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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
having examined it reported that the Process had been legally carried on and the Sentence justly given and that there was no good reason why the Appeal should be received and therefore they rejected it This being reported to the Council they sent for Bonner in the beginning of February and declared to him that his Appeal was rejected and that the Sentence against him was in full force still But the Business of Bulloigne was that which pressed them most Ambassadors sent to the Emperor They misdoubting as was formerly shewn that Paget had not managed that matter dexterously and earnestly with the Emperor sent on the 18th of October Sir Tho. Cheyney and Sir Phil. Hobbey to him to entreat him to take Bulloigne into his protection they also sent over the Earl of Huntington to command it with the addition of a thousand Men for the Garrison When the Ambassadors came to the Emperor they desired leave to raise 2000 Horse and 3000 Foot in his Dominions for the preservation of Bulloigne Cotton Libr. Galba B. 12. The Emperor gave them very good words but insisted much on his League with France and referred them to the Bishop of Arras who told them plainly the thing could not be done So Sir Tho. Cheyney took his leave of the Emperor who at parting desired him to represent to the Kings Council how necessary it was to consider matters of Religion again that so they might be all of one mind for to deal plainly with them till that were done he could not assist them so effectually as otherwise he desired to do And now the Council saw clearly they had not been deceived by Paget in that Particular and therefore resolved to apply themselves to France for a Peace But now the Earl of Warwick falling off wholly from the Popish Party The Earl of Southampton leaves the Court. the Earl of Southampton left the Court in great discontent He was neither restored to his Office of Chancellor nor made Lord Treasurer that Place which was vacant by the Duke of Somersets Fall being now given to the Lord St. John who soon after was made Earl of Wilt-shire nor was he made one of those who had charge of the Kings Person So he began to lay a Train against the Earl of Warwick but he was too quick for him and discovered it upon which he left the Court in the night and it was said he poisoned himself or pined away with discontent for he died in July after A new Office for Ordinations So now the Reformation was ordered to be carried on and there being one part of the Divine Offices not yet reformed that is concerning the giving Orders some Bishops and Divines brought now together by a Session of Parliament were appointed to prepare a Book of Ordination A Session of Parliament But now I turn to the Parliament which sate down on the 4th of November In it a severe Law was made against unlawful Assemblies that if any An Act against Tumultuary Assemblies to the number of twelve should meet together unlawfully for any matter of State and being required by any lawful Magistrate should not disperse themselves it should be Treason and if any broke Hedges or violently pulled up Pales about Inclosures without lawful Authority it should be Felony It was also made Felony to gather the People together without Warrant by ringing of Bells or sound of Drums and Trumpets or the firing of Beacons There was also a Law made against Prophecies concerning the King or his Council since by these the People were disposed to sedition for the first offence it was to be punished by Imprisonment for a year and 10 l. Fine For the second it was Imprisonment during Life with the forfeiture of Goods and Chattels All this was on the account of the Tumults the former year and not with any regard to the Duke of Somersets security as some have without any reason fancied for he had now no Interest in the Parliament nor was he in a condition any more to apprehend Tumults against himself being stript of his so much envied greatness And against Vagabonds Another Law was made against Vagabonds relating That the former Statute made in this Reign being too severe was by that means not executed so it was repealed and the Law made in King Henry the 8th's Reign put in force Provisions were laid down for relieving the Sick and Impotent and setting the Poor that were able to work That once a month there should be every where a Visitation of the Poor by those in Office who should send away such as did not belong to that Place and those were to be carried from Constable to Constable till they were brought to such Places as were bound to see to them There was a Bill brought in for the repealing of a Branch of the Act of Uniformity but it went no further than one reading On the 14th of November the Bishops made a heavy complaint to the Lords of the abounding of vice and disorder The Bishops move for a reviving of Ecclesiastical Censures and that their Power was so abridged that they could punish no sin nor oblige any to appear before them or to observe the Orders of the Church This was heard by all the Lords with great regret and they ordered a Bill to be drawn about it On the 18th of November a Bill was brought in but rejected at first reading because it seemed to give the Bishops too much Power So a second Bill was appointed to be drawn by a Committee of the House It was agreed to and sent down to the Commons who laid it aside after the second reading They thought it better to renew the design that was in the former Reign of two and thirty Persons being authorized to compile the Body of Ecclesiastical Laws and when that was prepared it seemed more proper by confirming it to establish Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction than to give the Bishops any Power while the Rules of their Courts were so little determined or regulated So an act passed empow'ring the King to name fixteen Persons of the Spiritualty of whom four should be Bishops and sixteen of the Temporalty of whom four should be common Lawyers who within three years should compile a Body of Ecclesiastical Laws and those being nothing contrary to the Common and Statute Laws of the Land should be published by the Kings Warrant under the Great Seal and have the force of Laws in the Ecclesiastical Courts Thus they took care that this should not be turn'd over to an uncertain Period as it had been done in the former Reign but designed that it should be quickly finished The Bishops of that time were generally so backward in every step to a Reformation that a small number of them was made necessary to be of this Commission The effect that it had shall be afterwards opened There was a Bill brought in to the House of Commons That the Preaching and holding
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
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
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
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.
made of the Boullonois who were fully payed for all past and a month to come Sir John VVallop Francis Hall and Doctor Coke were appointed Commissioners to appoint the Limits between Me and the French King 23. Removing to VVindsor 22. The Secretary Petre and the Lord Chancellour were appointed to go to the Lady Mary to cause her to come to Oking or to the Court. 25. It was appointed that half the French King's Paiment should be bestowed on paying 10000 l. at Calais 9000 l. in Ireland 10000 l. in the North 2000 l. in the Admiralty so that every Crown might go for one of our Nobles 27. Because the Rumour came so much of Scipperus coming it was appointed that they of the Admiralty should set my Ships in readiness 26. The Duke of Somerset went to set Order in Oxfordshire Sussex Wiltshire and Hampshire 28. The Lady Mary after long communication was content to come to Leez to my Lord Chancellour and then to Hunsden but she utterly denied to come to the Court or Oking at that time 31. The Earl of Southampton died 14. Andrew Dory took the City of in Africa from the Pirat Dragutte who in the mean season burnt the Country of Genoa 8. The Emperour came to Ausburg August 4. Mr. St. Legier was appointed by Letters Patents to be Deputy there and had his Commission Instructions and Letters to the Nobles of Ireland for the same purpose 5. The same Deputy departed from the Castle of Windsor 6. The Duke of Somerset departed to Redding to take an Order there 7. It was appointed that of the Mony delivered to Me by the French King there should be taken 100000 Crowns to pay 10000 l. at Calais 10000 in the North and 2000 in the Admiralty and 8000 in Ireland 8. Monsieur Henaudy took his leave to depart to Calais and so upon the Paiment to be delivered Home and Tremoville being sick went in a Horse-Litter to Dover 9. The French Ambassador came to VVindsor to sue for a Passport for the Dowager of Scotland which being granted so she came like a Friend he required 300 Horse to pass with 200 Keepers which was not wholly granted but only that 200 Horse with an 100 Keepers in one Company coming into this Realm as should be appointed should without let pass into France and not return this way 11. The Vicedam of Chartres shewed his Licence to tarry here with a Letter written to the same purpose 10. The Ambassadour of France departed not a little contented with his gentle Answers 12. Removing to Guilford 13. The Parliament was Prorogued to the 20th of February next following Mr. Cook Master of Requests and certain other Lawyers were appointed to make a short Table of the Laws and Acts that were not wholly unprofitable and present it to the Board The Lord Chancellor fell sore sick with forty more of his House so that the Lady Mary came not thither at that time 14. There came divers Advertisements from Chamberlain Ambassadour with the Queen of Hungary that their very Intent was to take away the Lady Mary and so to begin an Outward War and an Inward Conspiracy insomuch that the Queen said Scipperus was but a Coward and for fear of one Gentleman that came down durst not go forth with his Enterprise to my Lady Mary 16. The Earl of Maxwell came down to the North-Border with a good Power to overthrow the Gremes who were a certain Family that were yielded to Me but the Lord Dacre stood before his Face with a good Band of Men and so put him from his Purpose and the Gentlemen called Gremes skirmished with the said Earl slaying certain of his Men. 17. The Council appointed among themselves That none of them should speak in any Man's behalf for Land to be given Reversion of Offices Leases of Manours or extraordinary Annuities except for certain Captains who served at Bollein their Answer being deferred till Michaelmass next 18. A Proclamation that till Michaelmass all Strangers that sued for Pensions should go their way 20. Removing to Oking 15. The second Paiment of the French was paied and Henaudie and Tremoville delivered 21. 8000 l. of the last Payment was appointed to be payed to the Dispatch of Calais and 5000 at the North. 24. 10000 l. was appointed to be occupied to win Mony to pay the next Year pay the outward Pays and it was promised that the Mony should double every month 26. Removing to Oatlands 27. Andrea Doria gave a hot Assault to the Town of in Africa kept by the Pirat called Drogute but was repulsed by the Townsmen 29. The Pirat gave a hot Assault to Andrea Dorea by Night and slew the Captain of Thames with divers other notable Men. 31. The Duke Maurice made answer to the Emperour That if the Council were not free he would not come at it September 2. Maclamore in Ireland before a Rebel by the means of Mr. Baberson surrendred himself and gave Pledges 6. Mr. VVotton gave up his Secretaryship and Mr. Cecil got it of him 8. Removing from Nonsuch 13. Removing to Oatlands 22. A Proclamation was set forth by the which it was commanded 1. That no kind of Victual no Wax Tallow Candles nor no such thing should be carried over except to Calais putting in Sureties to go thither 2. That no Man should buy or sell the self-same things again except Broakers who should not have more than ten quarters of Grain at once 3. That all Justices should divide themselves into Hundreds Rapes and Wapentakes to look in their Quarters what superfluous Corn were in every Barn and appoint it to be sold at a reasonable price Also that one of them must be in every Market to see the Corn brought Furthermore whoever shipped over any Thing aforesaid to the Parts beyond Sea or Scotland after eight days following the publication of the Proclamation should forfeit his Ship and the Ware therein half to the Lord of the Franchize and half to the finder thereof whoso bought to sell again after the day aforesaid should forfeit all his Goods Farms and Leases to the use one half of the Finder the other of the King whoso brought not in Corn to Market as he was appointed should forfeit 10 l. except the Purveyours took it up or it were sold to his Neighbours 25. Letters sent out to the Justices of the Peace for the due execution thereof 18. Andrea Doria had a repulse from the Town of * Afrodisium in Africa and lost many of his Men and the Captain of Thames and nevertheless left not yet the Siege 24. Order was given for the Victualing of Calais 26. The Lord Willoughby Deputy of Calais departed and took his journey thitherward 28. The Lord Treasurer sent to London to give Order for the preservation of the City with help of the Mayor Whereas the Emperor required a Council they were content to receive it so it were free and ordinary requiring also that every Man might be restored to
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
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-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
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
