upon their Mothers Title which might have been a dangerous competition to him that was so little beloved by his Subjects took this Method for amusing them with other things thence it was that his Son was the most learned Prince that had been in the World for many Ages and deserved the Title Beau-Clerke on a better account than his Predecessor that long before had carried it The Learning then in credit was either that of the Schools about abstruse Questions of Divinity which from the days of Lombard were debated and descanted on with much subtlety and nicety and exercised all Speculative Divines or the Study of the Canon-Law which was the way to Business and Preferment To the former of these the King was much addicted and delighted to read often in Thomas 〈◊〉 and this made Cardinal Wolsey more acceptable to him who was 〈◊〉 conversant in that sort of Learning He loved the purity of the 〈◊〉 tongue which made him be so kind to Erasmus that was the great Resâ—â—â—er of it and to Polidore Virgil though neither of these made their Court dextrously with the Cardinal which did much intercept the Kingâ— favour to them so that the one left England and the other was but coâ—rsly used in it who has sufficiently revenged himself upon the Cardinal's Memory The Philosophy then in fashion was so intermixed with their Divinity that the King understood it too and was also a good Musician as appears by two whole Masses which he composed He never wrote well but scrawled so that his hand was scarce legible Being thus inclined to Learning he was much courted by all hungry Scholars who generally over Europe dedicated their Books to him with such flattering Epistles that it very much lessens him to see how he delighted in such stuffe For if he had not taken pleasure in it and rewarded them it is not likely that others should have been every year writing after such ill Copies Of all things in the World Flattery wrought most on him and no sort of Flattery pleased him better than to have his great Learning and Wisdom commended And in this his Parliaments his Courtiers his Chaplains Forreigners and Natives all seemed to vie who should exceed most and came to speak to him in a Stile which was scarce fit to be used to any Creature But he designed to entail these praises on his Memory cherishing Church-men more than any King in England had ever done he also Courted the Pope with a constant submission and upon all occasions made the Popes Interests his own and made War and Peace as they desired him So that had he dyed any time before the 19th year of his Reign he could scarce have scaped being Canonized notwithstanding all his faults for he abounded in those vertues which had given Saintship to Kings for near 1000 years together and had done more than they all did by writing a Book for the Roman Faith England had for above 300 years been the tamest part of Christendome to the Papal Authority and had been accordingly dealt with But though the Parliaments and two or three high-spirited Kings had given some interruption to the cruel exactions and other illegal proceedings of the Court of Rome yet that Court always gained their designs in the end But even in this Kings days the Crown was not quite stript of all its Authority over Spiritual persons The Investitures of Bishops and Abbots which had been originally given by the delivery of the Pastoral Ring and Staffe by the Kings of England were after some opposition wrung out of their hands yet I find they retained another thing which upon the matter was the same When any See was vacant a Writ was issued out of the Chancery for seizing on all the Temporalties of the Bishoprick and then the King recommended one to the Pope upon which his Bulls were expeded at Rome and so by a Warrant from the Pope he was consecrated and invested in the Spiritualties of the See but was to appear before the King either in Person or by Proxie and renounce every clause in his Letters and Bulls that were or might be prejudicial to the Prerogative of the Crown or contrary to the Laws of the Land and was to swear Fealty and Allegiance to the King And after this a new Writ was issued out of the Chancery bearing that this was done and that thereupon the Temporalties should be restored Of this there are so many Precedents in the Records that every one that has searched them must needs find them in every year but when this began I leave to the more Learned in the Law to discover And for proof of it the Reader will find in the Collection the fullest Record which I met with concerning it in Henry the 7th his Reign of Cardinal Adrian's being Invested in the Bishoprick of Bath and Wells So that upon the matter the Kings then disposed of all Bishopricks keeping that still in their own hands which made them most desired in those Ages and so had the Bishops much at their Dovotion But King Henry in a great degree parted with this by the above-mentioned power granted to Cardinal Wolsey who being Legate as well as Lord Chancellour it was thought a great errour in Government to lodge such a trust with him which might have past into a Precedent for other Legates pretending to the same Power since the Papal greatness had thus risen and oft upon weaker grounds to the height it was then at Yet the King had no mind to suffer the Laws made against the suing out of Bulls in the Court of Rome without his leave to be neglected for I find several Licenses granted to sue Bulls in that Court bearing for their Preamble the Statute of the 16 of Richard the Second against the Popes pretended Power in England But the immunity of Ecclesiastical persons was a thing that occasioned great complaints And good cause there was for them For it was ordinary for persons after the greatest Crimes to get into Orders and then not only what was past must be forgiven them but they were not to be questioned for any Crime after holy Orders given till they were first degraded and till that was done they were the Bishops Prisoners Whereupon there rose a great dispute in the beginning of this Kings Reign of which none of our Historians having taken any Notice I shall give a full account of it King Henry the Seventh in his Fourth Parliament did a little lessen the Priviledges of the Clergy enacting that Clerks convicted should be burnt in the hand But this not proving a sufficient restraint it was Enacted in Parliament in the Fourth year of this King that all Murderers and Robbers should be denyed the benefit of their Clergy But though this seemed a very Just Law yet to make it pass through the House of Lords they added two Proviso's to it the one for excepting all such as were within
And the corruptions of their Worship and Doctrine were such that a very small proportion of common sense with but an overly looking on the New Testament discovered them Nor had they any other varnish to colour them by but the Authority and Traditions of the Church But when some studious men began to read the Ancient Fathers and Councils though there was then a great mixture of Sophisticated stuff that went under the Ancient names and was joyned to their true works which Criticks have since discovered to be spurious they found a vast difference between the first Five Ages of the Christian Church in which Piety and Learning prevailed and the last Ten Ages in which Ignorance had buried all their former Learning only a little misguided Devotion was retained for Six of these Ages and in the last Four the restless Ambition and Usurpation of the Popes was supported by the seeming holiness of the begging Friers and the false Counterfeits of Learning which were among the Canonists School-men and Casuists So that it was incredible to see how men notwithstanding all the opposition the Princes every-where made to the progress of these reputed new Opinions and the great advantages by which the Church of Rome both held and drew many into their Interests were generally inclined to these Doctrines Those of the Clergy who at first Preached them were of the begging Orders of Friers who having fewer engagements on them from their Interests were freer to discover and follow the truth And the austere Discipline they had been trained under did prepare them to encounter those difficulties that lay in their way And the Laity that had long lookt on their Pastors with an evil eye did receive these Opinions very easily which did both discover the Impostures with which the world had been abused and shewed a plain and simple way to the Kingdom of Heaven by putting the Scriptures into their hands and such other Instructions about Religion as were sincere and genuine The Clergy who at first despised these new Preachers were at length much Allarmed when they saw all people running after them and râ—ceiving their Doctrines As these things did spread much in Germany Switzerland and the Netherlands so their Books came over into England where there was much matter already prepared to be wrought on not only by the prejudices they had conceived against the corrupt Clergy but by the Opinions of the Lollards which had been now in England since the days of Wickliff for about 150 years Between which Opinions and the Doctrines of the Reformers there was great Affinity and therefore to give the better vent to the Books that came out of Germany many of them were translated into the English-Tongue and were very much read and applauded This quickned the proceedings against the Lollards and the enquiry became so severe that great numbers were brought into the Toils of the Bishops and their Commissaries If a man had spoken but a light word against any of the Constitutions of the Church he was seized on by the Bishop's Officers and if any taught their Children the Lord's Prayer the Ten Commandments and the Apostle's Creed in the Vulgar Tongue that was crime enough to bring them to the Stake As it did Six men and a woman at Coventry in the Passion-week 1519. being the 4 th of April Longland Bishop of Lincoln was very cruel to all that were suspected of Heresie in his Diocess several of them abjured and some were Burnt But all that did not produce what they designed by it The Clergy did not correct their own faults and their cruelty was looked on as an evidence of Guilt and of a weak Cause so that the method they took wrought only on peoples fears and made them more cautious and reserved but did not at all remove the Cause nor work either on their reasons or affections Upon all this the King to get himself a name and to have a lasting Interest with the Clergy thought it not enough to assist them with his Authority but would needs turn their Champion and write against Luther in defence of the Seven Sacraments This Book was magnified by the Clergy as the most Learned Work that ever the Sun saw and he was compared to King Solomon and to all the Christian Emperours that had ever been And it was the chief subject of flattery for many years besides the glorious Title of Defender of the Faith which the Pope bestowed on him for it And it must be acknowledged that considering the Age and that it was the Work of a King it did deserve some Commendation But Luther was not at all daunted at it but rather valued himself upon it that so great a King had entred the lists with him and answered his Book And he replied not without a large mixture of Acrimony for which he was generally blamed as forgetting that great respect that is due to the Persons of Soveraign Princes But all would not do These Opinions still gained more footing and William Tindal made a Translation of the New Testament in English to which he added some short Glosses This was printed in Antwerp and sent over into England in the year 1526. Against which there was a Prohibition published by every Bishop in his Diocess Bearing that some of Luthers followers had erroneously Translated the New Testament and had corrupted the Word of God both by a false Translation and by Heretical Glosses Therefore they required all Incumbents to charge all within their Parishes that had any of these to bring them in to the Vicar-General within 30 days after that premonition under the pains of Excommunication and incurring the suspition of Heresie There were also many other Books Prohibited at that time most of them written by Tindal And Sir Thomas More who was a man celebrated for Vertue and Learning undertook the answering of some of those but before he went about it he would needs have the Bishops Licence for keeping and reading them He wrote according to the way of the Age with much bitterness and though he had been no Friend to the Monks and a great declaimer against the Ignorance of the Clergy and had been ill used by the Cardinal yet he was one of the bitterest Enemies of the new Preachers not without great cruelty when he came into Power though he was otherwise a very good-natured man So violently did the Roman Clergy hurry all their Friends into those excesses of Fire and Sword When the Party became so considerable that it was known there were Societies of them not only in London but in both the Universities then the Cardinal was constrained to act His contempt of the Clergy was looked on as that which gave encouragement to the Hereticks When reports were brought to Court of a company that were in Cambridge Bilney Latimer and others that read and propagated Luther's Book and Opinions some Bishops moved in the year 1523. that there might be a Visitation appointed
more speedy administration of the Sacraments and other good wholesom and devout things and laudable ceremonies to the encrease of Gods honour and for the commodity of good and devout people therefore they appointed for Suffragans Sees the Towns of Thetford Ipswich Colechester Dover Gilford Southampton Taunton Shaftbury Malton Marleborough Bedford Leicester Glocester Shrewsbury Bristol Penreth Bridgewater Nottingham Grantham Hâ—ll Huntington Cambridge and the Towns of Pereth and Berwick St. Germans in Cornwall and the Isle of Wight For these Sees the Bishop of the Diocess was to present two to the King who might choose either of them and present the person so named to the Arch-Bishop of the Province to be Consecrated after which they might exercise such jurisdiction as the Bishop of the Diocess should give to them or as Suffragans had been formerly used to do but their Authority was to last no longer than the Bishop continued his Commission to them But that the Reader may more clearly see how this Act was executed he shall find in the Collection a Writ for making a Suffragan Bishop These were believed to be the same with the Chorâ—piscopi in the Primitive Church which as they were begun before the first Council of Nice so they continued in the Western Church till the Ninth Century and then a Decretal of Damasus being forged that condemned them they were put down every-where by degrees and now revived in England Then followed the grant of a Subsidy to the King It was now Twelve years since there was any Subsidy granted A Fiveteenth and a Tenth were given to be payed in Three years the final payment being to be at Allhallontide in the year 1537. The Bill began with a most Glorious Preamble of the Kings high Wisdom and Policy in the Government of the Kingdom these Twenty Four years in great wealth and quietness and the great charges he had been at in the last War with Scotland in fortifying Callais and in the War of Ireland and that he intended to bring the wilful wild and unreasonable and savage people of Ireland to Order and Obedience and intended to build Forts on the Marches of Scotland for the security of the Nation to amend the Haven of Calais and make a new one at Dover By all which they did perceive the entire love and zeal which the King bore to his People and that he sought not their wealth and quietness only for his own time being a Mortal man but did provide for it in all time coming therefore they thought that of very equity reason and good Conscience they were bound to show like correspondence of zeal gratitude and kindness Upon this the King sent a general pardon with some exceptions ordinary in such cases But Fisher and More were not only excluded from this pardon by general Clauses but by two particular Acts they were attainted of misprision of Treason By the Third Act according to the Record Iohn Bishop of Rochester Christopher Plummer Nicholas Wilson Edward Powel Richard Fetherston and Miles Willyr Clerks were attainted for refusing the Oath of Succession and the Bishoprick of Rochester with the Benefices of the other Clerks were declared void from the 2d of Ianuary next yet it seems few were fond of succeeding him in that See for Iohn Hilsey the next Bishop of Rochester was not Consecraed before the year 1537. By the Fourth Act Sr. Thomas More is by an Invidious Preamble charged with ingratitude for the great favours he had received from the King and for studying to sow and make sedition among the Kings Subjects and refusing to take the Oath of Succession therefore they declared the Kings Grants to him to be void and attaint him of misprision of Treason This severity though it was blamed by many yet others thought it was necessary in so great a Change since the Authority of these two men was such that if some signal notice had not been taken of them many might by their endeavors especially encouraged by that Impunity have been corrupted in their affections to the King Others thought the prosecuting them in such a manner did rather raise their reputation higher and give them more credit with the people who are naturally enclined to pity those that suffer and to think well of those opinions for which they see men resolved to endure all extremities But others observed the justice of God in retaliating thus upon them their own severities to others for as Fisher did grievously prosecute the preachers of Luthers Doctrine so Mores hand had been very heavy on them as long as he had Power and he had shewed them no mercy but the extremity of the Law which himself now felt to be very heavy Thus ended this Session of Parliament with which this Book is also to conclude for now I come to a Third period of the Kings Reign in which he did Govern his Subjects without any Competitor but I am to stop a little and give an account of the Progress of the Reformation in these years that I have past through The Cardinal was no great persecutor of Hereticks which was generally thought to flow from his hatred of the Clergy and that he was not ill pleased to have them depressed During the agitation of the Kings process there was no prosecution of the Preachers of Luthers Doctrine whether this flowed from any Intimation of the Kings pleasure to the Bishops or not I cannot tell but it is very probable it must have been so for these opinions were received by many and the Popish Clergy were so inclined to severity that as they wanted not Occasions so they had a good mind to use those Preachers cruelly so that it is likely the King restrained them and that was always mixed with the other threatnings to work upon the Pope that Heresie would prevail in England if the King got not justice done him so that till the Cardinal fell they were put to no further trouble But as soon as More came into favour he pressed the King much to put the Laws against Hereticks in execution and suggested that the Court of Rome would be more wrought upon by the Kings supporting the Church and defending the Faith vigorously than by threatnings and therefore a long Proclamation was issued out against the Hereticks many of their Books were prohibited and all the Laws against them were appointed to be put in execution and great care was taken to seize them as they came into England but many escaped their diligence There were some at Antwerp Tindal Ioye Constantine with a few more that were every year writing and printing new Books chiefly against the corruptions of the Clergy the Superstition of pilgrimages of worshiping Images Saints and Relicks and against relying on these things which were then called in the common style Good works in opposition to which they wrote much about Faith in Christ with a true Evangelical obedience as the only mean by which men
