tithes or Viccarage those who purchased the Abbey-Lands from the Crown in the former Reign had them with no other charge reserved for the Incumbents but that small Pittance that the Abbots had formerly given them and this is now a much less allowance than the Curates had in the times of Popery for though they have now the same Right by their Incumbency that they then had yet in the time of Superstition the Fees of Obits Exequies Soul Masses and such other Perquisites did furnish them so plentifully that considering their obligation to remain unmarried they lived well though their certain maintenance was but small but these things falling off by the Reformation which likewise leaves the Clergy at liberty in the matter of Marriage this has occasioned much ignorance and scandal among the Clergy I shall not enter into the debate about the Divine Right of Tithes this I am sure of a decent maintenance of the Clergy is of natural Right and that it is not better looked to is a publick reproach to the whole Nation when in all other Religions and Nations those who serve at the Altar live by it The ancient Allowances for the Curates in Market Towns being generally so small because the Number and Wealth of the People made the Perquisites so considerable has made those Places to be too often but ill supplied and what way this makes for the seducers of all hands when the Minister is of so mean a condition and hath so incompetent a Maintenance that he can scarce secure himself from extream want and great contempt I leave it to every Man to judge This is as high a contempt of Religion and the Gospel as any can be and is one of those things for which this Nation has much to answer to God that now in one hundred and twenty years time so little has been done by publick Authority for the redress of such a crying oppression Some private Persons have done great things this way but the publick has yet done nothing sutable to the occasion Though their Neighbour Nation of Scotland has set them a very good Example where by the great zeal and care of King James and the late blessed King Acts and Orders of Parliament have been made for examining the whole state of the Clergy and for supplying all poor Livings so plentifully that in Glebe and Tithes all Benefices are now raised to at least fifty Pounds Sterling yearly What greater scorn can be put on Religion than to provide so scantly for those that are trusted with the care of Souls that some hundreds of Parishes in England pay not Ten Pounds a year to their Pastors and perhaps some thousands not Fifty This is to be numbred among those crying sins that are bringing down vengeance on us since by this many Souls are left to perish because it is not possible to provide them with faithful and able Shepherds I shall not examine all the particular Reasons that have obstructed the redress of this mischief but those concerned in it may soon find some of them out in themselves And here I acknowledge a great and just prejudice lies against our Reformation which no man can fully answer But how faulty soever we may be in this Particular they of the Church of Rome have little reason to object it to us since the first and true occasion of it was of their own doing Our fault is that at the dissolution of the Monasteries restitution was not made to the Parish Priests of
there was such an attempt of Nature that not only England but the World has reason to lament his being so early snatched away How truly was it said of such extraordinary Persons That their Lives are short and seldom do they come to be old He gave us an Essay of Vertue though he did not live to give a Pattern of it When the gravity of a King was needful he carried himself like an Old Man and yet he was always affable and gentle as became his Age. He played on the Lute he medled in Affairs of State and for Bounty he did in that emulate his Father though he even when he endeavoured to be too good might appear to have been bad but there was no ground of suspecting any such thing in the Son whose mind was cultivated by the study of Philosophy It has been said in the end of his Fathers Life A desiâ—n to create him Prince of Wales that he then designed to create him Prince of Wales For though he was called so as the Heirs of this Crown are yet he was not by a formal Creation invested with that dignity This pretence was made use of to hasten forward the Attainder of the Duke of Norfolk since he had many Offices for life which the King intended to dispose of and desired to have them speedily filled in order to the creating of his Son Prince of Wales King Henry dies In the mean time his Father died and the Earl of Hartford and Sir Anthony Brown were sent by the Council to give him notice of it being then at Hartford and to bring him to the Tower of London and having brought him to Enfield with his Sister the Lady Elizabeth they let him know of his Fathers death and that he was now their King On the 31st of January Jan. 31. the Kings Death was published in London and he Proclaimed King At the Tower his Fathers Executors King Edward came to the Tower with the rest of the Privy-Council received him with the respects due to their King So tempering their sorrow for the death of their late Master with their joy for his Sons happy succeeding him that by an excess of joy they might not seem to have forgot the one so soon nor to bode ill to the other by an extreme grief The first thing they did was the opening King Henry's Will King Henry's Will opened by which they found he had nominated sixteen Persons to be his Executors and Governours to his Son and to the Kingdom till his Son was eighteen years of age These were the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Lord Wriothesley Lord Chancellor the Lord St. John Great Master the Lord Russel Lord Privy-Seal the Earl of Hartford Lord Great Chamberlain the Viscount Lisle Lord Admiral Tonstall Bishop of Duresme Sir Anthony Brown Master of the Horse Sir William Paget Secretary of State Sir Edward North Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations Sir Edward Montague Lord Chief-Justice of the Common-Pleas Judge Bromley Sir Anthony Denny and Sir William Herbert Chief Gentlemen of the Privy-Chamber Sir Edward Wotton Treasurer of Callice and Dr. Wotton Dean of Canterbury and York These or the major part of them were to execute his Will and to administer the Affairs of the Kingdom By their consent were the King and his Sisters to be disposed of in Marriage But with this difference that it was only ordered That the King should marry by their Advice but the two Sisters were so limited in their Marriage that they were to forfeit their Right of Succession if they married without their consent it being of far greater importance to the Peace and Interest of the Nation who should be their Husbands if the Crown did devolve on them than who should be the Kings Wife And by the Act passed in the 35th Year of King Henry he was empowered to leave the Crown to them with what limitations he should think fit To the Executors the King added by his Will a Privy-Council who should be assisting to them These were the Earls of Arundel and Essex Sir Thom. Cheyney Treasurer of the Houshold Sir John Gage Comptroller Sir Anthony Wingfield Vice-Chamberlain Sir William Petre Secretary of State Sir Richard Rich Sir John Baker Sir Ralph Sadler Sir Thom. Seimour Sir Richard Sowthwell and Sir Edmund Peckham The King also ordered That if any of the Executors should die the Survivors without giving them a Power of substituting others should continue to administer Affairs He also charged them to pay all his Debts and the Legacies he left and to perfect any Grants he had begun and to make good every thing that he had promised The Will being opened and read all the Executors Judge Bromley and the two Wottons only excepted were present and did resolve to execute the Will in all points and to take an Oath for their faithful discharge of that Trust Debate about choosing a Protector But it was also proposed That for the speedier dispatch of things and for a more certain order and direction of all Affairs there should be one chosen to be Head of the rest to whom Ambassadors and others might address themselves It was added to caution this That the Person to be raised to that Dignity should do nothing of any sort without the Advice and Consent of the greater part of the rest But this was opposed by the Lord Chancellour who thought that the Dignity of his Office setting him next the Arch-bishop of Canterbury who did not much follow Secular Affairs he should have the chief stroke in the Government therefore he pressed That they might not depart from the Kings Will in any particular neither by adding to it nor taking from it It was plain the late King intended they should be all alike in the Administration and the raising one to a Title or Degree above the rest was a great change from what he had ordered And whereas it was now said that the Person to be thus nominated was to have no manner of Power over the rest that was only to exalt him into an high Dignity with the less envy or apprehension of danger for it was certain great Titles always make way for high Power But the Earl of Hartford had so great a Party among them that it was agreed to the Lord Chancellor himself consenting when he saw his opposition was without effect The Earl of Hartford chosen that one should be raised over the rest in Title to be called the Protector of the Kings Realms and the Governour of his Person The next Point held no long debate who should be nominated to this high Trust for they unanimously agreed That the Earl of Hartford by reason of his nearness of Blood to the King and the great experience he had in Affairs was the fittest Person So he was declared Protector of the Realm and Governour to the Kings Person but with that special and express Condition that he should not do any Act
prayed in general for their quiet Rest and their speedy Resurrection Yet these Prayers growing as all superstitious devices do to be more considered some began to frame an Hypothesis to justifie them by that of the Thousand Years being generally exploded And in St. Austin's time they began to fancy there was a state of punishment even for the Good in another Life out of which some were sooner and some later freed according to the measure of their Repentance for their Sins in this Life But he tells us this was taken up without any sure ground and that it was no way certain Yet by Visions Dreams and Tales the belief of it was so far promoted that it came to be generally received in the next Age after him and then as the People were told that the Saints interceded for them so it was added that they might intercede for their departed Friends And this was the Foundation of all that Trade of Souls-Masses and Obits Now the deceased King had acted like one who did not believe that these things signified much otherwise he was to have but ill reception in Purgatory having by the subversion of the Monasteries deprived the departed Souls of the benefit of the many Masses that were said for them in these Houses yet it seems at his death he would make the matter sure and to shew he intended as much benefit to the Living as to himself being dead he took care that there should be not only Masses and Obits but so many Sermons at Windsor and a frequent distribution of Alms for the relief of the Poor But upon this occasion it came to be examined what value there was in such things Yet the Arch-bishop plainly saw that the Lord Chancellor would give great opposition to every motion that should be made for any further alteration for which he and all that Party had this specious pretence always in their Mouths That their late Glorious King was not only the most learned Prince but the most learned Divine in the World for the flattering him did not end with his Life and that therefore they were at least to keep all things in the condition wherein he had left them till the King were of Age. And this seemed also necessary on Considerations of State For Changes in matter of Religion might bring on Commotions and Disorders which they as faithful Executors ought to avoid But to this it was answered That as their late King was infinitely learned for both Parties flattered him dead as well as living so he had resolved to make great Alterations and was contriving how to change the Mass into a Communion that therefore they were not to put off a thing of such consequence wherein the Salvation of Peoples Souls was so much concerned but were immediately to set about it But the Lord Chancellor gave quickly great advantage against himself to his Enemies who were resolved to make use of any Error he might be guilty of so far as to ease themselves of the trouble he was like to give them The Kings Funeral being over The Creation of Peers order was given for the Creation of Peers The Protector was to be Duke of Somerset the Earl of Essex to be Marquess of Northampton the Viscount Lisle to be Earl of Warwick the Lord Wriothesley Earl of Southampton beside the new Creation of the Lords Seimour Rich Willoughby of Parham and Sheffield the rest it seems excusing themselves from new Honours as it appeared from the Deposition of Paget that many of those on whom the late King had intended to confer Titles of Honour had declined it formerly 1547. Feb. 20. Coronation On the 20th of Feb. being Shrove-Sunday the King was Crowned by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury according to the form that was agreed to The Protector serving in it as Lord Steward the Marquess of Dorset as Lord Constable and the Earl of Arundel as Earl Marshal deputed by the Protector A Pardon was proclaimed out of which the Duke of Norfolk Cardinal Pole and some others were excepted The first Business of importance after the Coronation The Lord Chancellor is removed from his Office was the Lord Chancellors fall Who resolving to give himself wholly to Matters of State had on the 18th of Feb. put the Great Seal to a Commission directed to Sir Richard Southwell Master of the Rolls John Tregonnel Esq Master of Chancery and to John Oliver and Anthony Bellasis Clerks Masters of Chancery setting forth that the Lord Chancellor being so employed in the Affairs of State that he could not attend on the hearing of Causes in the Court of Chancery these three Masters or any two of them were empowered to execute the Lord Chancellors Office in that Court in as ample manner as if he himself were present only their Decrees were to be brought to the Lord Chancellor to be Signed by him before they were Enrolled This being done without any Warrant from the Lord Protector and the other Executors it was judged a high presumption in the Lord Chancellor thus to devolve on others that Power which the Law had trusted in his Hands The Persons named by him encreased the offence which this gave two of them being Canonists so that the common Lawyers looked upon this as a President of very high and ill consequence And being encouraged by those who had no good will to the Chancellor they petitioned the Council in this Matter and complained of the evil consequences of such a Commission and set forth the fears that all the Students of the Law were under of a Change that was intended to be made of the Laws of England The Council remembred well they had given no Warrant at all to the Lord Chancellor for the issuing out any such Commission so they sent it to the Judges and required them to examine the Commission with the Petition grounded upon it Who delivered their Opinions on the last of Feb. That the Lord Chancellor ought not without Warrant from the Council to have set the Seal to it Feb. 28. and that by his so doing he had by the Common Law forfeited his Place to the King and was liable to Fine and Imprisonment at the Kings pleasure March 6. This lay sleeping till the sixth of March and then the Judges Answer being brought to the Council Signed with all their Hands they entred into a debate how far it ought to be punished The Lord Chancellor carried it very high and as he had used many Menaces to those who had petitioned against him and to the Judges for giving their Opinions as they did so he carried himself insolently to the Protector and told him he held his Place by a better Authority than he held his That the late King being empow'red to it by Act of Parliament had made him not only Chancellor but one of the Governours of the Realm during his Sons Minority and had by his Will given none of them Power over the rest to throw
his aid and assistance he did by the advice of his Unkle and others Nobles Prelates and wise Men accept of these Persons for his Councellors the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Lord St. John President the Lord Russel Lord Privy-Seal the Marquess of Northampton the Earls of Warwick and Arundel the Lord Seimour the Bishop of Duresme the Lord Rich Sir Thomas Cheyney Sir Joh. Gage Sir Anth. Brown Sir Anthony Wingfield Sir William Paget Sir William Petre Sir Ralph Sadler Sir John Baker Doctor Wotton Sir Anth. Denny Sir William Herbert Sir Edw. North Sir Ed. Montague Sir Ed. Wotton Sir Edm. Peckham Sir Tho. Bromley and Sir Richard Southwell giving the Protector Power to swear such other Commissioners as he should think fit and that he with so many of the Council as he should think meet might annul and change what they thought fitting restraining the Council to act only by his Advice and Consent And thus was the Protector fully setled in his Power and no more under the curb of the Co-executors who were now mixed with the other Councellors that by the late Kings Will were only to be consulted with as they saw cause But as he depressed them to an equality with the rest of the Councellors so he highly obliged the others who had been formerly under them by bringing these equally with them into a share of the Government He had also obtained to himself an high Authority over them since they could do nothing without his consent but he was only bound to call for so many of them as he thought meet and was not limited to act as they advised but cloathed with the full Regal Power and had it in his Hands to oblige whom he would and to make his Party greater by calling into the Council such as he should nominate How far this was legal I shall not enquire It was certainly contrary to King Henry's Will And that being made upon an Act of Parliament which empowred him to limit the Crown and the Government of it at his pleasure this Commission that did change the whole Government during the Kings Minority seems capable of no other defence but that it being made by the consent of the major part of the Executors it was still warrantable even by the Will which devolved the Government on them or the major part of them All this I have opened the more largely both because none of our Historians have taken any notice of the first Constitution of the Government during this Reign and being ignorant of the true account of it they have committed great errors and because having obtained by the favour of that most industrions Collector of the Transactions of this Age Mr. Rushworth the Original Council-Book for the two first years of this Reign I had a certain Authority to follow in it the exactness of that Book being beyond any thing I ever met with in all our Records For every Council-day the Privy-Councellors that were present set their Hands to all that was ordered judging so great caution necessary when the King was under Age. And therefore I thought this a Book of too great consequence to lie in private Hands so the owner having made a Present of it to me I delivered it to that Noble and Vertuous Gentleman Sir John Nicolas one of the Clerks of the Council to be kept with the rest of their Books And having now given the Reader a clear Prospect of the state of the Court I shall next turn to the Affairs that were under their consideration The state of Affairs in Germany That which was first brought before them was concerning the state of Germany Francis Burgartus Chancellor to the Duke of Saxe with others from the other Princes and Cities of the Empire were sent over upon the news of the former Kings death to sollicit for Aids from the new King toward the carrying on the War with the Emperor In order to the clearing of this and to give a just account of our Councils in reference to Forreign Affairs especially the cause being about Religion I shall give a short view of the state of Germany at this time The Emperor having formed a design of an Universal Monarchy laid hold on the differences of Religion in Germany as a good mean to cover what he did with the specious pretence of punishing Heresie and protecting the Catholicks But before he had formed this design 1531. Jan. 11. Ferdinand Crown'd King of the Romans he procured his Brother to be chosen King of the Romans and so declared his Successor in the Empire which he was forced to do being obliged to be much in Spain and his other hereditary Dominions and being then so young as not to enter into such deep Counsels as he afterwards laid But his Wars in Italy put him oft in ill terms with the Pope and being likewise watched over in all his Motions by Francis the I. and Henry VIII and the Turk often breaking into Hungary and Germany he was forced to great compliances with the Princes of the Empire Who being animated by the two great Crowns did enter into a League for their mutual defence against all Aggressors And at last in the Year 1544. 1544. Feb. 20. Diet began at Spire in the Diet held at Spire the Emperour being engaged in War with France and the Turk both to secure Germany and to obtain Money of the Princes was willing to agree to the Edict made there which was That till there was a free Council in Germany or such an Assembly in which Matters of Religion might be setled there should be a general Peace and none was to be troubled for Religion the free exercise of both Religions being allowed and all things were to continue in the state they were then in And the Imperial Chamber at Spire was to be reformed for the Judges of that Court being all Papists there were many Processes depending at the Suit of the Ecclesiasticks against the Protestant Princes who had driven them out of their Lands and the Princes expecting no fair dealing from them all these Processes were now suspended and the Chamber was to be filled up with new Judges that should be more favourable to them They obtaining this Decree contributed very liberally to the Wars the Emperour seemed to be engaged in 1544. Sept. 24. Emperor has Peace with France Who having his Treasure thus filled presently made Peace both with France and the Grand Seigniour and resolved to turn his Wars upon the Empire and to make use of that Treasure and Force they had contributed 1545. Oct. Peace with Turk to invade their Liberties and to subdue them entirely to himself Upon this he entred into a Treaty with the Pope that a Council should be opened in Trent upon which he should require the Princes to submit to it which if they refused to do he should make War on them The Pope was to assist him with 10000 Men besides levy Taxes hard on his
