War for the preservation of the Protestant Religion and recovering the liberty of Germany The Ambassadors were only sent to try the Kings mind but were not empow'red to conclude any thing They were sent back with a good Answer That the King would most willingly joyn in alliance with them that were of the same Religion with himself but he desired that the matter of Religion might be plainly set down lest under the pretence of that War should be made for other Quarrels He desired them also to communicate their designs with the other Princes and then to send over others more fully empow'red Maurice seeing such Assistances ready for him resolved both to break the Emperors designs and by leading on a new League against him to make himself more acceptable to the Empire and thereby to secure the Electoral Dignity in his Family So after Magdeburg had endured a long Siege he giving a secret intimation to some Men in whom they confided perswaded them about the end of November to surrender to him and then broke up his Army but they fell into the Dominions of several of the Popish Princes and put them under very heavy Contributions This alarumed all the Empire only the Emperor himself by a fatal security did not apprehend it till it came so near him that he was almost ruined before he dreamed of any danger This Year the Transactions of Trent were remarkable Proceedings at Trent The Pope had called the Council to meet there and the first of May this year there was a Session held There was a War now broken out between the Pope and the King of France on this occasion The Pope had a mind to have Parma in his own Hands but that Prince fearing that he would keep it as the Emperor did Placentia and so he should be ruined between them implored the Protection of France and received a French Garrison for his safety Upon this the Pope cited him to Rome declaring him a Traitor if he appeared not and this engaged the Pope in a War with France At first he sent a threatning Message to that King that if he would not restore Parma to him he would take France from him Upon this the King of France protested against the Council of Trent and threatned that he would call a National Council in France The Council was adjourned to the 10th of September In the mean while the Emperor pressed the Germans to go to it So Maurice and the other Princes of the Ausburg Confession ordered their Divines to consider of the matters which they would propose to the Council The Electors of Mentz and Trier went to Trent But the King of France sent the Abbot of Bellosana thither to make a protestation that by reason of the War that the Pope had raised he could not send his Bishops to the Council and that therefore he would not observe their Decrees for they had declared in France that absent Churches were not bound to obey the Decrees of a Council for which many Authorities were cited from the Primitive time But at Trent they proceeded for all this and appointed the Articles about the Eucharist to be first examined and the Presidents recommended to the Divines to handle them according to Scripture Tradition and Ancient Authors and to avoid unprofitable curiosities The Italian Divines did not like this For they said to argue so was but an Act of the memory and was an old and insufficient way and would give great advantage to the Lutherans who were skilled in the Tongues but the School-Learning was a mystical and sublime way in which it was easier to set off or conceal matters as was expedient But this was done to please the Germans And at the sute of the Emperor the matter of Communicating in both kinds was postponed till the German Divines could be heard A safe Conduct was desired by the Germans not only from the Emperor but from the Council For at Constance John Huss and Jerome of Prague were burnt upon this pretence that they had not the Councils safe conduct and therefore when the Council of Basil called for the Bohemians they sent them a safe Conduct besides that which the Emperor gave them So the Princes desired one in the same Form that was granted by those of Basil One was granted by the Council which in many things differed from that of Basil particularly in one Clause that all things should be determined according to the Scriptures which was in that safe Conduct of Basil but was now left out In October an Ambassador from the Elector of Brandenburg came to Trent who was endeavouring to get his Son setled in the Arch-bishoprick of Magdeburg which made him more compliant In his first Address to the Council he spake of the respect his Master had to the Fathers in it without a word of submitting to their Decrees But in the Answer that was made in the Name of the Council it was said they were glad he did submit to them and would obey their Decrees This being afterwards complained of it was said that they answered him according to what he should have said and not according to what he had said But in the mean while the Council published their Decrees about the Eucharist in the first part of which they defined that the way of the Presence could hardly be expressed and yet they called Transubstantiation a fit term for it But this might be well enough defended since that was a thing as hard to be either expressed or understood as any thing they could have thought on They went on next to examine Confession and Penitence And now as the Divines handled the matter they found the gathering Proofs out of Scripture grew endless and trifling for there was not a place in Scripture where I confess was to be found but they drew it in to prove Auricular Confession From that they went on to Extream Unction But then came the Ambassadors of the Duke of Wittenberg another Prince of the Ausburg Confession and shewed their Mandate to the Emperors Ambassadors who desired them to carry it to the Presidents but they refused to do that since it was contrary to the Protestation which the Princes of their Confession had made against a Council in which the Pope should preside On the 25th of November they published the Decree of the necessity of Auricular Confession that so the Priest might thereby know how to proportion the Penance to the sin It was much censured to see it defined that Christ had instituted Confession to a Priest and not shew'd where or how it was instituted And the reason for it about the proportioning the Penance was laughed at since it was known what slight Penances were universally injoyned to expiate the greatest sins But the Ambassadors of Wirtenberg moving that they might have a safe Conduct for their Divines to come and propose their Doctrine The Legate answered that they would not upon any terms enter into any Disputation with
Extremity and Rigour And on the 25th there was a solemn Procession through London there went first 160 Priests all in their Copes eight Bishops next and last of all came Bonner himself carrying the Host to thank God for reconciling them again to his Church and Bonefires were burning all the Night And to keep up a constant remembrance of it it was ordered that St. Andrew's day should be still observed as the Anniversary of it and be called The Feast of the Reconciliation and Processions with all the highest Solemnities they at any time use were to be on that day They begin with Rogers and others But now they turned wholly to the Prosecution of the Hereticks There had been thirty of them taken at a Meeting near Bow Church where one Rose a Minister gave them the Communion according to the English Book of Service so they were all put in Prison On the 22d of January Rogers with others were brought before the Council He had been a Prebendary of Pauls and in a Sermon after the Queen was come to London had zealously asserted the Doctrine he had formerly preached and as it has been shewn was confined to his House upon the Tumult that had been at Pauls He was much pressed to fly over into Germany but he would not hearken to it though the Necessities of ten Children were great Temptations He was esteemed one of the most Learned of the Reformers so that when those of the Convocation were required to Dispute they desired that Ridley and he might be suffered to come and join with them It was resolved to begin with him and some others at the Council-Board to see if they could be easily brought over He was accordingly brought before the Council where being asked by Gardiner Whether he would knit himself to the Catholick Church and receive the Pope as the Supream Head He said He knew no other Head of the Church but Christ and for the Pope Who refusing to comply he had no more Authority in England than any other Bishop either by the Word of God or the Authority of the Church for 400 Years after Christ But they objecting that he had acknowledged King Henry to be Supream Head He answered He never acknowledged him so to be Supream as to forgive Sins bestow the Holy Ghost or be a Judg above the Word of God But as he was going to explain himself Gardiner pressed him to Answer plainly He Objected to Gardiner That all the Bishops had for many Years preached against the Pope Gardiner said They were forced to it by the Cruelty of the Times but they would Argue no more with him Now Mercy was offered if he rejected it Justice must come next Rogers said If they had been pressed to deny the Pope's Power by Cruelty would they now by the same Motives force others to acknowledg it for his part he would never do it Other ten were called in one after another and only one of them by the Lord Effingham's Favour was let go upon a general Question if he would be an Honest Man but all the rest answering resolutely were sent back to Prison and were kept much stricter than formerly none being suffered to come near them On the 28th of January the Bishops of Winchester London Duresm Were judged Salisbury Norwich and Carlisle sat in St. Mary Overies in Southwark where Hooper was first brought before them It needs not to be doubted but Bonner remembred that he had informed against him when he was deprived in King Edward's Time He had been summoned to appear before the Queen soon after she came to the Crown and it was pretended he owed her great Sums of Mony Many advised him not to appear for that it was but a pretence to put him and a great many more in Prison where they would be kept till Laws were made to bring them out to a Stake But he would not with-draw so now he and Mr. Rogers were singled out and begun with They were asked Whether they would submit or not they both refused to submit Rogers being much pressed and continuing firm in his Resolutions Gardiner said It was vain-glory in him to stand out against the whole Church He protested it was his Conscience and not Vain-glory that swayed him for his part he would have nothing to do with the Antichristian Church of Rome Gardiner said by that he condemned the Queen and the whole Realm to be of the Church of Antichrist Rogers said The Queen would have done well enough if it had not been for his counsel Gardiner said the Queen went before them in those Counsels which proceeded of her own motion Rogers said He would never believe that The Bishop of Carlisle said they could all bear him witness to it Rogers said they would all witness for one another Upon that the Comptroller and Secretary Bourn being there stood up in Court and attested it Then they asked Rogers What he thought of the Sacrament He said It was known he had never medled in that Matter and was suspected by some to be of a contrary Opinion to many of his Brethren but yet he did not allow of their Corporal Presence He complained that after he had been confined half a Year in his House they had kept him a Year in Newgate without any Fault for they could not say he had broken any of their Laws since he had been a Prisoner all the while so that meerly for his Opinion they were now proceeding against him They gave Hooper and him time till next morning to consider what they would do but they continuing in their former Resolution were declared obstinate Hereticks And Condemned and appointed to be degraded and so to be delivered into the Sheriffs hands Hooper was only degraded from the Order of Priesthood Then Rogers desired he might be suffered to speak with his Wife concerning his ten Children They answered She was not his Wife and so denied it Upon this they were led away to Newgate On the 4th of February early in the morning Rogers was called upon to make ready for Smithfield He was so fast asleep that he was not easily awakened he put on his Cloaths carelesly being as he said Rogers Martyrdom so soon to lay them off When he was brought to Bonner to be degraded he again renewed his desire to see his Wife but could not obtain it He was led to Smithfield where he was not suffered to make any Speech to the People so in a few words he desired them to continue in that Doctrine which he had taught them and for which he had not only patiently suffered all the bitterness and cruelty that had been exercised on him but did now most gladly resign up his Life and give his Flesh to the consuming Fire for a testimony to it He repeated the 51 Psalm and so fitted himself for the Stake A Pardon was brought if he would recant but he chose to submit to that severe but short
He protested to Cranmer that it was the most sorrowfull Action of his whole Life and acknowledged the great Love and Friendship that had been between them and that no Earthly Consideration but the Queen's Command could have induced him to come and do what they were then about He shed so many Tears that oft he stopt and could not go on in his discourse for the abundance of them But Cranmer said his Degradation was no trouble to him at all he reckoned himself as long ago cut off from all dependance and communion with the See Rome so their doing it now with so much Pageantry did not much affect him only he put in an Appeal from the Pope to the next free General Council he said he was cited to Rome but all the while kept a Prisoner so there was no reason to proceed against him in his absence since he was willing to have gone thither and defended his Doctrine he also denied any authority the Pope had over him He is degraded or in England and therefore appealed from his Sentence But notwithstanding that he was degraded and all that ludicrous Attire was taken piece after piece from him according to the Ceremonies of Degradation which are in use in the Church of Rome But there were new Engines contrived against him Many had been sent to confer with him both English and Spanish Divines to perswade him to recant he was put in hopes of Life and Preferment again and removed out of Prison to the Dean's Lodgings at Christ-Church where all the Arguments that could be invented were made use of to turn him from his former perswasion And in conclusion as St. Peter himself had with Curses denied his Saviour so he who had resisted now almost three years was at last overcome and human infirmity the fears of Death and the hopes that were given him prevailed with him to set his Hand to a Paper He recants renouncing all the Errors of Luther and Zwinglius acknowledging the Pope's Supremacy the seven Sacraments the Corporal Presence in the Eucharist Purgatory Prayer for departed Souls the Invocation of Saints to which was added his being sorry for his former Errors and concluded exhorting all that had been deceived by his Example or Doctrine to return to the unity of the Church and protesting that he had signed it willingly only for the discharge of his own Conscience Fox and other later Writers from him have said that one reason of this Compliance was that he might have time to finish his Answer to Gardiner's Book against that which he had written concerning the Sacrament and Fox has printed the Letter which he avouches to prove this by But the good Man it seems read the Letter very carelesly for Cranmer says no such thing in it but only that he had appealed to the next General Council to try if that could procure him a longer delay in which he might have time to finish his Book and between these two there is a great difference How long this was signed before his Execution I find it no where marked for there is no Date put to his Subscription Cranmer's Recantation was presently printed and occasioned almost equally great Insultings on the one hand and Dejection on the other But the Queen was not at all wrought on by it and was now forced to discover that her private Resentments governed her in this matter which before she had disowned She was resolved he should be made a Sacrifice for giving the Judgment of Divorce in her Mother's Marriage and tho