conferr'd Grace That Consecrations and Benedictions used by the Church were good That it was good and profitable to set up the Images of Christ and the Saints in the Churches and to adorn them and burn Candles before them and that Kings were not obliged to give their people the Scriptures in a vulgar tongue By these Articles it may be easily Collected what were the Doctrines then preach'd by the Reformers There was yet no dispute about the presence of Christ in the Sacrament which was first called in question by Frith for the Books of Zuinglius and Oecolampadius came later into England and hitherto they had only seen Luthers works with those written by his followers But in the year 1532. there was another memorable instance of the Clergies cruelty against the dead bodies of those whom they suspected of Heresie The Common style of all Wills and Testaments at that time was First I bequeath my Soul to Almighty God and to our Lady St. Mary and to all the Saints in Heaven but one William Tracie of Worcestershire dying left a Will of a far different strain for he bequeathed his Soul only to God through Jesus Christ to whose intercession alone he trusted without the help of any other Saint therefore he left no part of his goods to have any pray for his Soul This being brought to the Bishop of Londons Court he was condemned as an Heretick and an order was sent to Parker Chancellor of Worcester to raise his Body The Officious Chancellor went beyond his order and burn't the Body but the Record bears that though he might by the Warrant he had raise the body according to the Law of the Church yet he had no Authority to burn it So two years after Tracies heirs sued him for it and he was turn'd out of his Office of Chancellor and fined in 400 Pound There is another Instance of the Cruelty of the Clergy this year One Thomas Harding of Buckinghamshire an Ancient man who had abjured in the year 1506. was now observed to go often into woods and was seen sometimes reading Upon which his house was search'd and some parcels of the New Testament in English were found in it So he was carryed before Longland Bishop of Lincoln who as he was a cruel Persecutor so being the Kings Confessor acted with the more Authority This Aged man was judged a Relapse and sent to Chesham where he lived to be burn't which was Executed on Corpus Christi Eve At this time there was an Indulgence of 40 dayes pardon proclaimed to all that carryed a Faggot to the burning of an Heretick So dextrously did the Clergy endeavor to infect the Laity with their own cruel Spirit and that wrought upon this occasion a signal effect for as the fire was kindled one flung a Faggot at the old mans head which dash't out his brains In the year 1533. it was thought fit by some signal evidence to convince the World that the King did not design to change the establish'd Religion though he had then proceeded far in his breach with Rome and the crafty Bishop of Winchester Gardiner as he complyed with the King in his second Marriage and separation from Rome so being an inveterate Enemy to the Reformation and in his heart addicted to the Court of Rome did by this argument often prevail with the King to punish the Hereticks That it would most effectually justifie his other proceedings and convince the World that he was still a good Catholick King which at several times drew the King to what he desired And at this time the steps the King had made in his Separation from the Pope had given such heart to the new Preachers that they grew bolder and more publick in their Assemblies Iohn Frith as he was an excellent Schollar which was so taken notice of some years before that he was put in the list of those whom the Cardinal intended to bring from Cambridge and put in his Colledge at Oxford so he had offended them by several writings and by a discourse which he wrote against the Corporal presence of Christ in the Sacrament had provoked the King who continued to his death to believe that firmly The substance of his Arguments was that Christ in the Sacrament gave eternal life but the receiving the bare Sacrament did not give eternal life since many took it to their damnation therefore Christs presence there was only felt by Faith This he further proved by the Fathers before Christ who did eat the same spiritual food and drink of the Rock which was Christ according to St. Paul since then they and we communicate in the same thing and it was certain that they did not eat Christs Flesh Corporally but fed by Faith on a Messias to come as Christians do on a Messias already come therefore we now do only communicate by Faith He also insisted much on the signification of the word Sacrament from whence he concluded that the Elements must be the Mystical Signs of Christs Body and Blood for if they were truly the Flesh and Blood of Christ they should not be Sacraments he concluded that the ends of the Sacrament were these three by a visible action to knit the Society of Christians together in one body to be a means of conveighing Grace upon our due participating of them and to be Remembrances to stir up men to bless â—od for that unspeakable love which in the death of Christ appeared to mankind To all these ends the Corporal presence of Christ availed nothing they being sufficiently answered by a Mystical presence yet he drew no other Conclusion from these Premisses but that the belief of the Corporal presence in the Sacrament was no necessary Article of our Faith This either flowed from his not having yet arrived at a sure perswasion in the matter or that he chose in that modest style to encounter an opinion of which the World was so fond that to have opposed it in down-right words would have given prejudices against all that he could say Frith upon a long conversation with one upon this Subject was desired to set down the heads of it in writing which he did The Paper went about and was by a false Brother conveyed to Sr. Thomas More 's hands who set himself to answer it in his ordinary style treating Frith with great contempt calling him alwayes the young man Frith was in Prison before he saw Mores Book yet he wrote a reply to it which I do not find was then published but a Copy of it was brought afterwards to Cranmer who acknowledged when he wrote his Apology against Gardiner that he had received great light in that matter from Friths Books and drew most of his Arguments out of it It was afterwards Printed with his works Anno 1573. and by it may appear how much Truth is Stronger than Error For though More wrote with as much Wit and Eloquence as any man
in that Age did and Frith wrote plainly without any Art yet there is so great a difference between their Books that whoever compares them will clearly perceive the one to be the Ingenious defender of an ill cause and the other a simple asserter of Truth Frith wrote with all the disadvantage that was possible being then in the Jayl where he could have no Books but some Notes he might have collected formerly he was also so loaded with Irons that he could scarce sit with any ease He began with confirming what he had delivered about the Fathers before Christ their feeding on his Body in the same manner that Christians do since his death This he proved from Scripture and several places of St. Austins works he proved also from Scripture that after the Consecration the Elements were still Bread and Wine and were so called both by our Saviour and his Apostles that our Senses shew they are not changed in their Natures and that they are still subject to Corruption which can no way be said of the body of Christ. He proved that the eating of Christs Flesh in the 6th of St. Iohn cannot be applyed to the Sacrament since the wicked receive it who yet do not eat the Flesh of Christ otherwise they should have eternal life He shewed also that the Sacrament coming in the room of the Jewish Paschal Lamb we must understand Christs words This is my Body in the same sense in which it was said that the Lamb was the Lords Passover He confirmed this by many passages cited out of Tertullian Athanasius Chrysostome Ambrose Ierome Austin Fulgentius Eusebius and some later Writers as Beda Bertram and Druthmar who did all assert that the Elements retained their former Natures and were only the Mysteries Signs and Figures of the Body and Blood of Christ. But Gelasius's words seemed so remarkable that they could not but determine the Controversie especially considering he was Bishop of Rome he therefore writing against the Eutichians who thought the humane nature of Christ was changed into the Divine says that as the Elements of Bread and Wine being Consecrated to be the Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ did not cease to be Bread and Wine in Substance but continued in their own proper natures so the humane nature of Christ continued still though it was united to the Divine nature this was a manifest Indication of the belief of the Church in that Age and ought to weigh more than a hundred high Rhetorical Expressions He brought likewise several testimonies out of the Fathers to shew that they knew nothing of the Consequences that follow Transubstantiation of a Body being in more places at once or being in a place after the manner of a Spirit or of the worship to be given to the Sacrament Upon this he digresses and says that the German Divines believed a Corporal presence yet since that was only an Opinion that rested in their minds and did not carry along with it any Corruption of the worship or Idolatrous practise it was to be born with and the peace of the Church was not to be broken for it but the case of the Church of Rome was very different which had set up gross Idolatry building it upon this Doctrine Thus I have given a short Abstract of Friths Book which I thought fit the rather to do because it was the first Book that was written on this Subject in England by any of the Reformers And from hence it may appear upon what solid and weighty reasons they then began to shake the received Opinion of Transubstantiation and with how much learning this Controversie was managed by him who first undertook it One thing was singular in Friths Opinion that he thought there should be no contest made about the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament for what-ever Opinion men held in Speculation if it went not to a practical error which was the Adoration of it for that was Idolatry in his Opinion there were no disputes to be made about it therefore he was much against all heats between the Lutherans and Zuinglians for he thought in such a matter that was wholly speculative every man might hold his own Opinion without making a breach of the Unity of the Church about it He was apprehended in May 1533. and kept in Prison till the 20th of Iune and then he was brought before the Bishop of London Gardiner and Longland sitting with him They objected to him his Opinions about the Sacrament and Purgatory he answered that for the first he did not find Transubstantiation in the Scriptures nor in any approved Authors and therefore he would not admit any thing as an Article of Faith without clear and certain grounds for he did not think the Authority of the Church reached so far They argued with him upon some passages out of St. Austin and St. Chrysostome to which he answered by opposing other places of the same Fathers and shew'd how they were to be reconciled to themselves when it came to a Conclusion these words are set down in the Register as his Confession Frith thinketh and judgeth that the natural Body of Christ is not in the Sacrament of the Altar but in one place only at once Item he saith that neither part is a necessary Article of our Faith whether the natural Body be there in the Sacrament or not As for Purgatory he said a man consisted of two parts his Body and Soul his Body was purged by sickness and other pains and at last by death and was not by their own Doctrine sent to Purgatory And for the Soul it was purged through the word of God received by Faith So his Confession was written down in these words Item Frith thinketh and judgeth that there is no Purgatory for the Soul after that it is departed from the Body and as he thinketh herein so hath he said written and defended howbeit he thinketh neither part to be an Article of Faith necessarily to be believed under pain of Damnation The Bishops with the Doctors that stood about them took much pains to make him change but he told them that he could not be induced to believe that these were Articles of Faith And when they threatned to proceed to a Final Sentence he seemed not moved with it but said Let judgment be done in righteousness The Bishops though none of them were guilty of great tenderness yet seem'd to pity him much and the Bishop of London professed he gave Sentence with great grief of heart In the end he was judged an Obstinate Heretick and was delivered to the Secular Power there is one clause in this Sentence which is not in many others therefore I shall set it down Most earnestly requiring in the Bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ that this Execution and punishment worthily to be done upon thee may be so moderate that the rigor thereof be not too extreme nor yet the gentleness too much
the Original that is yet extant which might have been written any time between the year 1534. in which Thomas Goodrick was made Bishop of Ely and the year 1540. in which Iohn Clark Bishop of Bath and Wells died but I incline to think from other circumstances that it was written about the end of the year 1534. For the General Council Though that in the Old time when the Empire of Rome had his ample dominion over the most part of the World the First Four General Councils the which at all times have been of most estimation in the Church of Christ were called and gathered by the Emperors Commandment and for a Godly intent That Heresies might be extinct Schisms put away good Order and Manners in the Ministers of the Church and the people of the same established Like as many Councils more were called till now of late by the negligence as well of the Emperor as other Princes the Bishop of Rome hath been suffered to usurp this Power yet now for so much that the Empire of Rome and the Monarchie of the same hath no such general Dominion but many Princes have absolute Power in their own Realms and a whole and entire Monarchie no one Prince may by his Authority call any General Council but if that any one or moe of these Princes for the establishing of the Faith for the extirpation of Schisms c. Lovingly Charitably with a good sincere Intent to a sure place require any other Prince or the rest of the great Princes to be content to agree that for the Wealth Quietness and Tranquillity of all Christen people by his or their free consent a General Council might be assembled that Prince or those Princes so required are bound by the Order of Charity for the good Fruit that may come of it to condescend and agree thereunto having no lawful Impediment nor just Cause moving to the contrary The chief Causes of the General Councils are before expressed In all the Ancient Councils of the Church in matters of the Faith and interpretation of the Scripture no man made definitive Subscription but Bishops and Priests forsomuch as the Declaration of the Word of God pertaineth unto them T. Cantuarien Cuthbertus Dunelmen Io. Bath wellen Tho. Elien But besides this Resolution I have seen a long speech of Cranmers written by one of his Secretaries It was spoken soon after the Parliament had passed the Acts formerly mentioned for it relates to them as lately done it was delivered either in the House of Lords the upper House of Convocation or at the Council Board but I rather think it was in the House of Lords for it begins My Lords The matter of it does so much concern the business of Reformation that I know the Reader will expect I should set down the heads of it It appears he had been Ordered to Inform the House about these things The Preamble of his Speech runs upon this conceit That as Rich men flying from their Enemies carry away all they can with them and what they cannot take away they either hide or destroy it so the Court of Rome had destroyed so many Ancient writings and hid the rest having carefully preserved every thing that was of advantage to them that it was not easie to discover what they had so artificially concealed Therefore in the Canon-Law some honest truths were yet to be found but so mislay'd that they are not placed where one might expect them but are to be met with in some other Chapters where one would least look for them And many more things said by the Ancients of the See of Rome and against their Authority were lost as appears by the Fragments yet remaining He show'd that many of the Ancients called every thing which they thought well done of Divine Institution by a large extent of the Phrase in which sense the passages of many Fathers that magnified the See of Rome were to be understood Then he show'd for what end General Councils were called to declare the Faith and reform Errors not that ever any Council was truly General for even at Nice there were no Bishops almost but out of Egypt Asia and Greece but they were called General because the Emperor Summon'd them and all Christendome did agree to their Definitions which he prov'd by several Authorities therefore though there were many more Bishops in the Council of Arimini than at Nice or Constantinople yet the one was not received as a General Council and the others were so that it was not the number nor Authority of the Bishops but the matter of their Decisions which made them be received with so general a Submission As for the Head of the Council St. Peter and St. Iames had the chief direction of the Council of the Apostles but there were no Contests then about Head-ship Christ named no Head which could be no more called a defect in him than it was one in God that had named no Head to Govern the World Yet the Church found it convenient to have one over them so Arch-Bishops were set over Provinces And though St. Peter had been Head of the Apostles yet as it is not certain that he was ever in Rome so it does not appear that he had his Headship for Romes sake or that he left it there but he was made Head for his Faith and not for the Dignity of any See Therefore the Bishops of Rome could pretend to nothing from him but as they followed his Faith and Liberius and some other Bishops there had been condemned for Heresie and if according to St. Iames Faith be to be tryed by Works the Lives of the Popes for several Ages gave shrewd presumptions that their Faith was not good And though it were granted that such a Power was given to the See of Rome yet by many instances he show'd that positive precepts in a matter of that nature were not for ever Obligatory And therefore Gerson wrote a Book De Auferibilitate Papae So that if a Pope with the Cardinals be corrupted they ought to be tryed by a General Council and submit to it St. Peter gave an account of his Baptizing Cornelius when he was questioned about it So Damasus Sixtus and Leo purged themselves of some scandals Then he showed how Corrupt the present Pope was both in his person and Government for which he was abhorred even by some of his Cardinals as himself had heard and seen at Rome It is true there was no Law to proceed against a vitious Pope for it was a thing not foreseen and thought scarcely possible but new diseases required new remedies and if a Pope that is an Heretick may be judged in a Council the same reason would hold against a Symoniacal Covetous and Impious Pope who was Salt that had lost its favour And by several Authorities he proved that every man who lives so is thereby out of the Communion of the Church and that as the