be found in the Collection In end Sentence was given allowing the second Marriage in that Case and by consequence confirming the Marquess of Northampton's Marriage to his second Wife who upon that was suffered to cohabit with him Yet four years after he was advised to have a special Act of Parliament for confirming this Sentence of which mention shall be made in its due time and Place Some further advance in the Reformation The next thing that came under consideration was the great contradiction that was in most of the Sermons over England Some were very earnest to justifie and maintain all the old Rites that yet remained and others were no less hot to have them laid aside So that in London especially the People were wonderfully distracted by this variety among their Teachers The Ceremonies of Candlemass and their observance of Lent with the Rites used on Palm-Sunday Good-Friday and Easter were now approaching Those that were against them condemned them as superstitious Additions to the Worship of God invented in the dark Ages when an outward Pageantry had been the chief thing that was looked after But others set out the good use that might be made of these things and taught that till they were abolished by the Kings Authority they ought to be still observed In a Visitation that had been made when I cannot learn only it seems to have been about the end of King Henry's Reign it had been declared that Fasting in Lent was only a Positive Law Several Directions were also given about the use of the Ceremonies and some hints as if they were not to be long continued and all Wakes and Plough-Mondays were suppressed since they drew great Assemblies of People together which ended in drinking and quarrelling These I have also inserted in the Collection Number 21. having had a Copy of the Articles left at the Visitation of the Deanry of Doncaster communicated to me by the favour of a most learned Physitian and curious Antiquary Dr. Nathaniel Johnston who sent me this with several other Papers out of his generous zeal for contributing every thing in his power to the perfecting of this Work The Country People generally loved all these Shews Processions and Assemblies as things of diversion and judged it a dull business only to come to Church for Divine Worship and the hearing of Sermons therefore they were much delighted with the gayity and cheerfulness of those Rites But others observing that they kept up all these things just as the Heathens did their Plays and Festivities for their Gods judged them contrary to the gravity and simplicity of the Christian Religion and therefore were earnest to have them removed This was so effectually represented to the Council by Cranmer that an Order was sent to him about it He sent it to Bonner who being Dean of the Colledge of Bishops in the Province of Canterbury was to transmit all such Orders over the whole Province By it the carrying of Candles on Candlemass day of Ashes on Ash-Wednesday and Palms on Palm-Sunday were forbid to be used any longer And this was signified by Bonner to Thirleby Bishop of Westminster on the 28th of June as appears by the Register After this on the 6th of February A Proclamation against those who Innovated without Authority a Proclamation was issued out against such as should on the other hand rashly innovate or perswade the People from the old accustomed Rites under the Pains of Imprisonment and other Punishments at the Kings pleasure excepting only the formerly mentioned Rites to which are added the creeping to the Cross on Good-Friday taking Holy Bread and Water and any other that should be afterwards at any time certified by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury to the other Bishops in the Kings Name to be laid aside And for preventing the mischiefs occasioned by rash Preachers none were to preach without Licence from the King or his Visitors the Arch-bishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of the Diocess where they lived excepting only Incumbents preaching in their own Parishes Those who preached otherwise were to be imprisoned till Order were given for their punishment and the inferior Magistrates were required to see to the execution of these Orders This Proclamation which is in the Collection Number 22. was necessary for giving Authority to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury's Letters which were censured as a great presumption for him without any publick Order to appoint changes in Sacred Rites Some observed that the Council went on making Proclamations with arbitrary Punishments though the Act was repealed that had formerly given so great Authority to them To this it was answered That the King by his Supremacy might still in matters of Religion make new Orders and add Punishments upon the Transgressors yet this was much questioned though universally submitted to The general taking away of all Images Number 23. On the 11th of Feb. there was a Letter sent from the Council to the Arch-bishop for a more considerable Change There were every where great Heats about the removing of Images which had been abused to superstition Some affirming and others denying that their Images had been so abused There were in the Churches some Images of so strange a nature that it could not be denied that they had been abused Such was the Image of the Blessed Trinity which was to be censed on the day of the Innocents Processionale in Festo Innocentium by him that was made the Bishop of the Children This shews it was used on other days in which it is like it was censed by the Bishop where he was present How this Image was made can only be gathered from the Prints that were of it at that time In which the Father is represented sitting on the one hand as an old Man with a Triple Crown and Rayes about him the Son on the other hand as a young Man with a Crown and Rayes and the Blessed Virgin between them and the Emblem of the Holy Ghost a Dove spread over her Head So it is represented in a fair Book of the Hours according to the use of Sarum printed Anno 1526. The impiety of this did raise horror in most Mens Minds when that unconceivable Mystery was so grosly expressed Besides the taking the Virgin into it was done in pursuance to what had been said by some blasphemous Friars of her being assumed into the Trinity In another Edition of these it is represented by three Faces formed in one Head These things had not been set up by any publick Warrant but having been so long in practice they stood upon the general Plea that was for keeping the Traditions of the Church for it was said that the Promises made to the Church were the same in all Ages and that therefore every Age of the Church had an equal Right to them But for the other Images it was urged against them that they had been all consecrated with such Rites and Prayers that it was certain
Melanchthon thought that the Ceremonies of Popery might be used since they were of their own nature indifferent Others as Amstorfius Illiricus with the greatest part of the Lutherans thought the receiving the Ceremonies would make way for all the errors of Popery and though they were of their own nature indifferent yet they ceased to be so when they were enjoyned as things necessary to Salvation But the Emperor going on resolutely many Divines were driven away some concealed themselves in Germany others fled into Switzerland and some came over into England When the news of the Changes that were made here in England were carried beyond Sea and after Peter Martyr's being with Cranmer were more copiously written by him to his friends Calvin and Mar. Bucer who began to think the Reformation almost opprest in Germany now turned their Eyes more upon England Calvin writ to the Protector Calvin writ to the Protector on the 29th of October encouraging him to go on notwithstanding the Wars as Hezekias had done in his Reformation He lamented the heats of some that professed the Gospel but complained that he heard there were few lively Sermons preached in England and that the Preachers recited their discourses coldly He much approves a set form of Prayers whereby the consent of all the Churches did more manifestly appear But he advises a more compleat Reformation he taxed the Prayers for the Dead the use of Chrisme and Extream Vnction since they were no where recommended in Scripture He had heard that the reason why they went no further was because the Times could not bear it but this was to do the Work of God by Political Maximes which though they ought to take place in other things yet should not be followed in Matters in which the Salvation of Souls was concerned But above all things he complained of the great impieties and vices that were so common in England as Swearing Drinking and Vncleanness and prayed him earnestly that these things might be looked after Bucer writ against Gardiner Martin Bucer writ also a Discourse congratulating the Changes then made in England which was translated into English by Sir Philip Hobbey's Brother In it he answered the Book that Gardiner had written against him which he had formerly delayed to do because King Henry had desired he would let it alone till the English and Germans had conferr'd about Religion That Book did chiefly relate to the Marriage of the Clergy Bucer shewed from many Fathers that they thought every Man had not the Gift of Chastity which Gardiner thought every one might have that pleased He taxed the open lewdness of the Romish Clergy who being much set against Marriage which was Gods Ordinance did gently pass over the impurities which the forbidding it had occasioned among themselves He particularly taxed Gardiner himself that he had his Rents payed him out of Stews He taxed him also for his state and pompous way of living and shewed how indecent it was for a Church-man to be sent in Ambassies and that St. Ambrose though sent to make Peace was ashamed of it and thought it unbecoming the Priesthood Both Fagius and he being forced to leave Germany upon the business of the Interim Cranmer invited them over to England and sent them to Cambridge as he had done Peter Martyr to Oxford But Fagius not agreeing with this Air died soon after a Man greatly learned in the Oriental Tongues and a good Expounder of the Scripture This being the state of Affairs both abroad and at home a Session of Parliament was held in England on the 24th of November Nov. 24. Parliament sits to which day it had been prorogued from the 15th of October by reason of the Plague then in London The first Bill that was finished was that about the Marriage of the Priests It was brought into the House of Commons the 3d of December read the second time on the 5th and the third time the 6th But this Bill being only that married Men might be made Priests a new Bill was framed that besides the former Provision Priests might marry This was read the first time the 7th the second time the 10th and was fully argued on the 11th and agreed on the 12th and sent up to the Lords on the 13th of December In that House it stuck as long as it had been soon dispatched by the Commons It lay on the Table till the 9th of February Then it was read the first time and the 11th the second time on the 16th it was committed to the Bishops of Ely and Westminster the Lord Chief-Justice and the Attorney-General and on the 19th of Feb. it was agreed to the Bishops of London Duresme Norwich Carlisle Hereford Worcester Bristol Chichester and Landaff and the Lords Morley Dacres Windsor and Wharton dissenting It had the Royal Assent and so became a Law The Preamble sets forth An Act about the Marriage of the Clergy That it were better for Priests and other Ministers of the Church to live chast and without Marriage whereby they might better attend to the Ministry of the Gospel and be less distracted with secular cares so that it were much to be wished that they would of themselves abstain But great filthiness of living with other inconveniencies had followed on the Laws that compelled Chastity and prohibited Marriage so that it was better they should be suffered to marry than be so restrained Therefore all Laws and Canons that had been made against it being only made by humane Authority are repealed So that all Spiritual Persons of what degree soever might lawfully marry providing they married according to the Order of the Church But a Proviso was added that because many Divorces of Priests had been made after the six Articles were enacted and that the Women might have thereupon married again all these Divorces with every thing that had followed on them should be confirmed There was no Law that passed in this Reign with more contradiction and censure than this and therefore the Reader may expect the larger account of this matter The unmarried state of the Clergy had so much to be said for it Which was much enquired into as being a course of life that was more disengaged from secular cares and pleasures that it was cast on the Reformers every where as a foul reproach that they could not restrain their appetites but engaged in a life that drew after it domestick cares with many other distractions This was an Objection so easie to be apprehended that the People had been more prejudiced against the Marriage of the Clergy if they had not felt greater inconveniencies by the debaucheries of Priests who being restrained from Marriage had defiled the Beds and deflow'red the Daughters of their Neighbours into whose Houses they had free and unsuspected access and whom under the Cloak of receiving Confessions they could more easily entice This made them that they were not so much wrought on by the noise of
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
made use of as a Pretence for many to leave their labour and gad idly about Upon complaint therefore made of it Ridley had a Letter sent to him from the Council against all preaching on working-days on which there should only be Prayers How this was submitted to then is not clear But it cannot be denied that there have been since that time excesses on all hands in this matter while some have with great sincerity and devotion kept up these in Market-Towns but others have carried them on with too much faction and a design to detract from such as were not so eminent in their way of preaching Upon these abuses while some Rulers have studied to put all such Performances down rather than to correct the abuses in them great contradiction has followed on it and the People have been possessed with unjust prejudices against them as hinderers of the Word of God and that opposition has kept up the zeal for these Lectures Which nevertheless since they have been more freely preach'd have of late years produced none of the ill effects that did follow them formerly when they were endeavoured to be suppressed And thus I end the Transactions about Religion this Year The rest of the Affairs at home were chiefly for the regulating of many abuses that had grown up and been nourish'd by a long continuance of War All the Forreign Soldiers were dismissed And though the Duke of Lunenburg had offered the King 10000 Men to his assistance and desired to enter into a Treaty of Marriage for the Lady Mary they only thanked him for the offer of his Soldiers of which they being now at peace with all their Neighbours had no need and since the Proposition for marrying the Lady Mary to the Infant of Portugal was yet in dependance they could not treat in that kind with any other Prince till that Overture was some way ended There were endeavours also for encouraging Trade and reforming the Coin And at the Court things began to put on a new Visage for there was no more any faction the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Warwick being now joyned into a near alliance the Earls eldest Son the Lord Lisle marrying the Dukes Daughter so that there was a good prospect of happy times The Affairs of Scotland In Scotland the Peace being proclaimed the Government was now more entirely in the Hands of the Duke of Castelherault who gave himself up wholly to the Counsels of his base Brother who was Arch-bishop of St. Andrews And he was so abandoned to his pleasures that there was nothing so bad that he was ashamed of He kept another Mans Wife openly for his Concubine There were also many excesses in the Government Which things as they alienated all Peoples minds from the Clergy so they disposed them to receive the new Doctrines which many Teachers were bringing