hitherto she had pretended only Zeal for Religion yet now when that could be no more alleaged yet she persisted in her Resolution of having him burnt She said since he had bin the great Promoter of Heresy that had corrupted the whole Nation that must not serve his turn which would be sufficient in other cases It was good for his own Soul and might do good to others that he repented but yet she ordered the Sentence to be executed The Writ went out the 24th of February Coll. Num. 28. which will be found in the Collection Heath took care not only to enroll the Writ but the Warrant sent to him for issuing it which is not ordinary It 's like he did it to leave it on Record to Posterity that he did it not in course as he did other Writs but had a special Order from the Queen for it The long time that passed between the date of the Writ and the execution of it makes it probable that he made the formerly mentioned Recantation after the Writ was brought down and that the fears of Death then before his Eyes did so far work on him that he signed the Writing but when the second Order was sent down to execute the former he was dealt with to renew his Subscription and then to write the whole over again which he also did all this time being under some small hopes of Life but conceiving likewise some jealousies that they might burn him he writ secretly a Paper containing a sincere Confession of his Faith such as flowed from his Conscience and not from his weak fears and being brought out he carried that along with him He was carried to S. Maries and set on a place raised higher for him to be more conspicuously seen Cole Provost of Eaton preached he ran out in his Sermon on the Mercy and Justice of God which two Attributes do not oppose or justle out one another he applied this to Princes that were Gods on Earth who must be just as well as mercifull and therefore they had appointed Cranmer that day to suffer he said it was he that had dissolved the Marriage between the Queen's Father and Mother had driven out the Pope's Authority had been the fountain of all the Heresies in England and since the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Tho. More had suffered for the Church it was meet that others should suffer for Heresy and as the Duke of Northumberland had suffered in More 's room so there was no other Clergyman that was equal or fit to be ballanced with Fisher but he Then he turned to Cranmer and magnified his Conversion which he said was the immediate Hand of God that none of their Arguments had done it but the inward working of God's Spirit He gave him great hopes of Heaven and assured him there should be Dirges and Masses said for his Soul in all the Churches in Oxford All this while Cranmer expressed great inward confusion lifting up his Eyes often to Heaven and then letting them fall downward as one ashamed of himself and he often poured out floods of tears In the end when Cole bid him declare his Faith he first prayed with many moving expressions of deep remorse and inward horror Then he made his Exhortation to the People First Not to love or set their hearts on the things of the World to obey the King and Queen out of conscience to God to live in
for that their Doctrine which they embrace is not allowed and commanded only and all other abolished and disproved shall be discontented and call the Alteration a Cloak'd Papistry or a Mingle-Mangle Quest 3. What Remedy for the same Dangers What shall be the manner of doing of it and what is necessary to be done before Answ 1. First for France to practise a Peace or if it be offered not to refuse it If Controversy of Religion be there amongst them to kindle it Rome is less to be feared from whom nothing is to be feared but evil Will Cursing and Practising Scotland will follow France for Peace but there may be Practice to help forward their Division and especially to augment the Hope of them who inclined them to good Religion For certainty to fortify Barwick and to employ Demilances and Horsemen for safety of the Frontiers and some Expences of Mony in Ireland The fourth divided in five parts 1. The first is of them which were of Queen Mary's Council elected or advanced to Authority only or chiefly for being of the Pope's Religion and earnest in the same Every Augmentation or Conservation of such Men in Authority or Reputation is an encouraging those of their Sect and giveth hope to them that it shall revive and continue although it hath a contrary shew lest seeing the Pillars to stand still untouched it be a confirmation of them that are wavering Papists and a discouraging of such as are but half inclined to this Alteration Dum in dubio est animus parvo momento huc illuc impellitur This must be searched by all Law so far as Justice may extend and the Queen's Majesty's Clemency not to be extended before they do acknowledg themselves to have fallen into the lapse of the Law They must be abased of Authority discredited in their Countries so long as they seem to repugn the true Religion or to maintain the old Proceedings and if they should seem to allow and bear with the new Alteration yet not lightly to be credited quia neophiti and no Man but he loveth that time wherein he did flourish and when he came and as he came those Ancient Laws and Orders he will defend and maintain with whom and in whom he was in Estimation and Authority and a Doer for every Man naturally loveth that which is his own Work and Creature And contrary as those Men be abased so must her Highness old and sure Servants who have tarried with her and not shrunk in the late Storm be advanced with Authority and Credit that the World may see that her Highness is not unkind nor unmindful And throughout all England if such Persons as are known to be sure in Religion and God's Cause shall be slack yet their own Safety and Estate should cause to be vigilant careful and earnest for the conservation of her Estate and maintenance of this Alteration and in all this she shall do but the same that the late Queen Mary did to establish her Religion 2. The second is the Bishops and Clergy being in manner all made and chosen such as were thought the stoutest and mightiest Champions of the Pope's Church who in the late Queen Mary's Times taking from the Crown impoverishing it by extorting from private Men and all other means possible per fas nefas have sought to enrich and advance themselves These her Majesty being inclined to use much clemency yet must seek as well by Parliament as by the just Laws of England in the Premunire or other such Penal Laws to bring again in order and being found in the default not to pardon until they confess their Fault put themselves wholly to her Highness Mercy abjure the Pope of Rome and conform themselves to the new Alteration and by these means well handled her Majesty's necessity of Mony may be somewhat relieved 3. The third is to amended even as all the rest above by such ways as Queen Mary taught That no such as were may be in Commission of Peace in their Shires but rather Men meaner in Substance and younger in Years so that they have discretion to be put in Place A sharp Law made and extended against Assemblies of People without Authority Lieutenants made in every Shire one or two Men known to be sure of the Queen's Devotion In the mean time Musters and Captains appointed Young Gentlemen which do favour her Highness No Office of Jurisdiction or Authority to be in any discontented Man's hands so far as Justice or Law may extend 4. The fourth is to be remedied otherwise than by gentle and dulce handling it is by the Commissioners and by the readiness and good-will of the Lieutenants and Captains to repress them if any should begin a Tumult or murmur or provide any Assembly or stoutness to the contrary 5. The fifth For the Discontentation of such as could be content to have Religion altered but would have it to go for fear the strait Laws upon the Promulgation of the Book and severe execution of the same at the first would so oppress them that it is great hope it shall touch but a few And better it were that they did suffer than her Highness and Common-Wealth should shake or be in danger and to this they must well take heed that draw the Book And herein the Universities must not be neglected and the hurt which the last Visitation in Queen Mary's Time did must be amended Likewise such Colleges where Children be instructed to come to the University as Eaton and Winchester that as well the encrease hereafter as this present time may be provided for Quest 4. What may be done of her Highness for her own Conscience openly before the whole Alteration or if the Alteration must tarry longer Answer This consultation is to be referred to such Learned Men as be meet to shew their Minds therein and to bring a Plot or Book hereof ready drawn to her Highness which being approved by her Majesty may so be put in the Parliament-House To which for the time it is thought that these are apt Men Dr. Bill Dr. Parker Dr. May Dr. Cox Mr. Whitehead Grindall Pilkington and Sir Thomas Smith to call them together and to be amongst them and after the consultation with these to draw in other Men of Learning and grave and apt Men for your Purpose and Credit to have their Assents As for that is necessary to be done before it is thought to be most necessary that a strait Prohibition be made of all Innovation until such time as the Book come forth as well that there should be no often Changes in Religion which would take away Authority in the common Peoples estimation as also to exercise the Queen's Majesty's Subjects to Obedience Quest 5. What Orders be sit to be in the whole Realm as in the interim Answer To alter no further than her Majesty hath except it be to receive the Communion as her Majesty pleaseth at high Feasts and that where there be
them out at pleasure and that therefore they might declare the Commission void if they pleased to which he should consent but they could not for such an error turn him out of his Office nor out of his share of the Government To this it was answered That by the late Kings Will they or the major part of them were to Administer till the King was of Age That this subjected every one of them in particular to the rest That otherwise if any of them broke out into Rebellion he might pretend he could not be attainted nor put from the Government Therefore it was agreed on That every of them in particular was subject to the greater part Then the Lord Chancellor was required to shew what Warrant he had for that he had done Being now driven from that which he chiefly relied on he answered for himself That he had no Warrant yet he thought by his Office he had Power to do it that he had no ill intention in it and therefore submitted himself to the Kings mercy and to the gracious consideration of the Protector and the Council and desired that in respect of his past Services he might forego his Office with as little slander as might be and that as to his Fine and Imprisonment they would use moderation So he was made to withdraw The Councellors as it is entred in the Council-Book considering in their Consciences his abuses sundry ways in his Office to the great prejudice and utter decay of the Câ—mmon Laws and the prejudice that might follow by the Seals continuing in the Hands of so stout and arrogant a Person who would as he pleased put the Seals to such Commissions without Warrant did agree That the Seal should be taken from him and he be deprived of his Office and be further fined as should be afterwards thought fitting only they excused him from Imprisonment So he being called in and heard say all he could think of for his own justification they did not judge it of such importance as might move them to change their mind Sentence was therefore given That he should stay in the Council-Chamber and Closet till the Sermon was ended that then he should go home with the Seal to Ely House where he lived but that after Supper the Lord Seimour Sir Anthony Brown and Sir Edw. North should be sent to him and that he should deliver the Seal into their Hands and be from that time deprived of his Office and confined to his House during pleasure and pay what Fine should be laid on him To all which he submitted and acknowledged the justice of their Sentence So the next day the Seal was put into the Lord St. Johns Hands till they should agree on a fit Man to be Lord Chancellor and it continued with him several months On the day following the late Kings Will being in his Hands for the granting of Exemplifications of it under the Great Seal it was sent for and ordered to be laid up in the Treasury of the Exchequer and the Earl of Southampton continued in his Confinement till the 29th of June but then he entred into a Recognisance of 4000 l. to pay what Fine they should impose on him and upon that he was discharged of his Imprisonment But in all this Sentence they made no mention of his forfeiting his being one of the late Kings Executors and of the present Kings Governours either judging that being put in these Trusts as he was Lord Chancellor the discharging him of his Office did by consequence put an end to them or perhaps they were not willing to do any thing that might seem to change the late Kings Will and therefore by keeping him under the fear of a severe Fine they chose rather to oblige him to be absent and to carry himself quietly than by any Sentence to exclude him from his share in that Trust Which I encline the rather to believe because I find him afterwards brought to Council without any Order entred about it So that he seems to have come thither rather on a former Right than on a new choice made of him Thus fell the Lord Chancellor and in him the Popish Party lost their chief support and the Protector his most emulous Rival The Reader will find the Commission with the Opinion of the Judges about it in the Collection Collection Number 5. from which he will be better able to judge of these Proceedings against him Which were summary and severe beyond the usage of the Privy Council and without the common forms of legal Processes But the Councils Authority had been raised so high by the Act mentioned Page 263. of the former Part that they were empowerd sufficiently for Matters of that nature That which followed a few days after made this be the more censured The Protector holds his Office by Patent since the Lord Protector who hitherto held his Office but by the choice of the rest and under great restrictions was now resolved to hold it by Patent to which the late Chancellor had been unwilling to consent The pretence for it was That the Forreign Ministers the French Ambassador in particular desired to be satisfied concerning his Power and how far they might treat with him and depend on the assurances and promises he gave So the Protector and Council did on the 13th of March March 13. petition the King that they might act by a Commission under the Great Seal which might empower and justifie them in what they were to do And that was to be done in this manner The King and the Lords were to Sign the Warrant for it upon which the Lord St. John who though he had the keeping of the Great Seal was never designed to be Lord Keeper nor was empowred to hear Causes should set the Seal to it The Original Warrant was to be kept by the Protector and Exemplifications of it were to be given to Forreign Ministers To this Order Sir Thom. Cheyney set his Hand upon what Authority I do not so clearly see since he was none of the Executors By this Commission which will be found in the Collection it is set forth Collection Number 6. That the King being under Age was desired by divers of the Nobles and Prelates of the Realm to name and authorize one above all others to have the Charge of the Kingdom with the Government of his Person whereupon he had formerly by word of mouth named his Unkle to be Protector and Governour of his Person yet for a more perfect Declaration of that he did now ratifie and approve all he had done since that Nomination and constituted him his Governour and the Protector of his Kingdom till he should attain the full Age of 18 years giving him the full Authority that belonged to that Office to do every thing as he by his Wisdom should think for the Honour Good and Prosperity of the King and Kingdoms and that he might be furnished with a Council for
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