Conjuncture of affairs knowing that few would come to it and so they might carry things as they pleased But the World was now awake the Scriptures were again in mens hands and people would not be so tamely couzen'd as they had been Then he shewes how unsafe it was for any English man to go to Mantua how little regard was to be had to the Popes safe Conduct they having so oft broken their Oaths and Promises He also shew's how little reason he had to trust himself to the Pope how kind he had been to that See formerly and how basely they had requited it And that now these Three years past they had been stirring up all Christian Princes against him and using all possible means to create him trouble Therefore he declared he would not go to any Council called by the Bishop of Rome but when there was a General peace among Christian Princes he would most gladly hearken to the motion of a true General Council and in the mean-while he would preserve all the Articles of the Faith in his Kingdom and sooner lose his Life and his Crown than suffer any of them to be put down And so he protested against any Council to be held at Mantua or any where else by the Bishop of Romes Authority That he would not acknowledg it nor receive any of their Decrees At this time Reginald Pool who was of the Royal Blood being by his Mother descended from the Duke of Clarence Brother to King Edward the Fourth and in the same degree of kindred with the King by his Fathers side was in great esteem for his Learning and other Excellent vertues It seems the King had determined to breed him up to the greatest dignity in the Church and to make him as Eminent in Learning and other acquired parts as he was for Quality and a Natural Sweetness and Nobleness of temper Therefore the King had given him the Deanery of Excester with several other dignities towards his maintenance beyond Sea and sent him to Paris where he stayed several years There he first incurred the Kings displeasure For being desired by him to concur with his Agents in procuring the Subscriptions and Seals of the French Universities he excused himself yet it was in such terms that he did not openly declare himself against the King After that he came over to England and as he writes himself was present when the Clergy made their Submission and acknowledged the King Supream Head In which since he was then Dean of Exeter and kept his Deanry several years after that it is not to be doubted but that as he was by his place obliged to sit in the Convocation so he concurred with the rest in making that Submission From thence he went to Padua where he lived long and was received into the Friendship and Society of some celebrated persons who gave themselves much to the Study of Eloquence and of the Roman Authors These were Centareno Bembo Caraffa Sadoletti with a great many more that became afterwards well known over the World But all those gave Pool the Preheminence and that justly too for he was accounted one of the most Eloquent men of his time The King called him oft home to assist him in his affairs but he still declined it at length finding delays could prevail no longer he wrote the King word that he did not approve of what he had done neither in the matter of his Divorce nor his separation from the Apostolick See To this the King answered desiring his reasons why he disagreed from him and sent him over a Book which Doctor Sampson had writ in defence of the Proceedings in England Upon which he wrote his Book De unione Ecclesiastica and sent it over to the King and soon after Printed it this year In which Book he condemned the Kings Actions and pressed him to return to the obedience he owed the See of Rome with many sharp reflections but the Book was more considered for the Author and the Wit and Eloquence of it than for any great Learning or deep reasoning in it He did also very much depress the Royal and exalt the Papal Authority He compared the King to Nebuchadonosor and addressed himself in the Conclusion to the Emperor whom he conjured to turn his Arms rather against the King than the Turk And indeed the indecencies of his expressions against the King not to mention the scurrilous Language he bestows on Sampson whose Book he undertakes to answer are such that it appears how much the Italian Air had changed him and that his Converse at Padua had for some time defac'd that generous temper of mind which was otherwise so natural to him Upon this the King desired him at first to come over and explain some passages in his Book But when he could not thus draw him into his toyles he proceeded severely against him and devested him of all his Dignities but these were plentifully made up to him by the Popes bounty and the Emperors He was afterwards rewarded with a Cardinals hat but he did not rise above the degree of a Deacon Some believe that the Spring of this opposition he made to the King was a secret affection he had for the Lady Mary The publishing of this Book made the King set the Bishops on work to write Vindications of his Actions which Stokesley and Tonstal did in a long and Learned Letter that they wrote to Pool And Gardiner published his Book of true obedience To which Bonner who was hot on the scent of Preferment added a Preface But the King designed sharper tools for Pool's punishment Yet an Attaindor in absence was all he câ—uld do against himself But his Family and kindred felt the weight of the Kings displeasure very sensibly But now I must give an account of the dissolution of the Monasteries pursuant to the Act of Parliament though I cannot fix the exact time in which it was done I have seen the Original Instructions with the Commission given to those who were to visit the Monasteries in and about Bristol All the rest were of the same kind They bear date the 28th of April after the Session of Parliament was over and the report was to be made in the Octaves of St. Michael the Arch-Angel But I am inclined to think that the great concussion and disorder things were in by the Queens death made the Commissioners unwilling to proceed in so invidious a matter till they saw the Issue of the new-Parliament Therefore I have delayed giving any account of the Proceedings in that matter till this place The Instructions will be found in the Collection The Substance of them was as follows The Auditors of the Court of Augmentations were the persons that were employed Four or any Three of them were Commissioned to execute the Instructions in every particular Visitation One Auditor or Receiver and one of the Clerks of the former Visitation were to call for Three discreet persons in
unfeigned which were meritorious towards the attaining of Everlasting life Other works were of an Inferior sort such as Fasting Almsdeeds and other fruits of Penance And the merit of good works is reconciled with the freedom of Gods mercies to us since all our works are done by his Grace so that we have no cause of boasting but must ascribe all to the Grace and goodness of God The last Chapter is about Prayers for Souls departed which is the same that was formerly set out in the Articles three years before All this was finished and set forth this year with a Preface written by those of the Clergy who had been imployed in it declaring with what care they had examined the Scriptures and the ancient Doctors out of whom they had faithfully gathered this Exposition of the Christian Faith To this the King added another Preface some years after declaring that although he had cast out the darkness by setting forth the Scriptures to his people which had produced very good effects yet as hypocrisie and superstition were purged away so a Spirit of presumption dissension and carnal liberty was breaking in For repressing which he had by the advice of his Clergy set forth a Declaration of the true knowledg of God for directing all mens belief and practice which both Houses of Parliament had seen and liked very well So that he verily trusted it contained a true and sufficient Doctrine for the attaining everlasting life Therefore he required all his people to read and print in their hearts the Doctrine of this Book He also willed them to remember that as there were some Teachers whose Office it was to instruct the people so the rest ought to be taught and to those it was not necessary to read the Scriptures and that therefore he had restrained it from a great many esteeming it sufficient for such to hear the Doctrine of the Scriptures taught by their Preachers which they should lay up in their hearts and practise in their lives Lastly he desired all his Subjects to pray to God to grant them the Spirit of Humility that they might read and carry in their hearts the Doctrine set forth in this Book But though I have joyned the account of this Preface to the Extract here made of the Bishops Book yet it was not prefixed to it till above two years after the other was set out When this was published both parties found cause in it both to be glad and sorrowful The Reformers rejoyced to see the Doctrine of the Gospel thus opened more and more for they concluded that Ignorance and prejudices being the chief supports of the Errours they complained of the instructing people in Divine Matters even though some particulars displeased them yet would awaken and work upon an inquisitive humour that was then a-stirring and they did not doubt but their Doctrines were so clear that Inquiries into Religion would do their business They were also glad to see the Morals of Christianity so well cleared which they hoped would dispose people to a better taste of Divine matters since they had observed that purity of Soul does mightily prepare people for sound opinions Most of the Superstitious conceits and practices which had for some ages embased the Christian Faith were now removed and the great fundamental of Christianity the Covenant between God and man in Christ with the conditions of it was plainly and sincerely declared There was also another principle laid down that was big with a further Reformation for every National Church was declared a compleat Body within it self with power to reform heresies correct abuses and do every thing else that was necessary for keeping it self pure or governing its members By which there was a fair way opened for a full discussion of things afterwards when a fitter opportunity should be offered But on the other hand the Popish party thought they had gained much The seven Sacraments were again asserted so that here much ground was recovered and they hoped more would follow There were many things laid down to which they knew the Reformers would never consent So that they who were resolved to comply with every thing that the King had a mind to were pretty safe But the others who followed their perswasions and consciences were brought into many snares and the Popish party was confident that their absolute compliance which was joyned with all possible submission and flattery would gain the King at length and the stiffness of others who would not give that deference to the Kings judgment and pleasure would so alienate him from them that he would in the end abandon them for with the Kings years his uneasiness and peevishness grew mightily on him The dissolution of the Kings Marriage with Anne of Cleves had so offended the Princes of Germany that though upon the Ladies account they made no publick noise of it yet there was little more intercourse between the King and them especially Cromwel falling that had alwayes carried on the correspondence with them And as this intercourse went off so a secret Treaty was set on foot between the King and the Emperor yet it came not to a Conclusion till two years after The other Bishops that were appointed to examine the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church drew up a Rubrick and Rationale of them which I do not find was printed but a very Authentical M S. of a great part of it was is extant The alterations they made were inconsiderable and so slight that there was no need of reprinting either the Missals Breviaries or other Offices for a few rasures of these Collects in which the Pope was prayed for of Thomas Beckets Office and the Offices of other Saints whose days were by the Kings Injunctions no more to be observed with some other Deletions made that the old Books did still serve For whether it was that the Change of the Mass-Books and other publick Offices would have been too great a Charge to the Nation or whether they thought it would have possessed the people with an opinion that the Religion was altered since the Books of the ancient worship were changed which remaining the same they might be the more easily perswaded that the Religion was still the same there was no new impression of the Breviaries Missals and other Rituals during this Kings Reign Yet in Queen Maries time they took care that Posterity should not know how much was dashed out or changed For as all Parishes were required to furnish themselves with new compleat Books of the Offices so the dashed Books were every-where brought in and destroyed But it is likely that most of those Scandalous Hymnes and Prayers which are addressed to Saints in the same style in which good Christians worship God were all struck out because they were now condemned as appears from the Extract of the other Book set out by the Bishops But as they went on in these things the Popish party whose Counsels were
to say the one half by you and the other half by them Item That you shall discourage no Man privily or apertly from the reading or hearing of the said Bible but shall expresly provoke stir and exhort every Person to read the same as that which is the very lively Word of God that every Christian Man is bound to embrace believe and follow if he look to be saved admonishing them nevertheless to avoid all contention altercation therein and to use an honest sobriety in the inquisition of the true sense of the same and refer the explication of the obscure places to Men of higher judgment in Scripture Item That ye shall every Sunday and Holy-day through the Year openly and plainly recite to your Parishioners twice or thrice together or oftner if need require one particle or sentence of the Pater Noster or Creed in English to the intent they may learn the same by Heart And so from day to day to give them one little lesson or sentence of the same till they have learned the whole Pater Noster and Creed in English by rote And as they be taught every sentence of the same by rote ye shall expound and declare the understanding of the same unto them exhorting all Parents and Housholders to teach their Children and Servants the same as they are bound in Conscience to do And that done ye shall declare unto them the Ten Commandments one by one every Sunday and Holy-day till they be likewise perfect in the same Item That ye shall in Confessions every Lent examine every Person that cometh to Confession unto you whether they can recite the Articles of our Faith and the Pater Noster in English and hear them say the same particularly wherein if they be not perfect ye shall declare to the same That every Christian Person ought to know the same before they should receive the blessed Sacrament of the Altar and monish them to learn the same more perfectly by the next year following or else like-as they ought not to presume to come to God's Board without perfect knowledg of the same and if they do it is to the great peril of their Souls so ye shall declare unto them that ye look for other Injunctions from the King's Highness by that time to stay and repel all such from God's Board as shall be found ignorant in the Premisses whereof ye do thus admonish them to the intent they should both eschew the peril of their Souls and also the worldly rebuke that they might incur after by the same Item That ye shall make or cause to be made in the said Church and every other Cure ye have one Sermon every quarter of the year at least wherein ye shall purely and sincerely declare the very Gospel of Christ and in the same exhort your Hearers to the Works of Charity Mercy and Faith especially prescribed and commanded in Scripture and not to repose their trust or affiance in any other Works devised by Mens fantasies beside Scripture as in wandring to Pilgrimages offering of Mony Candels or Tapers to Images or Reliques or kissing or licking the same over saying over a number of Beads not understanded or minded on or in such-like superstition for the doing whereof ye not only have no promise of reward in Scripture but contrariwise great threats and maledictions of God as things tending to Idolatry and Superstition which of all other Offences God Almighty doth most detest and abhor for that the same diminisheth most his honour and glory Item That such feigned Images as ye know in any of your Cures to be so abused with Pilgrimages or Offerings of any thing made thereunto ye shall for avoiding of that most detestable offence of Idolatry forthwith take down and without delay and shall suffer from henceforth no Candles Tapers or Images of Wax to be set afore any Image or Picture but only the Light that commonly goeth a-cross the Church by the Rood-loft the Light before the Sacrament of the Altar and the Light about the Sepulchre which for the adorning of the Church and Divine Service ye shall suffer to remain still admonishing your Parishioners that Images serve for none other purpose but as to be Books of unlearned Men that ken no Letters whereby they might be otherwise admonished of the lives and conversation of them that the said Images do represent which Images if they abuse for any other intent than for such remembrances they commit Idolatry in the same to the great danger of their Souls And therefore the King's Highness graciously tendring the weal of his Subjects Souls hath in part already and more will hereafter travail for the abolishing of such Images as might be an occasion of so great an offence to God and so great a danger to the Souls of his loving Subjects Item That all in such Benefices or Cures as ye have whereupon ye be not your self Resident ye shall appoint such Curats in your stead as can both by their hability and also promptly execute these Injunctions and do their duty otherwise that ye are bounden in every behalf accordingly and may profit them no less with good Examples of living than with declaration of the Word of God or else their lack and defaults shall be imputed unto you who shall straitly answer for the same if they do otherwise Item That ye shall admit no Man to preach within any your Benefices or Cures but such as shall appear unto you to be sufficiently licensed thereunto by the King's Highness or his Grace's Authority by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of this Diocess and such as shall be so licensed ye shall gladly receive to declare the Word of God without any resistance or contradiction Item If ye have heretofore declared to your Parishioners any thing to the extolling or setting forth of Pilgrimages feigned Reliques or Images or any such superstitions that you shall now openly afore the same recant and reprove the same shewing them as the truth is that ye did the same upon no ground of Scripture but as one led and seduced by a common Error and Abuse crept into the Church through the sufferance and avarice of such as felt profit by the same Item If ye do or shall know any Man within your Parish or elsewhere that is a Letter of the Word of God to be read in English or sincerely preached or of the execution of these Injunctions or a favourer of the Bishop of Rome's pretensed Power now by the Laws of this Realm justly rejected and extirped ye shall detect and present the same to the King's Highness or his honourable Council or to his Vice-gerent aforesaid or the Justice of Peace next adjoining Item That you and every Parson Vicar or Curat within this Diocess shall for every Church keep one Book or Register wherein he shall write the day and year of every Wedding Christening and Burying made within your Parish for your time and so every Man succeeding you