and Temporalty did without compulsion give their assent he remembers her what opposition the stiff-necked Papists gave him and what Rebellions they raised against him which he wonders how she came so soon to forget Adding that death had prevented him before he had finished these Godly Orders which he had designed and that no kind of Religion was perfected at his death but all was left so uncertain that it must inevitably bring on great disorders if God did not help them and that himself and many others could witness what regret their late Master had when he saw he must die before he had finished what he intended He wond'red that she who had been well bred and was learned should esteem true Religion and the knowledge of the Scriptures Newfangledness or Fantasie He desired she would turn the Leaf and look on the other side and would with an humble Spirit and by the assistance of the Grace of God consider the matter better Thus things went on till the Parliament met The Parliament meets which was summoned to meet the fourth of November The day before it met Novemb. 3. the Protector gave too publick an instance how much his prosperous success had lifted him up For by a Patent under the Great Seal Rot. Pat. 1. Reg. 7. Part. he was warranted to sit in Parliament on the Right Hand of the Throne under the Cloath of State and was to have all the Honours and Priviledges that at any time any of the Unkles of the Kings of England whether by the Fathers or Mothers side had enjoyed with a Non obstante to the Statute of Precedence The Lord Rich had been made Lord Chancellor on the 24th of October but whether the Protector or he opened the Parliament by any Speech does not appear from the Journal of the Lords House On the 10th of Decemb. Decemb. 10. a Bill was brought in for the repealing several Statutes It was read the second time on the 12th and the third time on the 16th day On the 19th 19. some Provisoes were added to it and it was sent down to the Commons who sent it up the 23d of December 23. Dec. to which the Royal Assent was given The Commons had formed a new Bill for repealing these Statutes which upon some Conferences they were willing to let fall only some Provisoes were added to the old one upon which the Bishops of London Duresme Ely Hereford and Chichester dissented An Act repealing former severe Laws The Preamble of it sets forth That nothing made a Government happier than when the Prince governed with much clemency and the Subjects obeyed out of love Yet the late King and some of his Progenitors being provoked by the unruliness of some of their People had made severe Laws but they judging it necessary now to recommend the Kings Government to the affections of the People repealed all Laws that made any thing to be Treason but what was in the Act of 25 of Edw. the 3d as also two of the Statutes about Lollardies together with the Act of the six Articles and the other Acts that followed in explanation of that All Acts in King Henry the 8th's time declaring any thing to be Felony that was not so declared before were also repealed together with the Acts that made the Kings Proclamations of equal Authority with Acts of Parliament It was also Enacted That all who denied the Kings Supremacy or asserted the Popes in words should for the first offence forfeit their Goods and Chattels and suffer Imprisonment during pleasure For the second offence should incur the Pain of Praemunire and for the third offence be attainted of Treason But if any did in Writing Printing or by any overt Act or Deed endeavour to deprive the King of his Estate or Titles particularly of his Supremacy or to confer them on any other after the first of March next he was to be adjudged guilty of High Treason and if any of the Heirs of the Crown should usurp upon another or did endeavour to break the Succession of the Crown it was declared high Treason in them their Aiders and Abettors And all were to enjoy the Benefit of Clergy and the Priviledge of Sanctuary as they had it before King Henry the 8th's Reign excepting only such as were guilty of Murder Poisoning Burglary Robbing on the High-way the stealing of Cattel or stealing out of Churches or Chappels Poisoners were to suffer as other Murderers None were to be accused of Words but within a Month after they were spoken And those who called the French King by the Title of King of France were not to be esteemed guilty of the Pains of translating the Kings Authority or Titles on any other In Ch. Coll. Camb. among Parkers Papers This Act was occasioned by a Speech that Arch-bishop Cranmer had in Convocation in which he exhorted the Clergy to give themselves much to the study of the Scripture and to consider seriously what things were in the Church that needed Reformation that so they might throw out all the Popish trash that was not yet cast out Upon this some intimated to him that as long as the six Articles stood in force it was not safe for them to deliver their Opinions This he reported to the Council upon which they ordered this Act of Repeal By it the Subjects were delivered from many fears they were under and had good hopes of a mild Government when in stead of procuring new severe Law the old ones were let fall The Council did also free the Nation of the jealousies they might have of them by such an abridgment of their own Power But others judged it had been more for the interest of the Government to have kept up these Laws still in force but to have restrained the execution of them This Repeal drew on another which was sent from the Commons on the 20th of December and was agreed to by the Lords on the 21st It was of an Act in the 28th year of the last King by which all Laws made while his Son was under 24 years of Age might be by his Letters Patents after he attained that Age annulled as if they had never been Which they altered thus That the King after that Age might by his Letters Patents void any Act of Parliament for the future but could not so void it from the beginning as to annul all things done upon it between the making and annulling of it which were still to be lawful Deeds The next Bill of a publick nature was concerning the Sacrament Act about the Communion Which was brought in and read the first time on the 12th of Novemb. the second time on the 15th and was twice read on the 17th And on the 24th a Bill was brought in for the Communion to be received in both kinds on the third of December it was read the second time and given to the Protector on the 5th read again and given to two
down on the 13th of December But both these Bills were put in one and sent up by the Commons on the 20th of that Month and assented to by the King By this Act it was set forth That the way of choosing Bishops by Conge d'Eslire was tedious and expenceful that there was only a shadow of Election in it and that therefore Bishops should thereafter be made by the Kings Letters Patents upon which they were to be consecrated And whereas the Bishops did exercise their Authority and carry on Processes in their own Names as they were wont to do in the time of Popery and since all Jurisdiction both Spiritual and Temporal was derived from the King that therefore their Courts and all Processes should be from henceforth carried on in the Kings Name and be sealed by the Kings Seal as it was in the other Courts of Common-Law after the first of July next excepting only the Arch-bishop of Canterbury's Courts and all Collations Presentations or Letters of Orders which were to pass under the Bishops proper Seals as formerly Upon this Act great advantages were taken to disparage the Reformation as subjecting the Bishops wholly to the pleasure of the Court. At first The ancient ways of electing Bishops Bishops were chosen and ordained by the other Bishops in the Countries where they lived The Apostles by that Spirit of discerning which was one of the extraordinary gifts they were endued with did ordain the first Fruits of their Labours and never left the Election of Pastors to the discretion of the People Indeed when they were to ordain Deacons who were to be trusted with the distribution of the publick Alms they appointed such as the People made choice of but when St. Paul gave directions to Timothy and Titus about the choice of Pastors all that depended on the People by them was that they should be blameless and of good report But afterwards the poverty of the Church being such that Church-men lived only by the free bounty of the People it was necessary to consider them much so that in many Places the choice began among the People and in all Places it was done by their approbation and good liking But great disorders followed upon this as soon as by the Emperors turning Christians the Wealth of Church-benefices made the Pastoral Charge more desirable and the vast numbers of those who turned Christians with the Tide brought in great Multitudes to have their Votes in these Elections The inconvenience of this was felt early in Phrygia where the Council of Laodicea made a Canon against these Popular Elections Yet in other parts of Asia and at Rome there were great and often Contests about it In some of these many Men were killed In many Places the inferior Clergy chose their Bishops But in most Places the Bishops of the Province made the choice yet so as to obtain the consent of the Clergy and People The Emperors by their Laws made it necessary that it should be confirmed by the Metropolitans They reserved the Elections of the great Sees to themselves or at least the Confirmation of them Thus it continued till Charles the Great 's time But then the nature of Church-employments came to be much altered For though the Church had Predial Lands with the other Rights that belonged to them by the Roman Law yet he first gave Bishops and Abbots great Territories with some branches of Royal Jurisdiction in them who held these Lands of him according to the Fewdal Laws This as it carried Church-men off from the humility and abstraction from the World which became their Function so it subjected them much to the Humours and Interests of those Princes on whom they had their dependance The Popes who had made themselves Heads of the Hierarchy could not but be glad to see Church-men grow rich and powerful in the World but they were not so well pleased to see them made so much the more dependent on their Princes and no doubt by some of those Princes that were thus become Patrons of Churches the Bishopricks were either given for Money or charged with reserved Pensions Upon this the Popes filled the World with the complaints of Simony and of enslaving Church-men to court Interests and so would not suffer them to accept of Investitures from their Princes but set up for free Elections as they called them which they said were to be confirmed by the See-Apostolick So the Canons Secular or Regular in Cathedral Churches were to choose the Bishops and their Election was to be confirmed at Rome yet Princes in most Places got some hold of those Elections so that still they went as they had a mind they should Which was oft complained of as a great slavery on the Church and would have been more universally condemned if the World had not been convinced that the matter would not be much the better if there should have been set up either the Popular or Synodical Elections in which Faction was like to sway all King Henry had continued the old way of the Elections by the Clergy but so as that it seemed to be little more than a mockery but now it was thought a more ingenuous way of proceeding to have the thing done directly by the King rather than under the thin covert of an involuntary Election For the other Branch about Ecclesiastical Courts The Causes before them concerning Wills and Marriages being matters of a mixed nature and which only belong to these by the Laws of the Land and being no parts of the Sacred Functions it was thought no Invasion of the Sacred Offices to have these tried in the Kings Name But the Collation of Benefices and giving of Orders which are the chief parts of the Episcopal Function were to be performed still by the Bishops in their own Names Only Excommunication by a fatal neglect continued to be the punishment for contempts of these Courts which belonging only to the Spiritual Cognisance ought to have been reserved for the Bishop with the assistance of his Clergy But the Canonists had so confounded all the Ancient Rules about the Government of the Church that the Reformers being called away by Considerations that were more obvious and pressing there was not that care taken in this that the thing required And these errors or oversights in the first concoction have by a continuance grown since into so formed a strength that it is easier to see what is amiss than to know how to rectifie it On the 29th of November the Bill against Vagabonds was brought in An Act against Vagabonds By this it was Enacted That all that should any where loiter without work or without offering themselves to work three days together or that should run away from work and resolve to live idly should be seized on and whosoever should present them to a Justice of Peace was to have them adjudged to be his Slaves for two years and they were to be marked with the Letter V. imprinted
would consent to it so if he had married her without that the possibility of succeeding to the Crown was cut off by King Henry's Will And this Attempt of his occasioned that Act to be put in which was formerly mentioned for declaring the marrying the Kings Sisters without consent of Council to be Treason Seeing he could not compass that design he resolved to carry away the King to his House of Holt in the Country and so to displace his Brother and to take the Government into his own hands For this end he had laid in Magazines of Arms and listed about 10000 Men in several Places and openly complained that his Brother intended to enslave the Nation and make himself Master of all and had therefore brought over those German Soldiers He had also entred into Treaty with several of the Nobility that envied his Brothers greatness and were not ill pleased to see a breach between them and that grown to be irreconcilable To these he promised that they should be of the Council and that he would dispose of the King in Marriage to one of their Daughters the Person is not named The Protector had often told him of these things and warned him of the danger into which he would throw himself by such ways but he persisted still in his designs though he denied and excused them as long as was possible Now his restless ambition seeming incurable he was on the 19th of Jan. sent to the Tower The original Warrant Jan. 19. The Admiral sent to the Tower Signed by all the Privy Council is in the Council-Book formerly mentioned where the Earl of Southampton Signs with the rest who was now in outward appearance reconciled to the Protector On the day following the Admirals Seal of his Office was sent for and put into Secretary Smiths Hands And now many things broke out against him and particularly a Conspiracy of his with Sir W. Sharington Vice-Treasurer of the Mint at Bristol who was to have furnished him with 10000 l. and had already coined about 12000 l. false Money and had clipt a great deal more to the value of 40000 l. in all for which he was attainted by a Process at Common Law and that was confirmed in Parliament Fowler also that waited in the Privy Chamber with some few others were sent to the Tower Many complaints being usually brought against a sinking Man the Lord Russel the Earl of Southampton and Secretary Petre were ordered to receive their Examinations And thus the Business was let alone till the 28 of Feb. in which time his Brother did again try if it were possible to bring him to a better temper And as he had since their first breach granted him 800 l. a year in Land to gain his friendship so means were now used to perswade him to submit himself and to withdraw from Court and from all employment But it appeared that nothing could be done to him that could cure his ambition or the hatred he carried to his Brother And therefore on the 22d of Feb. a full report was made to the Council of all the things that were informed against him consisting not only of the Particulars formerly mentioned but of many foul misdemeanours in the discharge of the Admiralty several Pirates being entertained by him who gave him a share of their Robberies and whom he had protected notwithstanding the Complaints made by other Princes by which the King was in danger of a War from the Princes so complaining The whole Charge consists of 33 Articles which will be found in the Collection Collection Number 31. The Particulars as it is entred in the Council-Book were so manifestly proved not only by Witnesses but by Letters under his own Hand that it did not seem possible to deny them Yet he had been sent to and examined by some of the Council but refused to make a direct Answer to them or to Sign those Answers that he had made So it was ordered that the next day all the Privy Council except the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Sir John Baker Speaker to the House of Commons who was engaged to attend in the House should go to the Tower and examine him On the 23d the Lord Chancellor with the other Councellors went to him and read the Articles of his Charge and earnestly desired him to make plain Answers to them excusing himself where he could and submitting himself in other things and that he would shew no obstinacy of Mind He answered them That he expected an open Trial and his Accusers to be brought face to face All the Councellors endeavoured to perswade him to be more tractable but to no purpose At last the Lord Chancellor required him on his Allegiance to make his Answer He desired they would leave the Articles with him and he would consider of them otherwise he would make no Answer to them But the Councellors resolved not to leave them with him on those terms On the 24th of Feb. it was resolved in Council that the whole Board should after Dinner acquaint the King with the state of that Affair and desire to know of him whether he would have the Law to take place and since the thing had been before the Parliament whether he would leave it to their determination so tender they were of their young King in a Case that concerned his Unkles Life But the King had begun to discern his seditious temper and was now much alienated from him The Council desired the King to refer the Matter to the Parliament When the Councellors waited on him the Lord Chancellor opened the Matter to the King and delivered his Opinion for leaving it to the Parliament Then every Councellor by himself spake his mind all to the same purpose Last of all the Protector spake he protested this was a most sorrowful business to him that he had used all the means in his power to keep it from coming to this extremity but were it Son or Brother he must prefer his Majesties safety to them for he weighed his Allegiance more than his Blood and that therefore he was not against the request that the other Lords had made and said if he himself were guilty of such offences he should not think he were worthy of life and the rather because he was of all Men the most bound to his Majesty and therefore he could not refuse Justice The King answered them in these words Who consented to it We perceive that there are great things objected and laid to my Lord Admiral my Unkle and they tend to Treason and We perceive that you require but Justice to be done We think it reasonable and We Will that you proceed according to your Request Which words as it is marked in the Council-Book coming so suddenly from his Graces Mouth of his own motion as the Lords might well perceive they were marvellously rejoyced and gave the King most hearty praise and thanks yet resolved that some of both Houses
lose their Degree in the Church This was soon received over all the Western Church and Arguments were found out afterwards by the Canonists to prove the necessity of continuing it from Davids not being suffered to build the Temple since he was a Man of Blood and from the qualification required by St. Paul in a Bishop That he should be no striker since he seemed to strike that did it either in Person or by one whom he deputed to do it But when afterwards Charles the Great and all the Christian Princes in the West gave their Bishops great Lands and Dominions they obliged them to be in all their Councils and to do them such Services as they required of them by vertue of their Tenures The Popes designing to set up a Spiritual Empire and to bring all Church-lands within it required the Bishops to separate themselves from a dependance on their Princes as much as it was possible And these Laws formerly made about Cases of Blood were judged a Colour good enough why they should not meddle in such Trials so they procured these Cases to be excepted But it seems Cranmer thought his Conscience was under no tie from those Canons and so judged it not contrary to his Function to Sign that Order The Parliament was on the 14th of March Prorogued to the 4th of Nov. the Clergy having granted the King a Subsidy of 6 s. in the Pound to be paid in three Years Subsidies granted by the Clergy and Laity In the Preamble of the Bill of Subsidy they acknowledged the great quietness they enjoyed under him having no Let nor Impediment in the Service of God But the Laity set out their Subsidy with a much fuller Preamble of the great happiness they had by the true Religion of Christ declaring that they were ready to forsake all things rather than Christ as also to assist the King in the Conquest of Scotland which they call a part of his Dominion therefore they give 12 d. in the Pound of all Mens Personal Estates to be paid in three Years But now to look into Matters of Religion there was A New Visitation immediately after the Act of Vniformity pass'd a new Visitation which it is probable went in the same Method that was observed in the former There were two things much complained of the one was that the Priests read the Prayers generally with the same tone of Voice that they had used formerly in the Latin Service so that it was said the People did not understand it much better than they had done the Latin formerly This I have seen represented in many Letters and it was very seriously laid before Cranmer by Martin Bucer The course taken in it was that in all Parish Churches the Service should be read in a plain audible Voice but that the former way should remain in Cathedrals where there were great Quires who were well acquainted with that Tone and where it agreed better with the Musick that was used in the Anthems Yet even there many thought it no proper way in the Letany where the greatest gravity was more agreeable to such humble Addresses than such a modulation of the Voice which to those unacquainted with it seemed light and for others that were more accustomed to it it seemed to be rather use that had reconciled them to it than the natural decency of the thing or any fitness in it to advance the devotion of their Prayers But this was a thing judged of less importance It was said that those who had been accustomed to read in that Voice could not easily alter it but as those dropt off and died others would be put in their places who would officiate in a plainer Voice Some of the old Abuses coninued in the new Service Other Abuses were more important Some used in the Communion-Service many of the old Rites such as kissing the Altar crossing themselves lifting the Book from one place to another breathing on the Bread shewing it openly before the distribution with some other of the old Ceremonies The People did also continue the use of their praying by Beads which was called an Innovation of Peter the Hermite in the 12th Century By it ten Aves went for one Pater Noster and the reciting these so oft in Latin had come to be almost all the devotion of the Vulgar and therefore the People were ordered to leave that unreasonable way of Praying it seeming a most unaccountable thing that the reciting the Angels Salutation to the Blessed Virgin should be such a high piece of Divine Worship And that this should be done ten times for one Prayer to God looked so like preferring the Creature to the Creator that it was not easie to defend it from an appearance of Idolatry The Briests were also ordered to exhort the People to give to the Poor The Curates were required to preach and declare the Catechism at least every sixth Week And some Priests continuing secretly the use of Soul Masses in which for avoiding the censure of the Law they had one to communicate with them but had many of these in one day It was ordered that there should be no selling of the Communion in Trentals and that there should be but one Communion in one Church except on Easter-day and Christmas in which the People coming to the Sacrament in greater numbers there should be one Sacrament in the Morning and another near Noon And there being great abuses in Churches and Church-yards in which in the times of Popery Markets had been held and Bargains made that was forbid chiefly in the time of Divine Service or Sermon Collection Number 33. These Instructions which the Reader will find in the Collection were given in charge to the Visitors Cranmer had also a Visitation about the same time in which the Articles he gave out are all drawn according to the Kings Injunctions By some Questions in them they seem to have been sent out before the Parliament because the Book of Service is not mentioned but the last Question save one being of such as contemned married Priests and refused to receive the Sacrament at their hands I conceive that these were compiled after the Act concerning their Marriage was past but before the Feast of Whit-Sunday following for till then the Common-Prayer-Book was not to be received There were also Orders sent by the Council to the Bishop of London to see that there should be no special Masses in St. Pauls Church which being the Mother-Church in the chief City of the Kingdom would be an example to all the rest and that therefore there should be only one Communion at the great Altar and that at the time when the high Mass was wont to be celebrated unless some desired a Sacrament in the Morning and then it was to be celebrated at the high Altar Bonner who resolved to comply in every thing sent the Councils Letter to the Dean and Residentiaries of St. Pauls to see it obeyed