from England and prepared them for the changes that followed afterwards The Queen Mother went over into France in September pretending it was to see her Daughter and the rest of her Kindred there where she laid down the Method for the wresting of the Government of Scotland out of the Governours Hands and taking it into her own And of Germany The Emperor appointed a Diet of the Empire to meet in the end of July and required all to appear personally at it except such as were hindered by sickness of which they were to make Faith upon Oath And at the same time he proscribed the Town of Magdeburg But the Magistrates of that Town set out a large Manifesto for their own vindication as they had done the former Year They said they were ready to give him all the obedience that they were bound to by the Laws of the Empire they were very apprehensive of the mischiefs of a Civil War they were not so blind as to think they were able to resist the Emperors great Armies lifted up with so many Victories if they trusted only to their own strength they had hitherto done no act of hostility to any but what they were forced to for their own defence It was visible the true ground of the War of Germany was Religion to extinguish the Light of the Gospel and to subdue them again to the Papal Tyranny For the Artifices that were formerly used to disguise it did now appear too manifestly so that it was not any more denied But it would be too late to see it when Germany was quite oppressed In Civil Matters they said they would yield to the miseries of the time But St. Peter had taught them that it was better to obey God than Man and therefore they were resolved to put all things to hazard rather than to make Shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience There were Tumults raised in Strasburg and divers other Towns against those who set up the Mass among them and generally all Germany was disposed to a Revolt if they had had but a Head to lead them The Emperor had also set out a very severe Edict in Flanders when he left it against all that favoured the new Doctrines as they were called But the execution of this was stopt at the intercession of the Town of Antwerp when they perceived the English were resolved to remove from thence and carry their Trade to some other Place When the Diet was opened the Emperor pressed them to submit to the Council which the new Pope had removed back to Trent Maurice of Saxâ— answered he could not submit to it unless all that had been done formerly in it should be reviewed and the Divines of the Ausburg Confession were both heard and admitted to a Suffrage and the Pope should subject himself to their Decrees and dispence with the Oath which the Bishops had sworn to him On these terms he would submit to it and not otherwise This was refused to be entred into the Registers of the Diet by the Elector of Mentz but there was no hast for the Council was not to sit till the next year The Emperor complained much that the Interim was not generally received to which it was answered by the Princes that it was necessary to give the People time to overcome their former prejudices All seemed to comply with him And Maurice did so insinuate himself into him that the Siege of Magdeburg being now formed and a great many Princes having gathered Forces against it among whom the Duke of Brunswick and the Duke of Mekleburg were the most forward yet he got himself declared by the Diet General of the Empire for the reduction of that Place and he had 100000 Crowns for undertaking it and 60000 Crowns a Month were appointed for the expence of the War He saw well that if Magdeburg were closely press'd it would soon be taken and then all Germany would be brought to the Emperors devotion and so the War would end in a slavery But he hoped so to manage this small remainder of the War as to draw great effects
Gods Word but she was sure that was not now Gods Word that was called so in her Fathers days He said Gods Word was the same at all times She answered She was sure he durst not for his Ears have avowed these things in her Fathers time which he did now and for their Books as she thanked God she never had so she never would read them She also used many reproachful words to him and asked him If he was of the Council He said not She replied He might well enough be as the Council goes now a-days and so dismissed him thanking him for coming to see her but not at all for offering to preach before her Sir Tho. Wharton one of her Officers carried him to a place where he desired him to drink which Ridley did but reflecting on it said He had done amiss to drink in a place where Gods Word was rejected for if he had remembred his Duty he should upon that refusal have shaken the dust off his Feet for a Testimony against the House and have departed immediately These words he was observed to pronounce with an extraordinary concern and went away much troubled in his mind And this is all I find of the Lady Mary during this Reign For the Lady Elizabeth she had been always bred up to like the Reformation and Dr. Parker who had been her Mothers Chaplain received a strict charge from her Mother a little before her death to look well to the instructing her Daughter in the Principles of true Religion so that there is no doubt to be made of her chearful receiving all the changes that had been established by Law The Designs of the Earl of Warwick And this is all that concerns Religion that falls within this Year But now a design came to be laid which though it broke not out for some time yet it was believed to have had a great influence on the Fall of the Duke of Somerset The Earl of Warwick began to form great Projects for himself and thought to bring the Crown into his Family The King was now much alienated from the Lady Mary the Privy-Council had also embroiled themselves so with her that he imagined it would be no hard matter to exclude her from the Succession There was but one reason that could be pretended for it which was that she stood illegitimated by Law and that therefore the next Heirs in Blood could not be barred their right by her since it would be a great blot on the Honour of the English Crown to let it devolve on a Bastard This was as strong against the Lady Elizabeth since she was also illegitimated by a Sentence in the Spiritual Court and that confirmed in Parliament so if their jealousie of the elder Sisters Religion and the fear of her revenge moved them to be willing to cut her off from the Succession the same reason that was to be used in Law against her was also to take place against her Sister So he reckoned that these two were to be passed over as being put both in the Act of Succession and in the late Kings Will by one error The next in the Will were the Heirs of the French Queen by Charles Brandon who were the Dutchess of Suffolk and her Sister Though I have seen it often said in many Letters and Writings of that time that all that Issue by Charles Brandon was illegitimated since he was certainly married to one Mortimer before he married the Queen of France which Mortimer lived long after his Marriage to that Queen so that all her Children were Bastards some say he was divorced from his Marriage to Mortimer but that is not clear to me The Sweating Sickness This Year the Sweating Sickness that had been formerly both in Henry the 7th and the late King's Reign broke out with that violence in England that many were swept away by it Such as were taken with it died certainly if they slept to which they had a violent desire but if it took them not off in twenty four hours they did sweat out the venom of the distemper which raged so in London that in one week 800 died of it It did also spread into the Country and the two Sons of Charles Brandon by his last Wife both Dukes of Suffolk died within a day one of another So that Title was fallen Their Sister by the half Blood was married to Gray Lord Marquess of Dorset So she being the eldest Daughter to the French Queen the Earl of Warwick resolved to link himself to that Family and to procure the Honour of the Dukedome of Suffolk to be given the Marquess of Dorset who was a weak Man and easily governed He had three Daughters the eldest was Jane a Lady of as excellent qualities as any of that Age of great Parts bred to Learning and much conversant in Scripture and of so rare a temper of mind that she charmed all who knew her in particular the young King about whom she was bred and who had always lived with her in the familiarities of a Brother The Earl of Warwick designed to marry her to Guilford his fourth Son then living his three elder being already married and so to get the Crown to descend on them if the King should die of which it is thought he resolved to take care But apprehending some danger from the Lady Elizabeths Title he intended to send her away So an Ambassador was dispatched to Denmark to treat a Marriage for her with that Kings eldest Son To amuse the King himself a most splendid Embassy was sent to France The King treats with the French King for a Marriage with his Daughter to propose a Marriage for the King to that Kings Daughter Elizabeth afterwards married to Philip of Spain The Marquess of Northampton was sent with this Proposition and with the Order of the Garter With him went the Earls of Worcester Rutland and Ormond the Lords Lisle Fitzwater Bray Abergaveny and Evers and the Bishop of Ely who was to be their Mouth With them went many Gentlemen of Quality who with their Train made up near 500. King Henry received the Garter with great expressions of Esteem for the King The Bishop of Ely told him They were come to desire a more close tie between these Crowns by Marriage and to have the League made firmer between them in other Particulars To which the Cardinal of Lorrain made answer in his way of speaking which was always vain and full of ostentation A Commission was given to that Cardinal the Constable the Duke of Guise and others to treat about it The English began first for Forms sake to desire the Queen of Scots But that being rejected they moved for the Daughter of France which was entertained but so that neither Party should be bound in Honour and Conscience till the Lady were twelve years of Age. Yet this never taking effect it is needless to enlarge further about it of which the Reader will find
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
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
to search into the matter they upon a slight enquiry agreed that the Statute of Edw. the 6th was in force by that Repeal but the Chief Baron and the other Judges searching the matter more carefully found that the Statute had been in effect repealed by the first of Eliz. Ch. 1. where the Act of the 25 Hen. 8. Coke 2. Inst P 684 685. concerning the Election and Jurisdiction of Bishops as formerly they had exercised it was revived so that being in full force the Act of Edw. the 6th that repealed it was thereby repealed To this all the Learned Men of the Law did then agree so that it was not thought so much as necessary to make an explanatory Law about it the thing being indeed so clear that it did not admit of any ambiguity In May this Year the King by his Letters Patents authorized all School-masters to teach a new and fuller Catechisme compiled as is believed by Poinet These are all the Passages in which the Church is concerned this Year The Forreign Negotiations were important For now the ballance began to turn to the French side therefore the Council resolved to mediate a Peace between the French and the Emperor The Emperor had sent over an Ambassador in September last year to desire the King would consider the danger in which Flanders was now by the French Kings having Metz with the other Towns in Lorrain which did in a great measure divide it from the assistance of the Empire and therefore moved that according to the ancient League between England and the House of Burgundy they would enter into a new League with him Upon this occasion the Reader will find how the Secretaries of State bred the King to the understanding of business with relation to the Studies he was then about for Secretary Cecil set down all the Arguments for and against that League with little Notes on the Margent relating to such Topicks from whence he brought them King Edwards Remains Number 5. by which it seems the King was then learning Logick It is the fifth of those Papers after his Journal It was resolved on to send Sir John Morison A Treaty with the Emperor with Instructions to complement the Emperor upon his coming into Flanders and to make an offer of the Kings assistance against the Turks who had made great Depredations that year both in Hungary Italy and Sicily If the Emperor should upon that complain of the French King and say that he had brought in the Turks and should have asked assistance against him he was to move the Emperor to send over an Ambassador to treat about it since he that was then Resident in England was not very acceptable These Instructions which are in the Collection were Signed in September Collection Number 57. but not made use of till January this year And then new Orders were sent to propose the King to be a Mediator between France and the Emperor Upon which the Bishop of Norwich and Sir Phil. Hobbey were sent over to joyn with Sir John Morison and Sir William Pickering and Sir Tho. Chaloner were sent into France In May the Emperor fell sick and the English Ambassadors could learn nothing certainly concerning him but then the Queen of Hungary and the Bishop of Arras treated with them The Bishop of Arras complained that the French had begun the War had taken the Emperors Ships at Barcelona had robbed his Subjects at Sea had stirred up the Princes of Germany against him had taken some of the Towns of the Empire from him while the French Ambassadors were all the while swearing to the Emperor that their Master intended nothing so much as to preserve the Peace so that now although the French were making several Overtures for Peace they could give no credit to any thing that came from them In fine the Queen and Bishop of Arras promised the English Ambassadors to let the Emperor know of the Kings offering himself to mediate and afterwards told them that the Emperor delayed giving answer till he were well enough to do it himself On the 26th of May the Ambassadors writ over that there was a Project sent them out of Germany of an Alliance between the Emperor Ferdinand King of the Romans the King of England and the Princes of the Empire They did not desire that the King should offer to come into it of his own accord but John Frederick of Saxe would move Ferdinand to invite the King into it This way they thought would give least jealousie They hoped the Emperor would easily agree to the Conditions that related to the Peace of Germany since he was now out of all hopes of making himself Master of it The Princes neither loved nor trusted him but loved his Brother and relied much on England But the Emperor having proposed that the Netherlands should be included in the perpetual League of the Empire they would not agree to that unless the Quota's of their Contribution were much changed for these Provinces were like to be the Seats of Wars therefore they would not engage for their defence but upon reciprocal advantages and easie terms When the English Ambassadors in the Court of France desired to know on what terms a Peace might be mediated they found they were much exalted with their success so that as they writ over on the first of May they demanded the restitution of Millan and the Kingdoms of Sicily Naples and Navarre the Sovereignty of Flanders Artois and the Town of Tournay they would also have Siena to be restored to its liberty and Metz Toul and Verdun to continue under the Protection of France These terms the Council thought so unreasonable that though they writ them over as News to their Ambassadors in Flandars yet they charged them not to propose them But the Queen of Hungary asked them what Propositions they had for a Peace knowing already what they were and from thence studied to inflame the Ambassadors since it appeared how little the French regarded their Mediation or the Peace of Christendome when they asked such high and extravagant things upon a little success On the 9th of June the Emperor ordered the Ambassadors to be brought into his Bed-Chamber whither they were carried by the Queen of Hungary He looked pale and lean but his Eyes were lively and his Speech clear They made him a Complement upon his Sickness which he returned with another for their long attendance Upon the matter of their Embassy he said the King of France had begun the War and must likewise begin the Propositions of Peace But he accepted of the Kings Offer very kindly and said They should always find in him great inclinations to a just Peace On the first of July the Council writ to their Ambassadors First assuring them that the King was still alive and they hoped he should recover they told them they did not find that the French would offer any other terms than those formerly made and