THE Historie of the REFORMATION of the CHURCH of ENGLAND LONDON Printed for Ric Chiswell Whitehall May 23. 1679. THis Book entituled The History of the Reformation of the Church of ENGLAND having been perused and approved by Persons of eminent Quality and several Divines of great Piety and Learning who have recommended it as a Work very fit to be made publick as well for the Usefulness of the Matter as for the Industry and Integrity the Author hath used in compiling of it the Honourable Mr. SECRETARY COVENTRY doth therefore allow it to be Printed and Published IO. COOKE THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE Church of England The First Part OF THE Progress made in it during the Reign OF K. Henry the VIII By GILBERT BVRNET LONDON Printed by T. H. for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXIX TO THE KING SIR THE first step that was made in the Reformation of this Church was the restoring to your Royal Ancestors the Rights of the Crown and an entire Dominion over all their Subjects of which they had been disseised by the craft and violence of an unjust Pretender to whom the Clergy though your Majesties Progenitors had enriched them by a bounty no less profuse than ill-managed did not only adhere but drew with them the Laity over whose Consciences they had gained so absolute an Authority that our Kings were to expect no Obedience from their people but what the Popes were pleased to allow It is true the Nobler part of the Nation did frequently in Parliament assert the Regal Prerogatives against those Papal invasions yet these were but faint endeavours for an ill-executed Law is but an unequal match to a Principle strongly infused into the Consciences of the people But how different was this from the teaching of Christ and his Apostles They forbad men to use all those Arts by which the Papacy grew up and yet subsists They exhorted them to obey Magistrates when they knew it would cost them their Lives They were for setting up a Kingdom not of this World nor to be attained but by a holy and peaceable Religion If this might every-where take place Princes would find Government both easie and secure It would raise in their Subjects the truest courage and unite them with the firmest charity It would draw from them Obedience to the Laws and Reverence to the persons of their Kings If the Standards of Justice and Charity which the Gospel gives of doing as we would be done by and loving our Neighbours as our selves were made the measures of mens actions how steadily would Societies be governed and how exactly would Princes be obeyed The design of the Reformation was to restore Christianity to what it was at first and to purge it of those Corruptions with which it was over-run in the later and darker Ages GREAT SIR This work was carryed on by a slow and unsteady Progress under King Henry the VIII it advanced in a fuller and freer course under the short but blessed Reign of King Edward was Sealed with the blood of many Martyrs under Queen Mary was brought to a full settlement in the happy and glorious days of Queen Elizabeth was defended by the learned Pen of King Iames but the established frame of it under which it had so long flourished was overthrown with your Majesties blessed Father who fell with it and honoured it by his unexempled Suffering for it and was again restored to its former beauty and order by your Majesties happy Return What remains to compleat and perpetuate this Blessing the composing of our differences at home the establishing a closer correspondence with the Reformed Churches abroad the securing us from the restless and wicked practices of that Party who hoped so lately to have been at the end of their designs and that which can only entitle us to a Blessing from God the Reforming of our manners and lives as our Ancestors did our Doctrine and Worship All this is reserved for your Majesty that it may appear that your Royal Title of Defender of the Faith is no empty sound but the real strength and Glory of your Crown For attaining these ends it will be of great use to trace the steps of our first Reformers for if the land-marks they set be observed we can hardly go out of the way This was my chief design in the following sheets which I now most humbly offer to your Majesty hoping that as you were graciously pleased to command that I should have free access to all Records for composing them so you will not deny your Royal Patronage to the History of that Work which God grant your Majesty may live to raise to its perfection and to compleat in your Reign the Glory of all your Titles This is a part of the most earnest as well as the daily Prayers of May it please Your Sacred Majesty Your Majesties most Loyal most Faithful and most devoted Subject and Servant G. BVRNET THE CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME BOOK I. A Summary View of King Henry the Eighths Reign till the Process of his Divorce was begun in which the State of England chiefly as it related to Religion is opened Page 1. BOOK II. Of the Process of Divorce between King Henry and Queen Katherine and of what passed from the 19th to the 25th year of his Reign in which he was declared Supream Head of the Church of England Page 34. BOOK III. Of the other Transactions about Religion and Reformation during the rest of the Reign of King Henry the 8th Page 179. COLLECTION OF RECORDS c. Ad Librum Primum Page 3. Ad Librum Secundum Page 9. Ad Librum Tertium Page 131. An Appendix concerning the Errors and Falsehoods in Sanders's Book of the English Schism Page 273. ADDENDA Page 305. ERRATA in the Historical part PAge 12. Line 6. Margent for 15. read 1st p. 49. l. 19. for chiefly r. clearly p. 54. l. 15. for 10. r. 13. p. 103. l. 32. Abisha r. Abishag p. 109. l. 47. had r. has p. 115. l. 10. having r. had p. 126. l. 9. before officiate r. did p. 151. l. 31. speak r. spake p. 173. l. 31. dele a. p. 186. l. 25. Pachon r. Pachom p. 198. l. 8. co r. to p. 203. l. 41. then r. that p. 205. l. 20. being her last words r. her last words being p. 235. l. 44. that so r. so that p. 239. l. 33. was r. is p. 259. l. 42. As r. All. p. 264. l. 15. down r. out p. 275. l. 5. no r. on p. 283. l. 49. in that r. that in l. 51. the great charges of r. of the great charges p. 284. l. 21. person r. prison p. 327. l. 31. desertion r. discovery p. 333. Marginal Note resentments r. preâ—erments Informers r. Reformers p. 344. l. 22. before he r. that p. 369. l. 5. utrumque r. utcumque Some Literal faults and mistakes in the Punctuation the Reader will more easily Correct THE
so high Concernment should have been neglected especially in such a Critical time and under so severe a King But as I continued down my search to the Fourth year of Queen Mary I found in the Twelvth Roll of that year a Commission which cleared all my former doubts and by which I saw what was become of the things I had so anxiously searched after We have heard of the Expurgation of Books practised in the Church of Rome but it might have been imagined that publick Registers and Records would have been safe yet lest these should have been afterwards Confessors it was resolved they should then be Martyrs for on the 29th of December in the 4th year of her Reign a Commission was issued out under the great Seal to Bonner Bishop of London Cole Dean of St. Pauls and Martine a Doctor of the Civil Law which is of that importance that I shall here insert the material words of it Whereas it is come to our knowledg that in the time of the late Schisme diverse Compts Books Scrolls Instruments and other writings were practised devised and made concerning Professions against the Popes Holiness and the See Apostolick and also sundry infamous Scrutinies taken in Abbeys and other Religious houses tending rather to subvert and overthrow all good Religion and Religious houses than for any truth contained therein Which being in the Custody of divers Registers and we intending to have those writings brought to knowledg whereby they may be Considered and ordered according to our will and pleasure thereupon those three or any two of them are empowered to cite any persons before them and examine them upon the Premisses upon Oath and to bring all such Writings before them and certifie their diligence about it to Cardinal Pool that further order might be given about them When I saw this I soon knew which way so many Writings had gone and as I could not but wonder at their boldness who thus presumed to raze so many Records so their ingenuity in leaving this Commission in the Rolls by which any who had the Curiosity to search for it might be satisfied how the other Commissions were destroyed was much to be commended Yet in the following Work it will appear that some few Papers escaped their hands I know it is needless to make great Protestations of my sincerity in this Work These are of course and are little considered but I shall take a more effectual way to be believed for I shall vouch my Warrants for what I say and tell where they are to be found And having copied out of Records and MSS. many Papers of great importance I shall not only insert the substance of them in the following Work but at the end of it shall give a Collection of them at their full length and in the Language in which they were originally written from which as the Reader will receive full Evidence of the truth of this History so he will not be ill pleased to observe the Genius and way of the Great men in that time of which he will be better able to judge by seeng their Letters and other Papers than by any representation made of them at second hand They are digested into that order in which they are referred to in the History It will surprize some to see a Book of this Bigness written of the History of our Reformation under the Reign of King Henry the Eighth since the true beginnings of it are to be reckoned from the Reign of King Edward the 6. in which the Articles of our Church and the Forms of our Worship were first compiled and set forth by Authority And indeed in King Henry's time the Reformation was rather conceived than brought forth and two Parties were in the last 18 years of his Reign strugling in the Womb having non and then advantages on either side as the unconstant humour of that King changed and as his Interests and often as his passions swayed him Cardinal Wolsey had so dissolved his mind into pleasures and puffed him up with Flattery and servile Compliances that it was not an easie thing to serve him for being boisterous and impatient naturally which was much heightned by his most extravagant vanity and high conceit of his own Learning and Wisdom he was one of the most uncounsellable persons in the World The Book which he wrote had engaged him deep in these Controversies and by perpetual flatteries he was brought to fancie it was written with some degrees of inspiration And Luther in his answer had treated him so unmannerly that it was only the necessity of his Affairs that forced him into any correspondence with that Party in Germany And though Cranmer and Cromwel improved every advantage that either the Kings temper or his Affairs offered them as much as could be yet they were to be pitied having to do with a Prince who upon the slightest pretences threw down those whom he had most advanced which Cromwel felt severely and Cranmer was sometimes near it The faults of this King being so conspicuous and the severity of his proceedings so unjustifiable particularly that heinous violation of the most sacred Rules of Iustice and Government in condemning men without bringing them to make their Answers most of our Writers have separated the Concerns of this Church from his Reign and imagining that all he did was founded only on his Revenge upon the Court of Rome for denying his Divorce have taken little care to examine how matters were transacted in his time But if we consider the great things that were done by him we must acknowledge that there was a signal providence of God in raising up a King of his temper for clearing the way to that blessed Work that followed and that could hardly have been done but by a man of his humour so that I may very fitly apply to him the witty Simile of an ingenious writer who compares Luther to a Postilion in his waxed Boots and oiled Coat lashing his horses through thick and thin and be spattering all about him This Character befits King Henry better saving the Reverence due to his Crown who as the Postilion of Reformation made way for it through a great deal of mire and filth He abolished the Popes Power by which not only that Tyranny was destroyed which had been long an heavie burthen on this oppressed Nation but all the Opinions Rites and Constitutions for which there was no better Authority than Papal Decrees were to fall to the ground The Foundation that supported them being thus sapped He suppressed all the Monasteries in which though there were some inexcusable faults committed yet he wanted not reason to do what he did For the Foundation of those Houses being laid on the Superstitious Conceit of Redeeming Souls out of Purgatory by saying Masses for them they whose Office that was had by counterfeiting Relicks by forging of Miracles and other like Impostures drawn together a vast wealth to the enriching of their Saints
to go to Cambridge for trying who were the Fautors of Heresie there But he as Legate did inhibite it upon what grounds I cannot imagine Which was brought against him afterwards in Parliament Art 43. of his Impeachment Yet when these Doctrines were spread every-where he called a meeting of all the Bishops and Divines and Canonists about London where Thomas Bilney and Thomas Arthur were brought before them and Articles were brought in against them The whole process is set down at length by Fox in all Points according to Tonstall's Register except one fault in the Translation When the Cardinal asked Bilney whether he had not taken an Oath before not to preach or defend any of Luthers Doctrines he confessed he had done it but not judicially judicialiter in the Register This Fox Translates not lawfully In all the other particulars there is an exact agreement between the Register and his Acts. The sum of the proceedings of the Court was That after examination of Witnesses and several other steps in the Process which the Cardinal left to the Bishop of London and the other Bishops to manage Bilney stood out long and seemed resolved to suffer for a good Conscience In the end what through human infirmity what through the great importunity of the Bishop of London who set all his Friends on him he did abjure on the 7 th of December as Arthur had done on the 2 d. of that Month. And though Bilney was relapst and so was to expect no mercy by the Law yet the Bishop of London enjoyned him Penance and let him go For Tonstall being a man both of good Learning and an unblemisht life these Vertues produced one of their ordinary effects in him great moderation that was so eminent in him that at no time did he dip his hands in Blood Geoffrey Loni and Thomas Gerard also abjured for having had Luther's Books and defending his Opinions These were the proceedings against Hereticks in the first half of this Reign And thus far I have opened the State of Affairs both as to Religious and Civil concerns for the first 18 years of this Kings time with what Observations I could gather of the dispositions and tempers of the Nation at that time which prepared them for the Changes that followed afterwards The End of the First Book THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE Church of England BOOK II. Of the Process of Divorce between King Henry and Queen Katharine and of what passed from the Nineteenth to the Twenty fifth year of his Reign in which he was declared Supreme Head of the Church of England KING Henry hitherto lived at ease and enjoyed his pleasures he made War with much honour and that always produced a just and advantageous Peace He had no trouble upon him in all his affairs except about the getting of Money and even in that the Cardinal eased him But now a Domestick trouble arose which perplexed all the rest of his Government and drew after it Consequences of a high nature Henry the 7 th upon wise and good considerations resolved to link himself in a close Confederacy with Ferdinand and Isabella Kings of Castile and Arragon and with the House of Burgundy against France which was looked on as the lasting and dangerous Enemy of England And therefore a Match was agreed on between his Son Prince Arthur and Katharine the Infanta of Spain whose eldest Sister Ioan was Married to Philip that was then Duke of Burgundy and Earl of Flanders out of which arose a triple Alliance between England Spain and Burgundy against the King of France who was then become formidable to all about him There was given with her 200000 Duckats the greatest Portion that had been given for many Ages with any Princess which made it not the less acceptable to King Henry the Seventh EFFIGIES CATHARINAE PRINCIPIS ARTHURI VXORIS HENRICO REGI NUPTAE H. Holbeâ—n Pinxit R. White Sculp 1486. Nata 1501. Nov. 14. Arthuro nupsit 1509. Iun. 3. Henrico Regi nupsit 1526. toro exclusa 1533. May. 23 incesti damnata 1536. Ian. 8. obijt Printed for Rich Chiswell at the Rose Crown in St Pauls Church yard The Infanta was brought into England and on the 14th of Nov. was Married at St. Pauls to the Prince of Wales They lived together as man and wife till the 2d of April following and not only had their Bed solemnly blest when they were put in it on the night of their Marriage but also were seen publickly in Bed for several days after and went down to live at Ludlow-Castle in Wales where they still Bedded together But Prince Arthur though a strong and healthful youth when he Married her yet died soon after which some thought was hastened by his too early Marriage The Spanish Ambassador had by his Masters order taken proofs of the Consummation of the Marriage and sent them into Spain the young Prince also himself had by many expressions given his Servants cause to believe that his Marriage was consummated the first night which in a youth of Sixteen years of Age that was vigorous and healthful was not at all judged strange It was so constantly believed that when he dyed his younger Brother Henry Duke of York was not called Prince of Wales for some considerable time Some say for one Month some for 6 Months And he was not created Prince of Wales till 10 Months were elapsed viz. in the February following when it was apparent that his Brothers wife was not with Child by him These things were afterwards looked on as a full Demonstration being as much as the thing was capable of that the Princess was not a Virgin after Prince Arthur's Death But the reason of State still standing for keeping up the Alliance against France and King Henry the 7th having no mind to let so great a Revenue as she had in Jointure be carried out of the Kingdom it was proposed That she should be married to the younger Brother Henry now Prince of Wales The two Prelats that were then in greatest esteem with King Henry the 7th were Warham Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and Fox Bishop of Winchester The former delivered his opinion against it and told the King that he thought it was neither honourable nor well-pleasing to God The Bishop of Winchester perswaded it and for the Objections that were against it and the Murmuring of the people who did not like a Marriage that was disputable lest out of it new Wars should afterwards arise about the Right of the Crown the Popes Dispensation was thought sufficient to answer all and his Authority was then so undisputed that it did it effectually So a Bull was obtained on the 26 of Decemb. 1503 to this effect that the Pope according to the greatness of his Authority having received a Petition from Prince Henry and the Princess Katharine Bearing That whereas the Princess was Lawfully Married to Prince Arthur which was