and indeed all England over the Book was so universally received that the Visitors did return no complaint from any corner of the whole Kingdom All received the new Service except the Lady Mary Only the Lady Mary continued to have Mass said in her House of which the Council being advertised writ to her to conform her self to the Laws and not to cast a reproach on the Kings Government for the nearer she was to him in Blood she was to give the better example to others and her disobedience might encourage others to follow her in that contempt of the Kings Authority So they desired her to send to them her Comptroller and Dr. Hopton her Chaplain by whom she should be more fully advertised of the King and Councils Pleasure Upon this she sent one to the Emperor to interpose for her that she might not be forced to any thing against her Conscience At this time there was a Complaint made at the Emperours Court The Ambassador at the Emperors Court not suffered to use it of the English Ambassador Sir Philip Hobby for using the new Common-Prayer-Book there To which he answered He was to be obedient to the Laws of his own Prince and Country and as the Emperors Ambassador had Mass at his Chappel at London without disturbance though it was contrary to the Law of England so he had the same reason to expect the like liberty But the Emperor espousing the Interest of the Lady Mary both Paget who was sent over Ambassador Extraordinary to him upon his coming into Flanders and Hobby promised in the Kings Name that he should dispense with her for some time as they afterwards declared upon their Honours when the thing was further questioned though the Emperor and his Ministers pretended that without any Qualification it was promised that she should enjoy the free exercise of her Religion The Emperor was now grown so high with his success in Germany A Treaty of Marriage for the Lady Mary and that at a time when a War was coming on with France that it was not thought advisable to give him any offence There was likewise a Proposition sent over by him to the Protector and Council Cotton lib. Galba B. 12. for the Lady Mary to be married to Alphonso Brother to the King of Portugal The Council entertained it and though the late King had left his Daughters but 10000 l. a-piece yet they offered to give with her 100000 Crowns in Money and 20000 Crowns worth of Jewels The Infant of Portugal was about her own Age and offered 20000 Crowns Jointure But this Proposition fell on what hand I do not know She writ to the Council concerning the new Service The Lady Mary writ on the 22d of June to the Council that she could not obey their late Laws and that she did not esteem them Laws as made when the King was not of Age and contrary to those made by her Father which they were all bound by Oath to maintain She excused the not sending her Comptroller Mr. Arundel and her Priest the one did all her business so that she could not well be without him the other was then so ill that he could not travel Upon this the Council sent a peremptory Command to these requiring them to come up and receive their Orders The Lady Mary wrote a second Letter to them on the 27th of June in which she expostulated the matter with the Council She said She was subject to none of them and would obey none of the Laws they made but protested great Obedience and Subjection to the King When her Officers came to Court they were commanded to declare to the Lady Mary that though the King was young in Person yet his Authority was now as great as ever that those who have his Authority and act in his Name are to be obeyed and though they as single Persons were her humble Servants yet when they met in Council they acted in the Kings Name Who required her to obey as other Subjects did and so were to be considered by all the Kings Subjects as if they were the King himself they had indeed sworn to obey the late Kings Laws but that could bind them no longer than they were in force and being now repealed they were no more Laws other Laws being made in their room There was no exception in the Laws all the Kings Subjects were included in them and for a Reformation of Religion made when a King was under Age one of the most perfect that was recorded in Scripture was so carried on when Josiah was much younger than their King was therefore they gave them in charge to perswade her Grace for that was her Title to be a good example of obedience and not to encourage peevish and obstinate Persons by her stiffness But this Business was for some time laid aside And now the Reformation was to be carried on to the establishing of a Form of Doctrine which should contain the chief Points of Religion In order to which there was this Year great enquiry made into many particular Opinions The manner of Christs Presence in the Sacrament examined and chiefly concerning the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament There was no Opinion for which the Priests contended more ignorantly and eagerly and that the People generally believed more blindly and firmly as if a strong Belief were nothing else but winking very hard The Priests because they accounted it the chief support now left of their falling Dominion which being kept up might in time retrieve all the rest For while it was believed that their Character qualified them for so strange and mighty a Performance they must needs be held in great reverence The People because they thought they received the very Flesh of Christ and so notwithstanding our Saviours express Declaration to the contrary that the Flesh profiteth nothing looked on those who went about to perswade them otherwise as Men that intended to rob them of the greatest Priviledge they had And therefore it was thought necessary to open this fully before there should be any change made in the Doctrine of the Church The Lutherans seemed to agree with that which had been the Doctrine of the Greek Church that in the Sacrament there was both the Substance of Bread and Wine and Christs Body likewise Only many of them defended it by an Opinion that was thought a-kin to the Eutychian Heresie that his humane Nature by vertue of the union of the God-head was every where though even in this way it did not appear that there was any special Presence in the Sacrament more than in other things Those of Switzerland had on the other hand taught that the Sacrament was only an Institution to commemorate the Sufferings of Christ This because it was intelligible was thought by many too low and mean a thing and not equal to the high expressions that are in the Scripture of its being the Communion of the Body
of some Opinions should be declared Felony it passed with them but was laid aside by the Lords 1550. A Bill for the Form of Ordaining Ministers was brought in to the House of Lords and was agreed to the Bishops of Duresme Carlisle Worcester Chichester and Westminster protesting against it The Substance of it was An Act about the Forms of giving Orders That such Forms of Ordaining Ministers as should be set forth by the advice of six Prelates and six Divines to be named by the King and authorized by a Warrant under the Great Seal should be used after April next and no other On the second of January a Bill was put in against the Duke of Somerset An Act about the Duke of Somerset of the Articles formerly mentioned with a Confession of them Signed by his Hand This he was prevailed with to do upon assurances given that he should be gently dealt with if he would freely confess and submit himself to the Kings mercy But it was said by some of the Lords that they did not know whether that Confession was not drawn from him by force and that it might be an ill President to pass Acts upon such Papers without examining the Party whether he had subscribed them freely and uncompelled so they sent four Temporal Lords and four Bishops to examine him concerning it And the day following the Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield made the Report that he thanked them for that kind Message but that he had freely subscribed the Confession that lay before them He had made it on his Knees before the King and Council and had Signed it on the 13th of December He protested his offences had flowed from rashness and indiscretion rather than malice and that he had no treasonable design against the King or his Realms So he was fined by Act of Parliament in 2000 l. a year of Land and he lost all his Goods and Offices Upon this he wrote to the Council acknowledging their favour in bringing off his Matter by a Fine he confess'd that he had fall'n into the frailties that often attend on great Places but what he had done amiss was rather for want of true Judgment than from any malicious meaning he humbly desired they would interpose with the King for a moderation of his Fine and that he might be pardoned and restored to favour assuring them that for the future he should carry himself so humbly and obediently that he should thereby make amends for his former follies This was much censured by many as a sign of an abject Spirit others thought it was wisely done in him once to get out of Prison on any terms since the greatness of his former condition gave such jealousie to his Enemies that unless he had his pardon he would be in continual danger as long as he was in their hands So on the 6th of February he was set at liberty giving Bond of 10000 l. for his good behaviour and being limited that he should stay at the Kings House of Sheen or his own of Zion and should not go four Miles from them nor come to the King or the Council unless he were called He had his Pardon on the 16th of February and carried himself after that so humbly that his behaviour with the Kings great kindness to him did so far prevail that on the 10th of April after he was restored into favour and sworn of the Privy-Council And so this storm went over him much more gently than was expected but his carriage in it was thought to have so little of the Hero that he was not much considered after this The Reformation is set on vigorously But to go on with the business of the Parliament reports had been spread that the old Service would be again set up and these were much cherished by those who still loved the former superstition who gave out that a change was to be expected since the New Service had been only the Act of the Duke of Somerset Upon this the Council wrote on Christmas day a Letter to all the Bishops of England to this effect That whereas the English Service had been devised by Learned Men according to the Scripture and the use of the Primitive Church therefore for putting away those vain expectations all Clergy-men were required to deliver to such as should be appointed by the King to receive them all Antiphonales Missals Grayles Processionals Manuals Legends Pies Portuasses Journals and Ordinals after the use of Sarum Lincoln York or any other private use requiring them also to see to the observing one uniform Order in the Service set forth by the common consent of the Realm and particularly to take care that there should be every where provision made of Bread and Wine for the Communion on Sunday This will be found in the Collection But to give a more publick declaration of their zeal Collection Number 46. an Act was brought into Parliament about it and was agreed to by all the Lords except the Earl of Darby the Bishops of Duresme Coventry and Litchfield Carlisle Worcester Westminster and Chichester and the Lords Morley Stourton Windsor and Wharton By it not only all the Books formerly mentioned were to be destroyed but all that had any Image that had belonged to any Church or Chappel were required to deface it before the last of June and in all the Primers set out by the late King the Prayers to the Saints were to be dashed out There was also an Act for a Subsidy to be payed in one year for which there was a Release granted of a Branch of the Subsidy formerly given Last of all came the Kings general Pardon out of which those in the Tower or other Prisons on the account of the State as also all Anabaptists were excepted Thus were all Matters ended and on the first of February the Parliament was prorogued Only in the House of Commons there was a Debate that deserves to be remembred It seems that before this time the Eldest Sons of Peers were not Members of the House of Commons and Sir Francis Russel becoming by the death of his elder Brother Heir apparent to the Lord Russell it was on the 21st of Jan. carried upon a Debate That he should abide in the House as he was before So it is entred in the Original Journal of the House of Commons which was communicated to me by Mr. Surle and Mr. Clark in whose Hands it is now and is the first Journal that ever was taken in that House But it may be expected that I should next give an account of the Forms of Ordination now agreed on Twelve were appointed by the Council to prepare the Book among whom Heath Bishop of Worcester was one but he would not consent to the Reformations that were proposed in it So on the 8th of February he was called before the Council and required to agree to that which all the rest had consented to But he could not be
Darcy Sturton Windsor Cromwell Cobham and Bray The Crimes laid against him were cast into five several Indictments as the King has it in his Journal but the Record mentions only three whether Indictments or Articles is not so clear That he had designed to have seized on the Kings Person and so have governed all Affairs and that he with one hundred others intended to have imprisoned the Earl of Warwick afterwards Duke of Northumberland and that he had designed to have raised an Insurrection in the City of London Now by the Act that passed in the last Parliament if twelve Persons should have assembled together to have killed any Privy-Counsellor and upon Proclamation they had not dispersed themselves it was Treason or if such Twelve had been by any malicious Artifice brought together for any Riot and being warned did not disperse themselves it was Felony without benefit of Clergy or Sanctuary It seemed very strange that the three Peers Northumberland Northampton and Pembroke who were his professed Enemies and against the first of whom it was pretended in the Indictment that he had conspired should sit his Judges for though by the Law no Peer can be challenged in a Trial yet the Law of Nations that is Superior to all other Laws makes that a Man cannot be Judge in his own Cause and which was very unusual the Lord Chancellor though then a Peer was left out of the number but it is like the Reconciliation between the Duke of Somerset and him was then suspected which made him not be called to be one of his Judges The Duke of Somerset being it seems little acquainted with Law did not desire Council to plead or assist him in Point of Law but only answered to matters of Fact He prefaced that he desired no advantage might be taken against him for any idle or angry word that might have at any time fallen from him He protested he never intended to have raised the Northern Parts but had only upon some reports sent to Sir William Herbert to be his Friend that he had never determined to have killed the Duke of Northumberland or any other Person but had only talked of it without any intention of doing it that for the design of destroying the Gendarmoury it was ridiculous to think that he with a small Troop could destroy so strong a Body of Men consisting of 900 in which though he had succeeded it could have signified nothing that he never designed to raise any stirs in London but had always looked on it as a Place where he was most safe that his having Men about him in Greenwich was with no ill design since when he could have done mischief with them he had not done it but upon his Attachment rendred himself a Prisoner without any resistance He objected also many things against the Witnesses and desired they might be brought face to face He particularly spake much against Sir Tho. Palmer the chief Witness But the Witnesses were not brought only their Examinations were read Upon this the Kings Council pleaded against him that to levy War was certainly Treason that to gather Men with intention to kill Privy-Counsellors was also Treason that to have Men about him to resist the Attachment was Felony and to assault the Lords or contrive their deaths was Felony Whether he made any defence in Law or not does not appear For the material defence is not mentioned in all the accounts I have seen of it which was that these Conspiracies and gatherings of the Kings Subjects were only treasonable and fellonious after they had been required to disperse themselves and had refused to give obedience And in all this matter that is never so much as alledged no not in the Indictment it self to have been done It is plain it was not done For if any such Proclamation or Charge had been sent him it is probable he would either have obeyed it or gone into London or to the Country and tryed what he could have done by force but to have refused such a command and so to have come within the guilt of Treason and yet not to stir from his House are not things consistent When the Peers withdrew it seems the Proofs about his design of raising the North or the City or of the killing the Gandarmes did not satisfie them For all these had been without question treasonable So they only held to that Point of conspiring to imprison the Duke of Northumberland If he with Twelve Men about him had conspired to do that and had continued together after Proclamation it was certainly Felony But that not being pretended it seems there was no Proclamation made The Duke of Suffolk was of opinion that no contention among private Subjects should be on any account scrued up to be Treason The Duke of Northumberland said he would never consent that any practise against him And is acquitted of Treason but found guilty of Felony should be reputed Treason After a great difference of Opinion they all acquitted him of Treason But the greater number found him guilty of Felony When they returned him not guilty of Treason all the People who were much concerned for his preservation shouted for joy so loud and so long that they were heard at Charing-Cross But the joy lasted not long when they heard that he was condemned of Felony and Sentence was thereupon given that he should die as a Felon The Duke had carried himself all the while of the Trial with great temper and patience and though the Kings Council had in their usual way of Pleading been very bitter against him perhaps the rather that thereby they might recommend themselves to the Duke of Northumberland yet he never took notice of these reflections nor seemed much affected with them When Sentence was given he thanked the Lords for their favour and asked pardon of the Duke of Northumberland Northampton and Pembroke for his ill intentions against them and made sute for his Life and for his Wife and Children From thence he was carried back to the Tower Whether this asking the Lords pardon had in it a full Confession of the Crime charged on him or was only a complement to them that they might not obstruct his Pardon is but a matter of conjecture He confessed he had spoken of killing them and this made it reasonable enough for him to ask their pardon so that it does not imply a Confession of the Crime All People thought that being acquitted of Treason and there being no fellonious Action done by him but only an intention of one and that only of Imprisoning a Peer proved that one so nearly joyned to the King in Blood would never be put to death on such an occasion But to possess the King much against him a Story was brought him and put by him in his Journal That at the Dukes coming to the Tower he had confessed that he had hired one Bartuile to kill the Lords and that Bartuile himself acknowledged it and
them but if their Divines had any scruple in which they desired satisfaction with a humble and obedient mind they should be heard And for a safe Conduct he thought it was a distrusting the Council to ask any other than what was already granted Soon after this there arrived Ambassadors from Strasburg and from other five Cities and those sent from the Duke of Saxe were on their Journey so the Emperor ordered his Ambassadors to study to gain time till they came and then an effectual course must be taken for compassing that about which he had laboured so long in vain to bring it to a happy conclusion And thus this Year ended The Parliament was opened on the 23d of January 1552. A Session of Parliament and sate till the 15th of April So I shall begin this Year with the account of the Proceedings in it The first Act that was put into the House of Lords was for an Order to bring Men to Divine Service which was agreed to on the 26th and sent down to the Commons who kept it long before they sent it back On the 6th of April when it was agreed to the Earl of Darby the Bishops of Carlisle and Norwich and the Lords Sturton and Windsor dissented The Lords afterwards brought in another Bill for authorizing a new Common-Prayer-Book according to the Alterations which had been agreed on the former Year This the Commons joyned to the former and so put both in one Act. By it was first set forth That an Order of Divine Service being published An Act authorizing the new Common-Prayer-Book many did wilfully abstain from it and refused to come to their Parish-Churches therefore all are required after the Feast of All-hallows next to come every Sunday and Holy-day to Common-Prayers under pain of the Censures of the Church And the King the Lords Temporal and the Commons did in Gods Name require all Arch-bishops Bishops and other Ordinaries to endeavour the due execution of that Act as they would answer before God for such Evils and Plagues with which he might justly punish them for neglecting that good and wholesome Law and they were fully authorized to execute the Censures of the Church on all that should offend against this Law To which is added That there had been divers doubts raised about the manner of the Ministration of the Service rather by the curiosity of the Ministers and Mistakers than of any other worthy Cause and that for the better explanation of that and for the greater perfection of the Service in some places where it was fit to make the Prayer and fashion of Service more earnest and fit to stir Christian People to the true honouring of Almighty God therefore it had been by the Command of the King and Parliament perused explained and made more perfect They also annexed to it the Form of making Bishops Priests and Deacons and so appointed this new Book of Service to be every where received after the Feast of All-Saints next under the same Penalties that had been enacted three years before when the former Book was set out Which was much censured It was upon this Act said by the Papists That the Reformation was like to change as oft as the Fashion did since they seemed never to be at a Point in any thing but new Models were thus continually framing To which it was answered That it was no wonder that the corruptions which they had been introducing for above a thousand years were not all discovered or thrown out at once but now the business was brought to a fuller perfection and they were not like to see any more material Changes Besides any that would take the pains to compare the Offices that had been among the Papists would clearly perceive that in every Age there was such an encrease of additional Rites and Ceremonies that though the old ones were still retained yet it seemed there would be no end of new improvements and additions Others wondred why the execution of this Law was put off so long as till the end of the Year All the account I can give of this is that it was expected that by that time the new Body of the Ecclesiastical Laws which was now preparing should be finished and therefore since this Act was to be executed by the Clergy the day in which it was to be in force was so long delayed till that Reformation of their Laws were concluded An Act concerning Treasons On the 8th of February a Bill of Treasons was put in and agreed to by all the Lords except the Lord Wentworth It was sent down to the Commons where it was long disputed and many sharp things were said of those who now bore the sway that whereas they who governed in the beginning of this Reign had put in a Bill for lessening the number of such offences now they saw the change of Councils when severer Laws were proposed The Commons at last rejected the Bill and then drew a new one which was passed By it they Enacted That if any should call the King or any of his Heirs named in the Statute of the 35th of his Fathers Reign Heretick Schismatick Tyrant Infidel or Usurper of the Crown for the first offence they should forfeit their Goods and Chattels and be imprisoned during pleasure for the second should be in a Praemunire for the third should be attainted of Treason but any who should advisedly set that out in printing or writing was for the first offence to be held a Traitor And that those who should keep any of the Kings Castles Artillery or Ships six days after they were lawfully required to deliver them up should be guilty of Treason that Men might be proceeded against for Treasons committed out of the Kingdom as well as in it They added a Proviso That none should be Attainted of Treason on this Act unless two Witnesses should come and to their face averr the Fact for which they were to be tried except such as without any violence should confess it and that none should be questioned for any thing said or written but within three Months after it was done This Proviso seems clearly to have been made with relation to the Proceeding against the Duke of Somerset in which the Witnesses were not brought to averr the Evidence to his Face and by that means he was deprived of all the benefit and advantage which he might have had by cross examining them It is certain that though some false Witnesses have practised the Trade so much that they seem to have laid off all shame and have a brow that cannot be daunted yet for the greatest part a bright serenity and cheerfulness attends Innocence and a lowring dejection betrays the Guilty when the Innocent and they are confronted together On the 3d of March a Bill was brought into the Lords for Holy-days and Fasting days and sent down to the Commons on the 15th of March An Act about Fasts and Holy-days by