Christs Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament Upon which many of the Assembly that were indiscreetly hot on both sides cried out some approving and others disliking it Of the Kings Authority under Age and of the Power of the Council in that Case he said not a word and upon that he was imprisoned The occasion of this was the Popish Clergy began generally to have it spread among them that though they had acknowledged the Kings Supremacy yet they had never owned the Councils Supremacy That the Council could only see to the execution of the Laws and Orders that had been made but could not make new ones and that therefore the Supremacy could not be exercised till the King in whose Person it was vested came to be of Age to consider of Matters himself Upon this the Lawyers were consulted who did unanimously resolve that the Supremacy being annexed to the Regal Dignity was the same in a King under Age when it was executed by the Council that it was in a King at full Age and therefore things ordered by the Council now had the same Authority in Law that they could have when the King did act himself But this did not satisfie the greater part of the Clergy Some of whom by the high Flatteries that had been given to Kings in King Henry's time seemed to fancy that there were degrees of Divine Illumination derived unto Princes by the anointing them at the Coronation and these not exerting themselves till a King attained to a ripeness of understanding they thought the Supremacy was to lie dormant while he was so young The Protector and Council endeavoured to have got Gardiner to declare against this but he would not meddle in it How far he might set forward the other Opinion I do not know These Proceedings against him were thought too severe and without Law but he being generally hated they were not so much censured as they had been if they had fallen on a more acceptable Man And thus were the Orders made by the Council generally obeyed many being terrified with the usage Gardiner met with from which others inferred what they might look for if they were refractory when so great a Bishop was so treated The next thing Cranmer set about was the compiling of a Catechisme or large instruction of young Persons in the Grounds of the Christian Religion In it he reckons the two first Commandments but one Cranmer sets out a Catechisme though he says many of the Ancients divided them in two But the division was of no great consequence so no part of the Decalogue were suppressed by the Church He shewed that the excuses the Papists had for Images were no other than what the Heathens brought for their Idolatry who also said they did not worship the Image but that only which was represented by it He particularly takes notice of the Image of the Trinity He shews how St. Peter would not suffer Cornelius and the Angel would not suffer St. John to worship them The believing that there is a vertue in one Image more than in another he accounts plain Idolatry Ezekias broke the Brazen Serpent when abused though it was a Type or Image of Christ made by Gods command to which a miraculous Vertue had been once given So now there was good reason to break Images when they had been so abused to superstition and Idolatry and when they gave such scandal to Jews and Mahometans who generally accounted the Christians Idolaters on that account He asserts besides the two Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper the Power of reconciling Sinners to God as a third and fully owns the Divine Institution of Bishops and Priests and wishes that the Canons and Rites of publick Penitence were again restored and exhorts much to Confession and the Peoples dealing with their Pastors about their Consciences that so they might upon knowledge bind and loose according to the Gospel Having finished this easie but most useful work he dedicated it to the King And in his Epistle to him complains of the great neglect that had been in former times of Catechising and that Confirmation had not been rightly administred since it ought to be given only to these of Age who understood the Principles of the Christian Doctrine and did upon knowledge and with sincere minds renew their Baptismal Vow From this it will appear that from the beginning of this Reformation the Practice of the Roman Church in the matter of Images was held Idolatrous Cranmer's zeal for restoring the Penitentiary Canons is also clear and it is plain that he had now quite laid aside those singular opinions which he formerly held of the Ecclesiastical Functions for now in a Work which was wholly his own without the concurrence of any others he fully sets forth their Divine Institution All these things made way for a greater Work which these selected Bishops and Divines who had laboured in the setting forth of the Office of the Communion were now preparing which was the entire Reformation of the whole Service of the Church In order to this they brought together all the Offices used in England In the Southern Parts A General Reformation of all the Offices of the Church is set about those after the use of Sarum were universally received which were believed to have been compiled by Osmund Bishop of Sarum In the North of England they had other Offices after the use of York In South-Wales they had them after the use of Hereford In North-Wales after the use of Bangor And in Lincoln another sort of an Office proper to that See In the Primitive Church when the extraordinary Gifts ceased the Bishops of the several Churches put their Offices and Prayers into such a Method as was nearest to what they had heard or remembred from the Apostles And these Liturgies were called by the Apostles Names from whose Forms they had been composed as that at Jerusalem carried the Name of St. James and that of Alexandria the Name of St. Mark though those Books that we have now under these Names are certainly so interpolated that they are of no great Authority But in the fourth Century we have these Liturgies first mentioned The Council of Laodicea appointed the same Office of Prayers to be used in the Mornings and Evenings The Bishops continued to draw up new Additions and to put old Forms into other Methods But this was left to every Bishops care nor was it made the Subject of any publick Consultation till St. Austins time when in their dealings with Hereticks they found they took advantages from some of the Prayers that were in some Churches Upon this he tells us it was ordered that there should be no Prayers used in the Church but upon common advice after that the Liturgies came to be more carefully considered Formerly the Worship of God was a pure and simple thing and so it continued till Superstition had so infected the Church that those Forms were thought too naked
Triumphs would follow him but it was below him to be second to any So he engaged him to quarrel in every thing with the Protector all whose wary motions were ascribed to fear or dullness To others he said What friendship could any expect from a Man who had no pity on his own Brother But that which provoked the Nobility most Complaints against the Protector was the partiality the Protector had for the Commons in the Insurrections that had been this Summer He had also given great Grounds of jealousie by entertaining Forreign Troops in the Kings Wars which though it was not objected to him because the Council had consented to it yet it was whispered about that he had extorted that Consent But the noble Palace he was raising in the Strand which yet carries his Name out of the ruines of some Bishops Houses and Churches drew as publick an envy on him as any thing he had done It was said that when the King was engaged in such Wars and when London was much disordered by the Plague that had been in it for some Months he was then bringing Architects from Italy and designing such a Palace as had not been seen in England It was also said That many Bishops and Cathedrals had resigned many Mannours to him for obtaining his favour Though this was not done without leave obtained from the King for in a Grant of some Lands made to him by the King on the 11th of July in the second year of his Reign it is said That these Lands were given him as a Reward of his Services in Scotland Rot. Pat. 4. Par. 2. Reg. for which he was offered greater Rewards but that he refusing to accept of such Grants as might too much impoverish the Crown had taken a Licence to the Bishop of Bath and Wells for his alienating some of the Lands of that Bishoprick to him he is in that Patent called by the Grace of God Duke of Somerset which had not of late years been ascribed to any but Sovereign Princes It was also said That many of the Chantry Lands had been sold to his Friends at easie rates for which they concluded he had great Presents and a course of unusual greatness had raised him up too high so that he did not carry himself towards the Nobility with that equality that they expected from him All these things concurred to beget him many Enemies and he had very few Friends for none stuck firmly to him but Paget and Secretary Smith and especially Cranmer who never forsook his Friend All that favoured the old Superstition were his Enemies and seeing the Earl of Southampton heading the Party against him they all run in to it And of the Bishops that were for the Reformation Goodrich of Ely likewise joyned to them He had attended on the Admiral in his Preparations for death from whom it seems he drank in ill impressions of the Protector All his Enemies saw and he likewise saw it himself that the continuance of the War must needs destroy him and that a Peace would confirm him in his Power and give him time and leisure to break thorough the Faction that was now so strong against him that it was not probable he could master it without the help of some time So in the Council his Adversaries delivered their Opinions against all motions for Peace and though upon Pagets return from Flanders it appeared to be very unreasonable to carry on the War yet they said Paget had secret Instructions to procure such an Answer that it might give a colour to so base a Project The Officers that came over from these Places that the French had taken pretended as is common for all Men in such Circumstances that they wanted things necessary for a Siege and though in truth it was quite contrary as we read in Thuanus yet their Complaints were cherished and spread about among the People The Protector had also against the Mind of the Council ordered the Garrison to be drawn out of Hadingtoun and was going notwithstanding all their opposition to make Peace with France and did in many things act by his own Authority without asking thâ—ir advice and often against it This was the assuming a Regal Power and seemed not to be endured by those who thought they were in all Points his equals It was also said That when contrary to the late Kings Will he was chosen Protector it was with that special condition that he should do nothing without their consent and though by the Patent he had for his Office his Power was more enlarged which was of greater force in Law than a private Agreement at the Council Table yet even that was objected to him as an high presumption in him to pretend to such a vast Power Thus all the Month of September there were great Heats among them several Persons interposed to mediate but to no effect for the Faction against him was now so strong that they resolved to strip him of his exorbitant Power and reduce him to an equality with themselves The King was then at Hampton-Court where also the Protector was with some of his own Retainers and Servants about him which encreased the Jealousies for it was given out that he intended to carry away the King So on the 6th of October some of the Council met at Ely House the Lord St. John President Most of the Council separate from him the Earls of Warwick Arundel and Southampton Sir Edw. North Sir Richard Southwell Sir Edmund Pecham Sir Edw. Wotton and Dr. Wotton and Secretary Petre being sent to them in the Kings Name to ask what they met for joyned himself likewise to them They sate as the Kings Council and entred their Proceedings in the Council-Book from whence I draw the account of this Transaction These being met together and considering the disorders that had been lately in England the losses in Scotland and France laid the blame of all on the Protector who they said was given up to other Councils so obstinately that he would not hearken to the advises they had given him both at the Board and in private and they declared that having intended that day to have gone to Hampton-Court for a friendly communication with him he had raised many of the Commons to have destroyed them and had made the King set his Hand to the Letters he had sent for raising Men and had also dispersed seditious Bills against them therefore they intended to see to the safety of the King and the Kingdom So they sent for the Lord Major and Aldermen of London and required them to obey no Letters sent them by the Protector but only such as came from themselves They also writ many Letters to the Nobility and Gentry over England giving them an account of their Designs and Motives and requiring their assistance They also sent for the Lieutenant of the Tower and he submitted to their Orders Next day the Lord Chancellor the Marquess of Northampton
the Emperor conceive at last a jealousie of him and he writ for him to come and clear himself Then he refined it higher for having left Orders with the Officers whom he had made sure to him to follow with the Army in all the hast they could he himself took Post with as small a Train as his Dignity could admit of and carried one of those corrupted Secretaries with him but on the way he complained of pains in his side so that he could not hold on his Journey but sent forward his Secretary who gave such an account of him that it together with his coming so readily a great part of his way in so secure a manner made the Emperor now lay down all his former distrusts The Emperor writ to Trent and to many other Places that there was no cause of fear from Maurice And Maurice to colour the matter more compleatly had sent his Ambassadors to Trent and had ordered Melancthon and his other Divines to follow them slowly that as soon as the safe Conduct was obtained they might go on and defend their Doctrine Upon their coming to Trent and proposing their desires Proceedings at Trent that all might be again considered the Legates rejected the Proposition with much scorn The Emperors Ambassadors and Prelates pressed that they might be well received The Arch-bishop of Toledo shew'd how much Christ had born with the Scribes and Pharisees and that in imitation of him they ought to leave nothing undone that might gain upon them So it was resolved that the Council should make a Protestation that the usage they gave them was out of Charity which is above all Law since it was against the Decretals to have any Treaty with professed Hereticks At the same time the Imperialists dealt no less earnestly with the Ambassadors from the Protestant Princes not to ask too much at once but to go on by degrees and assured them they had a mind to lessen the Popes greatness as much as they had The Ambassadors first step was to be for obtaining a safe Conduct They excepted to that which the Council had given as different from that the Council of Basil had sent to the Bohemians in four material Points The first was That their Divines should have a decisive Voice 2. That all Points should be determined according to the Scriptures and according to the Fathers as they were conformable to those The third That they should have the exercise of their Religion within their own Houses 4. That nothing should be done in contempt of their Doctrine So they desired that the safe Conduct might be word for word the same with that of Basil But the Legates abhorred the Name of that Council that had endeavoured so much to break the Power of the Popedom and had consented to that extraordinary safe Conduct only to unite Germany and to gain them by such compliance to be of their side against the Pope Yet the Legates promised to consider of it The Ambassadors were received in a Congregation which differed from a Session of the Council just as a Committee of a whole House of Parliament differs from the House when set according to its Forms They began their Speech with this Salutation Most Reverend and most Mighty Fathers and Lords they added a cold Complement and desired a safe Conduct At this time the Pope hearing that the Emperor was resolved to bring on the old designs of some Councils for lessening his greatness and that the Spanish Bishops were much set on it united himself to France and resolved to break the Council as soon