a Book for his opinion and confirm it with as much Authority as he could and was recommended to the care of the Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond to which honor the King had advanced Sr. Thomas Boleyn in the right of his Mother and in the beginning of the next year he published his Book about it Richard Crook who was Tutor to the Duke of Richmond was sent into Italy and others were sent to France and Germany to consult the Divines Canonists and other Learned men in the Universities about the Kings business How the rest managed the matter I have not yet been able to discover but from a great number of original Letters of Doctor Crooks I shall give a full account of his Negotiation It was thought best to begin at home and therefore the King wrote to the two Universities in England to send him their conclusions about it The matters went at Oxford thus The Bishop of Lincoln being sent thither with the Kings Letters for their Resolution it was by the Major vote of the Convocation of all the Doctors and Masters as well Regents as non-Regents committed to 33 Doctors and Batchelours of Divinity who were named by their own Facultie or to the greater number of them to determine the Questions that were sent with the Kings Letters and to set the common Seal of the University to their Conclusions and by vertue of that Warrant they did on the 8 of April put the common Seal of the University to an Instrument declaring the Marriage of the Brothers wife to be both contrary to the Laws of God and Nature The Collector of the Antiquities of Oxford informs us of the uneasiness that was in the University in this matter and of the several messages the King sent before that Instrument could be procured so that from the 12 of February to the 8 of April the matter was in agitation the Masters of Arts generally opposing it though the Doctors and Heads were for the greatest part for it But after he has set down the Instrument he gives some reasons upon what design I cannot easily imagine to shew that this was extorted by force and being done without the consent of the Masters of Arts was of it self void and of no force and as if it had been an ill thing he takes pains to purge the University of it and lays it upon the fears and corruptions of some aspiring men of the University and without any proof gives credit to a lying Story set down by Sanders of an Assembly called in the night in which the Seal of the University was set to the Determination But it appears that he had never seen or considered the other Instrument to which the University set their Seal that was agreed on in a Convocation of all the Doctors and Masters as well Regents as non-Regents giving Power to these Doctors and Batchelors ofDivinity to determine the Matter and to set the Seal of the University to their Conclusion The original whereof the Lord Herbert saw upon which the persons so deputed had full Authority to set the University Seal to that Conclusion without a new Convocation Perhaps that Instrument was not so carefully preserved among their Records or was in Queen Maries days taken away which might occasion these mistakes in their Historian There seems to be also another mistake in the Relation he gives for he says those of Paris had determined in this matter before it was agreed to at Oxford The Printed Decision of the Sorbone contradicts this for it bears date the 2d of Iuly 1530. whereas this was done the 8th of April 1530. But what passed at Cambridge I shall set down more fully from an original Letter written by Gardiner and Fox to the King in February but the day is not marked When they came to Cambridge they spake to the Vice-Chancellor whom they found very ready to serve the King so was also Bonner whom they call Doctor Edmonds and several others but there was a contrary party that met together and resolved to oppose them A meeting of the Doctors Batchelors of Divinity and Masters of Arts in all about 200 was held There the Kings Letters were read and the Vice-Chancellor calling upon several of them to deliver their opinions about it they answered as their affections led them and were in some disorder But it being proposed that the answering the Kings Letter and the Questions in it should be referred to some indifferent men great exceptions were made to Doctor Salcot Doctor Reps and Crome and all others who had approved Doctor Cranmers Book as having already declared themselves partial But to that it was answered that after a thing was so much discoursed of as the Kings matter had been it could not be imagined that any number of men could be found who had not declared their judgment about it one way or another Much time was spent in the debate but when it grew late the Vice-Chancellor commanded every man to take his place and to give his voice whether they would agree to the Motion of referring it to a Select body of men but that night they would not agree to it The Congregation being Adjourned till next day the Vice-Chancellor offered a Grace or Order to refer the matter to 29 persons himself 10 Doctors and 16 Batchelors and the 2 Proctors That the Questions being publickly disputed what two parts of three agreed to should be read in a Congregation and without any further debate the Common Seal of the University should be set to it Yet it was at first denyed then being put to the vote it was carryed equally on both sides But being a third time proposed it was carryed for the Divorce Of which an account was presently sent to the King with a Schedule of their names to whom it was committed and what was to be expected from them so that it was at length determined though not without opposition That the King's Marriage was against the Law of God It is thought strange that the King who was otherwise so absolute in England should have met with more difficulty in this matter at home than he did abroad But the most reasonable account I can give of it is That at this time there were many in the Universities particularly at Cambridge who were addicted to Luthers Doctrine And of those Cranmer was lookt on as the most Learned So that Crome Shaxton Latimer and others of that Society favoured the Kings Cause besides that Anne Boleyn had in the Dutchess of Alancon's Court who inclined to the Reformation received such impressions as made them fear that her Greatness and Cranmers Preferment would encourage Heresie to which the Universities were furiously averse and therefore they did resist all Conclusions that might promote the Divorce But as for Crooke in Italy he being very Learned in the Greek Tongue was first sent to Venice to search the Greek Manuscripts that lay in the Library of
Modena and Reggio from the Duke of Ferrara to which he pretended as being Fiefs of the Papacy and the Emperor having engaged by the former Treatyto restore them to him But now that the Popes pretensions were appointed to be examined by some Judges delegated by the Emperor they determined against the Pope for the Duke of Ferrara which so disgusted the Pope that he fell totally from the Emperor and did unite with the King of France a Match being also projected between the Duke of Orleance afterwards Henry the 2d and his Neece Catharine de Medici which did work much on the Popes ambition to have his Family Allied to so mighty a Monarch So that now he became wholly French The French King was also on account of this Marriage to resigne all the pretensions he had to any Territory in Italy to his younger Son which as it would give less-Umbrage to the other Princes of Italy who liked rather to have a King 's younger Son among them than either the Emperor or the French King so the Pope was wonderfully pleased to raise another great Prince in Italy out of his own Family On these grounds was the Match at this time designed which afterwards took effect but with this difference that by the Dolphin's death the Duke of Orleance became King of France and his Queen made the greatest Figure that any Queen of France had done for many Ages This change in the Popes mind might have produced another in the Kings Affairs if he had not already gone so far that he was less in fear of the Pope than formerly He found the Credit of his Clergy was so low that to preserve themselves from the contempt and fury of the people they were forced to depend wholly on the Crown For Lutheranisme was then making a great progress in England of which I shall say nothing here being resolved at the end of this Book to give an account of the whole Course of it in those years that fall within this time But what by the means of the new Preachers what by the scandals cast on the Clergy they were all at the Kings Mercy so he did not fear much from them especially in the Southern parts which were the richest and best peopled Therefore the King went on resolutely The Pope on the other hand was in great perplexity he saw England ready to be lost and knew not what to do to rescue or preserve it If he gave way to what was lately done in the business of the Premunire he must thereby lose the greatest advantages he drew from that Nation and it was not likely that after the King had gone so far he would undo what was done The Emperor was more remiss in prosecuting the Queens Appeal at Rome for at that time the Turk with a most numerous and powerful Army was making an impression on Hungary which to the great scandal of the most Christian King was imputed to his Councils and Presents at the Port and all the Emperor's thoughts were taken up with this Therefore as he gave the Protestant Princes of Germany some present satisfaction in Religion and other matters so he sent over to England and desired the Kings assistance against that vast Army of 300000 men that was falling in upon Christendom To this the King made a general answer that gave some hopes of assisting him But at the same time the Protestant Princes resolving to draw some advantage from that conjuncture of Affairs and being courted by the French King entred into a League with him for the defence of the Rights of the Empire And to make this firmer the King was invited by the French King to joyn in it to which he consented and sent over to France a sum of Money to be employed â—or the safety of the Empire And this provoked the Emperor to renew his endeavours in the Court of Rome for prosecuting the Queens Appeal The French King encouraged the King to go on with his Divorce that he might totally Alienate him from the Emperor The French Writers also add another Consideration which seems unworthy of so great a King that he himself being at that time so publick a Courtier of Ladies was not ill pleased to set forward a thing of that nature But though Princes allow themselves their pleasures yet they seldom Govern their Affairs by such Maximes In the beginning of the next year a new Session of Parliament was held in which the House of Commons went on to complain of many other grievances they lay under from the Clergy which they put in a writing and Presented it to the King In it they complained of the proceedings in the Spiritual Courts and especially their calling men before them ex officio and laying Articles to their charge without any Accuser and then admitting no Purgation but causing the Party Accused either to abjure or to be burnt which they found very grievous and intollerable This was occasioned by some violent proceeding against some reputed Hereticks of which an account shall be given afterwards But those complaints were stifled and great misunderstandings arose between the King and the House of Commons upon this following occasion There was a common practice in England of mens making such Setlements of their Estates by their Last Wills or other Deeds that the King and some great Lords were thereby defrauded of the advantages they made by Wards Marriages and Primer Season For regulating which a Bill was brought in to the House of Peers and assented to there but when it was sent down to the House of Commons it was rejected by them and they would neither pass the Bill nor any other Qualification of that Abuse This gave the King great offence and the House when they addressed to him about the proceedings of the Clergy also prayed That he would consider what Cost Charge and Pains they had been at since the beginning of the Parliament and that it would please his Grace of his Princely Benignity to Dissolve his Court of Parliament and that his Subjects might return into their Countries To which the King answered That for their complaints of the Clergy he must hear them also before he could give Judgment since in Justice he ought to hear both Parties but that their desiring the Redress of such Abuses was contrary to the other part of their Petition for if the Parliament were Dissolved how could those things they complained of be amended And as they complained of their long attendance so the King had stayed as long as they had done and yet he had still patience and so they must have otherwise their grievances would be without Redress But he did expostulate severely upon their rejecting the Bill about Deeds in prejudice of the Rights of the Crown He â—aid he had offered them a great mitigation of what by the rigour of the Law he might pretend to and if they would not accept of it he would
could be saved The Book that had the greatest Authority and influence was Tindals Translation of the new Testament of which the Bishops made great complaints and said it was full of errors But Tonstall then Bishop of London being a man of invincible moderation would do no body hurt yet endeavoured as he could to get their Books into his hands So being at Antwerp in the year 1529. as he returned from his Embassie at the Treaty of Cambray he sent for one Packington an English Merchant there and desired him to see how many New Testaments of Tindals Translation he might have for Money Packington who was a secret favourer of Tindal told him what the Bishop proposed Tindal was very glad of it for being convinced of some faults in his work he was designing a new and more correct Edition but he was poor and the former Impression not being sold off he could not go about it so he gave Packington all the Copies that lay in his hands for which the Bishop payed the price and brought them over and burnt them publickly in Cheapside This had such an hateful appearance in it being generally called a burning of the Word of God that people from thence concluded there must be a visible contrariety between that book and the Doctrines of those who so handled it by which both their prejudice against the Clergy and their desire of reading the New Testament was encreased So that next year when the Second Edition was finished many more were brought over and Constantine being taken in England the Lord Chancellor in a private examination promised him that no hurt should be done him if he would reveal who encouraged and supported them at Antwerp which he accepted of and told that the greatest encouragement they had was from the Bishop of London who had bought up half the Impression This made all that heard of it laugh heartily though more judicious persons discerned the great temper of that Learned Bishop in it When the Clergy condemned Tindals Translation of the New Testament they declared they intended to set out a true Translation of it which many thought was never truly designed by them but only pretended that they might restrain the Curiosity of seeing Tindals work with the hopes of one that should be Authorized and as they made no progress in it so at length on the 24th of May Anno 1530. there was a paper drawn and agreed to by Arch-Bishop Warham Chancellor More Bishop Tonstall and many Canonists and Divines which every Incumbent was commanded to read to his Parish as a warning to prevent the Contagion of Heresie The Contents of which were that the King having called together many of the Prelates with other Learned men out of both Universities to examine some Books lately set out in the English tongue they had agreed to condemn them as containing several points of Heresie in them and it being proposed to them whether it was necessary to set forth the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue they were of opinion that though it had been sometimes done yet it was not necessary and that the King did well not to set it out at that time in the English tongue So by this all the hopes of a Translation of the Scriptures vanished There came out another Book which took mightily it was entituled The Supplication of the Beggars written by one Simon Fish of Grayes-Inn In it the Beggars complained to the King that they were reduced to great misery the Alms of the people being intercepted by companies of strong and idle Friars for supposing that each of the Five Mendicant Orders had but a Peny a quarter from every houshold it did rise to a vast Sum of which the Indigent and truly Necessitous Beggars were defrauded Their being unprofitable to the Common-wealth with several other things were also complained of He also taxed the Pope for Cruelty and Covetousness that did not deliver all persons out of Purgatory and that none but the Rich who payed well for it could be discharged out of that Prison This was written in a witty and taking Style and the King had it put in his hands by Anne Boleyn and lik'd it well and would not suffer any thing to be done to the Author Chancellor More was the most zealous Champion the Clergy had for I do not find that any of them wrote much only the Bishop of Rochester wrote for Purgatory but the rest left it wholly to him either because few of them could write well or that he being much esteemed and a disinteressed person things would be better received from him than from them who were look'd on as Parties So he answered this Supplication by another in the name of the souls that were in Purgatory representing the miseries they were in and the great relief they found by the Masses the Friers said for them and brought in every mans Ancestours calling earnestly upon him to befriend those poor Friars now when they had so many Enemies He confidently asserted it had been the Doctrine of the Church for many Ages and brought many places out of the Scriptures to prove it besides several reasons that seemed to confirm it This being writ of a Subject that would allow of a great deal of popular and moving Eloquence in which he was very eminent took with many But it discovered to others what was the Foundation of those Religious Orders and that if the belief of Purgatory were once rooted out all that was built on that Foundation must needs fall with it So Iohn Frith wrote an answer to More 's Supplication to shew that there was no ground for Purgatory in Scripture and that it was not believed in the Primitive Church He also answered the Bishop of Rochester's Book and some Dialogues that were written on the same Subject by Rastal a Printer and Kinsman of Mores He discovered the fallacy of their reasonings which were built on the weakness or defects of our Repentance in this Life and that therefore there must be another state in which we must be further purified To this he answered That our sins were not pardoned for our Repentance or the Perfection of it but only for the Merits and Sufferings of Christ and that if our Repentance is sincere God accepts of it and sin being once pardoned it could not be further punished He shewed the difference between the punishments we may suffer in this Life and those in Purgatory the one are either Medicinal Corrections for Reforming us more and more or for giving Warning to others The other are terrible Punishments without any of these ends in them therefore the one might well consist with the free pardon of sin the other could not So he argued from all these places of Scripture in which we are said to be freely pardoned our sins by the Blood of Christ that no punishment in another state could consist with it He also argued from all those places in which it