they continued still in that mind that they could not be offered by them as Mediators yet they ordered them to impart them unto the Emperor as News and carefully to observe his looks and behaviour upon their opening of every one of them But now the Kings death broke off this Negotiation The Kings sickness together with all his other Affairs He had last year first the Measels and then the Small-Pox of which he was perfectly recovered In his Progress he had been sometimes violent in his Exercises which had cast him into great Colds but these went off and he seemed to be well after it But in the beginning of January this year he was seized with a deep Cough and all Medicines that were used did rather encrease than lessen it upon which a suspition was taken up and spread over all the World so that it is mentioned by most of the Historians of that Age that some lingering Poison had been given him but more than Rumours and some ill-favoured Circumstances I could never discover concerning this He was so ill when the Parliament met that he was not able to go to Westminster but ordered their first meeting and the Sermon to be at White-hall In the time of his sickness Bishop Ridley preached before him and took occasion to run out much on Works of Charity and the obligation that lay on Men of high Condition to be eminent in good Works This touched the King to the quick So that presently after Sermon he sent for the Bishop His care of the Relief of the Poor And after he had commanded him to sit down by him and be covered he resumed most of the Heads of the Sermon and said he looked on himself as chiefly touched by it he desired him as he had already given him the Exhortation in general so to direct him how to do his duty in that Particular The Bishop astonished at this tenderness in so young a Prince burst forth in Tears expressing how much he was overjoyed to see such inclinations in him but told him he must take time to think on it and craved leave to consult with the Lord Major and Court of Aldermen So the King writ by him to them to consult speedily how the Poor should be relieved They considered there were three sorts of Poor such as were so by natural infirmity or folly as impotent Persons and Mad-men or Ideots such as were so by accident as sick or maimed Persons and such as by their idleness did cast themselves into poverty So the King ordered the Gray-friars Church near Newgate with the Revenues belonging to it to be a House for Orphans St. Bartholomews near Smith-field to be an Hospital and gave his own House of Bridewell to be a Place of Correction and Work for such as were wilfully idle He also confirmed and enlarged the Grant for the Hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark which he had erected and endowed in August last And when he set his Hand to these Foundations which was not done before the 26th of June this Year He thanked God that had prolonged his Life till he had finished that design So he was the first Founder of those Houses which by many great Additions since that time have risen to be among the Noblest in Europe He expressed in the whole course of his sickness great submission to the Will of God and seemed glad at the approaches of death only the consideration of Religion and the Church touched him much and upon that account he said he was desirous of Life About the end of May Several Marriages or beginning of June the Duke of Suffolks three Daughters were married The eldest Lady Jane to the Lord Guilford Dudley the fourth Son of the Duke of Northumberland who was the only Son whom he had yet unmarried The second the Lady Katharine to the Earl of Pembroke's eldest Son the Lord Herbert The third the Lady Mary who was crooked to the Kings Groom-Porter Martin Keys The Duke of Northumberland married his two Daughters the eldest to Sir Henry Sidney Son to Sir William Sidney that had been Steward to the King when he was Prince the other was married to the Lord Hastings Son to the Earl of Huntington The People were mightily inflamed against this insolent Duke for it was generally given out that he was sacrificing the King to his own extravagant ambition He seemed little to regard their Censures but attended on the King most constantly and expressed all the care and concern about him that was possible And finding that nothing went so near his Heart as the ruine of Religion which he apprehended would follow upon his death when his Sister Mary should come to the Crown He is perswaded to leave the Crown to the Lady Jane Upon that he and his Party took advantage to propose to him to settle the Crown by his Letters Patents on the Lady Jane Gray How they prevailed with him to pass by his Sister Elizabeth who had been always much in his favour I do not so well understand But the King being wrought over to this the Dutchess of Suffolk who was next in King Henry's Will was ready to devolve her Right on her Daughter even though she should come afterwards to have Sons So on the 11th of June Mountague that was Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas and Baker and Bromley two Judges Which the Judges at first opposed with the Kings Attorney and Solicitor were commanded to come to Council There they found the King with some Privy-Councellors about him The King told them he did now apprehend the danger the Kingdom might be in if upon his death his Sister Mary should succeed who might marry a Stranger and so change the Laws and the Religion of the Realm So he ordered some Articles to be read to them of the way in which he would have the Crown to descend They objected that the Act of Succession being an Act of Parliament could not be taken away by any such device yet the King required them to take the Articles and draw a Book according to them they asked a little time to consider of it So having examined the Statute of the first Year of this Reign concerning Treasons they found that it was Treason not only after the Kings death but even in his Life to change the Succession Secretary Petre in the mean while pressed them to make hast When they came again to the Council they declared they could not do any such thing for it was Treason and all the Lords should be guilty of Treason if they went on in it Upon which the Duke of Northumberland who was not then in the Council-Chamber being advertised of this came in great fury calling Mountague a Traitor and threatned all the Judges so that they thought he would have beaten them But the Judges stood to their Opinion They were again sent for and came with Gosnold added to them on the 15th of June The King was
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
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
were yet in a State of Schism and Schismaticks have no right to the Sacraments the Pope's Interdict still lay on the Nation and till that were taken off none could without Sin either administer or receive them He told her that Commendone had said nothing in her Name to the Consistory but had spoken to them only on the Reports which he said he had heard of her from good hands and it was necessary to say somewhat in order to the sending a Legate That many in the Consistory had opposed the sending of him because there was no express Desire sent about it but it was carried that he should come over with very full Graces and Power to reconcile the Kingdom on very easy Terms He also told her he was afraid that when the Pope and Cardinals should hear that he was stopp'd they would repent their Benignity and take this as an Affront and recall him and his Powers and send another that would not be so tender of the Nation or bring with him such full Powers That to prevent this he had sent one to the Pope and Cardinals to mitigate their displeasure by letting them know he was only stopp'd for a little while till the Act of Atttainder that stood against him was repealed and to make a shew of going forward he had sent his Houshold-Stuff to Flanders but would stay where he was till he had further Orders He said he knew this flowed chiefly from the Emperor who was for using such Political Courses as himself had followed in the Business of the Interim and was earnest to have the State setled before she meddled with Religion he had spoke with his Confessor about it and had convinced him of the Impiety of such Courses and sent him to work on him He also told the Queen he was afraid carnal Policy might govern her too much and that she might thereby fall from her simplicity in Christ in which she had hitherto lived He encouraged her therefore to put on a Spirit of Wisdom and Courage and to trust in God who had preserved her so long and had setled her on the Throne in so unlook'd for a manner He desired she would shew as much Courage in rejecting the Supremacy as her Father had done in acquiring it He confessed he knew none in either House of Parliament fit to propose that matter the Spiritualty had all complied so far had written and declared for it so much that it could not flow from them decently and the Temporalty being possessed of the Church Lands would not willingly move it therefore he thought it best for her self to go to the Parliament having before-hand acquainted some few both of the Spiritualty and Temporalty with her Design and that she should tell both Houses she was touched in her Conscience that she and her People were in a Schism from the Catholick-Church and the Apostolick See and that therefore she had desired a Legate to come over to Treat about it and should thereupon propose that the Attainder might be taken off from him that he might be capable to come on that Message And he protested that he had never acted against the King or Kingdom but only with design to reduce them to the Unity of the Church neither before nor after the Attainder and whereas some might apprehend a thraldom from the Papacy she might give them assurance that they should see all things so well secured that there should no danger come to the Nation from it and he assured them that he for his part should take as much care of that as any of all the Temporalty could desire What Recomendations he sent for the Sees that were to be declared vacant I do not know When this Dispatch of his was brought into England Gardiner But Gardiners methods are preferred to him by the assistance of the Emperor convinced the Queen that his method was unpracticable and that the Marriage must be first dispatched and now Gardiner and he did declare open Enmity to one another Gardiner thought him a weak man that might have some speculative knowledge of abstracted Ideas but understood not the World nor the genious of the English Nation Pool on the other hand thought him a false Man that made Conscience of nothing and was better at Intrigues and Dissimulation than the Government of the Church But the Emperor saw Gardiner had so prudently managed this Parliament that he concluded his measures were rather to be followed than the Cardinals In the House of Commons it was given out that it was necessary to gain the Queen to the Interest of the Nation and to turn her from forreign Councils and Aid by being easy to her in the matter of Religion and therefore they were ready both to repeal the Divorce The House of Commons displeased with the Marriage with Spain and King Edwards Laws But when they saw the design of the Marriage and uniting with Rome was still carried on they were all much allarm'd so they sent their Speaker and twenty of their House with him with an earnest and humble Address to her not to marry a Stranger This had so inflamed the House that the Court saw more could not be expected from them unless they were satisfied in that point So on the 6th of December the Parliament was dissolved The Parliament is dissolved Upon that Gardiner sent to the Emperor to let him know that the Marriage was like to meet with such opposition that unless extraordinary Conditions were offered which all should see were much to the advantage of the English Crown it could not be carried without a general Rebellion He also assured him that if great sums of money were not sent over to gratifie the chief Nobility and leading men in the Country both for obliging them to his Interest and enabling them to carry Elections for the next Parliament the opposition would be such that the Queen must lay down all thoughts of marrying his Son Upon this the Emperor and his Son resolved to offer what Conditions the English would demand for Philip reckoned if he once had the Crown on his Head it would be easie for him with the assistance which his other Dominions might give him to make all these signifie little And for Money the Emperor borrowed twelve hundred thousand Crowns which in English Money was four hundred thousand pounds for the Crown was then a Noble and promised to send it over to be distributed as Gardiner and his Embassadors should think fit 1200000 Crowns sent into England to procure the consent of the Nation to the Marriage but made his Son bind himself to repay him that sum when he had once attained the Crown of England And this the Emperour made so little a secret that when a year after some Towns in Germany that had lent a part of this money desired to be repaid he answered them that he had lent his Son 1200000 Crowns to marry him to the Queen of England and