whom it was passed and had the Royal Assent In the Preamble it is set forth That Men are not at all times so set on the performance of Religious Duties as they ought to be which made it necessary that there should be set times in which labour was to cease that Men might on these days wholly serve God which days were not to be accounted holy of their own nature but were so called because of the Holy Duties then to be set about so that the Sanctification of them was not any Magical Vertue in that time but consisted in the dedicating them to Gods Service that no day was dedicated to any Saint but only to God in remembrance of such Saints that the Scripture had not determined the number of Holy-days but that these were left to the liberty of the Church Therefore they Enact That all Sundays with the days marked in the Calendar and Liturgy should be kept as Holy-days and the Bishops were to proceed by the Censures of the Church against the disobedient A Proviso was added for the observation of St. George's Feast by the Knights of the Garter and another That Labourers or Fisher-men might if need so required work on those days either in or out of Harvest The Eves before Holy-days were to be kept as Fasts and in Lent and on Fridays and Saturdays abstinence from Flesh was Enacted but if a Holy-day fell to be on a Mâ—nday the Eve for it was to be kept on Saturday since Sunday was never to be a Fasting-day But it was generally observed that in this and all such Acts the People were ready enough to lay hold on any relaxation made by it but did very slightly observe the stricter parts of it so that the liberty left to Trades-men to work in cases of necessity was carried further than it was intended to a too publick profanation of the time so sanctified and the other parts of it directing the People to a conscientious observing of such times was little minded On the 5th of March a Bill concerning the relief of the Poor was put into the House of Lords the Form of passing it has given occasion to some to take notice that though it is a Bill for taxing the Subjects yet it had its first birth in the Lords House and was agreed to by the Commons By it the Church-wardens were empow'red to gather charitable Collections for the Poor and if any did refuse to contribute or did disswade others from it the Bishop of the Diocess was to proceed against them On the 9th of March the Bishops put in a Bill for the security of the Clergy from some ambiguous words that were in the submission which the Convocation had made to King Henry in the 21st year of his Reign by which they were under a Praemunire if they did any things in their Courts contrary to the Kings Prerogative which was thought hard since some through ignorance might transgress Therefore it was desired that no Prelate should be brought under a Praemunire unless they had proceeded in any thing after they were prohibited by the Kings Writ To this the Lords consented but it was let fall by the Commons There was another Act brought in for the Marriage of the Clergy which was agreed to by the Lords An Act for the Marriagé of the Clergy the Earls of Shrewsbury Darby Rutland and Bath and the Lords Abergaveny Stourton Mounteagle Sands Windsor and Wharton protesting against it The Commons also passed it and it was assented to by the King By it was set forth That many took occasion from words in the Act formerly made about this matter to say that it was only permitted as Usury and other unlawful things were for the avoiding greater evils who thereupon spake slanderously of such Marriages and accounted the Children begotten in them to be Bastards to the high dishonour of the King and Parliament and the Learned Clergy of the Realm who had determined that the Laws against Priests Marriages were most unlawful by the Law of God to which they had not only given their Assent in the Convocation but Signed it with all their Hands These slanders did also occasion that the Word of God was not heard with due reverence whereupon it was Enacted That such Marriages made according to the Rules prescribed in the Book of Service should be esteemed good and valid and that the Children begot in them should be inheritable according to Law The Marquess of Northampton did also put in a Bill for confirming his Marriage which was passed only the Earl of Darby the Bishops of Carlisle and Norwich and the Lord Stourton dissented By it the Marriage is declared lawful as by the Law of God indeed it was any Decretal Canon Ecclesiastical Law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding This occasioned another Act That no Man might put away his Wife and marry another unless he were formerly divorced to which the Bishop of Norwich dissented because he was of opinion that a Divorce did not break the Marriage-Bond But this Bill fell in the House of Commons being thought not necessary for the Laws were already severe enough against such double Marriages By another Act the Bishoprick of Westminster was quite suppressed and re-united to the See of London but the Collegiate Church with it s exempted Jurisdiction An Act against Usury was still continued Another Bill was put in against Usury which was sent from the Lords to the Commons and passed by both and assented to By it an Act passed in Parliament in the 37th year of the late Kings Reign That none might take above 20 per Cent. for Money lent was repealed which they say was not intended for the allowing of Usury but for preventing further inconveniences and since Usury was by the Word of God forbidden and set out in divers places of Scripture as a most odious and detestable vice which yet many continued to practise for the filthy gain they made by it therefore from the first of May all Usury or gain for Money lent was to cease and whosoever continued to practise to the contrary were to suffer imprisonment and to be fined at the Kings pleasure This Act has been since repealed and the gain for Money lent has been at several times brought to several regulations It was much questioned whether these Prohibitions of Usury by Moses were not judicial Laws which did only bind the Nation of the Jews whose Land being equally divided among the Families by Lot the making gain by lending Money was forbid to them of that Nation yet it did not seem to be a thing of its nature sinful since they might take encrease of a Stranger The not lending Money on use was more convenient for that Nation which abounding in People and being shut up in a narrow Country they were necessarily to apply themselves to all the ways of Industry for their subsistence so that every one was by that Law of not lending upon use forced
him he was now in the 16th Year of his Age. But if all Princes should be thus judged by all Instructions that pass under their Hands they would be more severely censured than there is cause And for the particular matter that is charged on the Memory of this young Prince which as it was represented to him was only a calling for the superfluous Plate and other Goods that lay in Churches more for pomp than for use though the applying of it to common uses except upon extream necessities is not a thing that can be justified yet it deserved not so severe a censure especially the Instructions being Signed by the King in his sickness in which it is not likely that he minded Affairs of that kind much but set his Hand easily to such Papers as the Council prepared for him These Instructions were directed in the Copy that I have perused Instructions for the President of the North. to the Earl of Shrewsbury Lord President of the North upon which occasion I shall here make mention of that which I know not certainly in what Year to place namely the Instructions that were given to that Earl when he was made President of the North. And I mention them the rather because there have been since that time some Contests about that Office and the Court belonging to it There was by his Instructions a Council to be assistant to him whereof some of the Members were at large and not bound to attendance others were not to leave him without licence from him and he was in all things to have a negative Voice in it For the other Particulars I refer the Reader to the Copy which he will find in the Collection Collection Number 56. One Instruction among them belongs to Religion that he and the other Councellors when there was at any time Assemblies of People before them should perswade them to be obedient chiefly to the Laws about Religion and especially concerning the Service set forth in their own Mother-Tongue There was also a particular charge given them concerning the abolished Power of the Bishop of Rome whose abuses they were by continual inculcation so to beat into the minds of the People that they might well apprehend them and might see that those things were said to them from their Hearts and not from their Tongues only for Forms sake They were also to satisfie them about the abrogation of many Holy-days appointed by the same Bishop who endeavoured to perswade the World that he could make Saints at his pleasure which by leading the People to idleness gave occasion to many vices and inconveniences These Instructions were given after the Peace was made with Scotland otherwise there must have been a great deal in them relating to that War but the Critical time of them I do not know This Year Harly was made Bishop of Hereford instead of Skip who died the last Year And he being the last of those who were made so by Letters Patents The Form of the Bishops Letters Patents I shall give the Reader some satisfaction concerning that way of making Bishops The Patents began with the mention of the vacancy of the See by death or removal upon which the King being informed of the good qualifications of such a one appoints him to be Bishop during his natural Life or so long as he shall behave himself well giving him power to ordain and deprive Ministers to confer Benefices judge about Wills name Officials and Commissaries exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction visit the Clergy inflict Censures and punish scandalous Persons and to do all the other parts of the Episcopal Function that were found by the Word of God to be committed to Bishops all which they were to execute and do in the Kings Name and Authority After that in the same Patent follows the restitution of the Temporalties The day after a Certificate in a Writ called a Significavit was to be made of this under the Great Seal to the Arch-bishop with a Charge to consecrate him The first that had his Bishoprick by the Kings Patents was Barlow that was removed from St. Davids to Bath and Wells They bear date the third of February in the second Year of the Kings Reign and so Ferrar Bishop of St. Davids was not the first as some have imagined for he was made Bishop the first of August that Year This Ferrar was a rash indiscreet Man and drew upon himself the dislike of the Prebendaries of St. Davids He was made Bishop upon the Duke of Somersets favour to him But last Year many Articles were objected to him some as if he had incurred a Praemunire for acting in his Courts not in the Kings but his own Name and some for neglecting his Charge and some little indecencies were objected to him as going strangely habited travelling on foot whistling impertinently with many other things which if true shewed in him much weakness and folly The heaviest Articles he denied yet he was kept in Prison and Commissioners were sent into Wales to examine Witnesses who took many Depositions against him He lay in Prison till Queen Maries time and then he was kept in on the account of his Belief But his suffering afterwards for his Conscience when Morgan who had been his chief Accuser before on those other Articles being then made his Judge condemned him for Heresie and made room for himself to be Bishop by burning him did much turn Peoples Censures from him upon his Successor By these Letters Patents it is clear that the Episcopal Function was acknowledged to be of Divine appointment and that the Person was no other way named by the King than as Lay-Patrons present to Livings only the Bishop was legally authorized in such a part of the Kings Dominions to execute that Function which was to be derived to him by Imposition of Hands Therefore here was no pretence for denying that such Persons were true Bishops and for saying as some have done that they were not from Christ but from the King Upon this occasion it will not be improper to represent to the Reader how this matter stands according to Law at this day which is the more necessary because some superficial Writers have either mis-understood or mis-represented it The Act that authorized those Letters Patents and required the Bishops to hold their Courts in the Kings Name was repealed both by the 1 Mar. Chap. 2. and 1 and 2 Phil. and Mary Chap. 8. The latter of these that repealed only a part of it was repealed by the 1 Eliz. Chap. 1. and the former by the 1 Jac. Chap. 25. So some have argued that since those Statutes which repealed this Act of Edward the 6th 1. Par. Chap. 2. are since repealed that it stands now in full force This seems to have some colour in it and so it was brought in question in Parliament in the fourth year of King James and great debate being made about it the King appointed the two Chief Justices
had been long very apprehensive when he considered the sins then prevailing and the Judgments which they had reason to look for as will appear by an excellent Letter which he sent about to his Clergy to set them on to such Duties as so sad a Prospect required It will be found in the Collection Collection Number 58. and though it belongs to the former Year yet I choose rather to bring it in on this occasion These things having been fully laid open in the former parts of this Work I shall not insist on them here having mentioned them only for this cause that the Reader may from hence gather what we may still expect if we continue guilty of the same or worse sins after all that illumination and knowledge with which we have been so long blest in these Kingdoms The END of the First BOOK MARIA ANGLIAE HISPANIAE ct REGINA R. White sculp Nata 18 Feb 1516 Regnare cepit 6. to HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE Julij 1553. Obijt 17.mo Novemb 1558 Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crowne in S. t Pauls Church yard BOOK II. THE LJFE AND REIGN OF Queen MARY UPon the Death of King Edward the Crown devolved 1553. Q. Mary succeeds but is in great danger according to King Henry's Will and the Act of Parliament made in the 35th Year of his Reign on his Eldest Sister the now Queen Mary She was on her way to London in obedience to the Letters that had been writ to her to come and comfort her Brother in his Sickness and was come within half a days Journey of the Court when she received an Advertisement from the Earl of Arundel that her Brother was dead together with an account of what was done about the Succession The Earl also informed her that the King's Death was concealed on design to entrap her before she knew of it and therefore he advised her to retire Upon this she knowing that the Duke of Northumberland was much hated in Norfolk for the great slaughter he had made of the Rebels when he subdued them in the third Year of the last Reign And retires to Suffolk therefore chose to go that way to the Castle of Framlingham in Suffolk Which Place being near the Sea she might if her Designs should miscarry have an opportunity from thence to fly over to the Emperor that was then in Flanders At London it seems the whole Business of setting up the Lady Jane had been carried very secretly since if Queen Mary had heard any hint of it she had certainly kept out of the way and not adventured to have come so near the Town It was an unaccountable Error in the Party for the Lady Jane that they had not immediately after the Seal was put to the Letters Patents or at furthest presently after the King's Death sent some to make sure of the King's Sisters instead of which they thus lingred hoping they would have come into their Toils in an easier and less violent way On the 8th of July they writ to the English Ambassadors at Brussels the news of the King's Death but said nothing of the Succession On the 9th of July they perceived the King's Death was known for Queen Mary writ to to them She writes to the Council from Kenning-Hall that she understood the King her Brother was dead which how sorrowful it was to her God only knew to whose Will she did humbly submit her Will. The Provision of the Crown to her after his Death she said was well known to them all but she thought it strange that he being three days dead she had not been advertised of it by them She knew what Consultations were against her and what Engagements they had entred into but was willing to take all their Doings in good part and therefore did give Pardon for all that was past to such as would accept of it and required them to proclaim her Title to the Crown in London Upon this Letter they saw the death of the King could no longer be concealed so the Duke of Suffolk and the Duke of Northumberland went to Durham-House where the Lady Jane lay to give her notice of her being to succeed to the Crown in the room of the deceased King She received the News with great sorrow for King Edward's Death Who declare for the Lady Jane which was not at all lessened but rather encreased by that other part of their Message concerning her being to succeed him Lady Jane's Character She was a Lady that seemed indeed born for a great Fortune for as she was a beautiful and graceful Person so she had great Parts and greater Vertues Her Tutor was Dr. Elmer believed to be the same that was afterwards made Bishop of London by Queen Elizabeth She had learned from him the Latin and Greek Tongues to great â—erfection so that being of the same Age with the late King she seeâ—ed superior to him in those Languages And having acquired the helps of Knowledg she spent her time much in the study of it Roger Ascham Tutor to the Lady Elizabeth coming once to wait on her at her Father's House in Leicestershire found her reading Plato's Works in Greek when all the rest of the Family were hunting in the Park He asked her How she could be absent from such pleasant Diversions She answered The Pastimes in the Park were but a shadow to the delight she had in reading Plato's Phedon which then lay open before her and added That she esteemed it one of the greatest Blessings that God ever gave her that she had sharp Parents and a gentle School-master which made her take delight in nothing so much as in her Study She read the Scriptures much and had attained great knowledg in Divinity But with all these Advantages of Birth and Parts she was so humble so gentle and pious that all People both admired and loved her and none more than the late King She had a Mind wonderfully raised above the World and at the Age wherein others are but imbibing the Notions of Philosophy she had attained to the practice of the highest Precepts of it She was neither lifted up with the hope of a Crown nor cast down when she saw her Palace made afterwards her Prison but carried her self with an equal temper of Mind in those great inequalities of Fortune that so suddenly exalted and depressed her All the Passion she expressed in it was that which is of the noblest sort and is the indication of tender and generous Natures being much affected with the Troubles her Father and Husband fell in on her account The mention of the Crown when her Father with her Father-in-Law saluted her Queen did rather heighten her disorder upon the King's Death She said She knew by the Laws of the Kingdom Her unwillingness to accept of the Crown and by natural Right the Crown was to go to the King's Sisters so that she was
business which himself had so violently and servilely promoted The falsehood of that pretence of corrupting Vniversities has been shewn in the former Volumn but it was all they had now to say The laying it all upon Cranmer was as high a pitch of malice and impudence as could be devised for as Gardiner had been setting it on long before Cranmer was known to King Henry so he had been joyned with him in the Commission and had given his assent to the Sentence which Cranmer gave Nor was the Divorce grounded meerly upon Cranmers understanding of the Scriptures but upon the fullest and most studied Arguments that had perhaps been in any Age brought together in one particular case and both Houses of Convocation had condemned the Mariage before his sentence But because in the right of his See he was Legate to the Pope therefore to make the Sentence stronger it went only in his name though he had but a small share in it compared to what Gardiner had By this Act there was also a second Illegittimation brought on the Lady Elizabeth The Queens carries severely to the Lady Elizabeth to whom hitherto the Queen had been very kind using her on all occasions with the tenderness of a Sister but from this time forwards she handled her more severely It was perhaps occasioned by this Act since before they stood both equally illegittimated but now the Act that legitimated the Queen making her most certainly a Bastard in Law the Queen might think it now too much to use her as she had done formerly Others suggest a more secret reason of this distast The new Earl of Devonshire was much in the Queens favour so that it was thought she had some inclinations to marry him but he either not presuming so high or really having an aversion to her and an inclination to her Sister who of that moderate share of beauty that was between them had much the better of her and was nineteen years younger made his Addresses with more than ordinary concern to the Lady Elizabeth and this did bring them both in trouble as shall be afterwards shewn The next Bill that was sent from the Lords to the Commons The Laws made by King Edward repealed was for the repealing King Edward's Laws about Religion It was sent down on the 31st of October and argued six days in the House of Commons but in the end it was carried and sent back to the Lords The Preamble of it sets forth the great disorders that had fallen out in the Nation by the changes that had been made in Religion from that which their Fore-fathers had left them by the Authority of the Catholick Church thereupon all the Laws that had been made in King Edwards time about Religion were now repealed and it was Enacted that from the 20th of December next there should be no other Form of Divine Service but what had been used in the last year King of Henry the 8th leaving it free to all till that day to use either the Books appointed by King Edward or the old ones at their pleasure Another Act was passed which the Commons sent up to the Lords An Act against the affronting Priests against all those who by any overt Act should molest or disquiet any Preacher because of his Office or for any Sermon that he might have Preached or should any way disturb them when they were in any part of the Divine Offices that either had been in the last year of King Henry or should be afterwards set forth by the Queen or should break or abuse the holy Sacrament or break Altars Crucifixes or Crosses those that did any of these things should be presented to the Justices of Peace and be by them put in Prison where they should lye three Months or till they were penitent for their Offences and if any rescued them they should be liable to the same punishment But to this a Proviso was added by the Lords that this Act should no way derogate from the Authority of the Ecclesiastiâ—â—l Laws and Courts who might likewise proceed upon such Offences and a Certificate from the Ordinaries that such Offenders were punished by them being brought to the Justices of Peace they were to proceed no further or if the Justices made a Certificate that they had punished them according to Law the Ordinary might not punish them a second time But the Commons were now so heated that they sent up another Bill to the Lords against those who came not to Church nor to Sacraments after the old Service should be again set up the inflicting of the Punishments in these cases being left to the Ecclesiastical Courts This fell in the House of Lords not so much from any opposition that was made as that they were afraid of allarming the Nation too much by many severe Laws at once An Act against unlawful Assemblies Another Law was made for securing the publick Peace against unlawful and rebellious Assemblies that if any to the number of twelve or above should meet to alter any thing of Religion established by Law and being required by any having the Queens Authority to disperse themselves should continue after that an hour together it should be Felony or if that number met to break Hedges or Parks to destroy Deer or Fish c. and did not disperse upon Proclamation it should be Felony or if any by ringing of Bells Drums or firing of Beacons gathered the People together and did the things before mentioned it was Felony if the Wives or Servants of Persons so gathered caried Meat Money or Weapons to them it should be Felony and if any above the number of two and within twelve should meet for these ends they should suffer a years imprisonment empowering the Sheriffs or Justices to gather the Country for the resistance of Persons so offending with Penalties on all between eighteen and sixty that being required to come out against them should refuse to do it When this Act was known the People then saw clearly how they had been deceived by the former Act that seemed so favourable repealing all Acts of new Treasons and Felonies since there was so soon after it an Act passed that renewed one of the severest Laws of the last Reign in which so many things that might flow from sudden heats were made Felonies and a great many new and severe Proviso's were added to it The Queens discharge of the Subsidy was confirmed by another Act. The Marquess of Northampton's 2d Marriage is annulled There followed two private Acts which occasioned more Debate than the publick ones had done The one was the repeal of the Act that had confirmed the Marquess of Northamptons Marriage It was much argued in the House of Commons and on the 28th of November it was agreed to It contains that the Act of confirming the Divorce and the second Marriage was procured more upon untrue surmises and private respects than for any publick good and increase