Relicks without number were every-where discovered and most wonderful relations of the Martyrdome and other miracles of the Saints were made and read in all places to the people and new Improvements were daily made in a Trade that through the craft of the Monks and the simplicity of the people brought in great advantages And though there was enough got to enrich them all yet there was strange rivalling not only among the several Orders but the Houses of the same Order The Monks especially of Glassenbury St. Albans and St. Edmundsbury vied one with another who could tell the most extravagant stories for the honour of their House and of the Relicks in it The Monks in these Houses abounding in wealth and living at â—ase and in idleness did so degenerate that from the Twelfth Century downward their reputation abated much and the Priviledges of Sanctuaries were a general Grievance and oft complained of in Parliaments For they received all that fled to them which put a great stop to Justice and did encourage the most criminal offenders They became lewd and dissolute and so impudent in it that some of their farms were let for bringing in a yearly tribute to their Lusts nor did they keep Hospitality and relieve the poor but rather encouraged Vagabonds and Beggars against whom Laws were made both in Edward the 3d King Henry the 7th and this Kings Reign But from the Twelfth Century the Orders of Begging Friers were set up and they by the appearance of Severity and Mortification gained great esteem At first they would have nothing no real estates but the ground on which their House stood But afterwards distinctions were found for satisfying their Consciences in larger Possessions They were not so idle and lazy as the Monks but went about and Preached and heard Confessions and carryed about Indulgences with many other pretty little things Del's Rosaries and Pebles which they made the World believe had great vertue in them And they had the esteem of the people wholly engrossed to themselves They were also more formidable to Princes than the Monks because they were poorer and by consequence more hardy and bold There was also a firmer union of their whole Order they having a General at Rome and being divided into many Provinces subject to their Provincials They had likewise the Schooll-Learning wholly in their hands and were great Preachers so that many things concurred to raise their esteem with the people very high yet great Complaints lay against them for they went more abroad than the Monks did and were believed guilty of Corrupting Families The Scandals that went on them upon their relaxing the primitive strictness of their Orders were a little rectified by some Reformations of these Orders But that lasted not long for they became liable to much Censure and many visitations had been made but to little purpose This Concurring with their secret practices against the King both in the matter of his Divorce and Supremacy made him more willing to examine the truth of these reports that if they were found guilty of such scandals they might lose their credit with the people and occasions be ministred to the King to justifie the Suppression of them There were also two other Motives that enclined the King to this Counsel The one was that he apprehended a War from the Emperor who was then the only Prince in the World that had any considerable force at Sea having both great Fleets in the Indies and being Prince of the Netherlands where the greatest trade of these parts was driven Therefore the King judged it necessary to fortifie his Ports and seeing the great advantages of Trade which began then to rise much was resolved to encourage it For which end he intended to build many Havens and Harbors This was a matter of great charge and as his own revenue could not defray it so he had no mind to lay heavie Taxes on his Subjects therefore the Suppression of Monasteries was thought the easiest way of raising Money He also intended to erect many more Bishopricks to which Cranmer advised him much that the vastness of some Diocesses being reduced to a narrower compass Bishops might better discharge their duties and oversee their Flocks according to the Scriptures and the Primitive Rules But Cranmer did on another reason press the Suppression of Monasteries He found that their Foundations and whole State was inconsistent with a full and true Reformation For among the things to be reform'd were these Abuses which were essential to their Constitution such as the Belief of Purgatory of Redeeming Souls by Masses the worship of Saints and Images and Pilgrimages and the like And therefore those Societies whose interest it was to oppose the Reformation were once to be suppressed and then he hoped upon new Endowments and Foundations new Houses should have been erected at every Cathedral to be Nurseries for that whole Diocess which he thought would be more suitable to the primitive use of Monasteries and more profitable to the Church This was his Scheme as will afterwards appear which was in some measure effected though not so fully as he projected for Reasons to be told in their proper place There had been a Bull sent from Rome for dissolving some Monasteries and Erecting Bishopricks out of them as was related in the former Book in the year 1532. And it seems it was upon that Authority that in the year 1533. the Priory of Christs Church near Algate in London was dissolved and given to the Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas Audley not to make him speak shriller for his Master in the House of Commons as Fuller mistakes it for he had been Lord Chancellor a year before this was given him The Popes Authority not being at that time put down nor the Kings Supremacy set up I conjecture it was done pursuant to the Bull for the Dissolution of some Religious Houses but I never saw the Dissolution and so can only guess on what ground it was made But in the Parliament held the former year in which the Kings Grant of that House to the Lord Chancellor was confirmed it is said in the Preamble That the Prior and Convent had resigned that House to the King the 24th of February 23d Regni and had left their House but no mention is made upon what Reason they did it But now I come to Consider how the Visitors carryed on their Visitations Many severe things are said of their Proceedings nor is it any wonder that men who had traded so long in lies as the Monks had done should load those whom they esteemed the Instruments of their Ruin with many Calumnies By their Letters to Cromwell it appears that in most Houses they found Monstrous disorders That many fell down on their knees and prayed they might be discharged since they had been forced to make vows against their wills with these the Visitors dispensed and set them at liberty They found great
brought with them then they afforded them the favour of turning the clear side outward who upon that went home very well-satisfied with their journey and the expence they had been at There was brought out of Wales a huge Image of wood called Darvel Gatheren of which one Ellis Price Visitor of the Diocess of St. Asaph gave this account On the 6th of April 1537. That the people of the Countrey had a great Superstition for it and many Pilgrimages were made to it so that the day before he wrote there were reckoned to be above five or six hundred Pilgrims there Some brought Oxen and Cattel and some brought Money and it was generally believed that if any offered to that Image he had Power to deliver his Soul from Hell So it was ordered to be brought to London where it served for fewel to burn Friar Forrest There was an huge Image of our Lady at Worcester that was had in great reverence which when it was stript of some veils that covered it was found to be the Statue of a Bishop Barlow Bishop of St. Davids did also give many advertisements of the Superstition of his Countrey and of the Clergy and Monks of that Diocess who were guilty of Heathenish Idolatry gross Impiety and Ignorance and of abusing the people with many evident forgeries about which he said he had good evidence when it should be called for But that which drew most Pilgrims and presents in those parts was an Image of our Lady with a Taper in her hand which was believed to have burnt nine years till one forswearing himself upon it it went out and was then much Reverenced and Worshipped He found all about the Cathedral so full of Superstitious conceits that there was no hope of working on them therefore he proposed the Translating the Episcopal Seat from St. Davids to Caermaerden which he pressed by many Arguments and in several Letters but with no success Then many rich Shrines of our Lady of Walsingham of Ipswich and Islington with a great many more were brought up to London and burnt by Cromwels Orders But the richest Shrine of England was that of Thomas Becket called St. Thomas of Canterbury the Martyr who being raised up by King Henry the ad to the Arch-Bishoprick of Canterbury did afterwards give that King much trouble by opposing his Authority and exalting the Popes And though he once consented to the Articles agreed on at Clarendon for bearing down the Papal and securing the Regal Power yet he soon after repented of that only piece of Loyalty of which he was guilty all the while he was Arch-Bishop He fled to the Pope who received him as a Confessor for the dearest Article of the Roman Belief The King and Kingdoms were Excommunicated and put under an Interdict upon his Account But afterwards upon the Intercession of the French King King Henry and he were reconciled and the Interdict was taken off Yet his unquiet Spirit could take no rest for he was no sooner at Canterbury than he began to Embroyl the Kingdom again and was proceeding by Censures against the Arch-Bishop of York and some other Bishops for Crowning the Kings Son in his Absence Upon the news of that the King being then in Normandy said If he had faithful Servants he would not be so troubled with such a Priest whereupon some zealous or officious Courtiers came over and killed him For which as the King was made to undergoe a severe pennance so the Monks were not wanting in their ordinary Arts to give out many miraculous stories concerning his Blood This soon drew a Canonization from Rome and he being a Martyr for the Papacy was more extolled than all the Apostles or Primitive Saints had ever been So that for 300 years he was accounted one of the greatest Saints in Heaven as may appear from the accounts in the leger-leger-Books of the offerings made to the three greatest Altars in Christs Church in Canterbury The one was to Christ the other to the Virgin and the third to St. Thomas In one year there was offered at Christ's Altar 3 lib. 2 s. 6 d. To the Virgins Altar 63 lib. 5 s. 6 d. But to St. Thomas's Altar 832 lib. 12 s. 3 d. But the next year the odds grew greater for there was not a penny offered at Christs Altar and at the Virgins only 4 lib. 1 s. 8 d. But at St. Thomas's 954 lib. 6 s. 3 d. By such offerings it came that his Shrine was of inestimable value There was one Stone offered there by Lewis the 7th of France who came over to visit it in a Pilgrimage that was believed the Richest in Europe Nor did they think it enough to give him one day in the Calendar the 29th of December but unusual honours were devised for this Martyr of the liberties of the Church greater than any that had been given to the Martyrs for Christianity The day of raising his body or as they called it of his Translation being the 7th of Iuly was not only a holy-day but every 50th year there was a Jubilee for 15 days together and Indulgence was granted to all that came to visit his shrine as appears from the Record of the sixth Jubilee after his Translation Anno. 1420 which bears that there were then about an hundred thousand strangers come to visit his Tomb. The Jubilee began at twelve a clock on the Vigil of the feast and lasted 15 days by such Arts they drew an incredible deal of wealth to his shrine The Riches of that together with his disloyal practices made the King resolve both to un-shrine and un-Saint him at once And then his skull which had been much worshipped was found an Imposture For the true skull was lying with the rest of his bones in his grave The shrine was broken down and carryed away the Gold that was about it filling two Chests which were so heavy that they were a load to Eight strong men to carry them out of the Church And his bones were as some say burnt so it was understood at Rome but others say they were so mixed with other dead bones that it would have been a Miracle indeed to have distinguished them afterwards The King also ordered his name to be struck out of the Kalendar and the office for his Festivity to be dasht out of all Breviaries And thus was the Superstition of England to Images and Relicks extirpated Yet the King took care to qualifie the distaste which the Articles published the former year had given And though there was no Parliament in the year 1537. yet there was a Convocation upon the Conclusion of which there was Printed an Explanation of the chief points of Religion Signed by nineteen Bishops eight Arch-Deacons and seventeen Doctors of Divinity and Law In which there was an Exposition of the Creed the seven Sacraments the ten Commandments the Lords Prayer and the Salutation of the Virgin with an Account of Justification and Purgatory
recovered the Lands which their Ancestors had superstitiously given away and the Surrenders which Religious persons made to the Crown could not have cut off their Title But this Act did that effectually It is true many of the greatest of them were of Royal Foundation and these would have returned to the Crown without Dispute On the 23 of May in this Session of Parliament a Bill was brought in by Cromwel for giving the King Power to Erect new Bishopricks by his Letters Patents It was read that day for the first second and third time and sent down to the Commons The Preamble of it was That it was known what slothful and ungodly Life had been led by those who were called Religious But that these Houses might be converted to better uses that Gods word might be better set forth Children brought up in Learning Clarks nourished in the Universities and that old decayed Servants might have Livings poor people might have Alms-Houses to maintain them Readers of Greek Hebrew and Latine might have good Stipend daily Alms might be Ministred and Allowance might be made for mending of the high-ways and Exhibition for Ministers of the Church for these ends if the King thought fit to have more Bishopricks or Cathedral Churches erected out of the Reat of these Houses full Power was given to him to erect and found them and to make Rules and Statutes for them and such Translations of Sees or divisions of them as he thought fit But on this Act I must adde a singular Remark The Preamble and material parts of it were drawn by the King himself and the first draught of it under his hand is yet extant which shows his extraordinary application and understanding of business But in the same Paper there is a List of the Sees which he intended to found of which what was done afterwards came so far short that I know nothing to which it can be so reasonably imputed as the declining of Cranmers Interest at Court who had proposed the Erecting of new Cathedrals and Sees with other things mentioned in the Preamble of the Statute as a great mean for Reforming the Church The Sees which the King then designed with the Abbies out of which they were to be Erected follow as it is in the Paper under the Kings own hand Essex Waltham Hartford St. Albans Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire Dunstable Newenham Clowstown Oxford and Berkshire Osnay and Tame Northampton and Huntington Peterborough Middlesex Westminster Leicester and Rutland Leicester Glocestershire St. Peters Lancashire Fountaines and the Arch-deaconry of Richmond Suffolk Edmonds-bury Stafford and Salop. Shrewsbury Nottingham and Derby Welbeck Werksop Thurgarton Cornwall Lanceston Bedmynne Wardreth Over these is written The Bishopricks to be made In another corner of the Page he writes as follows Christ's Church in Canterbury St. Swithins Ely Duresm Rochester with a part of Leeds Worcester and all others having the same Then a little below Places to be altered into Colledges and Schools Burton super Trent More is not written in that Paper But I wonder much that in this List Chester was forgotten Yet it was Erected before any of them For I have seen a Commission under the Privy Seal to the Bishop of Chester to take the Surrender of the Monastery of Hamond in Shropshire bearing date the 24th of August this year So it seems the See of Chester was Erected and endowed before the Act passed though there is among the Rolls a Charter for Endowing and founding of it afterwards Bristow is not mentioned in this Paper though a See was afterwards Erected there It was not before the end of the next year that these Sees were founded and there was in that Interval so great a Change made both of the Counsels and Ministers that no wonder the things now designed were never accomplished Another Act passed in this Parliament concerning the obedience due to the Kings Proclamations There had been great exceptions made to the Legality of the Kings proceedings in the Articles about Religion and other Injunctions published by his authority which were complained of as contrary to Law since by these the King had without consent of Parliament altered some Laws and had laid Taxes on his Spiritual Subjects Upon which an Act passed which sets forth in the preamble the contempt and disobedience of the Kings Proclamations by some who did not consider what a King by his Royal power might do which if it continued would tend to the disobedience of the Laws of God and the dishonour of the Kings Majesty who may full ill bear it Considering also that many occasions might require speedy Remedies and that delaying these till a Parliament met might occasion great prejudices to the Realm and that the King by his Royal power given of God might do many things in such cases Therefore it is Enacted That the King for the time being with advice of his Council might set forth Proclamations with pains and penalties in them which were to be obeyed as if they were made by an Act of Parliament But this was not to be so extended that any of the Kings Subjects should suffer in their Estates Liberties or Persons by vertue of it Nor that by any of the Kings Proclamations Laws or Customs were to be broken and subverted Then follow some Clauses about the publishing of Proclamations and the way of prosecuting those who contemned and disobeyed them It is also added That if any offended against them and in further contempt went out of the Realm he was to be adjudged a Traitor This also gave power to the Counsellours of the Kings Successor if he were under age to set forth Proclamations in his name which were to be obeyed in the same manner with these set forth by the King himself This Act gave great power to the Judges since there were such Restrictions in some branches of it which seemed to lessen the great extent of the other parts of it so that the Expositors of the Law had much referred to them upon this Act were the great changes of Religion in the Non-age of Edward the 6th grounded There is another Act which but collaterally belongs to Ecclesiastical affairs and therefore shall be but slightly touched It is the Act of the Precedency of the Officers of State by which the Lord Vice-gerent has the Precedence of all persons in the Kingdom next the Royal Family and on this I must make one Remark which may seem very improper for one of my profession especially when it is an animadversion on one of the greatest men that any age has produced the most Learned Mr. Selden He in his Titles of Honour sayes That this Statute was never printed in the statute-Statute-Book and but incorrectly by another and that therefore he infers it Literally as is in the Record In which there are two mistakes For it is Printed in the Statute-Book that was set down in that Kings Reign though left out in some latter Statute-Books