if he had turned so heartily as the Strain of that Book runs that he would have been quite thrown out especially since he had never Married so I rather look on it as a Forgerie cast on his Name to disgrace the Reformation He fled beyond Sea where he lived till the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and then it seems there was some offence taken at his former behaviour for he was not restored to Bath and Wales but put into Chichester that was a much meaner Bishoprick Thus I have given a clear account and free of all Partiality or Reservation of the changes made in the most of the Sees in England The two Arch-Bishops Cranmer and Holgate the Bishops Ridley Poinet Scory Coverdale Taylor Harvey Bird Bush Hooper Ferrar and Barlow were all removed Rochester was void and Griffins was put into it this April Goddrick dying now Thirleby succeeded him and Sampson of Coventry and Litchfield dying soon after Bayn succeeded him So here were sixteen new Bishops brought in which made no small change in the Church The Mass every where set up When this done the Bishops went about the executing of the Queen's Injunctions The New Service was every-where cast out and the Old Ceremonies and Service were again set up In this Business none was so hot as Bonner for the Act that repealed King Edward's Laws being agreed to by the Commons to whom the Lords had sent it he without staying for the Royal Assent did that very Night set up the Old Worship at Pauls on St. Katherines day and it being the custom that on some Holy Days the Quire went up to the Steeple to sing the Anthems that fell to be on that Night which was an antick way of beginning a form of Worship to which the People had been long disused And the next Day being St. Andrew's he did officiate himself and had a solemn Procession The most eminent Preachers in London were either put in Prison or under Confinement and as all their Mouths had been stopt by the prohibiting of Sermons unless a License were obtained so they were now to be fallen on for their Marriages Parker estimates it that there were now about 16000 Clergy-Men in England and of these 12000 were turned out upon this account some he says were deprived without Conviction upon common Fame some were never cited to appear and yet turned out Many that were in Prison were cited and turned out for not appearing though it was not in their Power Some were induced to submit and quit their Wives for their Livings They were all summarily deprived Nor was this all but after they were deprived they were also forced to leave their Wives which piece of severity was grounded on the Vow that as was pretended they had made though the falshood of this Charge was formerly demonstrated To justify this severity of Procedure many were set to write against the Marriage of the Clergy Books against the marriage of the Clergy Smith of whom I made mention in the former Book that had then so humbly recanted and submitted did now appear very boldly and reprinted his Book with many Additions But the most studied Work was set out by Martin a Doctor of the Laws It was certainly for most part Gardiner's Work and I have seen the Proof Sheets of a great part of it dasht and altered in many places by Gardiner's hand This Martin had made his Court to Cranmer in former times He had studied the Law at Bourges where Francis Balduin one of the celebrated Lawyers of that time had publickly noted him for his lewdness as being not only over-run himself with the French Pox but as being a Corrupter of all the University which Balduin certified in a Letter to one in England that took care to print it It was also printed that Bonner had many Bastards and himself was believed to be the Bastard of one Savage a Priest in Leicestershire that had been Bastard to Sir John Savage of Cheshire Which Priest by Elizabeth Frodshum the Wife of one Edmond Bonner had this Edmond now Bishop of London and it seems his Mother did not soon give over those her lewd Courses for Wymsly Arch-Deacon of London was another of her Bastards That Kennel of the uncleanness of the Priests and Religious Houses was again on this occasion racked and exposed with too much indecency for the married Priests being openly accused for the impurity and sensuality of their Lives thought it was a just piece of self-defence to turn these Imputations back on those who pretended to Chastity and yet led most irregular Lives under that appearance of greater strictness This was the state in which things were when the New Parliament A New Parliament met on the 2d of April Gardiner had before-hand prepared the Commons by giving the most considerable of them Pensions some had 200 and some a 100 l. a Year for giving their Voices to the Marriage The first Act that passed seemed of an odd nature and has a great Secret under it The Speaker of the House of Commons brought in a Bill declaring That whereas the Queen had of right succeeded to the Crown but because all the Laws of England had been made by Kings The Regal Power asserted to be in a Queen as well as a King and declared the Prerogatives to be in the King's Person from thence some might pretend that the Queen had no right to them it was therefore declared to have been the Law that these Prerogatives did belong to the Crown whether it were in the hands of Male or Female and whatsoever the Law did limit and appoint for the King was of right also due to the Queen who is declared to have as much Authority as any other her Progenitors Many in the House of Commons wondered what was the intention of such a Law and as People were at this time full of jealousie The Secret Reasons for that Act. one Skinner a Member of the House who in Queen Elizabeth's time took Orders and was made Dean of Duresm said he could not imagine why such a frivolous Law was desired since the thing was without dispute E M. SS D. Gul. Petyt and that that which was pretended of satisfying the People was too slight he was affraid there was a trick in these words That the Queen had as great Authority as any of her Progenitors on which perhaps it might be afterwards said She had the same Power that William the Conqueror exercised in seizing the Lands of the English and giving them to Strangers which also Edward the First did upon the conquest of Wales He did not know what relation this might have to the intended Marriage therefore he warned the House to look well to it so a Committee being appointed to correct it such words were added as brought the Queen's Prerogative under the same Limitations as well as it exalted it to the height of her Progenitors But one Fleetwood afterwards
the Lords but laid aside at that time assurance being given that the Owners of those Lands should be fully secured The Reason of laying it aside was that since by Law the Bishop of Rome had no Authority at all in England it was needless to pass an Act against his Power in that particular for that seemed to assert his Power in other things and since they were resolved to reconcile the Nation to him it was said that it would be indecent to pass an Act that should call him only Bishop of Rome which was the Compellation given him during the Schism and it was preposterous to begin with a Limitation of his Power before they had acknowledged his Authority So this was laid aside and the Parliament ended on the 25th of May. But the Matters of the Convocation are next to be related Those of the Reformation complained every-where that the Disputes of the last Convocation had not been fairly carried that the most eminent Men of their Persuasion were detained in Prison and not admitted to it that only a few of them that had a right to be in the House were admitted to speak and that these were much interrupted So that it was now resolved to adjourn the Convocation for some time and to send the Prolocutor with some of their number to Oxford that the Disputations might be in the presence of that whole University And since Cranmer and Ridley were esteemed the most Learned Men of that Persuasion they were by a Warrant from the Queen removed from the Tower of London to the Prisons at Oxford And though Latimer was never accounted very Learned and was then about eighty Years of Age yet he having been a celebrated Preacher who had done the Reformation no less Service by his Labours in the Pulpit than others had done by their abler Pens he was also sent thither to bear his share in the Debates Some sent to Oxford to disput with Reformeed Bishops Those who were sent from the Convocation came to Oxford on the 13th of April being Friday They sent for those Bishops on Saturday and assigned them Monday Tuesday and Wednesday every one of them his day for the defending of their Doctrine but ordered them to be kept apart And that all Books and Notes should be taken from them Three Questions were to be disputed 1. Whether the natural Body of Christ was really in the Sacrament 2. Whether any other Substance did remain but the Body and Blood of Christ 3. Whetter in the Mass there was a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the Dead and Living When Cranmer was first brought before them the Prolocutor made an Exhortation to him to return to the Unity of the Church To which he answered with such gravity and modesty that many were observed to weep He said He was as much for Unity as any but it must be an Unity in Christ and according to the Truth The Articles being shewed him he asked Whether by the Body of Christ they meant an Organical Body They answering It was the Body that was born of the Virgin Then he said he would maintain the Negative of these Questions On the 16th when the Dispute with Cranmer Cranmer Disputes was to begin Weston that was Prolocutor made a stumble in the beginning of his Speech for he said Ye are this day assembled to confound the detestable Heresie of the Verity of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament This Mistake set the whole Assembly a laughing but he recovered himself and went on he said It was not lawful to call these things in doubt since Christ had so expresly affirmed them that to doubt of them vvas to deny the Truth and Power of God Then Chedsey urged Cranmer with the words This is my Body To vvhich he answered That the Sacrament vvas effectually Christ's Body as broken on the Cross that is His Passion effectually applyed For the explanation of this he offered a large Paper containing his Opinion of which I need say nothing since it is a short abstract of what he writ on that Head formerly and of that a full account was given in the former Book There followed a long Debate about these words Oglethorp Weston and others urged him much that Christ making his Testament must be supposed to speak Truth and plain Truth and they run out largely on that Cranmer answered That figurative Speeches are true and when the Figures are clearly understood they are then plain likewise Many of Chrysostom's high Expressions about the Sacrament were also cited vvhich Cranmer said vvere to be understood of the Spiritual Presence received by Faith Uponthis much time was spent the Prolocutor carrying himself very undecently towards him calling him an unlearned unskilful and impudent Man There were also many in the Assembly that often hissed him down so that he could not be heard at all which he seemed to take no notice of but went on as often as the noise ceased Then they cited Tertullian's words The Flesh is fed by the Body and Blood of Christ that so the Soul may be nourished by God But he turned this against them and said hereby it was plain the Body as well as the Soul received Food in the Sacrament therefore the Substance of Bread and Wine must remain since the Body could not be fed by that Spiritual Presence of the Body of Christ Tresham put this Argument to him Christ said as he lived by the Father so they that eat his Flesh should live by him but he is by his Substance united to his Father therefore Christians must be united to his Substance To this Cranmer answered That the Similitude did not import an equality but a likeness of some sort Christ is essentially united to his Father but Believers are united to him by Grace and that in Baptism as well as in the Eucharist Then they talked long of some words of Hilary's Ambrose's and Justin's Then they charged him as having mistranslated some of the Passages of the Fathers in his Book from which he vindicated himself saying that he had all his Life in all manner of things hated falshood After the Dispute had lasted from the Morning till two of the Clock it was broke up and there was no small Triumph as if Cranmer had been confounded in the Opinion of all the Hearers which they had expressed by their Laughter and Hissing There were Notaries that took every thing that was said from whose Books Fox did afterwards print the account of it that is in his great Volume The next day Ridley And Ridley was brought out and Smith who was spoke of in the former Book was now very zealous to redeem the prejudice which that compliance vvas like to be to him in his Preferment So he undertook to dispute this day Ridley began with a Protestation declaring That vvhereas he had been formerly of another mind from vvhat he vvas then to maintain he had changed upon no worldly consideration but