them into some other Cure or reserve a Pension out of their Benefice for them That no religious Man who had professed Chastity should be suffered to live with his Wife That care should be taken of vacant Churches That till they were provided the people should go to the Neighbouring Churches That all the Ceremonies Holy-days and Fasts used in King Henry's time should be again observed That those who were ordained by the new Book in King Edwards time not being ordained in very deed The Bishop if they were otherwise sufficient should supply vvhat vvas vvanting before and so admit them to Minister That the Bishops should set forth an uniform Doctrine of Homilies and compel the people to come to Church and hear Divine Service That they should carefully look to all School-masters and Teachers of Children And that the Bishops should take care to set forth the Premises vvith all kind of Vertue godly Living and good Example Proceedings against the Bishops that adhered to the Reformation and endeavour to keep down all sort of Vice These vvere Sign'd on the 4 of March and Printed and sent over the Kingdom But to make the Married Bishops Examples of the severity of their proceedings the Queen gave a special Commission to Gardiner Tonstall Bonner Parfew Bishop of St. Asaph Day and Kitchin of Landaffe making mention that vvith great grief of heart she had heard that the Archbishop of York the Bishops of St. Davids Chester and Bristol had broken their Vows and defiled their Function by contracting Marriage therefore those or any three of them are empowered to call them before them and if the Premises be found to be true Col. Number 11. 12. to deprive and turn them out of their Bishopricks This I have put into the Collection with another Comission to the same Persons to call the Bishops of Lincoln Glocester and Hereford before them in whose Patents it was provided that they should hold their Bishopricks so long as they behaved themselves well and since they by preaching Erroneous Doctrine and by inordinate Life and Conversation as she credibly understood had carried themselves contrary to the Laws of God and the Practice of the universal Church these or any two of them should proceed against them either according to Ecclesiastical Canons or the Laws of the Land and declare their Bishopricks void as they vvere indeed already void Thus vvere Seven Bishops all at a dash turned out It was much censured that there having been Laws made allowing Marriage to the Clergy the Queen should by her own Authority upon the repealing these Laws turn out Bishops for things that had been so well warranted by Law for the Repeal was only an Annulling of the Law for the Future but did not void it from the beginning so that however it might have justified proceedings against them for the Future if they had lived with their Wives yet it could not warrant the punishing them for what was past And even the severest Popes or their Legates who had pressed the Coelibate most had always before they proceeded to deprive any Priests for Marriage left it to their choice whether they would quit their Wives or their Benefices but had never summarily turned them out for being married And for the other Bishops it was an unheard of way of procedure for the Queen before any process was made to empower Delegates to declare their Sees void as they were indeed aIready void This was to give Sentence before hearing And all this was done by vertue of the Queens Supremacy for tho she thought that a sinful and Schismatical Power yet she was easily perswaded to use it against the Reformed Clergy and to turn them out of their Benefices upon such unjust and Illegal pretences So that now the proceedings against Gardiner and Bonner in which were the greatest Stretches made that had been in the last Reign were far outdone by those new Delegates For the Archbishop of York tho he was now turned out yet he was still kept Prisoner till King Philip among the Acts of Grace he did at his coming over procured his Liberty But his See was not filled till February next for then Heath had his Conge d'elire On or before the 18th of March this Year were those other Sees declared Vacant For that day did the Conge d'elire go out to the Deans and Chapters of St. Davids Lincoln Hereford Chester Glocester and Bristol sor Morgan White Parfew Coates Brookes and Holyman Goodrick of Ely died in April this Year He seems to have complied with the time as he had done often before for he was not at all cast into any trouble which it cannot be imagined he could have escaped since he had put the great Seal to the Patents for the Lady Jane if he had not Redeemed it by a ready consenting to the changes that were to be made He was a busie secular spirited Man and had given himself up wholly to Factions and Intrigues of State so that tho his opinion had always leaned to the Reformation it is no wonder if a man so tempered would prefer the keeping of his Bishoprick before the Discharge of his Conscience Thirleby of Norwich was Translated to Ely and Hopton was made Bishop of Norwich But Scory that had been Bishop os Chichester tho upon Day 's being restored he was turned out of his Bishoprick did comply meerly He came before Bonner and Renounced his Wife and did Penance for it and had his Absolution under his Seal the 14th of July this Year which is in the Collection Number 13. But it seems this was out of fear for he soon after fled out of England and lived beyond Sea untill Queen Elizabeth's days and then he came over But it was judged indecent to restore him to his former See where it is likely this Scandal he had given was known and so he was made Bishop of Hereford The Bishop of Bath and Wales Barlow was also made to Resign as appears by the Conge d'elire for Bourn to succeed him dated the 19th of March. Therein it is said that the See wss Vacant by the Resignation of the former Bishop tho in the Election that was made on the 28th of March it is said the See was vacant by the Removal or Deprivation of their former Bishop But I incline to believe it truer that he did resign since he is not mentioned in the Commissions formerly spoken of But that was not all for at this time a Book was set out in his Name whether written by him or Forged and laid on his Name I cannot judge in which he retracts his former errours and speaks of Luther and Oecolampadius and many others with whom he says he had familiarly conversed with great bitterness He also accuses the Gospellers in England of Gluttony Hypocrisie Pride and ill Nature And indeed it is one of the most Virulent Invectives against the Reformation that was written at that time But it is not likely
Recorder of London told the Earl of Leicester the secret of this in Queen Elizabeth's Time who writ down his Discourse and from thence I have copied it There was one that had been Cromwell's Servant and much employed by him in the suppression of Monasteries he was a Man of great Notions but very busy and factious so having been a great stickler for the Lady Jane he was put in the Fleet upon the Queen's first coming to the Crown yet within a month he was discharged but upon the last Rising was again put up and indicted of High Treason He had great Friends and made application to one of the Emperor's Ambassadors that was then the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Milan and by his means he obtained his Liberty Being brought to him he shewed him a new Plat-form of Government which he had contrived for the Queen She was to declare her self a Conqueror or that she having succeeded to the Crown by Common Law was not at all to be limited by the Statute Laws since those were only restrictions upon the Kings but not on the Queens of England and that therefore all those Limitations of the Prerogative were only binding in the Persons of Kings but she was free from them Upon this he shewed how she might establish Religion set up the Monasteries raise her Friends and ruin her Enemies and Rule according to her Pleasure The Ambassador carried this to the Queen and seemed much pleased with it but desired her to read it carefully and keep it as a great Secret As she read it she disliked it and judged it contrary to the Oath she had made at her Coronation and thereupon sent for Gardiner and charged him as he would answer before the Judgment-Seat of God at the general Day of the Holy Doom that he would consider the Book carefully and bring her his Opinion of it next day which fell to be Maundy Thursday So as the Queen came from her Maundy he waited on her into her Closet and said these words My good and most gracious Lady I intend not to pray your Highness with any humble Petitions to name the Devisers of this new invented Plat-form but here I say That it is pity that so noble and vertuous a Lady should be endangered with the pernicious Devices of such lewd and subtil Sycophants for the Book is naught and most horrible to be thought on Upon this the Queen thanked him and threw the Book into the Fire and charged the Ambassador that neither he nor any of his Company should receive more such Projects from any of her People This made Gardiner apprehended that if the Spaniards began so soon to put such Notions into the Queen's Head they might afterwards when she was in their Hands make somewhat of them and therefore to prevent such Designs for the future he drew the Act in which though he seemed to do it as an Advantage to the Queen for the putting of her Title beyond dispute yet he really intended nothing by it but that she should be restrained by all those Laws that the former Kings of England had consented to And because King Henry the Seventh though his best right to the Crown flowed from his Marriage to the Heir of the House of York had yet taken the Government wholly into his own hands he fearing lest the Spaniards should pretend to such a Power by the Authority which Marriage gives the Husband over the Wife got the Articles of the Marriage to be ratified in Parliament by which they not only confirmed those agreed on but made a more full explanation of that part of them which declared the entire Government of the Kingdom to belong only to the Queen To this the Spaniards gave too great an occasion Great Jealousies of the Spanish Power by publishing King Philip's Pedigree whom they derived from John of Gaunt They said this was only done to conciliate the favour of the Nation by representing him not a stranger but a Native But this gave great offence concerning which I have seen a little Book that vvas then printed It was there said That King Henry the Seventh came in pretending only to marry the Heir of the House of York But he was no sooner on the Throne than he declared his own Title and kept it his whole Life So it vvas said the Spaniard vvould call himself Heir of the House of Lancaster and upon that Pretension would easily wrest the Power out of the Queen's hands who seemed to mind nothing but her Devotions This made Gardiner look the better to the securing of the Liberties of the Crown and Nation so that it must be acknowledged that the preserving of England out of the hands of the Spaniards at that time seems to be almost vvholly owing to him In this Parliament the Marquess of Northampton vvas restored in Blood And the Act for restoring the Bishoprick of Duresm The Bishoprick of Duresm restored not having gone through the last Parliament vvhen it vvas dissolved vvas now brought in again The Town of Newcastle opposed it much vvhen it came down to the Commons But the Bishop of Duresm came to them on the 18th of April and gave them a long account of all his Troubles from the Duke of Northumberland and desired that they would dispatch his Bill There vvere many Proviso's put into it for some that vvere concerned in Gateside but it vvas carried in the House That instead of these Proviso's they should send a Desire to him recommending those Persons to his Favour So upon a Division there vvere 120 against it and 201 for it After this came the Bill confirming the Attainders of the Duke of Suffolk and fifty eight more vvho vvere attainted for the late Rebellion The Lords put in a Proviso excepting Entailed Lands out of their Forfeitures but the Commons rejected the Proviso and passed the Bill Then did the Commons send up a Bill for reviving the Statutes made against Lollardy vvhich being read twice by the Lords vvas laid aside The Commons intended next to have revived the Statute of the Six Articles but it did not agree vvith the Design at Court to take any notice of King Henry's Acts so this vvas let fall Then they brought in another Bill to extirpate Erroneous Opinions and Books but that vvas at the third reading laid aside After that they passed a particular Bill against Lollardy in some Points as the eating of flesh in Lent but that also being sent up to the Lords was at the third reading laid aside by the major part of the House so forward were the Commons to please the Queen or such Operation had the Spanish Gold on them that they contrived four Bills in one Session for the prosecution of those they called Hereticks But to give some content on the other hand they passed a Bill that neither the Bishop of Rome nor any other should have any Power to Convene or trouble any for possessing Abbey Lands This was sent up to
the hope of that relief and comfort that Soul-Masses might bring them in Purgatory would prevail with many of them to make at least great if not entire Restitutions This Point being carried by those who did not understand what future danger their Estates were in but considered the present Confirmation and the other Advantages which they were to have for consenting to this Act all the rest passed with no opposition The Act about the proceeding against Hereticks passed more easily than any thing that had been proposed So it seems the opposition that was made to other Acts came not from any that favoured the Reformation otherwise this would have found some resistance But now it was the only way to the Queen's Favour and to Preferment to run down that which was called Heresy Consultations about the way of dealing with Hereticks After the Dissolution of the Parliament the first thing taken into consideration was what way to proceed against the Hereticks Cardinal Pool had been suspected to favour the Protestants but seemed now to be much alienated from them and therefore when Tremellius who had declared himself a Protestant came to him at Brussels he would not see him though he was his God-father He came over into England much changed from that freedom of Conversation he had formerly practised he was in reserves to all People spoke little and had put on an Italian Temper as well as behaviour he brought over two Italians Priuli and Ormaneto who were his only Confidents He was a Man of a generous and good disposition but knew how jealous the Court of Rome would be of him if he seemed to favour Hereticks therefore he expressed great detestation of them Nor did he converse much with any that had been of that Party but the late Secretary Cecil who though he lived for the most part privatly at his House near Stamford where he afterwards built a most sumptuous House and was known to favour the Reformation still in his Heart yet in many things he complied with the Time and came to have more of his confidence than any English Man The Cardinal professed himself an Enemy to extream Proceedings The Cardinal is for moderate Courses He said Pastors ought to have Bowels even to their straying Sheep Bishops were Fathers and ought to look on those that erred as their sick Children and not for that to kill them He had seen that severe Proceedings did rather inflame than cure that Disease There was a great difference to be made between a Nation uninfected where some few Teachers came to spread Errors and a Nation that had been over-run with them both Clergy and Laity The People were not so violently to be drawn back but were to have time given them to recover out of those Errors into which they had been led by the Compliance and Writings of their Prelats Therefore he proposed that there should be a strict Reformation of the Manners of the Clergy carried on He had observed in every Country of Christendom that all the best and wisest Men acknowledged that the Scandals and Ignorance of the Clergy had given the entrance to Heresy So he moved that there might be a reviving of the Rules of the Primitive Church and then within a little time Men might by degrees be brought over I have not found that he proposed the receiving the Council of Trent which is the more strange since he had been himself one of the Legats at the first Session of it but it seems it was not thought seasonable to propose it till the Council were first ended and dissolved On the other hand Gardiner But Gardiner is for violent ones who had no great sense of Ecclesiastical Matters but as they served Intrigues of State and being himself of such a temper that severe Proceedings wrought much on him judged that the executing the Laws against the Lollards was that in which they were chiefly to trust He was confident the Preachers then in Prison were Men of such tempers that if they saw they were to be burnt they would comply or if they stood out and were burnt that would so terrify the rest that the whole Nation would soon change He remembred well how the Lollards grew in England only upon Cardinal Wolsey's slackning the execution of the Laws against them And upon the passing of the Statute of the Six Articles many submitted so that if King Henry had not discouraged the vigorous execution of that Act all had turned He did not deny but a Reformation of the Clergy was a good and fit mean but said that all Times could not bear such things and if they went to reform their Manners the Hereticks would from thence take advantage of raising clamours against a scandalous Clergy which would encrease rather than lessen the aversion the People had to their Pastors So Gardiner complained that Pool by his intention of coming over too hastily had almost precipitated all things and now by his gentle proceedings would as much prejudice them another way All these Reasonings were such as became a Man of Gardiner's temper which being servile and abject made him measure others by himself He was also at this time highly provoked by the reprinting of his Books of True Obedience which he had writ in the Time of King Henry and to which Bonner had made the Preface In these Books Gardiner had not only argued against the Pope's Supremacy and for the Kings but had condemned the King's Marriage with Queen Katherine calling it often incestuous and unlawful and had justified the King's Divorcing her and marrying his most godly and vertuous Wife Queen Ann. This being reprinted in Strasburg was now conveighed into England and it was acknowledged to be a handsome piece of Spite in the reformed thus to expose him to the World But though this netled him much yet he was confident enough and excused himself that he had erred through fear and weakness as St. Peter had done though it was an unreasonable thing to compare an Error of near thirty Years continuance to the sudden denial of St. Peter that was presently expiated with so true and sincere a Repentance To which the Queen inclined Between these two Councils the Queen would have a mean way taken to follow both in part She encouraged Pool to go on in the correcting the Manners of the Clergy and likewise pressed Gardiner to proceed against the Hereticks She also sent Ambassadors to Rome who were the Viscount Montacute the Bishop of Ely and Sir Edward Carn one to represent every State of the Kingdom to make her Obedience to the Pope and to obtain a Confirmation of all those Graces Cardinal Pool had granted in his Name 1555. On the 23d of January all the Bishops went to Lambeth to receive the Cardinal's Blessing and Directions He wished them to return to their Cures and treat their Flocks with all gentleness and to endeavour rather to gain them that way than to use
on the Dead or cast the burthen of it wholly upon her Sister But she assured them if ever she married she would make such a Choice as should be to the satisfaction and good of her People She did not know what credit she might yet have with them but she knew well she deserved to have it for she was resolved never to deceive them Her People were to her in stead of Children and she reckoned her self married to them by her Coronation They would not want a Successor when she died and for her part she should be well contented that the Marble should tell Posterity HERE LIES A QUEEN THAT REIGNED SO LONG AND LIVED AND DIED A VIRGIN She took their Address in good part and desired them to carry back her hearty thanks for the care the Commons had of her The Journals of the House of Lords are imperfect so that we find nothing in them of this matter yet it appears that they likewise had it before them for the Journals of the House of Commons have it marked that on the fifteenth of February there was a Message sent from the Lords desiring that a Committee of thirty Commoners might meet with twelve Lords to consider what should be the Authority of the Person whom the Queen should marry The Committee was appointed to treat concerning it but it seems the Queen desired them to turn to other things that were more pressing for I find nothing after this entred in the Journals of this Parliament concerning it On the ninth of February the Lords past a Bill for the Recognizing of the Queens Title to the Crown They recognize her Title to the Crown It had been considered whether as Queen Mary had procured a former Repeal of her Mothers Divorce and of the Acts that passed upon it declaring her Illegitimate the like should be done now The Lord Keeper said The Crown purged all defects and it was needless to look back to a thing which would at least cast a reproach on her Father the enquiring into such things too anxiously would rather prejudice than advance her Title So he advised that there should be an Act passed in general words asserting the lawfulness of her descent and her Right to the Crown rather than any special Repeal Queen Mary and her Council were careless of King Henry's Honour but it became her rather to conceal than expose his Weakness This being thought both Wise and Pious Council the Act was conceived in general Words That they did assuredly believe and declare that by the Laws of God and of the Realm she was their lawful Queen and that she was rightly lineally and lawfully descended from the Royal Blood and that the Crown did without all doubt or ambiguity belong to her and the Heirs to be lawfully begotten of her Body after her and that they as representing the Three Estates of the Realm did declare and assert her Title which they would defend with their Lives and Fortunes This was thought to be very wise Council for if they had gone to repeal the Sentence of Divorce which passed upon her Mothers acknowledging a Precontract they must have set forth the force that was on her when she made that Confession and that as it was a great dishonour to her Father so it would have raised discourses likewise to her Mothers prejudice which must have rather weakned than strengthened her Title And as has been formerly observed this seems to be the true reason why in all her Reign there was no Apology printed for her Mother There was another Act passed for the restoring of her in Blood to her Mother by which she was qualified as a private Subject to succeed either to her Grand-fathers Estate or to any others by that Blood But for the matters of Religion the Commons began The Acts that were passed concerning Religion and on the fifteenth of February brought in a Bill for the English Service and concerning the Ministers of the Church On the 21st a Bill was read for annexing the Supremacy to the Crown again and on the 17th of March another Bill was brought in confirming the Laws made about Religion in King Edwards time and on the 21st another was brought in That the Queen should have the Nomination of the Bishops as it had been in King Edwards time The Bill for the Supremacy was past by the Lords on the 18th of March the Archbishop of York the Earl of Shrewsbury the Viscount Mountacute and the Bishops of London Winchester Worcester Landaffe Coventry and Litchfield Exeter Chester and Carlisle and the Abbot of Westminster dissenting But afterwards the Commons annexed many other Bills to it as that about the Queens making Bishops not according to the Act made in King Edwards time but by the old way of Elections as it was Enacted in the 25th Year of her Fathers Reign with several Provisoes which passed in the House of Lords with the same dissent By it all the Acts past in the Reign of King Henry for the abolishing of the Popes Power are again revived and the Acts in Queen Maries time to the contrary are repealed There was also a Repeal of the Act made by her for proceeding against Hereticks They revived the Act made in the first Parliament of King Edward against those that spoke irreverently of the Sacrament and against private Masses and for Communion in both kinds And declared the Authority of Visiting Correcting and Reforming all things in the Church to be for ever annexed to the Crown which the Queen and her Successors might by her Letters Patents depute to any Persons to exercise in her Name All Bishops and other Ecclesiastieal Persons and all in any Civil Imployment were required to swear that they acknowledged the Queen to be the Supream Governour in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal within her Dominions that they renounced all Forreign Power and Jurisdiction and should bear the Queen Faith and true Allegiance Whosoever should refuse to swear it was to forfeit any Office he had either in Church or State and to be from thenceforth disabled to hold any Imployment during Life And if within a Month after the end of that Session of Parliament any should either by discourse or in writing set forth the Authority of any Forreign Power or do any thing for the advancement of it they were to forfeit all their Goods and Chattels and if they had not Goods to the value of twenty Pounds they were to be Imprisoned a whole year and for the second offence they were to incur the Pains of a Praemunire and the third offence in that kind was made Treason To this a Proviso was added That such Persons as should be Commissioned by the Queen to Reform and Order Ecclesiastical Matters should judge nothing to be Heresie but what had been already so Judged by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four General Councils or by any other General Council in which such Doctrines