as it was possible and therefore he ordered the Legates to proceed in the decision of the Doctrine hoping that the Protestants would despair of obtaining any thing and so go away So the safe Conduct they had desired was not granted them and another was offered in its room containing only full security for their Persons Upon this security such as it was Divines came both from Wirtenberg and the Town of Strasburg But as they were going on to treat of Matrimony the War of Germany broke out and the Bishops of the Empire with the other Ambassadors immediately went home The Legates laid hold on this so readily that though the Session was to have been held on the second of May they called an extraordinary one on the 28th of April and suspended the Council for two years An Account of the Council of Trent And being to have no other occasion to say any thing more of this Council I shall only add that there had been a great expectation over Christendome of some considerable event of a General Council for many years The Bishops and Princes had much desired it hoping it might have brought the differences among Divines to a happy composure and have setled a Reformation of those abuses which had been long complained of and were still kept up by the Court of Rome for the ends of that Principality that they had assumed in Sacred things The Popes for the same reasons were very apprehensive of it fearing that it might have lessened their Prerogatives and by cutting off abuses that brought in a great Revenue to them have abridged their Profits But it was by the cunning of the Legates the dissensions of Princes the great number of poor Italian Bishops and the ignorance of the greatest part of the other so managed that in stead of composing differences in Religion things were so nicely defined that they were made irreconcilable All those abuses for which there had been nothing but practise and that much questioned before were now by the Proviso's and Reservations excepted for the Priviledges of the Roman See made warrantable So that it had in all Particulars an Issue quite contrary to what the several Parties concerned had expected from it and has put the World ever since out of the humour of desiring any more General Councils as they are accustomed to call them The History of that Council was writ with as much Life and Beauty and Authority as had been ever seen in any humane Writing by Frier Paul of Venice within half an Age of the time in which it was ended when the thing was yet fresh in Mens Memories and many were alive who had been present and there was not one in that Age that engaged to write against it And a Judgment of the Histories of it But about forty years after when Father Paul and all his friends who knew from what Vouchers he writ were dead Pallavicini a Jesuit who was made a Cardinal for this Service undertook to answer him by another History of that Council which in many matters of Fact contradicts Father Paul upon the credit as he tells us of some Journals and Memorials of such as were present which he perused and cites upon all occasions We see that Rome hath been in all Ages so good at forging those things which might be of use to its Interests that we know not how to
any Pardon or restitution in Blood he was still Duke of Norfolk This he had never mentioned all the last Reign lest that should have procured an Act to confirm his Attainder So he came now in upon his former Right by which all the Grants that had been given of his Estate were to be declared void by Common Law The Duke of Northumberland with the Marquess of Northampton and the Earl of Warwick were brought to their Trials The Duke desired two Points might be first answered by the Judges in matter of Law The one Whether a Man acting by the Authority of the Great Seal and the Order of the Privy Council could become thereby guilty of Treason The other was Whether those who had been equally guilty with him and by whose Direction and Commands he had acted could sit his Judges To these the Judges made answer That the Great Seal of one that was not lawful Queen could give no Authority nor Indempnity to those that acted on such a Warrant and that any Peer that was not by an Attainder upon Record convicted of such accession to his Crime might sit his Judg and was not to be challenged upon a Surmise or Report So these Points by which only he could hope to have defended himself And condemned being thus determined against him he confessed he was guilty and submitted to the Queen's Mercy So did the Marquess of Northampton and the Duke's Son the Earl of Warwick who it seems by this Trial had a Writ for sitting in the House of Peers they were all three found guilty Judgment also passed next day in a Jury of Commoners against St. John Gates and his Brother Sir Humphrey Sir Andrew Dudley and Sir Thomas Palmer confessing their Indictments But of all these it was resolved that only the Duke of Northumberlrnd and Sir John Gates and Sir Thomas Palmer should be made Examples Heath Bishop of Worcester was employed to instruct the Duke and to prepare him for his Death At his Death he professes he had been always a Papist Whether he had been always in heart what he then professed or whether he only pretended it hoping that it might procure him favour is variously reported but certain it is that he said he had been always a Catholick in his Heart yet this could not save him He was known to be a Man of that temper so given both to revenge and dissimulation that his Enemies saw it was necessary to put him out of the way lest if he had lived he might have insinuated himself into the Queen's favour and then turn'd the danger upon them So the Earl of Arundel now made Lord Steward of the Houshold with others easily obtained that his Head should be cut off together with Sir John Gates's and Sir Thomas Palmers On the 22d of August he was carried to the Place of Execution On the way there was some expostulation between Gates and him They as is ordinary for Complices in ill Actions laying the blame of their Miseries on one another Yet they professed they did mutually forgive and so died in Charity together It is said that he made a long Speech accusing his former ill Life and confessing his Treasons But that part of it which concerned Religion is only preseved In it he exhorted the People to stand to the Religion of their Ancestors and to reject that of latter date which had occasioned all the misery of the foregoing thirty Years and desired as they would prevent the like for the future that they would drive out of the Nation these Trumpets of Sedition the new Preachers that for himself what-ever he had otherwise pretended he believed no other Religion than that of his fore-fathers in which he appealed to his Ghostly Father the Bishop of Worcester then present with him but being blinded with Ambition he had made wreck of his Conscience by temporising for which he professed himself sincerely penitent So did he and the other two end their days Palmer was little pittied as being believed a treacherous Conspirator against his former Master and Friend the Duke of Somerset His Character Thus died the ambitious Duke of Northumberland He had been in the former parts of his Life a great Captain and had the reputation of a wise Man He was generally successful and they that are so are always esteemed wise He was an extraordinary Man in a lower size but had forgot himself much when he was raised higher in which his Mind seemed more exalted than his Fortunes But as he was transported by his Rage and Revenge out of measure so he was as servile and mean in his Submissions Fox it seems was informed that he had hopes given him of his Life if he should declare himself to be of the Popish Religion even though his Head were laid on the Block but which way soever he made that Declaration either to get his Life by it or that he had really been always what he now professed it argued that he regarded Religion very little either in his Life or at his Death But whether he did any thing to hasten the late King's Death I do not find it was at all enquired after Only those who considered how much Guilt disorders all People and that they have a black Cloud over their Minds which appears either in the violence of Rage or the abjectness of Fear did find so great a change in his deportment in these last Passages of his Life from what was in the former parts of it that they could not but think there was some extraordinary thing within him from whence it flowed King Edwards Funeral And for King Edward's Death those who had Affairs now in their Hands were so little careful of his Memory and indeed so glad of his Death that it is no wonder they made little search about it It is rather strange that they allowed him such Funeral Rites For the Queen kept a solemn Exequie with all the other Remembrances of the Dead and Masses for him used in the Roman Church at the Tower on the 8th of August the same day that he was buried at Westminster the Lord Treasurer who was the Marquess of Winchester still continued in that Trust the Earls of Shrewsbury and Pembrook being the principal Mourners Day that was now to be restored to his See of Chichester was appointed to preach the Funeral Sermon In which he commended and excused the King but loaded his Government severely and extolled the Queen much under vvhom he promised the People happy days It was intended that all the Burial Rites should have been according to the old Forms that were before the Reformation But Cranmer opposed this vigorously and insisted upon it That as the King himself had been a zealous promoter of that Reformation so the English Service was then established by Law upon this he stoutly hindred any other way of officiating and himself performed all the Offices of the Burial to which he joined the solemnity
consent This could not come in time to Rome vvhereon the 23d of that month Caraffa vvas chosen Pope who was called Paul the Fourth Paul the 4th chosen Pope and vvho vvas as different from his Predecessor as any Man could be He had put on an appearance of great strictness before and had set up a Religious Order of Monks called Theatines But upon his coming to the Popedom he put on the greatest Magnificence possible and was the highest Spirited and bloodiest Pope that had been since Julius the Second's Time He took it for a great Honour that on the day of his Election the English Ambassadors entred Rome The English Embassadors come to Rome with a great Train of 140 Horse of their own Attendants On the 23 of June in the first Consistory after he was Crowned they were heard They fell prostrate at his Feet and acknowledged the Steps and Faults of their Schism enumerating them all for so the Pope had ordered it confessing they had been ungrateful for the many Benefits they had received from that Church and humbly asking pardon for them The Pope held some Consultation whether he should receive them since in their Credentials the Queen stiled her self Queen of Ireland that Title being assumed by King Henry in the Time of Schism It seemed hard to use such Ambassadors ill but on the other hand he stood upon his Dignity and thought it belonged only to his See to erect Kingdoms therefore he resolved so to temper the Matter that he should not take notice of that Title but should bestow it as a Mark of his Favour So on the 7th of June he did in private erect Ireland into a Kingdom and conferred that Title on the King and Queen and told them that otherwise he would not suffer them to use it in their Publick Audience And it is probable it was the Contest about this that made the Audience be delaied almost a month after their Arrival This being adjusted he received the Ambassadors graciously and pardoned the whole Nation and said That in Token of his esteem of the King and Queen he gave them the Title of the Kingdom of Ireland by that Supream Power which he had from God who had placed him over all Kingdoms to supplant the Contumacious and to build new ones But in his private Discourses with the Ambassadors he complained that the Church-Lands were not restored which he said was by no means to be endured The P. presses the restoring of the Church Lands for they must render all back to the last farthing since they belonged to God and could not be kept without their incurring Damnation He said he would do any thing in his power to gratifie the King and Queen but in this his Authority was not so large as to prophane the things dedicated to God This would be an Anathema and a Contagion on the Nation which would bring after it many Miseries History of the Council of Trent therefore he required them to write effectually about it he repeated this to them every time he spake to them and told them also that the Peter-pence must be paid in England and that he would send a Collector to raise it he himself had been imployed in that office when he was young and he said he was much edified to see the forwardness of the People especially those of the meaner sort in paying it and told them they must not expect S. Peter would open Heaven to them so long as they usurped his Goods on Earth The Ambassadors seeing the Pope's haughty temper that he could endure no contradiction answered him with great submission and so gained his Favour much but knew well that these things could not be easily effected and the Viscount Montacute was too deeply concerned in the matter himself to sollicit it hard for almost his whole Estate consisted of Abby Lands Thus was this business rather laid over than fully setled But now to return to the Affairs in England Instructions sent to the Justices for earching after all susâ—ected of Heresie There came Complaints from all places that the Justices of Peace were remiss in the matters of Religion and particularly in Norfolk that these things were ill looked to So Instructions were sent thither which will be found in the Collections requiring the Justices to divide themselves into ten or twelve Districts that they might more narrowly look into all particulars Collect. Numb 19. that they should encourage the Preachers sent to instruct that County and turn out such as did not come to Church or conform in all things but chiefly the Preachers of Heresie that the Justices and their Families should be good examples to the rest that they should have one or two in every Parish to be secretly instructed for giving information of every thing in it and should look strictly to all vagabonds that wandred about and to such as spread false reports This was thought to have so much of the Inquisition in it that it was imputed to the Counsels of the Spaniards And they seem'd to have taken their pattern from the base Practices of those called Delatores that are set out by Tacitus as the greatest abuse of Power that ever was practised by the ill Emperors that succeeded Augustus who going into all companies and complying with what might be acceptable to them engaged Men into discourses against the State and then gave such Informations against them which without their discovering themselves by being brought to prove them were made use of to the ruin of the accused Persons This was certainly very contrary to the freedom of the English temper and helpt to alienate them the more from the Spaniards But it may be easily imagined that others were weary of severities when Bonner himself grew averse to them He complained Bonner grows unwilling to persecute any more that the matter was turned over upon him the rest looking on and leaving the execution of these Laws wholly to him So when the Justices and Sheriffs sent up Hereticks to him 1554. But is required to proceed by the King and Queen he sent them back and refused to meddle further Upon which the King and Qâ—een writ to him on the 24th of May complaining of this and admonished him to have from henceforth more regard to the Office of a good Pastor and Bishop and when such Offenders were brought to him to endeavour to remove them from their Errors or if they were obstinate to proceed against them according to Law This Letter he caused to be put in his Register from whence I copied it and have placed it in the Collections Coll. Number 20. Whether he procured this himself for a colour to excuse his Proceedings or whether it was sent to him by reason of his slackness is not certain but the latter is more probable for he had burnt none during five weeks but he soon redeemed that loss of time The Queens delivery is expected