by them declared legitimate 3. ' That all Institutions into Benefices might be confirmed 4. ' That all Judicial Processes might be also confirmed A Proviso for Church-Lands And finally That all the Settlements of the Lands of any Bishopricks Monasteries or other Religious Houses might continue as they were without any trouble by the Ecclesiastical Censures or Laws And to make this pass the better a Petition was procured from the Convocation of Canterbury A Petition from the Convocation about it setting forth That whereas they being the Defenders and Guardians of the Church ought to endeavour with all their strength to recover those Goods to the Church which in the Time of the late Schism had been alienated yet having considered well of it they saw how difficult and indeed impossible that would prove and how much it would endanger the publick Peace of the Realm and the Unity of the Church therefore they preferring the publick Welfare and the Salvation of Souls to their own privat Interests did humbly pray the King and Queen to intercede with the Legat that according to the Powers given him by the Pope he would settle and confirm all that had been done in the alienation of the Church and Abbey Lands to which they for their Interests did consent and they added an humble Desire That those things which concerned the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Liberty might be re-establish'd that so they might be able to discharge the Pastoral Cure committed to them Upon this the Cardinal granted a full Confirmation of those things ending it with a heavy charge on those who had the Goods of the Church in their hands that they would consider the Judgments of God that fell on Belshazar for his prophane using the Holy Vessels though they had not been taken away by himself but by his Father And he most earnestly exhorted them that at least they would take care that out of the Tithes of Parsonages or Vicarages those who served the Cures might be sufficiently maintain'd and encouraged This was confirmed in Parliament where also it was declared That all Suits about these Lands were only to be in the Queen's Courts and not in the Ecclesiastical Courts and if any should upon the pretence of any Ecclesiastical Authority disturb the Subjects in their possession they were to fall into a Premunire It was also declared that the Title of Supream Head never of right belonged to the Crown yet all Writings wherein it was used were still to continue in force but that hereafter all Writings should be of force in which either since the Queen 's coming to the Crown or afterwards that Title should be or had been omitted It was also declared that Bulls from Rome might be executed that all Exemptions that had belonged to Religious Houses and had been continued by the Grants given of them were repealed and these Places were made subject to the Episcopal Jurisdiction excepting only the Privileges of the two Universities the Churches of Westminster and Windsor and the Tower of London But for encouraging any to bestow what they pleased on the Church the Statutes of Mortmain were repealed for twenty Years to come provided always that nothing in this Act should be contrary to any of the Rights of the Crown or the Ancient Laws of England but that all things should be brought to the State they were in at the 20th Year of her Father's Reign and to continue in that condition For understanding this Act more perfectly An Address made by â—he Inferior Clergy I shall next set down the Heads of the Address which the Lower House of Convocation made to the Upper for most of the Branches of this Act had their first rise from it I have put it in the Collection Coll. Numb 16. having found it among Arch-Bishop Parker's Papers In it they petitioned the Lords of the Upper House of Convocation to take care that by their consent to the settlement of the Church Lands nothing might be done in prejudice of any just Title they had in Law to them as also it being said in the Grant of Chantries to King Edward that Schools and Hospitals were to be erected in several parts of the Kingdom they desired that some regard might be had to that Likewise that the Statutes of Mortmain might be repealed and whereas Tithes had been at all times appointed for the Ecclesiastical Ministry therefore they prayed that all Impropriations might be dissolved and the Tithes be restored to the Church They also proposed 27 Articles of things meet to be considered for the Reformation of the Church Namely That all who had preached any Heretical Doctrine should be made openly to recant it that Cranmer's Book of the Sacrament the late Service Books with all Heretical Books should be burnt and all that had them should be required to bring them in otherwise they should be esteemed the favourers of Heresy That great care should be had of the Books that were either printed or sold That the Statutes made against Lollards might be revived and the Church restored to its former Jurisdiction That all Statutes for Pluralities and Non-residence might be repealed that so Beneficed Men might attend on their Cures That Simoniacal Pactions might be punished not only in the Clergy that made them but in the Patrons and in those that mediated in them that the Liberties of the Church might be restored according to the Magna Charta and the Clergy be delivered from the heavy Burdens of First-Fruits Tenths and Subsidies That there might be a clear explanation made of all the Articles of the Premunire and that none should be brought under it till there were first a Prohibition issued out by the Queen in that Particular and that disobedience to it should only bring them within that Guilt That all Exemptions should be taken away all Usury be forbid all Clergy Men obliged to go in their Habits The last was That all who had spoiled Churches without any Warrant might be obliged to make restitution The Laws against Hereticks revived The next Act that was brought in was for the reviving the Statutes made by Richard the Second Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth against Hereticks of which an account was given in the first Book of the former Part. The Act began in the House of Commons who as was observed in the former Parliament were much set on Severities It was brought in on the 12th of December and sent up to the Lords on the 15th who pasied it on the 18th of that month The Commons put in also another Bill for voiding all Leases made by married Priests It was much argued among them and the first Draught being rejected a new one was drawn and sent up to the Lords on the 19th of December but they finding it would shake a great part of the Rights of the Church Lands that were made by Married Priests or Bishops laid it aside Thus did the servile and corrupted House of Commons
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
they should not be made necessary parts of Worship that they should not be too many nor dumb and vain nor should be kept up for gain and advantage These were the Arguments used on both sides But the Reformed being superiour in number the Bill passed in the House of Lords the Archbishop of York the Marquess of Winchester the Earl of Shrewsbury the Viscount Mountacute the Bishops of London Worcester Ely Coventry Chester and Carlisle and the Lords Morley Stafford Dudley Wharton Rich and North and the Abbot of Westminster dissenting By this Act the new Book was to take place by St. John Baptist's day Another Act passed That the Queen might reserve to her self the Lands belonging to Bishopricks as they fall void giving the full value of them in Impropriated Tithes in lieu of them To this the Bishops dissented on the 7th of April when it passed in the House of Lords But when this came to the Commons there was great opposition made to it Many had observed that in Edward the 6th's time under a pretence of giving some Endowments to the Crown the Courtiers got all the Church-Lands divided amongst themselves so it was believed the use to be made of this would be the robbing of the Church without enriching the Crown After many days Debate on the 17th of April the House divided and 90 were against it but 133 were for it and so it passed On the 5th of May another Bill passed with the like opposition It was for annexing of all Religious Houses to the Crown After that there followed some private Acts for declaring the deprivation of the Popish Bishops in K. Edward's Time to have been good When they were restored by Q. Mary the Sentences passed against them were declared to have been void from the beginning and so all Leafes that were made by Ridley Poinet and Hooper and the Patents granted by the King of some of their Lands were annulled It was particularly remembred in the House of Commons that Ridley had made the confirming of these Leases his last desire when he was going to be tied to the Stake The ground on which the Sentences were declared void was because the Parties had appealed though in the Commission by virtue of which the Delegates deprived them they were impowered to proceed notwithstanding any Appeal To this not only the Bishops but the Marquess of Winchester and the Lords Stafford Dudley and North dissented It shews the great Moderation of this Government that this Marquess notwithstanding his adhering to the Popish Interest in the House of Lords was still continued Lord Treasurer which employment he held fourteen Years after this and died in the 97th Year of his Age leaving 103 issued from his own Body behind him He was the greatest instance of good Fortune and Dexterity that we find in the English History who continued Lord Treasurer in three such different Reigns as King Edward's Queen Mary's and Queen Elizabeth's were There was a Subsidy and two Tenths and two Fifteenths given by the Parliament with the Tonnage and Poundage for the Queen's Life and so on the 8th of May it was dissolved There were three Bills that did not pass in the House of Commons Bills that were proposed but not passed but upon what account they were laid aside it does not appear The one was for the Restoring of the Bishops that had been deprived by Q. Mary There were but three of these alive Barlow Scory and Coverdale the first of these had resigned and the last being old had no mind to return to his Bishoprick So perhaps it was not thought worth the while to make an Act for one Man's sake especially since there were so many vacant Bishopricks in the Queen's hands and more were like to fall The other Bill was for the restoring of all Persons that were deprived from their Benefices because they were married This the Queen odered to be laid aside of which Sands complained much in his Letter to Parker But yet the Queen took no notice of the Laws formerly made against their Marriage and promoted many married Priests particularly Parker himself There was no Law now in force against Clergy-mens marrying for Queen Mary had only repealed the Laws of Edward the 6th which allowed it but had made none concerning that Matter So there was nothing but the Canon Law against it and that was resolved to be condemned by continuing that Article of Religion concerning the Lawfulness of their Marriage among those that should be set out The next Bill that came to nothing was a new Act for giving Authority to 32 Persons to revise the Ecclesiastical Laws and digest them into a Body it was laid aside at the second Reading in the House of Commons and has slept ever since The Bishops refuse the Oath of Supremacy When the Parliament was over the Oath of Supremacy was soon after put to the Bishops and Clergy They thought if they could stick close to one another in refusing it the Queen would be forced to dispence with them Vita Parkeri and would not at one stroke turn out all the Bishops in England It does not appear how soon after the Dissolution of the Parliament the Oath was put to them but it was not long after for the last Collation Bonner gave of any Benefice was on the 6th of May this Year The Oath being offered to Heath Arch-Bishop of York to Bonner of London Thirleby of Ely Bourn of Bath and Wells Christopherson of Chichester Bain of Litchfield White of Winchester and Watson of Lincoln Oglethorpe of Carlisle Turbervile of Exeter Pool of Peterburgh Scot of Chester Pates of Worcester and Goldwell of St. Asaph they did all refuse to take it So that only Kitchin Bishop of Landaff took it There was some hope of Tonstall so it was not put to him till September but he being very old chose to go out with so much Company more for the decency of the thing than out of any scruple he could have about the Supremacy for which he had formerly writ so much They were upon their refusal put in Prison for a little while but they had all their Liberty soon after except Bonner White and Watson There were great Complaints made against Bonner that he had in many things in the prosecution of those that were presented for Heresy exceeded what the Law allowed so that it was much desired to have him made an Example But as the Queen was of her own nature Merciful so the Reformed Divines had learned in the Gospel not to render Evil for Evil nor to seek Revenge and as Nazianzen had of old exhorted the Orthodox when they had got an Emperor that favoured them not to retaliate on the Arrians for their former Cruelties So they thought it was for the honour of their Religion to give this real demonstration of the Conformity of their Doctrine to the Rules of the Gospel and of the Primitive Church by avoiding all Cruelty and
assurance of a great Army if it was necessary and charged the Lord Gray not to quit the Seige till the French were gone Ships were also sent to lye in the Frith to block them up by Sea The French apprehending the total loss of Scotland sent over Monluc Bishop of Valence to London to offer to restore Calais to the Queen of England if she would draw her Forces out of Scotland She gave him a quick Answer on the sudden her self that she did not value that Fish-Town so much as she did the quiet of Brittain But the French desiring that she could mediate a Peace between them and the Scots she undertook that and sent Secretary Cecil and D. Wotton into Scotland to conclude it As they were on the Way the Queen Regent died The Queen Regent of Scotland dies in the Castle of Edinburgh on the 10th of June She sent for some of the chief Lords before her Death and desired to be reconciled to them and asked them pardon for the Injuries she had done them She advised them to send both the French and English Souldiers out of Scotland and prayed them to continue in their Obedience to their Queen She also sent for one of their Preachers Willock and discoursed with him about her Soul and many other things and said unto him that she trusted to be saved only by the Death and Merits of Jesus Christ and so ended her Days which if she had done a Year sooner before these last Passages of her Life she had been the most universally lamented Queen that had been in any time in Scotland For she had governed them with great Prudence Justice and Gentleness and in her own Deportment and in the order of her Court she was an Example to the whole Nation but the Directions sent to her from France made her change her Measures break her Word and engage the Kingdom in War which rendred her very hateful to the Nation Yet she was often heard to say that if her Counsels might take place she doubted not to bring all things again to perfect Tranquillity and Peace The Treaty between England France and Scotland A Peace is concluded was soon after concluded The French were to be sent away within Twenty Days an Act of Oblivion was to be confirmed in Parliament the Injuries done to the Bishops and Abbots were referred to the Parliament Strangers and Church-men were no more to be trusted with the chief Offices a Parliament was to meet in August for the confirming of this During the Queen's absence the Nation was to be governed by a Council of Twelve of these the Queen was to name seven and the States five the Queen was neither to make Peace nor War but by the Advice of the Estates according to the Ancient Custom of the Kingdom The English were to return as soon as the French were gone and for the matter of Religion that was referred to the Parliament and some were to be sent from thence to the King and Queen to set forth thier desires to them and the Queen of Scotland was no more to use the Arms and Title of England All these Conditions were agreed to on the 8th of July and soon after both the French and English left the Kingdom In August thereafter the Parliament Reformation is setled in Scotland by Parliament met where four Acts passed one for the abolishing of the Pope's Power A second For the repealing of all Laws made in favour of the former Superstition A third For the punishing of those that said or heard Mass And