and that which he prints is not exactly according to the Record For as he prints it the Bishop of London is not named in the precedency which is not according to the Parliament-Roll in which the Bishop of London has the precedence next the Arch-Bishop of York and though this is corrected in a Posthumous edition yet in that set out by himself it is wanting Nor is that Omission among the Errours of the Press for though there are many of these gathered to be amended this is none of them This I do not take notice of out of any vanity or humour of Censuring a man so great in all sorts of Learning but my design is only to let ingenious persons see that they ought not to take things on trust easily no not from the greatest Authors These are all the publick Acts that relate to Religion which were passed in this Parliament With these there passed an Act of Attaindor of the Marquess of Exeter and the Lord Montacute with many others that were either found to have had a great hand in the late Rebellion or were discovered to hold correspondence with Cardinal Pool who was then trafficking with forreign Princes and projecting a League among them against the King But of this I shall give a more full account at the end of this Book being there to open the grounds of all the Attaindors that were passed in these last years of the Kings Reign There is one remarkable thing that belongs to this Act. Some were to be attainted in absence others they had no mind to bring to make their answer but yet designed to attain them Such were the Marchioness of Exeter and the Countess of Sarum Mother to Cardinal Pool whom by a gross mistake Speed fancies to have been condemned without Arraignment or Tryal as Cromwel had been by Parliament For she was now condemned a year before him About the Justice of doing this there was some debate and to clear it Cromwel sent for the Judges and asked their opinions Whether a man might be attainted in Parliament without being brought to make his answer They said it was a dangerous Question That the Parliament ought to be an example to all inferiour Courts and that when any person was charged with a Crime he by the common Rule of Justice and Equity should be heard to plead for himself But the Parliament being the Supream Court of the Nation what way soever they proceeded it must be good in Law and it could never be questioned whether the party was brought to answer or not And thus a very ill president was made by which the most innocent person in the world might be ruined And this as has often been observed in the like cases fell very soon heavily on the Author of the Counsel as shall appear When the Parliament was Prorogued on the 28th of Iune the King apprehending that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury might be much cast down with the Act for the six Articles sent for him and told him That he had heard how much and with what Learning he had argued against it and therefore he desired he would put all his arguments in writing and bring them to him Next day he sent the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk and the Lord Cromwel to dine with him Ordering them to assure him of the Kings constant and unshaken kindness to him and to encourage him all they could When they were at Table with him at Lambeth they run out much on his commendation and acknowledged he had opposed the Act with so much Learning Gravity and Eloquence that even those that differed from him were much taken with what he said and that he needed fear nothing from the King Cromwel saying that this difference the King put between him and all his other Councellors that when complaints were brought of others the King received them and tried the truth of them but he would not so much as hearken to any complaint of the Arch-Bishop From that he went on to make a Parallel between him and Cardinal Wolsey That the one lost his Friends by his haughtiness and pride but the other gained on his Enemies by his gentleness and mildness Upon which the Duke of Norfolk said he might best speak of the Cardinal for he knew him well having been his man This nettled Cromwel who answered that though he had served him yet he never liked his manners and that though the Cardinal had designed if his attempt for the Popedome had been successful to have made him his Admiral yet he had resolved not to accept of it nor to leave his Countrey To which the Duke of Norfolk replied with a deep Oath That he Lied with other reproachful language This troubled Cranmer extremely who did all he could to quiet and reconcile them But now the Enmity between those two great Ministers broke out to that height that they were never afterwards hearty friends But Cranmer went about that which the King had commanded and made a Book of the reasons that led him to oppose the six Articles in which the places out of the Scriptures the Authorities of the ancient Doctors with the arguments drawn from these were all digested in a good method This he commanded his Secretary to write out in a fair hand that it might be given the King The Secretary returning with it from Croydon where the Arch-Bishop was then to Lambeth found the Key of his Chamber was carried away by the Arch-Bishops Almoner So that he being obliged to go over to London and not daring to trust the Book to any others keeping carried it with himself where both he and the Book met with an un-lookt-for encounter Some others that were with him in the Wherry would needs go to the South-wark side to look on a Bear-baiting that was near the River where the King was in person The Bear broke loose into the River and the Dogs after her They that were in the Boat leaped out and left the poor Secretary alone there But the Bear got into the Boat with the Dogs about her and sunk it The Secretary apprehending his life was in danger did not mind his Book which he lost in the water But being quickly rescued and brought to land he begun to look for his Book and saw it floating in the River So he desired the Bear-ward to bring it to him who took it up but before he would restore it put it into the hands of a Priest that stood there to see what it might contain The Priest reading a little in it found it a Confutation of the six Articles and told the Bearward that whosoever claimed it would be hanged for his pains But the Arch-Bishops Secretary thinking to mend the matter said it was his Lords Book This made the Bear-ward more intractable for he was a spiteful Papist and hated the Arch-Bishop so that no offers nor entreaties could prevail with him to give it back Whereupon Morice that was the
He declared that he died in the Catholick Faith not doubting of any Article of Faith or of any Sacrament of the Church and denied that he had been a Supporter of those who believed ill opinions He confessed he had been seduced but now died in the Catholick Faith and desired them to pray for the King and for the Prince and for himself and then prayed very fervently for the remission of his past sins and admittance into Eternal Glory and having given the Sign the Executioner cut off his Head very barbarously Thus fell that great Minister that was raised meerly upon the strength of his natural parts For as his Extraction was mean so his Education was low All the learning he had was that he had got the new-Testament in Latine by heart His great wisdom and dexterity in business raised him up through several steps till he was become as great as a Subject could be He carryed his greatness with wonderful temper and moderation and fell under the weight of popular Odium rather than Guilt The disorders in the Suppression of Abbeys were generally charged on him Yet when he fell no Bribery nor cheating of the King could be fastned on him though such things came out in swarms on a disgraced Favourite when there is any ground for them By what he spoke at his death he left it much doubted of what Religion he dyed But it is certain he was a Lutheran The term Catholick-Faith used by him in his last speech seemed to make it doubtful but that was then used in England in its true sense in Opposition to the Novelties of the See of Rome as will afterwards appear on another occasion So that his Profession of the Catholich-Faith was strangely perverted when some from thence Concluded that he dyed in the Communion of the Church of Rome But his praying in English and that only to God through Christ without any of these tricks that were used when those of that Church died shewed he was none of theirs With him the Office of the Kings Vice-gerent in Ecclesiastical affairs died as it rose first in his person and as all the Clergy opposed the seting up a new Officer whose Interest should oblige him to oppose a Reconciliation with Rome so it seems none were fond to succeed in an Office that proved so fatal to him that had first carryed it The King was said to have lamented his death after it was too late but the fall of the new Queen that followed not long after and the miseries which fell also on the Duke of Norfolk and his Family some years after were looked on as the Scourges of Heaven for their cruel prosecution of this unfortunate Minister With his fall the progress of the Reformation which had been by his endeavours so far advanced was quite stopt For all that Cranmer could do after this was to keep the ground they had gained But he could never advance much further And indeed every one expected to see him go next For as one Gostwick Knight for Bedfordshire had named him in the House of Commons as the Supporter and Promoter of all the Heresie that was in England so the Popish party reckoned they had but half done their work by destroying Cromwel and that it was not finished till Cranmer followed him Therefore all possible endeavors were used to make discoveries of the Encouragement which as was believed he gave to the Preachers of the condemned Doctrines And it is very probable that had not the Incontinence of Katherine Howard whom the King declared Queen on the 8th of August broken out not long after he had been Sacrificed the next Session of Parliament But now I return to my proper business to give an account of Church-matters for this year with which these great Changes in Court had so great a Relation that the Reader will excuse the digression about them Upon Cromwels fall Gardiner and those that followed him made no doubt but they should quickly recover what they had lost of late years So their greatest attempt was upon the Translation of the Scriptures The Convocation Books as I have been forced often to lament are lost so that here I cannot stir but as Fuller leads me who assures the World that he Copied out of the Records with his own Pen what he published And yet I doubt he has mistaken himself in the year and that which he calls the Convocation of this year was the Convocation of the year 1542. For he tells us that their 7th Session was the 10th of March. Now in this year the Convocation did not sit down till the 13th of April but that year it sate all March So likewise he tells us of the Bishops of Westminster Glocester and Peterborough bearing a share in this Convocation whereas these were not Consecrated before Winter and could not sit as Bishops in this Synod And besides Thirleby sate at this time in the lower House as was formerly shewn in the Process about Anne of Cleves Marriage So that their attempt against the new Testament belongs to the year 1542. But they were now much better employed though not in the way of Convocation For a select number of them sate by vertue of a Commission from the King confirmed in Parliament Their first work was to draw up a Declaration of the Christian Doctrine for the necessary erudition of a Christian man They thought that to speak of Faith in general ought naturally to go before an Exposition of the Christian Belief and therefore with that they began The Church of Rome that designed to keep her Children in ignorance had made no great account of Faith which they generally taught consisted chiefly in an Implicite Believing whatever the Church proposed without any explicite knowledg of particulars So that a Christian Faith as they had explained it was a Submission to the Church The Reformers finding that this was the Spring of all their other errors and that which gave them colour and Authority did on the other hand set up the strength of their whole Cause on an Explicite believing the truth of the Scriptures because of the Authority of God who had revealed them And said that as the great Subject of the Apostles Preaching was Faith so that which they every-where taught was to read and believe the Scriptures Upon which followed nice Disputing what was that saving Faith by which the Scriptures say we are Iustified They could not say it was barely crediting the Divine Revelation since in that sense the Devils believed Therefore they generally placed it at first in their being assured that they should be saved by Christs dying for them In which their design was to make Holiness and all other Graces necessary requisites in the Composition of Faith though they would not make them formally parts of it For since Christs death has its full vertue and effect upon none but those who are regenerate and live according to his Gospel none
have given to the Reformation born down this Proposition and turned all the Kings Bounty and Foundations another way These new Foundations gave some credit to the Kings proceedings and made the Suppression of Chantries and Chappels go on more smoothly But those of the Roman party beyond Sea censured this as they had done all the rest of the Kings Actings They said it was but a slight Restitution of a small part of the goods of which he had robbed the Church And they complained of the Kings encroaching on the Spiritual Jurisdiction of the Church by dismembring Dioceses and removing Churches from one Jurisdiction to another To this it was answered that the necessities which their practices put on the King both to â—ortifie his Coast and Dominions to send money beâ—ond Sea for keeping the War at a distance from himself and to secure his quiet at home by easie grants of these Lands made him that he could not do all that he intended And for the Division of Dioceses many things were brought from the Roman Law to shew That the Division of the Ecclesiastical â—urisdiction whether of Patriarches Primates Metropolitans or Bishops was Regulated by the Emperors of which the Ancient Councils always approved And in England when the Bishoprick of Lincoln being judged of too great an Extent the Bishoprick of Ely was taken out of it it was done only by the King with the consent of his Clergy and Nobles Pope Nicolas indeed officiously intruded himself into that matter by sending afterwards a Confirmation of that which was done But that was one of the great Arts of the Papacy to offer Confirmations of things that were done without the Popes For these being easily received by them that thought of nothing more than to give the better countenance to their own Acts the Popes afterwards founded a Right on these Confirmations The very receiving of them was pretended to be an acknowledgment of a Title in the Pope And the matter was so artificially managed that Princes were noozed into some approbation of such a pretence before they were aware of it And then the Authority of the Canon-Law prevailing Maxims were laid down in it by which the most tacite and inconsiderate Acts of Princes were construed to such senses as still advanced the greatness of the Papal pretensions This business of the new Foundations being thus setled the matters of the Church were now put in a method and the Bishops Book was the standard of Religion So that whatsoever was not agreeable to that was judged Heretical whether it leaned to the one side or the other But it seems that the King by some secret Order had chained up the party which was going on in the Execution of the Statute of the six Articles that they should not proceed capitally Thus matters went this year and with this the Series of the History of the Reformation made by this King ends for it was now digested and formed into a Body What followed was not in a Thred but now and then some remarkable things were done sometimes in favour of the one and sometimes of the other party For after Cromwel fell the King did not go on so steadily in any thing as he had done formerly Cromwel had an Ascendant over him which after Cardinal Wolseys fall none besides himself ever had They knew how to manage the Kings uneasie and imperious humor But now none had such a Power over him The Duke of Norfolk was rich and brave and made his Court well but had not so great a Genius so that the King did rather trust and fear than esteem him Gardiner was only a Tool and being of an abject Spirit was employed but not at all reverenced by the King Cranmer retained always his candor and simplicity and was a great Prelate but neither a good Courtier nor a States-man And the King esteemed him more for his vertues than for his dexterity and cunning in business So that now the King was left wholly to himself and being extream humorous and impatiâ—nt there were more errors committed in the last years of his Government than had been for his whole Reign before France forsook him Scotland made War upon him which might have been fatal to him if their King had not dyed in the beginning of it leaving an Infant Princess but a few days old behind him And though the Emperor made peace with him yet it was but an hollow agreement Of all which I shall give but slender hints in the rest of this Book and rather open some few particulars than pursue a Continued Narration since the matter of my Work failes me In May the 33d year of the Kings Reign a new Impression of the Bible was finished and the King by Proclamation Required all Curates and Parishioners of every Town and Parish to provide themselves a Copy of it before All-Hallowtide under the penalty of forfeiting forty Shillings a month after that till they had one He declared that he set it forth to the end that his people might by Reading it perceive the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God Observe his Commandments obey the Laws and their Prince and live in Godly Charity among themselves But that the King did not thereby intend that his Subjects should presume to expound or take arguments from Scripture nor disturb Divine Service by reading it when Mass was Celebrating but should read it meekly humbly and reverently for their Instruction Edification and Amendment There was also care taken so to Regulate the Prices of the Bibles that there should be no exacting on the Subjects in the Sale of them And Bonner seeing the Kings mind was set on this ordered six of these great Bibles to be set up in several places of St. Pauls that all persons who could read might at all times have free access to them And upon the Pillars to which these Bibles were chained an Exhortation was set up admonishing all that came thither to read That they should lay aside vain-glory hypocrisie and all other corrupt affections and bring with them Discretion good Intentions Charity Reverence and a quiet behaviour for the Edification of their own Souls but not to draw multitudes about them nor to make Expositions of what they read nor to read aloud nor make noise in time of Divine Service nor enter into Disputes concerning it But people came generally to hear the Scriptures read and such as could read and had clear voices came often thither with great Crowds about them And many set their Children to School that they might carry them with them to St. Pauls and hear them read the Scriptures Nor could the people be hindred from entring into disputes about some places for who could hear the words of the Institution of the Sacrament Drink ye all of it or St. Pauls Discourse against worship in an unknown tongue and not from thence be led to consider that the people were deprived of the Cup which by