but in vain At this time the Nation was in expectation of the Queen's Delivery And on the third of May the Bishop of Norwich writ a Letter to the Earl of Sussex of which I have seen the Original that news was brought him from London that the Queen had brought forth a Noble Prince for which he had Te Deum solemnly sung in his Cathedral and in the other Churches thereabout He adds in the Postscript that the News was confirmed by two other Hands But tho this was without any ground the Queen continued still in her opinion that she was with Child and on the 29th of May Letters were written by the Council to the Lord Treasurer to have Money in readiness that those who were appointed to carry the joyful news of the Queens happy Delivery might be speedily dispatched In the beginning of June she was believed to be in Labour and it flew over London again that she had brought forth a Son The Priests had setled all their hopes on that so they did every where sing Te Deum and were transported into no small Extasies of Joy One more officious than the rest made a Sermon about it and described all the lineaments of their young Prince but they soon found they were abused It was said that they had been deceived and that the Queen had no great Belly But Melvil in his Memoirs says he was assured from some of her Women that she did cast forth at several times some Moles and unformed pieces of flesh So now there was small hopes of any Issue from her This encreased the sowrness of her temper and King Philip being so much younger than she growing out of conceit with her did not much care for her but left her some months after He saw no hope of Children and finding that it was not possible for him to get England in his hands without that gave over all his Designs about it so having lived with her about fifteen months after their first Marriage he found it necessary to look more after his Hereditary Crown and less after his Matrimonial one and henceforth he considered England rather as a sure Ally that was to adhere firmly to his Interests than as a Nation which he could ever hope to add to his other Crowns All these things concurred to encrease the Queen's Melancholy Humours and did cast her into an ill state of Health so that it was not probable she could live long Gardiner upon that set himself much to have the Lady Elizabeth put out of the way but as it was formerly said King Philip preserved her Proceedings against Hereticks And thus Affairs went on as to Civil matters till the meeting of the next Parliament in October following But I now return to the Proceedings against the poor men called Hereticks who were again after a short intermission brought to new Sufferings John Cardmaker 1555. that had been Divinity-Reader at S. Pauls and a Prebendary at Bath and John Warne an Upholster in London were both burnt in Smithfield on the 30th of May for denying the Corporal presence being proceeded against ex Officio On the 4th of June there was a piece of Pageantry acted on the Body of one Tooly who being executed for a Robbery did at his death say something that savoured of Heresy upon which the Council writ to Bonner to enquire into it and to proceed according to the Ecclesiastical Laws He thereupon form'd a Process cited the dead Body to answer the Points objected to him but he to be sure neither appearing nor answering was condemned and burnt After this on the 10th of June Thomas Hawkes a Gentleman in Essex who had lived much in the Court was also burnt at Coxhall and on the same day John Simpson and John Ardeley two Husbandmen were also burnt in Essex Thomas Watts a Linen-Draper was burnt at Chelmsford On the 9th Nicholas Chamberlain a Weaver was burnt at Colchester and on the 15th Thomas Osmond a Fuller was burnt at Manning-tree and the same day William Bamford a Weaver was burnt at Harwich These with several others had been sent up by the Earl of Oxford to Bonner because they had not received the Sacrament the last Easter and were suspected of Heresie and Articles being given to them they were upon their Answers condemned and sent to be burnt in the places where they had lived But upon this occasion The Council writ to the Lords in Essex to gather the Gentry and assist at these Burnings the Council fearing some Tumult or violent Rescue writ to the Earl of Oxford and the Lord Rich to gather the Country and to see the Hereticks burnt The Earl of Oxford being some way indisposed could only send his People to the Lord Rich who went and obeyed the Orders that had been sent him for which Letters of Thanks were written to him and the Council understanding that some Gentlemen had come to the burning at Colchester that had not been writ to but as the words of the Letter have it had honestly and of themselves gone thither writ to the Lord Rich to give them the Council's thanks for their Zeal I find in the Council Books many Entries made of Letters writ to several Counties to the Nobility and Gentry to assist at these Executions and such as made excuses were always after that looked on with an ill eye and were still under great jealousy After these followed the Execution of Bradford in July Bradford's Martyrdome He had been condemned among the first but was not burnt till now He had been a Prebendary of St. Pauls and a celebrated Preacher in the end of King Edwards days He had preserved Bourn in the tumult at Pauls-Cross and that afternoon preaching at Bow-Church he severely reproved the people for the disorder at Pauls but three days after was put in Prison where he lay removed from one Prison to another near three years where-ever he came he gained so much on the Keepers that they suffered Preach and give the Sacrament to his Fellow Prisoners He was one of those that were carried before the Council on the 22d of January where Bonner accused him of the Tumult at Pauls though all he pretended to prove it by was that his way of speaking to the People shewed he thought he had some Authority over them and was a presumption that he had set on the Sedition Bradford appealed to God that saw his Innocency and how unworthily he was requited for saving his Enemies who rendered him evil for good At last refusing to conform himself to the Laws he was condemned with the rest on the 31. of Jan. where that Rescue was again laid to his Charge together with many Letters he had written over England which as the Earl of Darby informed the Parliament had done more hurt than he could have done if he had been at liberty to Preach He said since he understood that they acted by a Commission which was derived from
and ordain to be our Counsellors and of our Council the most Reverend Father in God Thomas Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and our right Trusty and well-beloved William Lord St. John Great Master of our Houshold and President of our Council John Lord Russel Keeper of our Privy-Seal and Our trusty and right well-beloved Cousins William Marquess of Northampton John Earl of Warwick Great Chamberlain of England Henry Earl of Arundel our Lord Chamberlain Thomas Lord Seymour of Sudley High Admiral of England the Reverend Father in God Cuthbert Bishop of Duresm and Our right trusty and well-beloved Richard Lord Rich Sir Thomas Cheyney Knight of our Order and Treasurer of our Houshold Sir John Gage Knight of our Order and Comptroller of our Houshold Sir Anthony Brown Knight of our Order Master of our Horses Sir Anthony Wingfield Knight of our Order our Vicechamberlain Sir William Paget Knight of our Order Our chief Secretary Sir William Petre Knight one of Our two principal Secretaries Sir Ralph Sadler Knight Master of our Great Wardrobe Sir John Baker Kt. Dr. Wotton Dean of Canterbury and York Sir Anthony Denny and Sir William Herbert Kts. Gentlemen of our Privy-Chamber Sir Edward North Kt. Chancellor of our Court of Augmentations and Revenues of our Crown Sir Edward Montague Kt. Chief Justice of our Common-Pleas Sir Edward Wotton Kt. Sir Edmund Pekham Kt. Cofferer of our Houshold Sir Thomas Bromley Kt. one of the Justices for Pleas before us to be holden and Sir Richard Southwell Kt. And furthermore We are contented and pleased and by these Presents do give full Power and Authority to our said Uncle from time to time untill We shall have accomplished and be of the full Age of eighteen Years to call ordain name appoint and swear such and as many other Persons of our Subjects as to him our said Uncle shall seem meet and requisite to be of our Council and that all and every such Person or Persons so by our said Uncle for and during the time aforesaid to be called named ordained appointed and sworn of our Council and to be our Counsellor or Counsellors We do by these Presents name ordain accept and take our Counsellor and Counsellors and of our Council in like manner and form as if he they and every of them were in these Presents by Us appointed named and taken to be of our Council and our Counsellor or Counsellors by express Name or Names And that also of our forenamed Counsellors or of any others which our said Uncle shall hereafter at any time take and chuse to be our Counsellor or Counsellors or of our said Council he our said Uncle shall may and have Authority by these Presents to chuse name appoint use and swear of Privy-Council and to be our Privy-Counsellor or Counsellors such and so many as he from time to time shall think convenient And it is Our further pleasure and also We will and grant by these Presents for Us our Heirs and Successors That whatsoever Cause Matter Deed Thing or Things of what Nature Quality or Condition soever the same be yea though the same require or ought by any Manner Law Statute Proclamation or other Ordinance whatsoever to be specially or by Name expressed or set forth in this Our present Grant or Letters Patents and be not herein expressed or mentioned specially which Our said Uncle or any of our Privy-Counsellor or Counsellors with the Advice Consent or Agreement of Our said Uncle have thought necessary meet expedient decent or in any manner-wise convenient to be devised done or executed during our Minority and until We come to the full Age of eighteen Years for the Surety Honour Profit Health or Education of our Person or for the Surety Honour Profit Weal Benefit or Commodity of any of our Realms Dominions or Subjects and the same have devised done or executed or caused to be devised executed or done at any time since the Death of Our most Noble Father of most famous memory We are contented and pleased and will and grant for Us our Heirs and Successors by these Presents that the same Cause Matter Deed Thing and Things and every of them shall stand remain and be until such time our said Uncle with such and so many of Our foresaid Counsellors as he shall think meet to call unto his assistance shall revoke and annihilate the same good sure stable vailable and effectual to all Intents and Purposes without offence of Us or against Us or of or against any of our Laws Statutes Proclamations or other Ordinances whatsoever and without incurring therefore into any Danger Penalty Forfeit Loss or any other Encumbrance Penalty or Vexation of his or their Bodies Lands Rents Goods or Chattels or of their or of any of their Heirs Executors or Administrators or of any other Person or Persons whatsoever which have done or executed any Cause Matter Deed Thing or Things now or any time since the Death of Our said Father by the Commandment or Ordinance of Our said Uncle or any of our Counsellors with the Advice Consent or Agreement of Our said Uncle And further We are contented and pleased and will and grant for Us our Heirs and Successors by these Presents that whatsoever Cause Matter Deed Thing or Things of what Nature Quality or Condition soever the same be or shall be yea though the same require or ought by any Manner Law Statute Proclamation or other whatsoever Ordinance to be specially and by name expressed and set forth in this our present Grant and Letters Patents and be not herein specially named or expressed which our said Uncle shall at any time during our Minority and until We shall come to the full Age of eighteen Years think necessary meet expedient decent or in any wise convenient to be devised had made executed or done in our Name for the Surety Honour Profit Health or Education of our Person or which our said Uncle with the Advice and Consent of such and so many of our Privy-Council or of our Counsellors as he shall think meet to call unto him from time to time shall at any time until We come unto the full Age of eighteen Years think necessary meet decent expedient or in any-wise convenient to be devised had made executed or done in our Name for the Surety Honour Profit Weal Benefit or Commodity of any of our Realms Dominions or Subjects or any of them he Our said Uncle and Counsellors and every of them and all and every other Person or Persons by his Our said Uncle's Commandment Direction Appointment or Order or by the Commandment Appointment Direction or Order of any of Our said Counsellors so as Our said Uncle agree and be contented to and with the same shall and may do or execute the same without displeasure to Us or any manner of Crime or Offence to be by Us our Heirs or Successors laid or imputed to him Our said Uncle or any Our said Counsellors or any other Person
make your Party stronger for your Purposes aforesaid to the danger of the King's Majesty's Person and great peril of the State of the Realm 16. It is Objected and laid to your Charge That you have retained young Gentlemen and hired Yeomen to a great multitude and far above such number as is permitted by the Laws and Statutes of the Realm or were otherwise necessary or convenient for your Service Place or Estate to the fortifying of your self towards all your evil Intents and Purposes to the great danger of the King's Majesty and peril of the State of the Realm 17. It is Objected and laid to your Charge That you had so travailed in that Matter that you had made your self able to make of your own Men out of your Lands and Rules and other your Adherents 10000 Men besides your Friends to the advancement of all your Intents and Purposes to the danger of the King's Majesty's Person and the great peril of the State of the Realm 18. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That you had conferred cast and weighed so much Mony as would find the said 10000 Men for a Month and that you knew how and where to have the same Sum and that you had given warning to have and prepare the said Mass of Mony in a readiness to the danger of the King's Majesty's Person and great peril to the State of the Realm 19. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That you have not only before you married the Queen attempted and gone about to marry the King's Majesty's Sister the Lady Elizabeth second Inheritor in remainder to the Crown but also being then let by the Lord Protector and others of the Council sithence that time both in the life of the Queen continued your old labour and love and after her death by secret and crafty means practised to atchieve the said purpose of marrying the said Lady Elizabeth to the danger of the King's Majesty's Person and peril of the state of the same 20. It is Objected and laid to your Charge That you married the late Queen so soon after the late King's Death that if she had conceived streight after it should have been a great doubt whether the Child born should have been accounted the late King 's or yours whereupon a marvellous danger and peril might and was like to have ensued to the King's Majesty's Succession and Quiet of the Realm 21. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That you first married the Queen privately and did dissemble and keep close the same insomuch that a good space after you had married her you made labour to the King's Majesty and obtained a Letter of his Majesty's Hand to move and require the said Queen to marry with you and likewise procured the Lord Protector to speak to the Queen to bear you her favour towards Marriage by the which colouring not only your evil and dissembling Nature may be known but also it is to be feared that at this present you did intend to use the same practice in the marriage of the Lady Elizabeth's Grace 22. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That you not only so much as lay in you did stop and lett all such things as either by Parliament or otherwise should tend to the advancement of the King's Majesty's Affairs but did withdraw your self from the King's Majesty's Service and being moved and spoken unto for your own Honour and for the Ability that was in you to serve and aid the King's Majesty's Affairs and the Lord Protectors you would always draw back and feign Excuses and declare plainly that you would not do it Wherefore upon the discourse of all these foresaid things and of divers others it must needs be intended that all these Preparations of Men and Mony the attempts and secret practices of the said Marriage the abusing and perswading of the King's Majesty to mislike the Government State and Order of the Realm that now is and to take the Government into his own hands and to credit you was to none other end and purpose but after a Title gotten to the Crown and your Party made strong both by Sea and Land with Furniture of Men and Mony sufficient to have aspired to the Dignity Royal by some hainous Enterprize against the King's Majesty's Person to the subversion of the whole State of the Realm 23. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That you not only had gotten into your hands the strong and dangerous Isles of Silly bought of divers Men but that so much as lay in your power you travailed also to have Londay and under pretence to have victualled the Ships therewith not only went about but also moved the Lord Protector and whole Council that you might by publick Authority have that which by private fraude and falshood and confederating with Sharington you had gotten that is the Mint at Bristol to be yours wholly and only to serve your Purposes casting as may appear that if these Traiterous Purposes had no good success yet you might thither conveigh a good Mass of Mony where being aided with Ships and conspiring at all evil Events with Pirats you might at all times have a sure and safe Refuge if any thing for your demerits should have been attempted against you 24. It is also Objected and laid unto your Charge That having knowledg that Sir William Sharington Kt. had committed Treason and otherwise wonderfully defrauded and deceived the King's Majesty nevertheless you both by your self and by seeking Council for him and by all means you could did aid assist and bear him contrary to your Allegiance and Duty to the King's Majesty and the good Laws and Orders of the Realm 25. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That where you owed to Sir William Sharington Kt. a great sum of Mony yet to abet bear and cloak the great falshood of the said Sharington and to defraud the King's Majesty you were not afraid to say and affirm before the Lord Protector and the Council that the same Sharington did owe unto you a great Sum of Mony viz. 2800 l. and to conspire with him in that falshood and take a Bill of that feigned Debt into your custody 26. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That you by your self and Ministers have not only extorted and bribed great Sums of Mony of all such Ships as should go into Island but also as should go any other where in Merchandise contrary to the Liberty of this Realm and to the great discouragement and destruction of the Navy of the same to the great danger of the King's Majesty and the State of the Realm 27. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That where divers Merchants as well Strangers as Englishmen have had their goods piratously robbed and taken you have had their Goods in your hands and custody daily seen in your House and distributed among your Servants and Friends without any restitution to the
That against Law he held a Court of Request in his House and did enforce divers to answer there for their Freehold and Goods and did determine of the same 8. That being no Officer without the advice of the Council or most part of them he did dispose Offices of the King's Gift for Mony grant Leases and Wards and Presentations of Benefices pertaining to the King gave Bishopricks and made sales of the King's Lands 9. That he commanded Alchimie and Multiplication to be practised thereby to abase the King's Coin 10. That divers times he openly said That the Nobility and Gentry were the only cause of Dearth whereupon the People rose to reform Matters of themselves 11. That against the mind of the whole Council he caused Proclamation to be made concernig Inclosures whereupon the People made divers Insurrections and destroyed many of the King's Subjects 12. That he sent forth a Commission with Articles annexed concerning Inclosures Commons High-ways Cottages and such-like Matters giving the Commissioners authority to hear and determine those causes whereby the Laws and Statutes of the Realm were subverted and much Rebellion raised 13. That he suffered Rebels to assemble and lie armed in Camp against the Nobility and Gentry of the Realm without speedy repressing of them 14. That he did comfort and encourage divers Rebels by giving them Mony and by promising them Fees Rewards and Services 15. That he caused a Proclamation to be made against Law and in favour of the Rebels that none of them should be vexed or sued by any for their Offences in their Rebellion 16. That in time of Rebellion he said That he liked well the Actions of the Rebels and that the Avarice of Gentlemen gave occasion for the People to rise and that it was better for them to die than to perish for want 17. That he said The Lords of the Parliament were loath to reform Inclosures and other things therefore the People had a good cause to reform them themselves 18. That after declaration of the Defaults of Bulloign and the Pieces there by such as did survey them he would never amend the same 19. That he would not suffer the King's Pieces of Newhaven and Blackness to be furnished with Men and Provision albeit he was advertised of the Defaults and advised thereto by the King's Council whereby the French King was emboldned to attempt upon them 20. That he would neither give Authority nor suffer Noblemen and Gentlemen to suppress Rebels in time convenient but wrote to them to speak the Rebels fair and use them gently 21. That upon the 5th of October the present Year at Hampton-Court for defence of his own private Causes he procured seditious Bills to be written in counterfeit Hands and secretly to be dispersed into divers parts of the Realm beginning thus Good People intending thereby to raise the King's Subjects to Rebellion and open War 22. That the King's Privy-Council did consult at London to come to him and move him to reform his Government but he hearing of their Assembly declared by his Letters in divers places that they were high Traitors to the King 23. That he declared untruly as well to the King as to other young Lords attending his Person That the Lords at London intended to destroy the King and desired the King never to forget but to revenge it and desired the young Lords to put the King in remembrance thereof with intent to make Sedition and Discord between the King and his Nobles 24. That at divers times and places he said The Lords of the Council at London intended to kill me but if I die the King shall die and if they famish me they shall famish him 25. That of his own head he removed the King so suddenly from Hampton-Court to Windsor without any provision there made that he was thereby not only in great fear but cast thereby into a dangerous Disease 26. That by his Letters he caused the King's People to assemble in great numbers in Armour after the manner of War to his Aid and Defence 27. That he caused his Servants and Friends at Hampton-Court and Windsor to be apparelled in the King's Armour when the King's Servants and Guards went unarmed 28. That he intended to fly to Gernsey or Wales and laid Post-horses and Men and a Boat to that purpose Number 47. A Letter written by the Council to the Bishops to assure them That the King intended to go forward in the Reformation By the KING RIght Reverend Father in God Right trusty and well-beloved Regist Cran. Fol. 56. we greet you well Whereas the Book entituled the Book of Common Prayers and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church after the use of the Church of England was agreed upon and set forth by Act of Parliament and by the same Act commanded to be used of all Persons within this our Realm Yet nevertheless we are informed that divers unquiet and evil-disposed Persons sithence the apprehension of the Duke of Somerset have noised and bruited abroad That they should have again their old Latin Service their Conjured Bread and Water with such-like vain and superfluous Ceremonies as though the setting forth of the said Book had been the only Act of the said Duke We therefore by the advice of the Body and State of our Privy-Council not only considering the said Book to be our Act and the Act of the whole State of our Realm assembled together in Parliament but also the same to be grounded upon the Holy Scripture agreeable to the Order of the Primitive Church and much to the re-edifying of our Subjects to put away all such vain expectation of having the Publick Service the Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies again in the Latin Tongue which were but a preferment of Ignorance to Knowledg and Darkness to Light and a preparation to bring in Papistry and Superstition again have thought good by the advice aforesaid to require and nevertheless straitly do command and charge you That immediately upon the receipt hereof you do command the Dean and Prebendaries of your Cathedral Church the Parsons Vicar or Curat and Church-wardens of every Parish within your Diocess to bring and deliver unto you or your Deputy any of them for their Church or Parish at such convenient place as you shall appoint all Antiphonals Missals Graylles Processionals Manuels Legends Pies Portasies Journals and Ordinals after the use of Sarum Lincoln York or any other private use And all other Books of Service the keeping whereof should be a lett to the using of the said Book of Common Prayers and that you take the same Books into your hands or into the hands of your Deputy and them so to deface and abolish that they never after may serve either to any such use as they were provided for or be at any time a lett to that godly and uniform Order which by a common Consent is now set forth And if
have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil Doers The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Laws of this Realm may punish Christian Men with Death c. the Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England and Ireland The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Civil Magistrate is ordained and approved by God and therefore is to be obeyed not only for fear of Wrath but for Conscience-sake Civil or Temporal Laws may punish Christian Men with Death for heinous and grievous Offences It is lawful for Christian Men at the Commandment of the Magistrate to wear Weapons and to serve in the Wars XXXVII The Goods of Christians are not common The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common as touching the Right Title and Possession of the same as certain Anabaptists do falsly boast Notwithstanding every Man ought of such things as he possesseth liberally to give Alms to the Poor according to his Ability XXXVIII It is lawful for a Christian to take an Oath As we confess that vain and rash Swearing is forbidden Christian Men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James his Apostle so we judg that Christian Religion doth not prohibit but that a Man may swear when the Magistrate requireth in a Cause of Faith and Charity so it be done according to the Prophet's teaching in Justice Judgment and Truth These Articles were left out in Queen Elizabeth's Time XXXIX The Resurrection of the Dead is not past already The Resurrection of the Dead is not past already as if it belonged only to the Soul which by the Grace of Christ is raised from the Death of Sin but is to be expected by all Men in the last Day for at that time as the Scripture doth most apparently testify the Dead shall be restored to their own Bodies Flesh and Bones to the end that Man according as either righteously or wickedly he hath passed this Life may according to his Works receive Rewards or Punishments XL. The Souls of Men deceased do neither perish with their Bodies They who maintain that the Souls of Men deceased do either sleep without any manner of sense to the Day of Judgment or affirm that they die together with the Body and shall be raised therewith at the last Day do wholly differ from the Right Faith and Orthodox Belief which is delivered to us in the Holy Scriptures XLI Of the Millenarians They who endeavour to revive the Fable of the Millenarians are therein contrary to the Holy Scriptures and cast themselves down headlong into Jewish Dotages XLII All Men not to be saved at last They also deserve to be condemned who endeavour to restore that pernicious Opinion That all Men though never so ungodly shall at last be saved when for a certain time appointed by the Divine Justice they have endured punishment for their Sins committed Number 56. Instructions given by the King's Highness to his right trusty and right well-beloved Cousin and Counsellor Francis Earl of Salop and Lord President of his Grace's Council resident in the North Parts and to all others hereafter named and appointed by his Highness to be of his said Council to be observed by the said Counsellors and every of them according as the same hereafter is declared FIrst Ex MS. Dr. Johnson His Majesty much desiring the Quietness and good Governance of the People and Inhabitants in the North Parts of this Realm of England and for the good speedy and indifferent administration of Justice to be there had betwixt Party and Party intendeth to continue in the same North Parts his Right Honourable Council called The King's Majesty's Council in the North Parts And his Highness knowing the approved Wisdom and Experience of his said Cousin _____ with his assured discretion and dexterity in the Execution of Justice hath appointed him to be Lord President of the said Council and by these Presents doth give unto him the Name of Lord President of the said Council with Power and Authority to call together all such as be or hereafter shall be named and appointed to be of the said Council at all times when he shall think expedient And otherwise by his Letters to appoint them and every of them to do such things for the Advancement of Justice and for the repression and punishment of Malefactors as by the Advice of such of the said Council as then shall be present with him he shall think meet for the furtherance of his Grace's Affairs and for the due Administration of Justice between his Highness Subjects And further his Majesty giveth unto the said Lord President by these Presents a Voice Negative in all Councils where things shall be debated at length for the bringing forth of a most perfect Truth or Sentence which his Highness would have observed in all Cases that may abide Advisement and Consultation to the intent that doubtful Matters should as well be maturely consulted upon as also that the same should not pass without the consent and order of the said Lord President And his Highness willeth and commandeth that all and every of the said Councellors named and to be named hereafter shall exhibit and use to the said Lord President all such Honour Reverend Behaviour and Obedience as to their Duty appertaineth and shall receive and execute in like sort all the Precepts and Commandments to them or any of them for any Matter touching his Majesty to be addressed or any Process to be done or served in his Grace's Name And his Highness Pleasure is That the said Lord President shall have the keeping of his Graces Signet therewith to Seal Letters Processes and all such other things as shall be thought convenient by the said Lord President or by two of the Council being bound by those Articles to daily attendance upon the said Lord President with his assent thereunto And to the intent the said Lord President thus established for the above-said Purposes may be furnished with such Numbers and Assistants as be of Wisdom Experience Gravity and Truth meet to have the Name of his Grace's Councellors his Majesty upon good advisement and deliberation hath elected those Persons whose Names ensue hereafter to be his Counsellors joined in the said Council in the North Parts with the said Lord President that is to say The right Trusty and well-beloved Cousins Henry Earl of Westmoreland Henry Earl of Cumberland his right Trusty and well-beloved Cuthbert Bishop of Duresme William Lord Dacres of the North John Lord Conyers Thomas Lord Wharton John Hind Kt. one of his Majesty's Justices of the Common-Pleas Edmond Moleneux Kt. Serjeant at Law Henry Savel Kt. Robert Bowes Kt. Nicholas Fairfax Kt. George Conyers Kt. Leonard Becquith Kt. William Babthorp Kt.