the fourth was A Confirmation of the Confession of Faith which was afterwards ratified and inserted in the Acts of Parliament held Anno 1567. It was penned by Knox and agrees in almost all things with the Geneva Confession Of the whole Temporalty none but the Earl of Athol and the Lords Somervile and Borthick dissented to it They said they would believe as their Fathers had done before them The Spiritual Estate said nothing against it The Abbots struck in with the Tyde upon assurance that their Abbies should be converted to Temporal Lordships and be given to them Most of the Bishops seeing the Stream so strong against them complied likewise and to secure themselves and enrich their Friends or Bastards did dilapidate all the Revenues of the Church in the strangest manner that has ever been known and yet for most of all these Leases and Alienations they procured from Rome Bulls to confirm them pretending at that Court that they were necessary for making Friends to their Interest in Scotland Great numbers of these Bulls I my self have seen and read So that after all the noise that the Church of Rome had made of the Sacriledge in England they themselves confirmed a more entire waste of the Churches Patrimony in Scotland of which there was scarce any thing reserved for the Clergy But our Kings have since that time used such effectual endeavours there for the recovery of so much as might give a just encouragement to the Labours of the Clergy that universally the inferior Clergy is better provided for in no Nation than in Scotland for in Glebe and Tythes every Incumbent is by the Law provided with at least 50 l. Sterling a Year which in proportion to the cheapness of the Country is equal to twice so much in most parts of England But there are not among them such Provisions for encouraging the more Learned and deserving Men as were necessary When these Acts of the Scotish Parliament were brought into France to be confirmed they were rejected with much scorn so that the Scots were in fear of a new War Francis the 2d died But the King of France dying in the beginning of December all that Cloud vanished their Queen being now only Dowager of France and in very ill tearms with her Mother-in-Law Queen Katherine de Medici who hated her because she had endeavoured to take her Husband out of her Hands and to give him up wholly to the Counsels of her Uncles So she being ill used in France was forced to return to Scotland and govern there in such manner as the Nation was pleased to submit to Thus had the Queen of England separated Scotland entirely from the Interests of France and united it to her own And being engaged in the same Cause of Religion she ever after this had that influence on all Affairs there that she never received any disturbance from thence during all the rest of her glorious Reign In which other Accidents concurred to raise her to the greatest Advantages in deciding Forreign Contests that ever this Crown had In July after she came to the Crown Henry the Second of France The Civil Wars of France was unfortunately wounded in his Eye at a Tilting the Beaver of his Helmet not being let down so that he died of it soon after His Son Francis the Second succeeding was then in the 16th Year of his Age and assumed
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
greet you well And whereas heretofore in the time of the late Reign of Our most dearest Brother King Edward the Sixth whose Soul God pardon divers notable Crimes Excesses and Faults with divers kinds of Heresies Simony Advoutry and other Enormities have been committed within this our Realm and other our Dominions the same continuing yet hitherto in like disorder since the beginning of our Reign without any correction or reformation at all and the People both of the Laity and Clery and chiefly of the Clergy have been given to much insolence and ungodliness greatly to the displeasure of Almighty God and very much to Our regret and evil contentation and to the slander of other Christian Realms and in a manner to the subversion and clear defaceing of this our Realm And remembring our Duty to Almighty God to be to foresee as much as in Us may be that all Vertue and Godly Living should be embraced flourish and encrease And therewith also that all vice and ungodly behaviour should be utterly banished and put away or at the least wise so nigh as might be so bridled and kept under that Godliness and Honesty might have the over-hand understanding by very credible report and publique fame to Our no small heaviness and discomfort that within your Diocess as well in not exempted as in exempted Places the like disorder and evil behaviour hath been done and used like also to continue and encrease unless due provision be had and made to reform the same which earnestly in very deed We do mind and intend to the uttermost all the ways We can possible trusting of God's furtherance and help in that behalf For these Causes and other most just Considerations us moving We send unto you certain Articles of such special Matter as among other things be most special and necessary to be now put in execution by you and your Officers extending to them by Us desired and the Reformation aforesaid wherein ye shall be charg'd with Our special Commandments by these our Letters to the intent you and your Officers may the more earnestly and boldly proceed thereunto without fear of any presumption to be noted on your part or danger to be incurred of any such our Laws as by your doings of that is in the said Articles contain'd might any wise grieve you whatsoever be threatned in any such Case and therefore we straitly charge and command you and your said Officers to proceed to the execution of the said Articles without all tract and delay as ye will answer to the contrary Given under our Hand at our Palace of Westminster the 4th day of March the first Year of our Reign ARTICLES 1. THat every Bishop and his Officers with all other having Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction shall with all speed and diligence and all manner and ways to them possible put in execution all such Canons and Ecclesiasticall Laws heretofore in the time of King Henry the 8th used within this Realm of England and the Dominions of the same not being direct and expresly contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm 2. Item That no Bishop or any his Officer or other Person aforesaid hereafter in any of their Ecclesiastical Writings in Process or other extra-judicial Acts do use to put in this Clause or Sentence Regia Auctoritate fulcitus 3. Item That no Bishop or any his Officers or other Person aforesaid do hereafter exact or demand in the admission of any Person to any Ecclesiastical Promotion Orders or Office any Oath touching the Primacy or Succession as of late in few Years passed hath been accustomed and used 4. Item That every Bishop and his Officers with all other Persons aforesaid have a vigilant eye and use special diligence and foresight that no Person be admitted or received to any Ecclesiastical Function Benefit or Office being a Sacramentary infected or defamed with any notable kind of Heresy or other great Crime and that the said Bishop do stay and cause to be staied as much as lieth in him that Benefices and Ecclesiastical Promotions do not notably decay or take hinderance by passing or confirming of unreasonable Leases 5. Item That every Bishop and all other Persons aforesaid do diligently travel for the repressing of Heresies and notable Crimes especially in the Clergy duly correcting and punishing the same 6. Item That every Bishop and all other Persons aforesaid do likewise travel for the condemning and repressing of corrupt and naughty Opinions unlawful Books Ballads and other pernicious and hurtful devices engendring hatred among the People and discord amongst the same And that School-masters Preachers and Teachers do exercise and used their Offices and Duties without Teaching Preaching or setting forth any evil corrupt Doctrine and that doing the contrary they may be by the Bishop and his said Officers punish'd and remov'd 7. Item That every Bishop and all the other Persons aforesaid proceeding summarily and with all celerity and speed may and shall deprive or declare depriv'd and amove according to their learning and discretion all such Persons from their Benefices and Ecclesiastical Promotions who contrary to the state of their Order and the laudable Custom of the Church have married and used Women as their Wives or otherwise notably and slanderously disordered or abused themselves sequestring also during the said Process the Fruits and Profits of the said Benefits and Ecclesiastical Promotions 8. Item That the said Bishop and all other Persons aforesaid do use more lenity and clemency with such as have married whose Wives be dead than with other whose Women do yet remain in Life And likewise such Priests as with the consents of their Wives or Women openly in the presence of the Bishop do profess to abstain to be used the more favourably in which Case after Penance effectually done the Bishop according to his discretion and wisdom may upon just consideration receive and admit them again to their former Administration so it be not in the same Place appointing them such a Portion to live upon to be paid out of their Benefice whereof they be depriv'd by discretion of the said Bishop or his Officers shall think may be spared of the said Benefice 9. Item That every Bishop and all Persons aforesaid do foresee That they suffer not any Religious Man having solemnly profest Chastity to continue with his Woman or Wife but that all such Persons after deprivation of their Benefice or Ecclesiastical Promotion be also divorced every one from his said Woman and due punishment otherwise taken for the Offence therein 10. Item That every Bishop and all other Persons aforesaid do take Order and Direction with the Parishoners of every Benefice where Priests do want to repair to the next Parish for Divine Service or to appoint for a convenient time till other better Provision may be made one Curat to serve Alternis Vicibus in divers Parishes and to allot to the said Curat for his Labour some portion of the Benefice that he so
Jurisdiction against Hereticks Schismaticks and their Fautors in as large and ample manner as they were in the first Year of King Henry the Eighth 5. And that the Premises may be the better executed by the presence of Beneficed Men in their Cures the Statutes made Anno 21. of Henry the Eighth concerning Pluralities of Benefices and Non-residence of Beneficed Men by reason whereof a larger Liberty or License is given to a great multitude of Priests and Chaplains to be absent from their Benefices with Cure than was ever permitted by the Canon Laws and all other Statutes touching the same may be repealed void and abolished and that the Bishops and other Ordinaries may call all Beneficed Men to be resident upon their Cures as before the making of that Act they might have done 6. Item That the Ordinaries do from time to time make Process for punishment of all Simoniacal Persons of whom it is thought there were never so many within this Realm And that not only the Clerks but also the Patrons and all the Mediators of such Pactions may be punish'd Wherein we think good that Order were taken that the Patrons should lose their Patronage during their natural Lives according to the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of this Realm 7. Item That the ancient Liberty Authority and Jurisdiction be restored to the Church of England according to the Article of the great Charter called Magna Charta at the least wise in such sort as it was in the first Year of Henry the Eighth and touching this Article we shall desire your Lordships to be with us most humble Suitors to the King 's and Queen's Majesty and to the Lord Legat for the remission of the importable Burdens of the First-Fruits Tenths and Subsidies In which Suit whatsoever advancement your Lordships shall think good to be offered unto their Majesties for the same we shall therein be always glad to do as shall be thought good 8. Item That no Attachment of Premunire be awarded against any Bishop or other Ordinary Ecclesiastical from henceforth in any Matter but that a Prohibition be first brought to the same and that it may please the King 's and Queen's Majesty to command the Temporal Judges of this Realm to explicate and declare plainly all and singular Articles of the Premunire and to make a certain Doctrine thereof 9. Item That the Statutes of the Provisors be not drawn by unjust Interpretation out of their proper Cases nor from the proper sense of the words of the same Statutes 10. Item That the Statute of Submission of the Clergy made Anno 25. of Henry the Eighth and all other Statutes made during the time of the late Schism in derogation of the Liberties and Jurisdictions of the Church from the first Year of King Henry the Eighth may be repealed and the Church restored in integrum 11. Item That the Statute made for finding of great Horses by Ecclesiastical Perâ—â—ns may likewise be repealed 12. Item That Usurers may be punish'd by the Common Laws as in times past hath been used 13. Item That those which lay violent Hands upon any Priest or other Ecclesiastical Minister being in Orders may be punish'd by the Canon Laws as in times past hath been used 14. Item That all Priests Deacons and Sub-Deacons and all other having Prebends or other Ecclesiastical Promotions or Benefices from henceforth use such Priest-like Habit as the quality of his State and Benefice requireth 15. Item That Married Priests may be compelled to forsake their Women whom they took as their Wives 16. Item That an Order may be taken for the bringing up of Youth in good Learning and Vertue and that the School-Masters of this Realm may be Catholick Men and all other to be removed that are either Sacramentaries or Hereticks or otherwise notable Criminous Persons 17. Item That all exempt and peculiar Places may from henceforth be immediately under the Jurisdiction of that Arch-Bishop or Bishop and Arch-Deacon within whose several Diocess and Arch-deaconry the same are presently constitute and scituate And whereas divers Temporal Men by reason of late Purchases of certain Abbies and exempt Places have by their Letters Patents or otherwise granted unto them Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the said Places That from henceforth the said Jurisdiction be devolv'd to the Arch-Bishop or Bishop and Arch-Deacon within whose Diocess and Arch-deaconry the same now be 18. Item Where the Mayor of London by force of a Decree made Anno of Henry the Eighth hath attributed unto him the Cognition of Causes of Tythes in London that from henceforth the same Cognition and Jurisdiction may utterly cease and be reduced immediately to the Bishop of London Ordinary there 19. Item That Tythes may be henceforth paid according to the Canon Laws 20. Item That Lands and Places impropriated to Monasteries which at the time of Dissolution and Suppression thereof were exempt from payment of Tythes may be now allotted to certain Parishes and there chargeable to pay like Tythes as other Parishoners do 21. Item That there be a streight Law made whereby the reparations of Chancels which are notoriously decay'd through the Realm may be duly repaired from time to time by such as by the Law ought to do the same and namely such as be in the King 's and Queen's Hands and that the Ordinaries may lawfully proceed in Causes of Dilapidations as well of them as of all other Parsonages Vicarages and other Ecclesiastical Benefices and Promotions 22. Item That Order be taken for the more speedy payment of Pensions to all Priests Pentionaries and that they may have the same without long Suits or Charges 23. Item That an Order be taken for payment of Personal Tythes in Cities and Towns and elsewhere as was â—sed in Anno 21. of Henry the Eighth 24. Item That such Priests as were lately married and refuse to reconcile themselves to their Order and to be restored to Ministration may have some special Animadversion whereby as Apostates they may be discern'd from other 25. Item That Religious Women which be married may be divorced 26. Item That in Divorces which are made from Bed and Board Provision may be made that the Innocent Woman may enjoy such Lands and Goods as were hers before the Marriage or that happened to come to her use at any time during the Marriage and that it may not be lawful for the Husband being for his Offence divorced from the said Woman to intermeddle himself with the said Lands or Goods unless his Wife be to him reconciled 27. Item That Wardens of Churches and Chappels may render their Accounts before the Ordinaries and may be by them compell'd to do the same 28. Item That all such Ecclesiastical Persons as lately have spoiled Cathedral Collegiat and other Churches of their own heads and temerity may be compelled to restore all and singular things so by them taken away or the true value thereof and farther to re-edify such things as by them are destroy'd and defac'd