Reformation from its first and small beginnings in England till it came to a compleat settlement in the time of this Queen Of whose Reign if I have adventured to give any Account it was not intended so much for a full Character of Her and her Councils as to set out the great and vissible Blessings of God that attended on her the many Preservations she had and that by such signal Discoveries as both sav'd her Life and secured her Government and the unusual happiness of her whole Reign which raised her to the Esteem and Envy of that Age and the Wonder of all Posterity It was wonderful indeed that a Virgin Queen could rule such a Kingdom for above 44 Years with such constant success in so great tranquility at Home with a vast encrease of Wealth and with such Glory abroad All which may justly be esteem-to have been the Rewards of Heaven crowning that Reign with so much Honour and Triumph that was begun with the Reformation of Religion The end of the third Book and of the History of the Reformation of the Church of England THE TABLE OF THE CONTENTS Of the Second Part of the History of the Reformation of the CHURCH of England BOOK I. Of the Life and Reign of King Edward the Sixth 1547. K. Edward's Birth and Baptism pag. 1 His Education and Temper pag. 2 Cardan's Character of him ibid. A design to create him Prince of Wales pag. 3 King Henry dies and he succeeds ibid. King Henry's Will ibid. Debate about choosing a Protector pag. 4 The Earl of Hartford is chosen pag. 5 It is declared in Council ibid. The Bishops take out Commissions pag. 6 Reasons for a Creation of Peers ibid. Affairs of Scotland pag. 8 Lay men in Ecclesiastical Dignities ibid. Images taken away in a Church in London pag. 9 The progress of Image-Worship ibid. Many pull down Images pag. 11 Gardiner is offended at it ibid. The Protector writes about it ibid. Gardiner writes to Ridley about them pag. 12 Commissions to the Justices of Peace pag. 13 The form of Coronation changed ibid. King Henry's Burial ibid. Soul-Masses examined pag. 14 A Creation of Peers pag. 15 The King is crowned ibid. The Lord Chancellor is turned out ibid. The Protector made by Patent pag. 17 The Affairs of Germany pag. 19 Ferdinand made K. of the Romans ibid. The Diet at Spire ibid Emperor makes Peace with France and with the Turk pag. 20 And sets about the ruin of the Protest ibid. Protestant Princes meet at Frankfort pag. 21 D. of Sax and Land of Hesse Arm pag. 22 Peace between England and France pag. 23 Francis the first dies ibid. A Reformation set about in England pag. 24 A Visitation resolved on pag. 26 Some Homilies compiled pag. 27 Injunctions for the Visitation pag. 28 Injunctions for the Bishops pag. 29 Censures passed upon them ibid. Protector goes into Scotland pag. 31 Scotland said to be Subject to England ib. Protector enters Scotland pag. 33 Makes Offers to the Scots ibid. The Scots Defeat at Musselburgh pag. 34 Protector returns to England pag. 35 The Visitors execute the Injunctions pag. 36 Bonner Protests and Recants ibid. Gardiner would not obey ibid. His Reasons against them ibid. He complains to the Protector pag. 38 The Lady Mary complains also pag. 39 The Protector writes to her ibid. The Parliament meets ibid. An Act repealing severe Laws pag. 40 An Act about the Communion pag. 41 Communion in both kinds ibid. Private Masses put down pag. 42 An Act about the admission of Bishops pag. 43 Ancient ways of electing Bishops ibid. An Act against Vagabonds pag. 45 Chauntries given to the King ibid. Acts proposed but not passed pag. 46 The Convocation meets pag. 47 And makes some Petitions ibid. The Clergie desire to have Representatives in the House of Commons ibid. The Grounds of that pag. 48 The Affairs of Germany pag. 50 Duke of Saxe taken ibid. The Archbishop of Colen resigns pag. 51 A Decree made in the Diet pag. 52 Proceedings at Trent ibid. The Council removed to Boloign pag. 53 The French quarrel about Buloign ibid. The Protector and the Admiral fall out pag. 54 1548. Gardiner is set at liberty pag. 55 Mâ—rq of Northampton sues a Divorce pag. 56 The Arguments for it pag. 57 A Progress in the Reformation pag. 58 Proclamation against Innovation pag. 59 All Images taken away pag. 60 Restraints put on Preachers pag. 61 Some Bishops and Doctors examine the Publick Offices and Prayers ibid. Corruptions in the Office of the Commun pag. 62 A new Office for the Communion pag. 64 It is variously censured pag. 65 Auricular Confession left indifferent ibid. Chauntry Lands sold pag. 67 Gardiner falls into new Troubles pag. 68 He is ordered to preach pag. 69 But gives offence and is imprisoned pag. 70 A Catechism set out by Cranmer pag. 71 A further reformation of public Offices ibid. A new Liturgie resolved upon pag. 72 The Changes made in it pag. 73 Preface to it pag. 79 Reflections made on it ibid. All preaching forbid for a time pag. 81 Affairs of Scotland ibid. The Queen of Scots sent to France pag. 82 The Siege of Hadingtoun ibid. A Fleet sent against Scotland pag. 83 But without success ibid. The Siege of Hadingtoun raised pag. 84 Discontents in Scotland pag. 85 The Affairs of Germany ibid. The Book of the Interim pag. 86 Both sides offended at it ibid. Calvin writes to the Protector pag. 88 Bucer writes against Gardiner ibid. A Session of Parliament ibid. Act for the Marriage of the Clergie pag. 89 Which was much debated ibid. Arguments for it from Scripture ibid. And from the Fathers pag. 90 The Reasons against it examined pag. 91 An Act confirming the Liturgie pag. 93 Censures passed upon it pag. 94 The singing of Psalms set up ibid. 1549. An Act about Fasts pag. 95 Some Bills that did not pass pag. 96 A design of digesting the Common Law into a Body ibid. The Admiral 's Attainder pag. 97 He was sent to the Tower ibid. The Matter referred to the Parliament pag. 99 The Bill against him passed ibid. The Warrant for his Execution pag. 100 It is signed by Cranmer ibid. Censures upon that ibid. Subsidies granted pag. 101 A New Visitation ibid. All obey the Laws except Lady Mary pag. 103 A Treaty of Marriage for her ibid. The Council required her to obey pag. 104 Christ's Presence in the Sacrament examined ibid. Publick Disputations about it pag. 105 The manner of the Presence explained pag. 107 Proceedings against Anabaptists pag. 110 Of these there were two sorts ibid. Two of them burnt pag. 112 Which was much censured ibid. Disputes concerning Infant Baptism ibid. Predestination much abused pag. 113 Tumults in England ibid. Some are soon quieted pag. 114 The Devonshire Rebellion pag. 115 Their Demands ibid. An Answer sent to them pag. 116 They make new Demands pag. 117 Which are rejected ibid. The Norfolk Rebellion ibid. The Yorkshire Rebellion pag. 118
Queen declares she will force no Conscience pag. 245. A Tumult at Pauls ibid. A Proclamation against Preaching ibid. Censures passed upon it pag. 246. She uses those of Suffolk ill ibid. Consultations among the Reformed pag. 247. Judge Hales barbarously used ibid. Cranmer declares against the Mass pag. 248. Bonners insolence ibid. Cranmer and Latimer sent to the Tower pag. 250. Forreigners sent out of England ibid. Many English fly beyond Sea ibid. The Queen rewards those who had served her pag. 251. She is Crowned and discharges a Tax ibid. A Parliament summoned pag. 252. The Reformed Bishops thrust out of the House of Lords ibid. Great disorders in Elections ibid. An Act moderating severe Laws pag. 253. The Marriage of the Queens Mother Confirmed ibid. Censures passed upon it pag. 254. The Queen is severe to the Lady Elis. ibid. King Edwards Laws about Religion repealed pag. 255. An Act against injuries to Priests ibid. An Act against unlawful assemblies ibid. Marquess of Northamptons 2d Marriage broken pag. 256. The Duke of Norfolks Attaindor annulled ibid. Cranmer and others attainted pag. 257. But his See is not declared void ibid. The Queen resolves to reconcile with Rome ibid. Cardinal Pool sent Legate pag. 258. But is stopt by the Emperor pag. 259. The Queen sends to him ibid. His advice to the Queen pag. 260. Gardiners methods are preferred pag. 261. The House of Commons offended with the Queens Marriage then treated about ibid. The Parliament is dissolved ibid. 1200000 Crowns sent to corrupt the next Parliament pag. 262. Proceedings in the Convocation ibid. Disputes concerning the Sacrament ibid. Censures passed upon them pag. 283. 1554. Ambassadors treat with the Queen for her Marriage ibid. Articles agreed on ibid. The Match generally disliked p. 284. Plots to oppose it are discovered ibid. Wiat breaks out in Kent ibid. His Demands p. 286. He is defeated and taken ibid. The Lady Jane and her Husband Executed p. 271. Her preparations for Death ibid. The Duke of Suffolk is Executed p. 272. The Lady Elis is unjustly suspected p. 273. Many severe proceedings ibid. The Imposture in the Wall ibid. Instructions for the Bishops p. 274. Bishops that adhere to the Reform deprived ibid. The Mass every where set up pag. 276. Books against the married Clergy pag. 277. A New Parliament ibid. The Queens Regal Power asserted ibid. The secret Reasons for that Act. ibid. Great jealousies of the Spaniards pag. 279. The Bishoprick of Duresm restored ibid. Disputes at Oxford pag. 280. With Cranmer pag. 281. And Ridley pag. 282. And Latimer pag. 283. Censures passed upon them ibid. They are all Condemned ibid. The Prisoners in London give reasons why they would not dispute pag. 284. King Philip Lands pag. 286. And is Married to the Queen ibid. He brings a great Treasure with him ibid. Acts of favour done by him pag. 287. He preserves the Lady Elizabeth ibid. He was little beloved pag. 288. But much Magnifyed by Gardiner ibid. Bonners carriage in his Visitation ibid. No reordination of those Ordained in King Edward's time pag. 289. Bonners rage pag. 290. The Sacrament stollen pag. 291. A New Parliament ibid. Cardinal Pools Attaindor repealed ibid. He comes to London pag. 292. And makes a speech to the Parliament ibid. The Queen is believed with Child ibid. The Parliament petition to be reconciled pag. 293. The Cardinal absolves them ibid. Laws against the See of Rome repealed pag. 294. A Proviso for Church Lands ibid. A Petition from the Convocation ibid. An Address from the inferior Clergy pag. 295. Laws against Hereticks revived pag. 296. An Act declaring Treasons ibid. Another against seditious words ibid. Gardiner in great esteem pag. 297. The fear of losing the Church Lands ibid. Consultations how to deal with Hereticks pag. 298. Cardinal Pool for moderate courses pag. 299. But Gardiner is for violent ones ibid. To which the Queen is inclined pag. 300. 1555. They begin with Rogers and others ibid. Who refusing to comply are judged pag. 301. Rogers and Hooper burnt pag. 302. Sanders and Taylor burnt pag. 303. These cruelties are much censured pag. 304. Reflections made on Hoopers Death ibid. The Burnings much disliked pag. 305. The King Purges himself ibid. A Petition against persecution ibid. Arguments to defend it pag. 306. More are Burnt pag. 307. Ferrar and others Burnt pag. 308. The Queen gives up the Church Lands ibid. Pope Julius dies and Marcellus succeeds pag. 309. Paul the 4th succeeds him pag. 310. English Ambassadors at Rome ibid. Instructions sent for persecution pag. 311. Bonner required to Burn more pag. 312. The Queens delivery in vain expected ibid. Bradford and others Burnt pag. 313. Sir Thomas Mores works Published pag. 316. His Letter of the Nun of Kent ibid. Ridley and Latimer Burnt pag. 318. Gardiners Death and Character pag. 320. The temper of the Parliament is much changed pag. 322. The Queen discharges tenths and first fruits ibid. An Act against those that fled beyond Sea rejected pag. 323. An Act debarring a Murderer from the benefit of Clergy opposed ibid. Sir Anthony Kingston put in the Tower pag. 324. Pool holds a Convocation ibid. The heads of his Decrees ibid. Pools design for Reforming of abuses pag. 326. Pool will not admit the Jesuits to England pag. 327. Philpots Martyrdome pag. 328. Forreign affairs ibid. Charles the 5ths Resignation pag. 329. Cranmers Tryal pag. 332. He is degraded pag. 333. He recants ibid. He repents of it pag. 334. His Martyrdome pag. 335. His Character ibid. Others suffer on the like account pag. 337. A Child born in the Fire and burnt ibid. The Reformation grows pag. 338. Troubles at Frankfort among the English there pag. 339. Pool is made Arch-bishop of Canterbury pag. 340. Some Religious Houses are endowed ibid. Records are razed pag. 341. Endeavours for the Abbey of Glassenburg ibid. Forreign Affairs pag. 342. The Pope is extravagantly proud ibid. He dispenses with the French Kings Oath pag. 343. And makes War with Spain pag. 344. 1557. A Visitation of the Vniversities pag. 345. The Persecution set forward pag. 346. A Design for setting up the Inquisition pag. 347. Burnings for Religion pag. 348. Lord Stourton hanged for Murder pag. 350. The Queen is jealous of the French pag. 351. The Battel at St. Quintin pag. 352. The Pope offended with Cardinal Pool ibid. He recalls him pag. 353. The Queen refuses to receive Cardinal Peito ibid. A Peace between the Pope and Spain pag. 354. A War between England and Scotland ibid. The Affairs of Germany pag. 355. A Persecution in France pag. 356. 1558. Calais is besieged ibid. And it and Guisnes are taken pag. 357. Sark taken by the French pag. 358. And retaken strangely pag. 359. Great discontents in England ibid. A Parliament is called pag. 360. King of Sweden courts the Lady Elizabeth pag. 361. But is rejected by her ibid. She was ill used in this Reign pag. 362. The Progress of the Persecution pag. 363. The Methods of it pag.
nobis virtutem faciet ad nihilum rediget Hostes nostros Serenitatem ac Sanctitatem vestram conservet Altissimus Ecclesiae suae Sanctae per tempora diuturna Datum apud Monasterium de Aberbroth in Scotia 6 die Aprilis Anno gratiae Millesimo trecentesimo vicesimo Anno vero Regni Regis nostri supradicti quintodecimo Number 11. The Oath given to the Scots who submitted to the Protector YOu shall bear your Faith to the King's Majesty Ex Libro Concilii Fol. 139. our Soveraign Lord Edward the Sixth c. till such time as you shall be discharged of your Oath by special License And you shall to the uttermost of your power serve his Majesty truly and faithfully against all other Realms Dominions and Potentates as well Scots as others You shall hear nothing that may be prejudicial to his Majesty or any of his Realms or Dominions but with as much diligence as you may shall cause the same to be opened so as the same come to his Majesty's Knowledg or to the knowledg of the Lord Protector or some of his Majesty's Privy-Council You shall to the uttermost of your possible Power set forwards and advance the King's Majesties Affairs in Scotland for the Marriage and Peace Number 12. The Protestation of the Bishop of London made to the Visitors when he received the King's Majesties Injunctions and Homilies Ex Libro Concilii Fol. 110. I Do receive these Injunctions and Homilies with this Protestation That I will observe them if they be not contrary and repugnant to God's Law and the Statutes and Ordinances of this Church The Submission and Revocation of the same Bishop made before the Lords of the Kings Majesty's Council presently attending upon his Majesty's Person with the subscription of his Name thereunto VVHere I Edmund Bishop of Lodon have at such time as I received the King's Majesty's my most dread Soveraign Lord's Injunctions and Homilies at the Hands of his Highness Visitors did unadvisedly make such Protestation as now upon better consideration of my duty of Obedience and of the ill Example that may ensue to others thereof appeareth to me neither reasonable nor such as might well stand with the Duty of an humble Subject forasmuch as the same Protestation at my request was then by the Register of that Visitation enacted and put in Record I have thought it my bounden Duty not only to declare before your Lordships That I do now upon better consideration of my Duty renounce and revoke my said Protestation but also most humbly beseech your Lordships that this my Revocation of the same may likewise be put in the same Records for a perpetual Memory of the Truth Most humbly beseeching your good Lordships both to take order that it may take effect and also that my former unadvised doings may by your good Mediations be pardoned of the King's Majesty Edmund London Number 13. Gardiner's Letter to Sir John Godsalve concerning the Injunctions Ex MS. Col. C. C. Cantab. Mr. Godsalve after my right hearty Commendations with like thanks for the declaration of your good mind towards me as you mean it although it agreeth not with mine Accompt such as I have had leasure to make in this time of Liberty since the Death of my late Soveraign Lord whose Soul Jesu pardon For this have I reckon'd that I was called to this Bishoprick without the offence of God's Law or the King 's in the attaining of it I have kept my Bishoprick these sixteen Years accomplished this very day that I write these my Letters unto you without offending God's Law or the King 's in the retaining of it howsoever I have of frailty otherwise sinned Now if I may play the third part well to depart from the Bishoprick without the offence of God's Law or the King 's I shall think the Tragedy of my Life well passed over and in this part to be well handled is all my care and study now how to finish this third Act well for so I offend not God's Law nor the King's I will no more care to see my Bishoprick taken from me than my self to be taken from the Bishoprick I am by Nature already condemned to die which Sentence no Man can pardon nor assure me of delay in the execution of it and so see that of necessity I shall leave my Bishoprick to the disposition of the Crown from whence I had it my Houshold also to break up and my bringing up of Youth to cease the remembrance whereof troubleth me nothing I made in my House at London a pleasant Study that delighted me much and yet I was glad to come into the Country and leave it and as I have left the use of somewhat so can I leave the use of all to obtain a more quiet it is not loss to change for the better Honesty and Truth are more leef to me than all the Possessions of the Realm and in these two to say and do frankly as I must I never forbare yet and in these two Honesty and Truth I take such pleasure and comfort as I will never leave them for no respect for they will abide by a Man and so will nothing else No Man can take them away from me but my self and if my self do them away from me then my self do undo my self and make my self worthy to lose my Bishoprick whereat such as gape might take more sport than they are like to have at my hands What other Men have said or done in the Homilies I cannot tell and what Homilies or Injunctions shall be brought hither I know not such as the Printers have sold abroad I have read and considered and am therefore the better instructed how to use my self to the Visitors at their repair hither to whom I will use no manner of Protestation but a plain Allegation as the Matter serveth and as Honesty and Truth shall bind me to speak for I will never yield to do that should not beseem a Christian Bishops ought never to lose the Inheritance of the King's Laws due to every English Man for want of Petition I will shew my self a true Subject humble and obedient which repugneth not with the preservation of my Duty to God and my Right in the Realm not to be enjoined against an Act of Parliament which mine intent I have signified to the Council with request of redress in the Matter and not to compel me to such an Allegation which without I were a Beast I cannot pretermit and I were more than a Beast if after I had signified to the Council Truth and Reason in words I should then seem in my Deeds not to care for it My Lord Protector in one of such Letters as he wrote to me willed me not to fear too much and indeed I know him so well and divers others of my Lords of the Council that I cannot fear any hurt at their hands in the allegation of God's Law and the King 's and I will