Anthony Nevill Kt. Thomas Gargrave Kt. Robert Mennel Serjeant at Law Anthony Bellasis Esquire John Rockely Doctor of Law Robert Chaloner Richard Morton and Thomas Eymis Esquires And his Highness by these Presents doth appoint the said Thomas Eymis to be Secretary to the said Council diligently and obediently to exercise the same Room as he shall be appointed by the said Lord President or by two of the Council whereof the one to be of the Quorum with the assent of the Lord President And his Highness Pleasure is That the said Lord President and two others of the said Council being of the Quorum shall be sworn Masters of the Chancery to the intent that every of them may take recognisance in such Cases as by the said Lord President or by two of the said Council being of the Quorum shall be thought convenient and the Case so requiring All which number of Councellors before specified as his Majesty doubteth not but that they and every of them according to his Grace's expectation and trust reposed in them will be at all times diligent and willing towards and ready to do unto his Grace such Service as they can devise or imagine may be best to his contentation and to the discharge of their Duties towards his Highness leaving apart all Respects and Affections in all Matters that may touch their nighest Kinsman Friend Servant Tenant or others when the same shall come in question before the same Lord President and Council So his Grace trusteth that every of the same will have such regard to Malefactors as appertaineth and to bring all such unto the said Lord President and Council when they shall be thereunto appointed or may otherwise do it of themselves informing the said Lord President and Council of their Offences as the same shall happen in place where they have Rule and Authority within the limits of their Commission And forsomuch as it should be very chargeable to many of the said Councellors if they should continually attend upon the said Lord President Council threfore his Highness of his Grace's Goodness minding to ease that Charge and to instruct every of the said Councellors how to demean themselves for their Attendance that is to wit who shall be bound to continual Attendance upon the same Council and who shall attend but at times most requisite at their pleasures unless the same Lord President shall require them to remain for a time for some weighty Affairs or Purposes the which Requests in such Cases every of them shall accomplish His Majesty therefore ordaineth that his Cousins the Earls of Westmoreland and Cumberland the Bishop of Duresme the Lord Dacres the Lord Conyers the Lord Wharton Sir John Hinde Sir Edmond Molineux Sir Henry Savell Sir Nicholas Fairfax George Conyers Anthony Nevil Knights Robert Mennel Serjeant at Law Anthony Bellasis John Rockbey Doctor of Law and Richard Norton shall not be bound to continual Attendance but to go and come at their pleasures unless they be required by the said Lord President to remain with him for a time for some weighty and great Causes which then they shall accomplish And further his Grace's Pleasure is that they shall be present at such of the general Sittings as shall be kept near unto their dwelling Places and at other Sittings and Places where they shall be commanded by the said L. President all Excuses set apart as appertaineth And because it shall be convenient that a Number shall be continually abiding with the said L. President with whom he may consult and commit the Charge and Hearing of such Matters as shall be exhibited unto him for the more expedition of the same his Highness by these Presents doth ordain that Sir Robert Bowes Sir William Babthorp Sir Leonard Becquith Sir Thomas Gargrave Knights Robert Chaloner and Thomas Eymis Secretary Esquires shall give their continual attendance on the said Lord President or at the least two of them and that none of them appointed to continual Attendance on the said Lord President shall depart at any time from him without his special License and the same not to exceed above six weeks at one season And his Highness by these Presents for the better entertainment of the said Lord President and Council of both sorts when they are or any of them shall be present doth give a yearly Stipend of 1000 l. by the Year to the said Lord President towards the Furniture of the Diet of himself and the rest of the said Councellors with such number of Servants as hereafter shall be appointed and allowed to every of them that is to wit every Knight being bound to continual Attendance four Servants and every Esquire being bound to like Attendance three Servants And his Highness ordaineth every of the said Councellors to sit with the said Lord President at his Table or in some other place in his House to be by him conveniently prepared for their Degrees and Behaviours and their Servants allowed as is before-said to have Sitting and Diet in the said Lord President 's Hall or in some other convenient place in his House And further his Highness of his meer Goodness and great Benignity for the better entreatment as well of such of the said Council as be not well able to forbear their own Affairs and attend upon the said Council without further help for the charge of the Horse-meat and Lodgings when they shall attend in Council to serve his Highness As for such others that might better themselves with their Learning and Policies if they were not detained there about his Grace's Affairs doth by these Presents limit and appoint to divers of the aforesaid Councellors hereafter named certain particular Fees as ensueth that is to say To Sir Robert Bowes Kt. in respect of his Attendance and towards his Horse-meat and other Charges an hundred Merks yearly to Sir William Babthorp Kt. for the like 50 l. yearly to Sir Leonard Becquith for the like causes an 100 Merks yearly to Sir Thomas Gargrave Kt. for the like 50 l. yearly to Robert Chaloner Esquire for the like 50 l. yearly to Richard Norton Esq for his Fee 40 l. to Thomas Eymis Secretary for the like yearly Fee 33 l. 6 s. 8 d. And further his Grace doth appoint one Messenger to serve the said Council who shall give continual attendance upon the said Lord President and have his Meat Drink and Lodging in the said Lord Presidents House and to have yearly for his Fee 6 l. 13 s. 4 d. And further his Grace's pleasure is That the said 1000 l. for the Lord President and all the said other Fees shall be paid yearly at the Feasts of the Annunciation of our Lady and St. Michael the Arch-Angel by even Portions of the Revenues of his Graces Lands in those parts and that for that purpose an Assignment and Warrant to be made to the Receiver General of his Grace's Revenues there And to furnish the said Lord President and Council
in all things with Authority sufficient to execute Justice as well in Causes Criminal as in Matters of Controversy between Party and Party his Majesty hath commanded and appointed two Commissions to be made out under his Grace's Great Seal of England by virtue whereof they shall have full Power and Authority in either Case to proceed as the Matter occurrent shall require And for the more speedy expedition to be used in all causes of Justice his Majesty's Pleasure is That the said Lord President and Council shall cause every Complainant and Defendant that shall have to do before them to put and declare their whole Matter in their Bill of Complaint and Answer without Replication Rejoinder or other Plea or Delay to be had or used therein which Order the said L. President and Council shall manifest unto all such as shall be Councellors in any Matter to be intreated and defined before them charging and commanding the said Councellors and Pleaders to observe this Order upon such Penalties as they shall think convenient as they will eschew the danger of the same and not in any ways to break it without the special License of the said Lord President and that only in some special Causes And further his Highness by these Presents doth give full Power and Authority to the said Lord President and Council as well to punish such Persons as in any thing shall neglect contemn or disobey their Commandments or the Process of the Council as all other that shall speak seditious Words invent Rumors or commit such-like Offences not being Treason whereof any Inconvenience might grow by Pillory cutting their Ears wearing of Papers Imprisonment or otherwise at their Discretions And the said L. President and Council at their discretions shall appoint Counsellors and other Requisites to poor Suitors having no Mony without paying Fees or other things for the same And his Highness giveth full Power and Authority to the said L. President Council being with him or four of them at the least whereof the said L. President Sir John Hind Sir Edmond Molineux Sir Robert Bowes Sir Leonard Becquith Sir Anthony Nevill Sir Thomas Gargrave Knights Robert Mennell and Robert Chaloner to be two with the Lord President to assess Fines of all Persons that shall be convict or indicted of any Riot how many soever they be in number unless the Matter of such Riot shall be thought unto them of such importance as the same shall be meet to be signified unto his Majesty to be punished in such sort by the Order of his Council attending upon his Grace's Person as the same may be noted for an Example to others And his Grace giveth full Power and Authority to the said Lord President and Council or four of them at the least whereof the Lord President and two others bound to continual Attendance to be three to Award and Assess Costs and Dammages as well to the Plaintiffs as to the Defendants by their discretions and to award execution of their Decrees and Orders and to punish the breakers of the same being Parties thereunto by their discretions All which Decrees and Orders the Secretary shall be bound incontinently upon the promulgation of the same to write or cause to be written in one fair Book which shall remain in the hands and custody of the said Lord President And to the intent it may appear to all Persons there what Fees shall be paid and taken for all Processes and Writings to be used by the said Council his Majesty therefore appointeth that there shall be a Table affixed in every place where the said Lord President and Council shall sit at any Sessions and a like Table to hang openly that all Men may see it in the Office where the said Secretary and the Clerks shall commonly sit and expedite the said Writings wherein shall be declared what shall be paid for the same That is to say For every Recognisance wherein one alone or more standeth bounden 12 d. for the cancelling of every like Recognisance 12 d. For the entring of every Decree 6 d. for the Copy of the same if it be asked 6 d. For every Letter Commission Attachment or other Precept or Process sent to any Person 4 d. For every Dismission before the said Council if it be asked 4 d. For the Copies of Bills and Answers and other Pleas for every ten lines reasonably writ 1 d. for the Examination of every Witness 4 d. And his Grace's Pleasure is That the Examination of Witnesses produced in Matters before the said Council shall be examined by such discreet Person and Persons as shall be thought convenient and meet by the said Lord President and two of the said Council bound to continual Attendance and that the said Lord President with such-like two of the said Council shall reform appoint and allow such Persons to write Bills Answers Copies or other Process in that Court as they shall think convenient over and beside the said Secretary and his two Clerks which Clerks also the said Lord President and Council shall reform and correct as they shall have cause and occasion In which Reformation and Appointments the said Lord President shall have a Voice Negative And for the more certain and brief determination of Matters in those parts his Majesty by these Presents ordaineth that the said Lord President and Council shall keep four general Sittings or Sessions in the Year every of them to continue by the space of one whole Month whereof one to be at York another at Kingston upon Hull one at New-Castle and another at Duresme within the limits whereof the Matters rising there shall be ordered and decreed if they conveniently so may be And they shall in every of the same Places keep one Goal Delivery before their departure from thence his Grace nevertheless referring it to their Discretions to take and appoint such other Place and Places for their said four general Sittings as they or the said Lord President with three of the Council bounden to continual Attendance shall think most convenient for the time and purpose so that they keep the full term of one Month in every such place if they may in any wise conveniently so do And forsomuch as a great number of his Majesty's Tenants and Farmers have been heretofore retained with sundry Persons by Wages Livery Badg or Connysance by reason whereof when his Grace should have had service of them they were rather at Commandment of other Men than according to their Duties of Allegiance of his Highness of whom they have their Livings his Majesty's Pleasure and express Commandment is That none of his said Council nor others shall by any means retain or entertain any of his Graces Tenants or Farmers in such sort as they or any of them should account themselves bounden to do him or them any other Service than as to his Highness Officers having Office or being appointed in Service there unless the same Farmers and Tenants be continually
attendant in the House of him that shall retain them And the said Lord President and Council shall in every their General Sittings give special notice and charge That no Nobleman nor other shall retain any of the said Tenants and Farmers otherwise than is aforesaid Charging also the said Farmers and Tenants upon pain of the forfeiture of their Farms and Holds and incurring of his Majesty's further Displeasure and Indignation in no wise to agree to any such Retainers other than is before-said but wholly to depend upon his Highness and upon such as his Highness hath or shall appoint to be Officers Rulers or Directors over them And his Grace's Pleasure further is That in every such Sitting and in all other Places where the said Lord President and Council shall have any notable Assemblies before them they shall give strait Charge and Commandment to the People to conform themselves in all things to the observation of such Laws Ordinances and Determinations as be made passed and agreed upon by his Grace's Parliament touching Religion and the most Godly Service set forth in their own Mother Tongue for their Comforts And likewise to the Laws touching the abolishing of the usurped and pretended Power of the Bishop of Rome whose Abuses they shall so beat into their Heads by continual inculcation as they may smell and understand the same and may perceive the same to be declared with their Hearts and not with their Tongues only for a form And likewise they shall declare the Order and Determination taken and agreed upon for the Abrogation of certain vain Holy Days being appointed by the Bishop of Rome to blind the World and to persuade the same that they might make Saints at their pleasures and thereby through idleness do give occasion of the increase of many and great Vices and Inconveniences which Points his Majesty doth earnestly require and straitly commmand the said Lord President and Council to set forth with all dexterity and to punish extreamly for example all Offenders in the same And his Majesty willeth the said Council as he doubteth not but they will most earnestly set forth all such other Things and Matters as for the confirmation of the People in those Matters and other the King's Majesty's Proceedings and things convenient to be remembred be or shall be set forth or devised and sent unto them for that purpose Further his Highness Pleasure is That the said Lord President and Council shall from time to time make diligent inquisition of the wrongful taking in and inclosing of Commons and other Grounds and who be extream therein and in taking and exacting of unreasonable Fines and Gressomes and overing or raising of Rents and to call the Parties that have so evil used themselves therein before them and leaving all Respects and Affections apart they shall take such order for the Redresses of Enormities used in the same as the poor People be not oppressed but that they may live after their Sorts and Qualities And if it shall chance that the said Lord President and Council shall vary in Opinion either in the Law or for any Order to be taken in any Matter or Fact before them if the case be of very great Weight and Importance then the Opinion of the greater or more part of the number of Counsellors appointed to give continual attendance shall take place and determine the Doubt and if they be of like like number of Counsellors bounden to continual Attendance then that Party whereunto the