being married as he falsly insinuates 28. He says Pag. 202. The Protector bore great hatred to Gardiner and Tonstal both because they opposed the Hereticks and because they had been made equals to him if not preferred before him by King Henry's Will in the Government during the King's being under Age. This is another of our Author's Figures Gardiner was not mentioned in King Henry's Will neither as an Executor nor so much as a Counsellor and by it none were preferred to another all being made equal And for Tonstal he continued still in a firm friendship with the Protector and was so well satisfied with the first Changes that were made that he was complained of as well as Cranmer by Gardiner in the Letters which he writ to the Protector 29. He says Ibid. The Protector made a Speech about Religion before the King and thereafter he put first Gardiner then Tonstall and at another time the Bishops of London Chichester and Worcester in Prison Gardiner and Bonner were indeed imprisoned some time during the Protector 's Government the latter was also deprived while he was Protector But Tonstall was not put in Prison till two Years after and it was at the time of the Duke of Somerset's total fall and by the same Persons means that wrought his Ruin From which it appears he was always a firm Friend to the Duke of Somerset The Bishops of Worcester and Chichester were also brought in trouble long after the Government was taken out of the Protector 's Hands 30. He says ' They were all deposed from their Degree Ibid. They were not deposed from their Degree but deprived of their Bishopricks for they having accepted Commissions by which they held their Sees only during the King's Pleasure they might well be deprived by a Sentence of the Delegates But had they been to be deposed and thrust from their Order it must have been done by a Synod of Bishops They were deprived as many Bishops were under the Christian Emperors by selected Synods that sat in the Court and judged of all Complaints that were brought before the Emperors Pag. 204. 31. He reckons up the Judgments of God upon the Hereticks and says the Protector made kill his Brother and Dudley took him away This is a way of writing familiar enough to our Author to represent things in such a manner as might fill the Reader with horror as if these Persons had been secretly murdered whereas the one was condemned in Parliament the other by a Judgment of his Peers Ibid. 32. He says King Edward died not without suspition of being poisoned by Dudley and the Duke of Suffolk who aspired to the Crown It was never suspected that the Duke of Suffolk had any hand in poisoning the King nor could I ever see any reason to conclude that he was poisoned but neither of these Dukes aspired to the Crown the one resigned any Pretension he could ever have to his Daughter and the other intended only that his fourth Son should reign Pag. 205. 34. He says The Protector 's Lady claimed the precedence of the Queen Dowager and upon the denial of it conspired the ruin of the Admiral All this is a contrivance of the Enemies of that Family for as it had been absurd for the Dutchess of Somerset to have disputed Precedence with the Queen Dowager so in that whole Matter it is plain the Admiral began with his Brother and conspired his ruin and the Protector was often reconciled to him and forgave him many Faults till it appeared that his Ambition was incurable Ibid. 34. He says There being no ground of any Accusation against him the Dutchess of Somerset got Latimer to accuse him of Treason in a Sermon The Articles upon which he was condemned shew what Matter there was against him Latimer did never accuse him of Treason but being a Man of great plainness of Speech he reflected on him as Ambitious and not sincere in the Profession of Religion And when it was suspected that the Dutchess of Somerset had set him on to make these Reflections he did vindicate her in a most solemn manner Nor is there any reason to think that how indiscreet soever he might be in preaching in such a sort that he did it to flatter or to aspire by such means for he refused to accept of any Preferment though the House of Commons interposed to have him repossessed of the See of Worcester Ibid. 35. He says At the same time that he was Beheaded the Queen Dowager died She died in Septemb. 1548 and he was beheaded in March following and one of the Articles against him was That after her Death he intended to have married the King's Sister Elizabeth and it was suspected that to make for that he had poisoned her 36. He says The Men of Devonshire and Cornwal did Pag. 206. with one consent take up Arms for the Faith In one thing he says true that this Rebellion was set on by the Priests and made on the account of Religion but the brutal cruelty of those Rebels shewed it was not for the Faith but in compliance to their Priests and Leaders that they rose 37. He says Pag. 209. The Clergy finding that their being Married was generally an ingrateful thing procured an Act of Parliament declaring that there was no Humane Law against their Marriages and this was all they were concerned in for they cared little for the Law of God This is a genuine piece of our Author's Wit If the Parliament meddles in declaring what is the Law of God he accuses them for medling in things without their Sphere And if they only declare what is the Law of the Land he says they have no regard to the Law of God So he is resolved do what they will they shall not escape his Censure But in this he shews his Ignorance as well as his Malice The lawfulness of the Marriage of the Clergy was enquired into with such exactness that scarce any thing can be added since to what was then written on that Argument It was made out that there was no Law of God against it It was also proved that there was no general Law made by the Primitive Church about it but that it was a part of the Yoke that the Popes laid on the Clergy to engage them more zealously in their Concerns It was at first carried in the Convocation that they might lawfully Marry then an Act of Parliament passed permitting it of all which our Author takes no notice Then three Years after some that were ill-affected to them taking advantage from the words of the Statute as if the Permission had only been such a conniving at it as had been formerly to the Stews a second Act passed confirming those Marriages and the Issue by them 38. He says The Catholick Doctors in the Universities Pag. 210. grew more couragious in the Defence of the Faith and so desired a publick Dispute
to preserve the Catholick Religion both which she promised but performed neither This is said without any Proof and is not at all probable but is an Ornament added to set off the one and blemish the other Queen Mary's Sickness was concealed as much as was possible A week before her Death they were burning Hereticks as busily as ever and by the managing Affairs in the Parliament it appears there was great care taken to conceal the desperate Condition she was in so it is not likely that any such Messages was sent by her to her Sister And thus far have I traced our Author in the History he gives of the Reigns of King Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Mary and have discovered an equal measure of Ignorance and Malice in him but he was the fitter to serve their Ends who employed him and were resolved to believe him how false or improbable soever his Relation might be We see what use they have made of him ever since that Time His Friends were so sensible of the Advantage their Cause received from such a way of Writing that they resolved to continue down the History through Queen Elizabeth's Reign in which we are told Sanders himself made some Progress but that not being done to such a perfection as Rishton and others intended to bring it they undertook it and have written so skilfully after the Copy Sanders had given them that if it is possible they have out-done him in these two particular Excellencies of writing Histories in which he was so great a Master Impudence and Falshood as to Matter of Fact In one thing they had manifestly the better of him that they writing of what fell out in their own Time could not be ignorant of the truth of Things whereas he writing of what was done before he was born or when he was but a Child might have said many things more innocently delivering them as he had them by report But this Excuse cannot fit them who did knowingly and on Design prevaricate so grosly in Matters of Fact A little taste of these I shall give only so far as I have carried down the History of this Queen for to examine all the Faults they have committed would require a new Volume but from the taste I shall give the Reader he will easily know what judgment to pass on the whole work As for the Decency of the Style the first Period gives an Essay of it in which the Author promises such a Description of the Queen's Reign that this Lioness shall be known by her Claws And for his sincerity in writing the whole Preface is one indication of it in which he accuses the Queen for acting against the Laws of Nature and Religion in assuming the Supremacy and represents it so that the Reader must needs think she was the High Priest of England that ordained Bishops and Ministers and performed all other Holy Offices whereas she was so scrupulous in this Point that as she would not be called the Supream Head of this Church so she made it be declared both in one of the Articles of Religion set forth in the beginning of her Reign and afterwards in an Act of Parliament what was the nature of that Supremacy which she assumed making it both a part of the Religion and the Law of the Land By these it was declared that they gave her not the Ministry of God's Word or of the Sacraments but only that Prerogative which was given by God himself in the Scriptures to Godly Princes that they should rule all committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil Doers If Men were not past shame they could not after such an express and publick Declaration put on the confidence of writing as this Author does I shall follow him in some more steps and doubt not not but I shall convince the Reader that he was the fittest Man that could be found to have writ a Continuation of Sanders's History Pag. 255. 1. He says Henry the Second of France in a solemn Assembly did after Queen Mary's Death declare the Queen of Scotland his daughter-in-Daughter-in-Law Queen of England and Ireland This was neither done in a Solemn Assembly nor presently after Queen Mary's Death nor was it done by Henry the Second The Queen of Scotland did by her Uncles Advice assume that Title without any publick Act and it was not done till they understood that Philip was moving for a Dispensation in the Court of Rome for marrying Queen Elizabeth King Henry did only connive at it but neither ordered it nor justified it when the Queen's Ambassador complained of it An Author that is so happy in his first Period as to make three such Mistakes is likely to give us an excellent History Ibid. 2. He says The Arch-Bishop of York and all the other Bishops one only excepted refused to anoint her This was one of the most extraordinary things that ever was in any Government that the Bishops refusing to crown the Queen were not only not punished for it but continued to hold their Bishopricks still and the Arch-Bishop of York was continued a Privy Counsellor many months after this This is none of the Claws of a Lioness but rather a slackness and easiness of Clemency that deserves censure if it had not been that the Queen resolved to begin her Reign with the most signal Acts of Mercy that were possible Pag. 256. 3. He says Cecil and his Friend Bacon raised vast Estates to themselves and involved the Government into vast Difficulties and brought the Queen's Revenue into great or rather inextricable Confusion This may pass among Forreigners and perhaps be believed but we at home that when we wish for happy Times and excellent Counsellors do naturally reflect on the Days of that glorious Queen and her wise Councils will not be much wrought on by it The Revenue was never better managed the Undertakings of the Government were never greater and the Charge was never less This gives a Character of those Ministers beyond all exception Sir Nicholas Bacon never raised himself above that Quality which he brought with him into the Court. And Cecil was not advanced above the lowest Rank of Nobility tho he was in the chief Ministry above thirty Years and though they both left good Estates behind them yet far short of what might have been expected after so long a course in such great and high Employments 4. He says Pag. 257. There was an Oath enacted in the Parliament for the Queen's Supremacy and those who refused to swear it for the first Offence were to forfeit their Benefices and all their Goods and to be Prisoners for Life the second Offence was made Treason Such a false recital of a printed Act deserves a severer Animadversion than I shall bestow on it The refusing that Oath did infer no other punishment but the forfeiture of Benefices and