King Edward the 6th by the same Act limited and appointed to remain to the Lady Mary his eldest Daughter and to the Heirs of her Body lawfully begotten And for default of such Issue the Remainder thereof to the Lady Elizabeth by the Name of the Lady Elizabeth his second Daughter and to the Heirs of her Body lawfully begotten with such Conditions as should be limited and appointed by the said late King of worthy memory King Henry the 8th our Progenitor our Great Uncle by his Letters Patents under his Great Seal or by his last Will in writing signed with his Hand And forasmuch as the said Limitation of the Imperial Crown of this Realm being limited as is afore-said to the said Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth being illegitimate and not lawfully begotten for that the Marriage had between â—he said late King King Henry the 8th our Progenitor and Great Uncle and the Lady Katherine Mother to the said Lady Mary and also the Marriage had between the said late King King Henry the 8th our Progenitor and Great Uncle and the Lady Ann Mother to the said Lady Elizabeth were clearly and lawfully undone by Sentences of Divorce according to the Word of God and the Ecclesiastical Laws and which said several Divorcements have been severally ratified and confirmed by Authority of Parliament and especially in the 28th Year of the Reign of King Henry the 8th our said Progenitor and Great Uncle remaining in force strength and effect whereby as well the said Lady Mary as also the said Lady Elizabeth to all intents and purposes are and been clearly disabled to ask claim or challenge the said Imperial Crown or any other of the Honours Castles Manours Lordships Lands Tenements or other Hereditaments as Heir or Heirs to our said late Cousin King Edward the 6th or as Heir or Heirs to any other Person or Persons whatsoever as well for the Cause before rehearsed as also for that the said Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth were unto our said late Cousin but of the half Blood and therefore by the Ancient Laws Statutes and Customs of this Realm be not inheritable unto our said late Cousin although they had been born in lawful Matrimony as indeed they were not as by the said Sentences of Divorce and the said Statute of the 28th Year of the Reign of King Henry the 8th our said Progeâ—â—â—or and Great Uncle plainly appeareth And forasmuch also as it is to be thought or at the least much to be doubted that if the said Lady Mary or Lady Elizabeth should hereafter have or enjoy the said Imperial Crown of this Realm and should then happen to marry with any Stranger born out of this Realm that then the said Stranger having the Government and Imperial Crown in his Hands would adhere and practise not only to bring this Noble Free Realm into the Tyranny and Servitude of the Bishops of Rome but also to have the Laws and Customs of his or their own Native Country or Countries to be practised and put in ure within this Realm rather than the Laws Statutes and Customs here of long time used whereupon the Title of Inheritance of all and singular the Subjects of this Realm do depend to the peril of Conscience and the uttersubversion of the Common-Weal of this Realm Whereupon our said late dear Cousin weighing and considering within himself which ways and means were most convenient to be had for the stay of the said Succession in the said Imperial Crown if it should please God to call our said late Cousin out of this transitory Life having no Issue of his Body And calling to his remembrance that We and the Lady Katharine and the Lady Mary our Sisters being the Daughters of the Lady Frances our natural Mother and then and yet Wife to our natural and most loving Father Henry Duke of Suffolk and the Lady Margaret Daughter of the Lady Elianor then deceased Sister to the said Lady Frances and the late Wife of our Cousin Henry Earl of Cumberland were very nigh of his Graces Blood of the part of his Fathers side our said Progenitor and great Uncle and being naturally born here within the Realm And for the very good Opinion our said late Cousin had of our said Sisters and Cousin Margarets good Education did therefore upon good deliberation and advice herein had and taken by his said Letters Patents declare order assign limit and appoint that if it should fortune himself our said late Cousin King Edward the Sixth to decease having no Issue of his Body lawfully begotten that then the said Imperial Crown of England and Ireland and the Confines of the same and his Title to the Crown of the Realm of France and all and singular Honours Castles Prerogatives Privileges Preheminencies and Authorities Jurisdictions Dominions Possessions and Hereditaments to our said late Cousin K. Edward the Sixth or to the said Imperial Crown belonging or in any wise appertaining should for lack of such Issue of his Body remain come and be to the eldest Son of the Body of the said Lady Frances lawfully begotten being born into the World in his Life-time and to the Heirs Males of the Body of such eldest Son lawfully begotten and so from Son to Son as he should be of vicinity of Birth of the Body of the said Lady Frances lawfully begotten being born into the World in our said late Cousins Life-time and to the Heirs Male of the Body of every such Son lawfully begotten And for default of such Son born into the World in his life-time of the Body of the said Lady Frances lawfully begotten and for lack of Heirs Males of every such Son lawfully begotten that then the said Imperial Crown and all and singular other the Premises should remain come and be to us by the Name of the Lady Jane eldest Daughter of the said Lady Frances and to the Heirs Males of our Body lawfully begotten and for lack of such Issue then to the Lady Katherine aforesaid our said second Sister and the Heirs Male of her Body lawfully begotten with divers other Remainders as by the same Letters Patents more plainly and at large it may and doth appear Sithence the making of our Letters Patents that is to say on Thursday which was the 6th day of this instant Month of July it hath pleased God to call unto his infinite Mercy our said most dear and entirely beloved Cousin Edward the Sixth whose Soul God pardon and forasmuch as he is now deceased having no Heirs of his Body begotten and that also there remaineth at this present time no Heirs lawfully begotten of the Body of our said Progenitor and great Uncle King Henry the Eighth And forasmuch also as the said Lady Frances our said Mother had no Issue Male begotten of her Body and born into the World in the life-time of our said Cousin King Edward the Sixth so as the said Imperial Crown and other the Premises to the same belonging or in any wise appertaining
clam Autographum surripuerat 5. Septemb. Anno Dom. 1553. Number 9. The Conclusion of Cardinal Pool's Instructions to Mr. Goldwell sent by him to the Queen An Original Cotton Libr. Titus B. 2. FOr the conclusion of all that is comprised in your Instruction as that the which containeth the whole Sum of my poor Advice and Counsel it pleaseth her Grace to ask of me you shall say That my most humble desire is that in all deliberation her Grace shall make touching the maintenance of her State the same will ever well ponder and consider what the Providence of God hath shewed therein above that which hath been shewed in her Predecessors Kings of this Realm in this one Point which is to have the Crown not only as a King's Daughter and Heir but hath ordered that this Point of right Inheritance shall depend as it doth of the Authority he hath given to his Church and of the See of Rome which is the See Apostolick approving her Mother to be Legitimate Wife of King Henry the Eighth whereby she is bound afore God and Man as she will show her self the very Daughter of the said King Henry the Eighth right Heir of the Crown so also to show her self right Daughter of the Church and of them that be resident in the See Apostolick who be the right Heirs of Peter to whom and his Successors Christ chief Head of the Church in Heaven and in Earth hath given in Earth to bear his Place touching the Rule of the same Church and to have the Crown thereof which well considered and pondered her Grace shall soon see how in her Person the Providence of God hath joined the Right she hath by her Father in the Realm with the Right of the Church that she cannot prevail by the one except she join the other withal and they that will separate these two take away not only half her Right but her whole Right being not so much Heir because she is King Henry's only Daughter without Issue Male as she is his lawful Daughter which she hath by the Authority of the Church Which thing prudently and godly considered she cannot but see what faithful counsel this is That above all Acts that in this Parliament shall be made doth advertise her Grace to establish that the which pertaineth to the establishing of the Authority of the Church and the See of the same what rendering to him that is right Successor to Peter therein his right Title of Head in the Church in Earth without the which she cannot be right Head in the Realm and this established all Controversy is taken away and who will repine unto this he doth repine unto her right of the Crown Wherefore this is my first Advice That this Point above all other should be entreated and enacted in the Parliament and so I know her Graces full mind was and is that it should be But she feareth Difficulties and hereupon dependeth that her Grace asketh my poor Advice how these Difficulties may be taken away Unto this you may say That they must be taken away by the help of him that by his high Providence above Man's expectance hath given her already the Crown Which will have as well this second Act known of the maintainance thereof to depend of him as the first in attaining thereto And to have his help the mean is by humble Prayer wherein I would advertise her Highness not only to give her self to Prayer but also by Alms to the needy excitate the Minds of others to Prayer these be the means of most efficacy and with this to take that ardent Mind to establish the Authority of the Church casting away all fear of Man that she to be to have her Crown and not so much for her own sake as for the Honour of God which gave her the Crown And if any Difficulty should be feared in the Parliament herein leave the honour to take away the difficulty thereof to none other but assume that person to her self as most bound thereto and to propone that her self which I would trust to be of that efficacy that if inwardly any Man will repugn outwardly the Reasons be so evident for this part that joined with the Authority of her Person being proponent none will be so hardy temerarious nor impious that will resist And if in this deliberation it should seem strange to put forth these Matters in the Parliament as I have said in the Instructions without communicating the same with any of her Council I would think it well her Grace might confer it with two of the chiefest that be counted of the People most near her favour one Spiritual and another Temporal with declaring to them first how touching her Conscience afore God and her Right afore the World she can never be quiet until this Matter be stablished touching the Authority of the Church requiring their uttermost help in that as if she should fight for the Crown her Majesty may be sure she putting the same forth with that earnest manner they will not lack to serve her and they may serve quietly in the Parliament after her Grace hath spoken to prosecute and justify the same with efficacy of words to give all others example to follow her Grace leaving this part unto them That if the Name of Obedience to the Pope should seem to bring as it were a Yoke to the Realm or any other kind of servitude beside that it should be profitable to the Realm both afore God and Man that her Grace that bringeth it in again will never suffer it nor the Pope himself requireth no such thing And herein also that they say That my Person being the Mean to bring it in would never agree to be an Instrument thereof if I thought any thraldom should come thereby they shall never be deceived of me And if they would say beside I would never have taken this Enterprize upon me except I thought by the same to bring great Comfort to the Country wherein the Pope's Authority being accepted I would trust should be so used that it might be an Example of Comfort not only to that Country but to all other that hath rejected it afore and for that cause hath been ever since in great misery This is the sum of all my poor Advice at this time in this Case whereof I beseech Almighty God so much may take effect as shall be to his Honour and Wealth to her Grace and the whole Realm besides Amen Number 10. A Copy of a Letter with Articles sent from the Queens Majesty unto the Bishop of London and by him and his Officers at her gracious Commandment to be put in speedy execution with effect in the whole Diocess as well in places exempt as not exempt whatsoever according to the Tenour and Form of the same Sent by the Queen's Majesty's Commandment in the Month of March Anno Dom. 1553. By the QUEEN RIght Reverend Father in God Right trusty and well-beloved We
confecti extremum Vitae diem misere finierunt Necessitas Pontificem ad judicium impellens Quae omnia cum apud omnes Nationes perspicua notiora sint gravissimo quam plurimorum testimonio ita comprobata ut nullus omnino locus excusationis defensionis aut tergiversationis relinquatur Nos multiplicatis aliis atque aliis super alias impietatibus facinoribus praeterea fidelium persecutione religionisque afflictione impulsu opera dictae Elizabethae quotidie magis ingravescente quoniam illius animum ita obfirmatum atque induratum intelligimus ut non modo pias Catholicorum Principum de sanitate conversatione preces monitionesque contempserit sed ne hujus quidem sedis ad ipsam hac de Causa Nuncios in Angliam trajicere permiserit ad arma justitiae contra eam de necessitate conversi dolorem lenire non possumus quod adducamur in illam animadvertere cujus majores de Rep. Christiana tantopere meruere Illius itaque autoritate suffulti qui nos in hoc supremo Justitiae Throno licet tanto oneri impares voluit collocare de Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine declaramus praedictam Elizabetham Haereticam Haereticorum fautricem eique adherentes in predictis anathematis sententiam incurrisse Sentiae Declaratio esseque a Christi Corporis unitate praecisos Quin etiam ipsam praetenso Regni praedicti jure necnon omni quorumque Dominio dignitate privilegioque privatam Et item proceres subditos populos dicti Regni ac caeteros omnes qui illi quomodocunque juraverunt a Juramento hujusmodi ac omni prorsus dominii fidelitatis obsequii debito perpetuo absolutos prout nos illos praesentium authoritate absolvimus privamus eandem Elizabetham praetenso jure Regni aliisque omnibus supradictis Praecipimusque interdicimus Universis singulis Proceribus Subditis Populis aliis praedictis ne illi ejusve monitis mandatis legibus audeant obedire Qui secus egerint eos simili Anathematis sententia innodamus Quia vero difficile nimis esset presentes quocunque illis opus erit perferre Volumus ut earum exempla Notarii Publici manu Prelati Ecclesiastici ejusve Curiae Sigillo obsignata eandem illam prorsus fidem in judicio extra illud ubique gentium faciant quam ipsae presentes facerent si essent exhibitae vel ostensae Datum Romae apud Sanctum Petrum Anno Incarnationis Dominicae Millesimo quingentesimo Sexagesimo Nono Quinta Kalend. Martii Pontificatus nostri Anno Quinto Cae. Glorierius H. Humyn AN APPENDIX Concerning some of the Errors and Falshoods IN SANDER's Book OF THE English Schism AN APPENDIX IT has been observed of Theeves that by a long practice in that ill course of Life they grow so in love with it that when there is no Advantage to be made by Stealing yet they must keep their Hand in use and continue their address and dexterity in it so also Lyars by a frequent Custom grow to such a habit that in the commonest things they cannot speak Truth even though it might conduce to their Ends more than their Lyes do Sanders had so given himself up to vent Reproaches and Lyes that he often does it for nothing without any End but to carry on a Trade that had been so long driven by him that he knew not how to lay it down He wrote our History meerly upon the Reports that were brought him without any care or information about the most publick and most indifferent Things but not content to set down those Tattles he shews his Wit in refining about them and makes up such Politicks and Schems of Government as might suit with these Reports and agree with his own Malice His Work is all of a piece and as it was made out in the former Volume how ignorantly and disingeniously he writ concerning King Henry the Eighth's Reign so I shall add a further Discovery of the remaining parts of his Book which will sufficiently convince even the most partial Readers of the impudence of that Author who seems to have had no other design in writing but to impose on the credulity and weakness of those who he knew were inclined to believe every thing that might cast blemishes on a Work against which they were so strongly prejudiced as the Reformation of this Church since a Field which they so often reaped and with whose Spoils their Court was so enriched was no more at their Devotion So they are ever since concerned in Interest to use all the ways they can think on to disgrace a Change that was so fatal to them But as the Reformation of this Church has hitherto stood notwithstanding all their Designs against it so it is to be hoped that the History of it will be hereafter better understood notwithstanding all the Libels and Calumnies by which they have endeavoured to represent it in such black and odious Colours to the World Sanders says Page 176. King Edward was in the 9th Year of his Age when he came to the Crown This is of no great consequence but it shews how little this Author considered what he writ when in so publick a thing as the King's Age he misreckons a Year for he was born the 12th of October 1537 so in January 1547 he was in the 10th Year of his Age. 2. He says King Edward was not only declared King of England Ibid. and Ireland but made Supream Head of the Church and upon that runs out to shew how uncapable a Child was of that Power This is set down in such terms as if there had been some special Act made for his being Supream Head of the Church distinct from his being proclaimed King whereas there was no such thing for the Supremacy being annexed to the Crown the one went with the other and it being but a Civil Power might be as well exercised by the King's Governors before he came to be of Age as the other Rights of the Crown were Pag. 177. 3. He says The Earl of Hartford was made by himself Duke of Somerset This was done by order of the whole Council in pursuance of King Henry's Design proved by those Witnesses that were beyond exception and that King having by his Will charged his Executors to fullfil those things which he intended to do this was found to be one of them Pag. 178. 4. He says The Duke of Somerset made himself the only Governor of the King and Protector none daring to oppose it openly but Wriothesley whom King Henry when he was dying had made Lord Chancellor The Protector was advanced to that Dignity by the unanimous consent of the whole Council to which the Lord Chancellor consented and signed the Order about it the Original whereof is yet extant for though he argued against it before it was done yet he joined with the rest in doing it Nor was he made Chancellor by
King Henry at his Death but two Years before Ibid. 5. He says On the 27th of February two days before the King was crowned the Protector persuaded the King to create many new Peers who were all Hereticks except Dudley Earl of Warwick Our Author by this shew of exactness would persuade the Reader that he had considered Dates and the smallest particulars with the care that became an Historian But he little thought that any would come after him and examine what he said By this Account the King must have been crowned the first of March but it was done Feb. 20. and the Peers were created on the 16th of February four days before They were not all Hereticks for he forgot that Wriothesley was at the same time made Earl of Southampton which he afterwards insinuates was done upon another account But all those Creations were in persuance of King Henry's Designs and in obedience to his latter Will Ibid. 6. He says They forced Wriothesley to resign his Office and turned both him and the Earl of Arundel out of the Council because they were Catholicks Wriothesley was turned out upon no account of Religion but for putting the Great Seal to a Commission that was against Law according to the Opinion which the Judges declared under their hands without any Warrant from the Council himself acknowledging the justice of the Sentence The Earl of Arundel was not turned out of the Council on the contrary in the Patent by which the Protector held his Office that passed after the Chancellor was removed he is named to be one of the Privy Council 7. He says Pag. 179. The Protector would needs force all the Clergy to submit in every thing to the King's Orders and sets down the Form in which the King writ to Arch-Bishop Cranmer In this nothing was done but what was begun by King Henry and to which all the Clergy even his beloved Bonner not excepted had formerly submitted So this was no new thing set up by the Protector it being only the renewing the Bishops Patents in the new King's Name And this was no part of the Reformation for it was done only to awe the Popish Bishops but was soon after laid aside What he sets down as a Letter of King Edward's to Cranmer is the Preamble of the Patent he took out So little did this Writer know the things that truly make to the advantage to the Cause which he designed to assert 8. He says The New Protector among the first things he did Pag. 180. restrained all Preaching and silenced all the Bishops and Pastors so that none were licensed to preach but the Lutherans and Zuinglians The first Injunctions set out in the King's Name required all Bishops to preach at least four times a Year in their Diocesses and to keep Learned Chaplains who might be able to preach and should be often much employed in it And thus Matters stood the first Year of this Reign In the beginning of the second Year upon complaints made of the rashness of some Preachers a Proclamation was put out that none should preach without a License from the King or the Arch-Bishops or the Bishop of the Diocess except Incumbents in their own Parishes Afterwards there was for some little time a total prohibition of Preaching but that was to last for a short while till the Book of Common Prayer which was then a preparing should be finished This was equally made on both hands for the Prohibition was universal without exception so falsly has our Author stated this Matter which one would think he ignorantly drew from what Queen Mary did applying it to this Reign for she upon her coming to the Crown did prohibit all Preaching excepting only such as were licensed to it by Gardiner under the Great Seal 9. He says Latimer was turned out of the Bishoprick of Worcester Pag. 181. by King Henry upon suspicion of Heresy Latimer did freely resign his Bishoprick upon the passing of the Act of the six Articles with which he could not comply with a good Conscience 10. He says The Protector put Cox and Cheek about the King Pag. 182. that they might corrupt his Mind with Heretical Doctrines These were put about him three Years before by King Henry's Order as that young King himself informs us in his Journal Pag. 184. 11. He says The Heads of the Colleges were turned out and the Catholick Doctors were forbid to preach I do not find one Head of a College in either University was turned out for though they generally loved the Old Superstition yet they loved their Places much better And indeed the whole Clergy did so readily conform themselves to every Change that was made that it was not easy to find Colours for turning out Bonner and Gardiner All Preachers had the liberty of their own Pulpits except for a very little while Ibid. 12. He says They decried the School Divinity and the Works of Lombard Aquinas and Scotus and so threw all Learning out of the Schools They could not do that more than Sir Thomas More Erasmus and other Popish Writers had done before them who had expressed their scorn of that way of Treating Divine Matters so copiously that it was no wonder it was much despised Those Writers had by a set of dark and barbarous Maxims and Terms so intangled all the Articles of Faith and imposed by the World on an appearance of saying somewhat when really they said nothing and pretending to explain Religion they had so exposed it that their way of Divinity was become equally nauseous and ridiculous Pag. 186. 13. He says Bucer and Peter Martyr being brought out of Germany did corrupt the Universities and entertained the Youth with Discourses of Predestination Reprobation and a fatal necessity of things This was so far from being much taught that on the contrary in one of the Articles of Religion the curious Enquiries into those abstruse Points was by Publick Authority forbid Bucer and Martyr read for most part in the Chairs upon the Mass and the other Corruptions of the Popish Worship They also declared St. Austin's Doctrine about Grace but I do not find they ever medled with Reprobation Pag. 190. 14. After a long Invective which is to pass as a piece of his Wit and Poetry he says Bucer was inclined to become a Jew and was descended from Jewish Parents and that the Lord Paget had heard him say That the Corporal Presence was so clear in the Scripture that no Man could deny it who believed the Gospel but for his part he did not believe all that was said in the New Testament concerning our Saviour This is as sutable to our Author's Honesty as can be Bucer was never accused of this by any of his Enemies as long as he lived No Man in that Age writ with a greater sense of the Kingdom of Christ than he did And for the Story of the Lord Paget we have nothing