Lord President shall give his Assent shall be followed and take place And if the Case and Matter be of great Importance and the Question of the Law then the Lord President and Council shall signify the Case and Matter to the Judges at Westminster who shall with diligence advertise them again of their Opinions therein And if the Matter be of great Importance and an Order to be taken upon the Fact then the said Lord President and Council attendant upon his Person upon the same whereupon they shall have knowledg again how to use themselves in that behalf And the said Lord President and Council shall take special regard upon complaint of Spoil Extortions or Oppressions to examine the same speedily that the Party grieved may have due and undelayed Remedy and Restitution And for want of Ability in the Offenders thereunto they to be punished to the Example of others And if any Man of what degree soever he be shall upon a good lawful and reasonable Cause or Matter and so appearing to the Lord President and Council by Information or otherwise demand Surety of Peace or Justice against any great Lord or Nobleman of that Country the said Lord President and Council shall in that case grant the Petition of the poorest Man against the richest or greatest Lord being of the Council or no as they should grant the same being lawfully asked against Men of the meanest sort degree and behaviour And forasmuch as it may chance the said Lord President to be sometime diseased that he shall not be able to travel for the direction of such Matters as then shall occur or to be called to the Parliament or otherwise to be imploied in the King's Majesty's Affairs or about other Business for good Reformation or Order within his Rule or for other reasonable cause by his discretion To the intent therefore that the said Council may be and remain ever full and perfect and that they may be at all times in the same one Person to direct and use all things in such and the same order sort and form as the said Lord President should and might do by virtue of the afore-said's Commissions and these Instructions his Majesty's Pleasure is That when the said Lord President shall be so diseased absent or letted as is before-said that he cannot conveniently supply his room himself that then he shall name and appoint one of the said Commissioners being appointed to give continual attendance to supply his Room for that season during his said Disease Absence or Lett and shall deliver the Signet to the Person so appointed to keep during the same time And the King's Highness during the same time giveth unto the said Person so appointed the Name of Vice-President which Name nevertheless he shall no longer continue than during the time that the said Lord President shall so be sick absent or letted as is before-said And his Majesty's Pleasure is That for the time only that any of the said Council as is before-said shall occupy the said Room and Place as a Vice-President that all the rest of the Council shall in all things use him in like sort and with like reverence as they be bound by those Injunctions to use the Lord President himself whereunto his Grace doubteth not but every of them will conform themselves accordingly And further his Majesty by these Presents giveth full Power and Authority to the said Lord President and Council That when the Condition of any Recognisance
enabling of their own Judgments to treat and conclude of such Laws as might depend thereupon This also being thought very reasonable was signified to both Parties and so fully agreed upon And the day appointed for the first Meeting to be the Friday in the Forenoon being the last of March at Westminster Church where both for good Order and for Honour of the Conferences by the Queen's Majesty's Commandment the Lords and others of the Privy-Council were present and a great part of the Nobility also And notwithstanding the former Order appointed and consented unto by both Parties yet the Bishop of Winchester and his Colleagues alleadging that they had mistaken that their Assertions and Reasons should be written and so only recited out of the Book said Their Book was not then ready written but they were ready to Argue and Dispute and therefore they would for that time repeat in Speech that which they had to say to the first Proposition This variation from the former Order and specially from that which themselves had by the said Arch-Bishop in writing before required adding thereto the Reason of the Apostle that to contend with words is profitable to nothing but to the subversion of the Hearer seemed to the Queen's Majesty somewhat strange and yet was it permitted without any great reprehension because they excused themselves with mistaking the Order and argued that they would not fail but put it in writing and according to the former Order deliver it to the other Part. And so the said Bishop of Winchester and his Colleagues appointed Dr. Cole Dean of Pauls to be their Utterer of their Minds who partly by Speech only and partly by reading of Authorities written and at certain times being informed of his Colleagues what to say made a declaration of their Meanings and their Reasons to the first Proposition Which being ended they were asked by the Privy Council If any of them had any more to be said and they said No. So as then the other Part was licensed to shew their Minds which they did accordingly to the first Order exhibiting all that which they meant to propound in a Book written Which after a Prayer and Invocation made most humbly to Almighty God for the enduing of them with his Holy Spirit and a Protestation also to stand to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church builded upon the Scriptures and the Doctrine of the Prophets and the Apostles was distinctly read by one Robert Horn Batchelor in Divinity late Dean of Duresm And the same being ended with some likelyhood as it seemed that the same was much allowable to the Audience certain of the Bishops began to say contrary to their former Answer that they had now much more to say to this Matter wherein although they might have been well reprehended for such manner of cavillation yet for avoiding any more mistaking of Orders in this Colloquie or Conference and for that they should utter all that which they had to say it was both ordered and thus openly agreed upon of both Parts in the full Audience that upon the Monday following the Bishops should bring their Minds and Reasons in Writing to the second Assertion and the last also if they could and first read the same and that done the other Part should bring likewise theirs to the same and being read each of them should deliver to other the same Writings And in the mean time the Bishops should put in writing not only all that which Doctor Cole had that day uttered but all such other Matters as they any otherwise could think of for the same and as soon as might possible to send the same Book touching the first Assertion to the other part and they should receive of them that Writing which Master Horn had there read that day and upon Monday it should be agreed what day they should exhibit their Answer touching the first Proposition Thus both parts assented thereto and the Assembly was quietly dismissed And therefore upon Monday the like Assembly began again at the Place and Hour appointed and there upon what sinister or disordered meaning is not yet fully known though in some part it be understanded the Bishop of Winchester and his Colleagues and specially Lincoln refused to exhibit or read according to the former notorious Order on Friday that which they had prepared for the second Assertion and thereupon by the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal they being first gently and favourably required to keep the Order appointed and that taking no place being secondly as it behoved pressed with the more earnest request they neither regarding the Authority of that Place nor their own Reputation nor the Credit of the Cause utterly refused that to do And finally being again particularly every one of them apart distinctly by Name required to understand their Opinions therein they all saving one which was the Abbot of Westminster having some more consideration of Order and his Duty of Obedience than the other utterly and plainly denied to have their Book read some of them as more earnestly than other some so also some others more indiscreetly and irreverently than others Whereupon giving such Example of Disorders Stubbornness and Self-will as hath not been seen and suffered in such an Honourable Assembly being of the two Estates of this Realm the Nobilities and Commons besides the Persons of the Queen's Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council the same Assembly was dismissed and the Godly and most Christian Purpose of the Queen's Majesty made frustrate And afterwards for the contempt so notoriously made the Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln who have most obstinately disobeyed both Common Authority and varied manifestly from their own Order specially Lincoln who shewed more folly than the other were condignly committed to the Tower of London and the rest saving the Abbot of VVestminster stand bound to make daily their personal appearance before the Council and not to depart the City of London and VVestminster until further Order be taken with them for their Disobedience and Contempt N. Bacon Cust Sigill F. Shrewsbury F. Bedford Pembrok E. Clynton G. Rogers F. Knollys W. Cecill A. Cave Number 6. An Address made by some Bishops and Divines to Queen Elizabeth against the Use of Images To the Queen 's most Excellent Majesty WE knowing your gracious Clemency and considering the necessity of the Matter that we have to move the one doth encourage us and the other compel us as before to make our humble Petition unto your Highness and to renew our former Suit not in any respect of self-will stoutness or striving against your Majesty God we take to Witness for with David we confess that we are but as Canes mortui aut Pulices in comparison But we do it only for that fear and reverence which we bear to the Majesty of Almighty God in whose Hands to fall 't is terrible for it lieth in his Power to destroy for ever and to cast both Body and Soul into Hell Fire
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
were declared to be Heresies by the express and plain Words of Scripture All other Points not so decided were to be judged by the Parliament with the assent of the Clergy in their Convocation This Act was in many things short of the Authority that King Henry had claimed and the severity of the Laws he had made The Title of Supream Head was left out of the Oath This was done to mitigate the Opposition of the Popish Party but besides the Queen her self had a scruple about it which was put in her Head by one Lever a famous Preacher among those of the Reformation of which Sands afterwards Bishop of Worcester complained to Parker in a Letter that is in the Collection Collection Number 2. There was no other punishment inflicted on those that denied the Queens Supremacy but the loss of their Goods and such as refused to take the Oath did only lose their Imployments whereas to refuse the Oath in King Henry's time brought them into a Praemunire and to deny the Supremacy was Treason The Bishops oppose the Queens Supremacy But against this Bill the Bishops made Speeches in the House of Lords I have seen a Speech of this kind was said to have been made by Arch-bishop Heath but it must be forgery put out in his Name for he is made to speak of the Supremacy as a new and unheard of thing which he who had sworn it so oft in King Henry's and King Edwards times could not have the face to say The rest of the Bishops opposed it the rather because they had lately declared so high for the Pope that it had been very indecent for them to have revolted so soon The Bishop of Duresme came not to this Parliament There were some hopes of gaining him to concur in the Reformation for in the Warrant the Queen afterwards gave to some for Consecrating the new Bishops he is first named and I have seen a Letter of Secretary Cecils to Parker that gives him some hope that Tonstal would joyn with them He had been offended with the Cruelties of the late Reign and though the resentments he had of his ill usage in the end of King Edwards time had made him at first concur more heartily to the restoring of Popery yet he soon fell off and declared his dislike of those violent Courses and neither did he nor Heath bring any in trouble within their Diocesses upon the account of Religion though it is hardly credible that there was no occasion for their being severe if they had been otherwise enclined to it The Bishop of Ely was also absent at the passing of this Act for though he would not consent to it yet he had done all that was prescribed by it so often before that it seems he thought it more decent to be absent than either to consent to it or to oppose it The Power that was added for the Queens Commissionating some to Execute her Supremacy gave the Rise to that Court which was commonly called the High Commission Court The beginning of the High Commission and was to be in the room of a single Person to whom with the Title of Lord Vice-gerent King Henry did delegate his Authority It seems the Clergy-men with whom the Queen consulted at this time thought this too much to be put in one Mans Hand and therefore resolved to have it shared to more Persons of whom a great many would certainly be Church-men so that they should not be altogether kept under by the hard Hands of the Laity who having groaned long under the Tyranny of an Ecclesiastical Yoke seemed now disposed to revenge themselves by bringing the Clergy as much under them for so Extreams do commonly rise from one another The Popish Clergy were now every where beginning to declaim against Innovation and Heresie Harpsfield had in a Sermon at Canterbury in February stirred the People much to Sedition and the Members belonging to that Cathedral had openly said that Religion should not nor could not be altered The Council also heard that the Prebendaries there had bought up many Arms so a Letter was written to Sir Thomas Smith to examine that matter Harpsfield was not put in Prison but received only a Rebuke There came also complaints from many other Places of many Seditious Sermons So the Queen following the Precedent her Sister had set her did in the beginning of March forbid all Preaching except by such as had a Licence under the Great Seal But lest the Clergy might now in the Convocation set out Orders in opposition to what the Queen was about to do she sent and required them under the Pains of a Praemunire to make no Canons Yet Harpsfield that was Prolocutor with the rest of the lower House made an Address to the upper House to be by them presented to the Queen for the discharge of their Consciences They reduced the Particulars into five Articles 1. That Christ was corporally present in the Sacrament 2. That there was no other Substance there but his Body and Blood 3. That in the Mass there was a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living 4. That St. Peter and his lawful Successors had the Power of feeding and governing the Church 5. That the Power of treating about Doctrine the Sacraments and the Order of Divine Worship belonged only to the Pastors of the Church These they had sent to the two Universities from whence they were returned with the Hands of the greatest part in them to the first four but it seems they thought it not fit to sign the last For now the Queen had resolved to have a publick Conference about Religion in the Abby-Church of Westminster The Arch-bishop of York was continued still to be of the Council so the Conference being proposed to him he after he had Communicated it to his Brethren accepted of it though with some unwillingness It was appointed that there should be nine of a side who should confer about these three Points 1. Whether it was not against the Word of God and the Custom of the Ancient Church to use a Tongue unknown to the People in the Common-Prayers and the Administration of the Sacraments 2. Whether every Church had not Authority to appoint change and take away Ceremonies and Ecclesiastical Rites so the same were done to edification 3. Whether it could be proved by the Word of God that in the Mass there was a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living All was ordered to be done in Writing The Bishops as being actually in Office were to read their Papers first upon the first Point and the Reformed were to read theirs next and then they were to exchange their Papers without any discourse concerning them for the avoiding of jangling The next day they were to read their Papers upon the second and after that upon the third Head and then they were to answer one anothers Papers The Nine on both sides were the Bishops of Winchester