Offices and the Parties so refusing were subjected to no other Danger nor was the Oath to be put to them a second Time It is true if any did assert the Authority of any Forreign Potentate that was more penal Yet that was not as our Author represents it for the first Offence there was a forfeiture of ones Goods or in case of Poverty one Years Imprisonment the second Offence brought the Offender within a Premunire and the third was Treason 5. He says The Change that was made Pag. 258. of the Title of Supream Head into that of Supream Governor deceived many yet others thought that the Queen might have thereby assumed an Authority for Administring the Sacraments but to clear all Scruples she in the first Visitation ordered it to be thus explained that she thereby pretended to no more Power than what her Father and Brother had exercised In the first Visitation ordered by the Queen there was an Injunction given Explanatory to the Oath of Supremacy declaring that she did not pretend to any Authority for the Ministry of Divine Service in the Church and challenged nothing but what had at all times belonged to the Crown of England which was a Soveraignty over all manner of Persons under God so that no Forreign Power had any Rule over them and so was willing to acquit such as took it in that sense of all the Penalties in the Act. So that it is plain she assumed nothing but the Royal Authority and was ready to accept of such Explications as might clear all Ambiguities 6. He reckons among the Laws that were made this for one Pag. 259. that Bishops should hold their Sees only during the Queen's Pleasure and exercise no other Authority but only as they derived it from her The Laws he reckons were those made by King Henry now revived but this Law is falsly recited in both the parts of it for the Bishops were to hold their Sees as all others do their Free-holds without any dependence on the Queen's Pleasure and were to exercise their Jurisdiction in their own Names and according to the Ecclesiastical Laws and were not forced to take Commissions to hold their Bishopricks during the Queen's Pleasure as had been done both in King Henry and King Edward's Time Pag. 263. 7. After a long discourse against the Queen's Supremacy he says The Laws concerning it and other Points of Religion did pass with great difficulty in the House of Lords all the Bishops opposing them and those Noblemen in particular who had gone to Rome upon the Embassy Queen Mary sent thither did very earnestly disswade it It is true all the Bishops did oppose them tho both Tonstal Heath Thirleby and some others had consented to and written for King Henry's Supremacy which was at least as to the manner of expressing it of a higher strain than that to which the Queen did now pretend They had also submitted to all the Changes that had been made in King Edward's Time For the Temporal Lords none dissented from the Act of Supremacy but the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Viscount Montacute so the opposition was small where so few entred their Dissents and of these only the Viscount Montacute had been at Rome sent thither by Queen Mary It is true the Marquess of Winchester and the Lords Morley Stafford Dudley Wharton Rich and North dissented from the Bill for the Book of Common Prayer and some other Acts that related to the Reformation but these being but few in number were far short of those that were for them and it is clear the Queen left the Peers wholly to their freedom since the Marquess of Winchester notwithstanding his Dissent continued to hold that great Office of Lord Treasurer in which he had been put in King Edward's Time and which he had kept all Queen Mary's Reign till his Death fourteen Years after this this may perhaps be justly censured as looking too like a remissness in the Matters of Religion when he that dissented to the Reformation was yet so long employed in the greatest Trust in the Kingdom but certainly this is none of the Claws to know the Lioness by 8. He says The Queen gave the Earl of Arundel some hopes that she would marry him and so perswaded him to consent to the Laws now made but afterwards slighted him and declared she would live and die a Virgin The Journals of Parliament shew how false this is for the Address was made to the Queen persuading her to marry to which she made the Answer set down by our Author on the 6th of February and the Act of Supremacy with the other Acts concerning Religion passed in April thereafter so that the Queen after so publick a Declaration of her unwillingness to marry could not have deluded the Earl of Arundel with the hopes of it Ibid. 9. He says She wrought on the D. of Norfolk by promising him a Dispensation in the Business of his Marriage which he could not obtain of the Pope It is not like the Duke of Norfolk was denied any such Dispensation from Rome nor are there any Dispensations granted in England for marrying in the forbidden Degrees Cousin Germans are the nearest that may marry The obtaining a License for that at Rome is a matter of course so the Fees are but paied and the Law allows that to all in England Nor are there any Dispensations in Matrimonial Matters except concerning the Time the Place or the asking of Banes and it is not likely these were ever denied to any at Rome As for his long Excursion concerning that Duke's Death it not falling within the compass of my History I shall not follow him in it 10. He says The Protestants desired a publick Disputation Pag. 266. so the Queen commanded the Bishops to make ready for it they refused it a great while since that seemed to make the Faith of the Church subject to the judgment of the ignorant Laity but at last they were forced to yield to it and the Points were Communion in both kinds Prayer in a known Tongue and the like The Act of Council has it otherwise By it we see that the Arch-Bishop of York being then a Privy Councellor did heartily agree to it and undertook that the rest of his Brethren should follow the Orders that were made by the Council concerning it tho it is not to be denied but some of the Bishops were secretly dissatisfied with it as they had good reason since a publick Disputation was like to lay open the weakness of their Cause which was never so safe as when it was received in gross without descending to troublesome Enquiries concerning it The Communion in both kinds was not one of the Articles 11. He says Bacon a Lay-man was Judg Ibid. the Arch-Bishop of York sitting next to him only for forms-sake Bacon was not Judg the whole Privy-Council were present to order the Forms of the Debate and he as the first of
Wittemberg submitting themselves to the Emperors mercy the rest were much disheartned which is a constant forerunner of the ruine of a Confederacy Such was the state of Religion abroad The design laid for a further Reformation at home At home Mens minds were much distracted The People especially in Market Towns and Places of Trade began generally to see into many of the corruptions of the Doctrine and Worship and were weary of them Some preached against some abuses Glasier at Pauls Cross taught that the observance of Lent was only a Positive Law others went further and plainly condemned most of the former abuses But the Clergy were as much engaged to defend them They were for the most part such as had been bred in Monasteries and Religious Houses For there being Pensions reserved for the Monks when their Houses were surrendred and dissolved till they should be otherwise provided The Court of Augmentations took care to ease the King of that Charge by recommending them to such small Benefices as were at the Kings disposal and such as purchased those Lands of the Crown with that Charge of paying the Pensions to the Monks were also careful to ease themselves by procuring Benefices for them The Benefices were generally very small so that in many Places three or four Benefices could hardly afford enough for the maintenance of one Man And this gave some colour for that abuse of one Man's having many Benefices that have a care of Souls annexed to them and that not only where they are so contiguous that the duty can be discharged by one and so poor that the maintenance of both will scarce serve for the encouragement of one Person but even where they are very remote and of considerable value This Corruption that crept in in the dark Ages of the Church was now practised in England out of necessity By an Act made in King Henry the 8th's time none might hold two Benefices without a Dispensation but no Dispensation could enable one to hold three yet that was not at this time much considered The excuses made for this were That in some Places they could not find good Men for the Benefices but in most Places the Livings were brought to nothing For while the Abbies stood the Abbots allowed those whom they appointed to serve the Cure in the Churches that belonged to them which were in value above the half of England a small Stipend or some little part of the Vicarage Tithes and they were to raise their subsistence out of the Fees they had by the Sacraments and other Sacramentals and chiefly by the singing Masses for the Poor that died for the Abbies had the profit of it from the Rich. And Masses went generally for 2 d. a Groat was thought a great Bounty So they all concluded themselves undone if these things were withdrawn This engaged them against any Reformation since every step that was made in it took their Bread out of their Mouths But they being generally very ignorant could oppose nothing with the force of Reason or Learning So although they were resolved to comply with any thing rather than forfeit their Benefices yet in their hearts they abhorred all Reformation and murmured against it where they thought they might do it safely some preached as much for the old abuses as others did against them Dr. Peru at St. Andrews Vndershaft justified the Worship of Images on the 23d of April yet on the 19th of June he preached a Recantation of that Sermon Besides these there were great Prelates as Gardiner Bonner and Tonstall whose long experience in Affairs they being oft employed in Forreign Ambassies together with their high preferment gave them great Authority and they were against all Alterations in Religion But that was not so decent to profess therefore they set up on this pretence That till the King their Supream Head were of Age so as to consider things himself all should continue in the state in which King Henry had left them and these depended on the Lady Mary the Kings eldest Sister as their Head who now professed her self to be in all Points for what her Father had done and was very earnest to have every thing Enacted by him but chiefly the six Articles to continue in force On the other hand Crvnmer being now delivered from that too awful subjection that he had been held under by King Henry resolved to go on more vigorously in purging out abuses He had the Protector firmly united to him in this design Dr. Cox and Mr. Cheek who were about the young King were also very careful to infuse right Principles of Religion into him and as he was very capable of understanding what was laid before him so he had an early liking to all good and generous Principles and was of so excellent a temper of mind that as he naturally loved Truth so the great probity of his Manners made him very inclinable to love and cherish true Religion Cranmer had also several Bishops of his side Holgate of York Holbeach of Lincoln Goodrick of Ely and above all Ridley Elect of Rochester designed for that See by King Henry but not Consecrated till September this Year Old Latimer was now discharged of his Imprisonment but had no mind to return to a more publick Station and did choose rather to live private and employ himself in Preaching He was kept by Cranmer at Lambeth where he spent the rest of his days till he was imprisoned in Queen Maries time and attained the glorious end of his innocent and pious Life But the apprehensions of his being restored again to his old Bishoprick put Heath then Bishop of Worcester into great anxieties sometimes he thought if he consented to the Reformation then Latimer who left his Bishoprick on the account of the six Articles must be restored and this made him joyn with the Popish Party at other times Journal of the House of Commons when he saw the House of Commons moved to have Latimer put in again then he joyned in the Councils for the Reformation to secure Friends to himself by that compliance Others of the Bishops were ignorant and weak Men who understood Religion little and valued it less and so although they liked the old Superstition best because it encouraged Ignorance most and that was the only sure Support of their Power and Wealth yet they resolved to swim with the Stream It was designed by Cranmer and his Friends to carry on the Reformation but by slow and safe degrees not hazarding too much at once They trusted in the Providence of God that he would assist them in so good a Work They knew the corruptions they were to throw out to be such that they should easily satisfie the People with what they did and they had many Learned Men among them who had now for divers years been examining these matters There were also many that declared they had heard the late King express his great regret for leaving the state
of Religion in so unsetled a condition and that he had resolved to have changed the Mass into a Communion besides many other things And in the Act of Parliament which he had procured see Pag. 263. first Part for giving force and Authority to his Proclamations a Proviso was added That his Sons Councellors while he should be under Age might set out Proclamations of the same Authority with these which were made by the King himself This gave them a full Power to proceed in that Work in which they resolved to follow the method begun by the late King of sending Visitors over England with Injunctions and Articles A Visitation is made over England They ordered them six several Circuits or Precincts The first was London Westminster Norwich and Ely The second Rochester Canterbury Chichester and Winchester The third Sarum Exeter Bath Bristol and Glocester The fourth York Durham Carlisle and Chester The fifth Peterborough Lincoln Oxford Coventry and Litchfield And the sixth Wales Worcester and Hereford For every Circuit there were two Gentlemen a Civilian a Divine and a Register They were designed to be sent out in the beginning of May as appears by a Letter to be found in the Collection Collection Number 7. written the fourth of May to the Arch-bishop of York There is also in the Registers of London another of the same strain Yet the Visitation being put off for some Months this Inhibition was suspended on the 16th of May till it should be again renued The Letter sets forth That the King being speedily to order a Visitation over his whole Kingdom therefore neither the Arch-bishop nor any other should exercise any jurisdiction while that Visitation lasted And since the minds of the People were held in great suspence by the Controversies they heard so variously tossed in the Pulpits that for quieting these the King did require all Bishops to preach no where but in their Cathedrals and that all other Clergy-men should not preach but in their Collegiate or Parochial Churches unless they obtained a special Licence from the King to that effect The design of this was to make a distinction between such as preached for the Reformation of abuses and such as did it not The one were to be encouraged by Licences to preach where-ever they desired to do it but the others were restrained to the Places where they were Incumbents But that which of all other things did most damp those who designed the Reformation was the misery to which they saw the Clergy reduced and the great want of able Men to propagate it over England For the Rents of the Church were either so swallowed up by the suppression of Religious Houses to whom the Tithes were generally appropriated or so basely alienated by some lewd or superstitious Incumbents who to preserve themselves being otherwise obnoxious or to purchase Friends had given away the best part of their Revenues and Benefices that there was very little encouragement left for those that should labour in the Work of the Gospel And though many Projects were thought on for remedying this great abuse yet those were all so powerfully opposed that there was no hope left of getting it remedied till the King should come to be of Age and be able by his Authority to procure the Church-men a more proportioned maintenance Two things only remained to be done at present The one was to draw up some Homilies for the instruction of the People which might supply the defects of their Incumbents Some Homilies compiled together with the providing them with such Books as might lead them into the understanding of the Scripture The other was to select the most eminent Preachers they could find and send them over England with the Visitors who should with more Authority instruct the Nation in the Principles of Religion Therefore some were appointed to compile those Homilies and Twelve were at first agreed on being about those Arguments which were in themselves of the greatest importance The 1st was about the use of the Scriptures The 2d of the misery of Mankind by sin 3d. Of their Salvation by Christ 4th Of True and Lively Faith 5th Of Good Works 6th Of Christian Love and Charity 7th Against Swearing and chiefly Perjury 8th Against Apostacy or declining from God 9th Against the fear of Death 10th An Exhortation to Obedience 11th Against Whoredom and Adultery setting forth the state of Marriage how necessary and honourable it was And the 12th against Contention chiefly about Matters of Religion They intended to set out more afterwards but these were all that were at this time finished The chief design in them was to acquaint the People with the method of Salvation according to the Gospel in which there were two dangerous Extremes at that time that had divided the World The greatest part of the ignorant Commons seemed to consider their Priests as a sort of People who had such a secret trick of saving their Souls as Mountebanks pretend in the curing of Diseases and that there was nothing to be done but to leave themselves in their hands and the business could not miscarry This was the chief Basis and support of all that superstition which was so prevalent over the Nation The other Extreme was of some corrupt Gospellers who thought if they magnified Christ much and depended on his Merits and Intercession they could not perish which way soever they led their Lives In these Homilies therefore special care was taken to rectifie these errors And the Salvation of Mankind was on the one hand wholly ascribed to the Death and Sufferings of Christ to which Sinners were taught to fly and to trust to it only and to no other devices for the pardon of sin They were at the same time taught that there was no Salvation through Christ but to such as truly repented and lived according to the Rules of the Gospel The whole matter was so ordered to teach them that avoiding the hurtful errors on both hands they might all know the true and certain way of attaining Eternal Happiness For the understanding the New Testament Erasmus's Paraphrase which was translated into English was thought the most profitable and easiest Book Therefore it was resolved that together with the Bible there should be one of these in every Parish-Church over England They next considered the Articles and Injunctions that should be given to the Visitors The greatest part of them were only the renewing what had been ordered by King Henry during Cromwel's being Vicegerent which had been much neglected since his fall For as there was no Vicegerent so there was few Visitations appointed after his death by the Kings Authority but the executing former Injunctions was left to the several Bishops who were for the most part more careful about the six Articles than about the Injunctions So now all the Orders about renouncing the Popes Power and asserting the Kings Supremacy about Preaching teaching the Elements of Religion in the Vulgar
such things as your Majesty willed me to be done And first where your Majesty's Pleasure was to have the Names of such Persons as your Highness in times past appointed to make Laws Ecclesiastical for your Grace's Realm The Bishop of Worcester promised me with all speed to enquire out their Names and the Book which they made and to bring the Names and also the Book unto your Majesty which I trust he hath done before this time And as concerning the ringing of Bells upon Alhallow-day at Night and covering of Images in Lent and creeping to the Cross he thought it necessary that a Letter of your Majesty's Pleasure therein should be sent by your Grace unto the two Arch-Bishops and we to send the same to all other Prelats within your Grace's Realm And if it be your Majesty's Pleasure so to do I have for more speed herein drawn a Minute of a Letter which your Majesty may alter at your Pleasure Nevertheless in my Opinion when such things be altered or taken away there would be set forth some Doctrine therewith which should declare the Cause of the Abolishing or Alteration for to satisfy the Conscience of the People For if the Honouring of the Cross as creeping and kneeling thereunto be taken away it shall seem to many that be ignorant that the Honour of Christ is taken away unless some good teaching be set forth withal to instruct them sufficiently therein which if your Majesty command the Bishops of Worcester and Chichester with other your Grace's Chaplains to make the People shall obey your Majesty's Commandment willingly giving thanks to your Majesty that they know the Truth which else they would obey with murmuration and grutching And it shall be a satisfaction unto all other Nations when they shall see your Majesty do nothing but by the Authority of God's Word and to the setting forth of God's Honour and not diminishing thereof And thus Almighty God keep your Majesty in his Preservation and Governance From my Mannor at Beckisbourn the 24th of January 45. Your Graces most bounden Chaplain and Beadsman POSTSCRIPT I Beseech your Majesty that I may be a Suitor unto the same for your Cathedral Church of Canterbury who to their great unquietness and also great Charges do alienate their Lands daily and as it is said by your Majesty's Commandment But this I am sure that other Men have gotten their best Lands and not your Majesty Wherefore this is mine only Suit That when your Majesty's Pleasure shall be to have any of their Lands that they may have some Letter from your Majesty to declare your Majesty's Pleasure without the which they be sworn that they shall make no Alienation And that the same Alienation be not made at other Mens pleasures but only to your Majesty's Use For now every Man that list to have any of their Lands make suit to get it into your Majesty's Hands not that your Majesty should keep the same but by Sale or Gift from your Majesty to translate it from your Grace's Cathedral Church unto themselves T. Cantuarien The Draught of a Letter which the King sent to Cranmer against some superstitious Practices To the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury FOrasmuch as you as well in your own Name as in the Name of the Bishops of Worcester and Chichester and other our Chaplains and Learned Men whom We appointed with you to peruse certain Books of Service which We delivered unto you moved Us that the Vigil and ringing of Bells all the Night long upon Alhallow-day at Night and the covering of Images in the Church in the time of Lent with the lifting up the Veil that covereth the Cross upon Palm-Sunday with the kneeling to the Cross at the same time might be abolished and put away for the Superstition and other Enormities and Abuses of the same First Forasmuch as all the Vigils of our Lady and the Apostles and all other Vigils which in the beginning of the Church were Godly used yet for the manifold Superstition and Abuses which after did grow by means of the same they be many Years past taken away throughout all Christendom and there remaineth nothing but the name of the Vigil in the Calendar the thing clearly abolished and put away saving only upon Alhallows-day at Night upon which Night is kept Vigil Watching and ringing of Bells all the Night long Forasmuch as that Vigil is abused as other Vigils were Our pleasure is as you require That the said Vigil shall be abolished as the other be and that there shall be no watching nor ringing but as be commonly used upon other Holy-days at Night We be contented and pleased also That the Images in Churches shall not be covered as hath been accustomed in times past nor no Veil upon the Cross nor no kneeling thereto upon Palm-Sunday nor any other time And forasmuch as you make no mention of creeping to the Cross which is a greater abuse than any of the other for there you say Crucem tuam adoramus Domine and the Ordinal saith Procedant Clerici ad crucem adorandum nudis pedibus And after followeth in the same Ordinal Ponatur Crux ante aliquod Altare ubi a populo adoretur which by your own Book called A Necessary Doctrine is against the Second Commandment Therefore Our Pleasure is That the said creeping to the Cross shall likewise cease from hence-forth and be abolished with the other Abuses before rehearsed And this We will and straitly command you to signify unto all the Prelats and Bishops of your Province of Canterbury charging them in Our Name to see the same executed every one in his Diocess accordingly FINIS A COLLECTION OF RECORDS c. BOOK II. Number 1. The Proclamation of Lady Jane Grayes Title to the Crown JANE by the Grace of God Queen of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland under Christ in Earth the Supream Head To all our most Loving Faithful and Obedient Subjects and to every of them Greeting Whereas our most dear Cousin Edward the 6th late King of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and in Earth Supream Head under Christ of the Church of England and Ireland by his Letters Patents signed with his own Hand and sealed with his Great Seal of England bearing date the 21st day of June in the seventh Year of his Reign in the presence of the most part of his Nobles his Councellors Judges and divers other grave and sage Personages for the profit and surety of the whole Realm thereto assenting and subscribing their Names to the same hath by the same his Letter Patents recited That forasmuch as the Imperial Crown of this Realm by an Act made in the 35th Year of the Reign of the late King of worthy memory King Henry the 8th our Progenitor and great Uncle was for lack of Issue of his Body lawfully begotten and for lack of Issue of the Body of our said late Cousin