Benefices should bring their Curates to him or his Officers to be tried Fifthly That they should often exhort their Parishioners to make no private contracts of Marriage Sixthly That they should marry none who were married before till they were sufficiently assured that the former Husband or Wife were dead Seventhly That they should instruct the Children of their several Parishes and teach them to read English that they might know how to believe and pray and live according to the Will of God Eighthly That they should reconcile all that were in Enmity and in that be a good Example to others Ninthly That none should receive the Communion who did not Confess to their own Curates Tenthly That none should be suffered to go to Taverns or Ale-Houses and use unlawful games on Sundays or Holy-days in time of Divine Service Eleventhly That twice every quarter they should declare the seven deadly sins and the Ten Commandments Twelfthly That no Priest should go but in his Habit. Thirteenthly That no Priest should be admitted to say Mass without shewing his Letters of Orders to the Bishop or his Officers Fourteenthly That they should instruct the People to beware of Blasphemy or Swearing by any part of Christs Body and to abstain from Scolding and Slandering Adultery Fornication Gluttony or Drunkenness and that they should present at the next Visitation those who were guilty of these sins Fifteenthly That no Priest should use unlawful games or go to Ale-houses or Taverns but upon an urgent necessity Sixteenthly No Playes or Enterludes to be Acted in the Churches Seventeenthly That there should be no Sermons Preached that had been made within these two hundred or three hundred years But when they Preached they should explain the whole Gospel and Epistle for the day according to the mind of some good Doctor allowed by the Church of England and chiefly to insist on these places that might stir up the people to good works and to prayer and to explain the use of the Ceremonies of the Church That there should be no railing in Sermons but the Preacher should calmly and discreetly set forth the excellencies of Vertue and the vileness of Sin and should also explain the Prayers for that day that so the People might pray with one heart and should teach them the use of the Sacraments particularly of the Mass but should avoid the reciting of Fables or Stories for which no good Writer could be vouched and that when the Sermon was ended the Preacher should in few words resume the substance of it Eighteenthly That none be suffered to Preach under the degree of a Bishop who had not obtained a License either from the King or him their Ordinary These Injunctions especially when they are considered at their full length will give great light into the temper of men at that time and particularly inform us of the design and method of Preaching as it was then set forward Concerning which the Reader will not be ill pleased to receive some information In the time of Popery there had been few Sermons but in Lent for their discourses on the Holydays were rather Panegyricks on the Saint or the vain magnifying of some of their Reliques which were laid up in such or such places In Lent there was a more solemn and serious way of Preaching and the Friars who chiefly maintained their credit by their performances at that time used all the force of their skill and industry to raise the People into heats by passionate and affecting discourses Yet these generally tended to raise the value of some of the Laws of the Church such as Abstinence at that time Confession with other Corporal Severities or some of the little devices that both inflamed a blind Devotion and drew Money such as Indulgences Pilgrimages or the enriching the Shrines and Reliques of the Saints But there was not that pains taken to inform the People of the hatefulness of Vice and the excellency of Holiness or of the wonderful Love of Christ by which men might be engaged to acknowledge and obey him And the design of their Sermons was rather to raise a present heat which they knew afterwards how to manage than to work a real Reformation on their Hearers They had also intermixt with all Divine Truths so many Fables that they were become very extravagant and that alloy had so embased the whole that there was great need of a good discerning to deliver People from those prejudices which these mixtures brought upon the whole Christian Doctrine Therefore the Reformers studied with all possible care to instruct the People in the Fundamentals of Christianity with which they had been so little acquainted From hence it came that the People ran after those New Preachers with wonderful zeal It is true there seem to be very foul and indiscreet reâ—lections on the other Party in some of their Sermons But if any have applied themselves much to observe what sort of men the Fryars and the rest of the Popish Clergy were at that time they shall find great excuses for those heats And as our Saviour laid open the Hypocrisies and Impostures of the Scribes and Pharisees in a style which such corruptions extorted so there was great cause given to treat them very roughly tho it is not to be denied but those Preachers had some mixtures of their own resentments for the cruelties and ill usage which they received from them But now that the Reformation made a greater progress much pains was taken to send eminent Preachers over the Nation not confining them to particular charges but sending them with the Kings Licence up and down to many places Many of these Licences are enrolled and it is likely that many were granted that were not so carefully preserved But provision was also made for peoples daily Instruction and because in that ignorant time there could not be found a sufficient number of good Preachers and in a time of so much jugling they would not trust the Instruction of the people to every one Therefore none was to Preach except he had gotten a particular Licence for it from the King or his Diocesan But to qualifie this a Book of Homilies was Printed in which the Gospels and Epistles of all the Sundays and Holidays of the year were set down with an Homily to every one of these which is a plain and practical Paraphrase on those parcels of Scripture To these are added many serious exhortations and some short explanations of the most obvious difficulties that shew the Compiler of them was a man both of good judgement and learning To these were also added Sermons upon several occasions as for Weddings Christnings and Funerals and these were to be read to the people by such as were not Licensed to Preach But those who were Licensed to Preach being oft accused for their Sermons and Complaints being made to the King by hot men on both sides they came generally to write and read their Sermons From thence the
the Army was ill advised so his giving a Commissâ—on to Oliver Sinclar â—hat was his Minion to command in Chief did extreamly disgust the Nobility They loved not to be commanded by any but their King and were already weary of the insolence of that Favourite who being but of ordinary birth was despised by them so that they were beginning to separate And when they were upon that occasion in great disorder a small body of English not above 500 Horse appeared But they apprehending it was the Duke of Norfolks Army refused to fight and fell in confusion Many Prisoners were taken the chief of whom were the Earls of Glencairn and Cassillis the Lords Maxwell Sommervell Oliphant Gray and Oliver Sinclar and about 200 Gentlemen and 800 souldiers and all the Ordnance and Baggage was also taken The news of this being brought to the King of Scotland encreased his former disorders and some few days after he dyed leaving an infant Daughter but newly born to succeed him The Lords that were taken Prisoners were brought to London where after they had been charged in Council how unkindly they had used the King they were put in the keeping of some of the greatest quality about Court But the Earl of Cassillis had the best luck of them all For being sent to Lambâ—th where he was a Prisoner upon his parole Cranmer studied to free him from the darkness and fetters of Popery in which he was so successful that the other was afterwards a great Promoter of the Reformation in Scotland The Scots had been hitherto possessed with most extraordinary prejudices against the Changes that had been made in England which concurring with the ancient Animosities between the two Nations had raised a wonderful ill opinion of the Kings proceedings And though the Bishop of St. Davids Barlow had been sent into Scotland with the Book of the Institution of a Christian Man to clear these ill impressions yet his endeavours were unsuccessful The Pope at the instance of the French King and to make that Kingdom sure made David Beaton Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews a Cardinal which gave him great Authority in the Kingdom so he with the rest of the Clergy diverted the King from any correspondence with England and assured him of Victory if he would make War on such an Heretical Prince The Clergy also offered the King 50000 Crowns a-year towards a War with England and possessed all the Nation with very ill thoughts of the Court and Clergy there But the Lords that were now Prisoners chiefly the Earl of Cassillis who was best instructed by his Religious Host conceived a better opinion of the Reformation and carried home with them those seeds of knowledg which produced afterwards a very fruitful Harvest On all these things I have dwelt the longer that it might appear whence the inclination of the Scotish Nobility to Reform did take its first rise though there was afterwards in the Methods by which it was advanced too great a mixture of the heat and forwardness that is natural to the Genius of that Countrey When the news of the King of Scotlands death and of the young Queens birth that succeeded him came to the Court the King thought this a very favourable conjuncture to unite and settle the whole Island But that unfortunate Princess was not born under such happy Stars though she was Mother to him in whom this long-desired Union took effect The Lords that were then Prisoners began the motion and that being told the King he called for them to Hampton-Court in the Christmas-time and said now an opportunity was put in their hands to quiet all troubles that had been between these two Crowns by the Marriage of the Prince of Wales to their young Queen In which he desired their assistance and gave them their Liberty they leaving hostages for the performance of what was then offered by them They all promised their Concurrence and seemed much taken with the greatness of the English Court which the King always kept up not without affectation they also said they thought God was better served there than in their own Countrey So on New-years-day they took their journey towards Scotland but the sequel of this will appear afterwards A Parliament was summoned to meet the two and twentieth of Ianuary which sate to the 12th of May. So the Session begun in the 34th and ended in the 35th year of the Kings Reign from whence it is called in the Records the Parliament of the 34th and 35th year Here both the Temporality and Spirituality gave great Subsidies to the King of six shillings in the Pound to be paid in three years They set forth in their Preambles The expence the King had been at in his War with Scotland and for his other great and urgent occasions by which was meant a War with France which broke out the following Summer But with these there passed other two Acts of great importance to Religion The Title of the first was An Act for the advancement of True Religion and abolishment of the contrary The King was now entring upon a War so it seemed reasonable to qualifie the severity of the late Acts about Religion that all might be quiet at home Cranmer moved it first and was faintly seconded by the Bishops of Worcester Hereford Chichester and Rochester who had promised to stick to him in it At this time a League was almost finished between the King and the Emperour which did again raise the Spirits of the Popish Faction They had been much cast down ever since the last Queens fall But now that the Emperor was like to have an Interest in English Councils they took heart again and Gardiner opposed the Arch-Bishops motion with all possible earnestness And that whole Faction fell so upon it that the timorous Bishops not only forsook Cranmer but Heath of Rochester and Skip of Hereford were very earnest with him to stay for a better opportunity But he generously preferred his Conscience to those arts of Policy which he would never practise and said he would push it as far as it would go So he plied the King and the other Lords so earnestly that at length the Bill passed though clogg'd with many Provisoes and very much short of what he had designed The Preamble set forth that there being many dissensions about Religion the Scriptures which the King had put into the hands of his People were abused by many seditious persons in their Sermons Books Playes Rithmes and Songs from which great Inconveniences were like to arise For preventing these it was necessary to establish a Form of sincere Doctrine conformable to that which was taught by the Apostles Therefore all the Books of the Old and New Testament of Tindals Translation which is called Crafty False and Vntrue are forbidden to be kept oâ— used in the Kings Dominions with all other Books contrary to the Doctrine set forth in the year 1540. with
Punishments and Fines and Imprisonment upon such as sold or kept such Books But Bibles that were not of Tindals Translation were still to be kept only the Annotations or Preambles that were in any of them were to be cut out or dashed and the Kings Proclamations and Injunctions with the Primmers and other Books Printed in English for the instruction of the people before the year 1540 were still to be in force and among these Chancers Books are by name mentioned No Books were to be Printed about Religion without the Kings Allowance In no Playes nor Enterludes they might make any Expositions of Scripture but only reproach Vice and set forth virtue in them None might read the Scripture in any open Assembly or expound it but he who was Licensed by the King or his Ordinary with a Proviso that the Chancellors in Parliament Judges Recorders or any others who were wont in publick occasions to make Speeches and commonly took a place of Scripture for their Text might still do as they had done formerly Every Noble-man or Gentle-man might cause the Bible to be read to him in or about his House quietly and without disturbance Every Merchant that was a Housholder might also read it But no Woman nor Artificers Apprentices Journeymen Serving-men under the degree of Yeomen nor no Husbandmen or Labourers might read it Yet every Noble Woman or Gentlewoman might read it for her self and so might all other persons but those who were excepted Every person might read and teach in their Houses the Book set out in the year 1540. with the Psalter Primmer Paternoster the Ave and the Creed in English All Spiritual persons who preached or taught contrary to the Doctrine set forth in that Book were to be admitted for the first conviction to renounce their errors for the second to abjure and carry a Faggot which if they refused to do or fell into a third offence they were to be burnt But the Laity for the third offence were only to forfeit their Goods and Chattels and be liable to perpetual Imprisonment But these offences were to be objected to them within a year after they were committed And whereas before the Party accused was not allowed to bring Witnesses for his own Purgation this was now granted him But to this a severe Proviso was added which seemed to overthrow all the former favour that the Act of the six Articles was still in the same force in which it was before the making of this Act. Yet that was moderated by the next Proviso That the King might at any time hereafter at his pleasure change this Act or any Provision in it This last Proviso was made stronger by another Act made for the due execution of Proclamations in pursuance of a former Act to the same effect of which mention was made in the 31st year of the Kings Reign By that former Act there was so great a number of Officers of State and of the Kings Houshold of Judges and other persons to sit on these Trials that those not being easily brought together the Act had never taken any effect Therefore it was now appointed that nine Counsellors should be a sufficient number for these Trials At the passing of that Act the Lord Montjoy protested against it which is the single Instance of a Protestation against any publick Bill through this Kings whole Reign The Act about Religion freed the Subjects from the fears under which they were before For now the Laity were delivered from the hazard of burning and the Spirituality were not in danger but upon the third Conviction They might also bring their own witnesses which was a great favour to them Yet that high power which was given the King of altering the Act or any parts of it made that they were not absolutely secured from their fears of which some instances afterwards appeared But as this Act was some mitigation of former severities so it brought the Reformers to depend wholly on the Kings Mercy for their Lives since he could now chain up or let loose the Act of the six Articles upon them at his pleasure Soon after the end of this Parliament a League was sworn between the King and the Emperour on Trinity Sunday Offensive and Defensive for England Calais and the places about it and for all Flanders with many other particulars to be found in the Treaty set down at large by the Lord Herbert There is no mention made of the Legitimation of the Lady Mary but it seems it was promised that she should be declared next in the Succession of the Crown to Prince Edward if the King had no other Children which was done in the next Parliament without any reflections on her Birth and the Emperor was content to accept of that there being no other terms to be obtained The Popish party who had set up their rest on bringing the King and Emperour to a League and putting the Lady Mary into the Succession no doubt prest the Emperor much to accept of this which we may reasonably believe was vigorously driven on by Bonner who was sent to Spain an Ambassador for concluding this Peace by which also the Emperor gained much for having engaged the Crowns of England and France in a War and drawn off the King of England from his League with the Princes of Germany he was now at more leisure to prosecute his designs in Germany But the negotiation in Scotland succeeded not to the Kings mind though at first there were very good appearances The Cardinal by forging a Will for the dead King got himself and some of his party to be put into the Government But the Earl of Arran Hamilton being the nearest in blood to the young Queen and being generally beloved for his Probity was invited to assume the Government which he managed with great moderation and an universal applause He summoned a Parliament which confirmed him in his Power during the Minority of the Queen The King sent Sir Ralph Sadler to him to agree the Marriage and to desire him to send the young Queen into England And if private ends wrought much on him Sadler was empowered to offer another Marriage of the Kings second Daughter the Lady Elizabeth to his Son The Earl of Arran was himself inclinable to Reformation and very much hated the Cardinal So he was easily brought to consent to a Treaty for the Match which was concluded in August By which the young Queen was to be bred in Scotland till she was ten years of age but the King might send a Nobleman and his Wife with other persons not exceeding 20 to wait on her And for performance of this six Noblemen were to be sent from Scotland for Hostages The Earl of Arran being then Governor kept the Cardinal under restraint till this Treaty was Concluded But he corrupting his Keepers made his escape and joyning with the Queen Mother they made a strong faction against the Governor all the Clergy joyned with the
Guilty to the Endictment shews no extraordinary resolution so the account that is given by them of one Hall a Secular Priest that died with them is so false that there is good reason to suspect all He is said to have suffered on the same account but the Record of his Attaindor gives a very different relation of it He and Robert Feron were endited at the same time for having said many spiteful and Treasonable things as that the King was a Tyrant an Heretick a Robber and an Adulterer that they hoped he should die such a death as King Iohn and Richard the 3d died that they looked when those in Ireland and Wales should invade England and they were assured that three parts of four in England would be against the King they also said that they should never live merrily till the King and the Rulers were plucked by the Pates and brought to the Pot and that it would never be well with the Church till that was done Hall had not only said this but had also written it to Feron the 10th of March that year When they were brought to the Bar they at first pleaded Not Guilty but full proof being brought they themselves confessed the Enditement before the Jury went aside and put themselves on the Kings mercy upon which this being an imagining and contriving both War against the King and the Kings death judgment was given as in cases of Treason but no mention being made of Ferons death it seems he had his pardon Hall suffered with the four Carthusians who were hanged in their habits They proceeded no further in Easter-Term but in Trinity-Term there was another Commission of Oyer and Terminer by which Humphrey Middlemore William Exmew and Sebastian Nudigate three Monks of the Charter-house near London were Endited of Treason for having said on the 25 of May that they neither could nor would consent to be obedient to the Kings Highness as true lawful and obedient Subjects to take him to be Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England They all pleaded not-Guilty but were found Guilty by the Jury and Judgment was given When they were condemned they desired that they might receive the body of Christ before their death But as Judge Spelman writ the Court would not grant it since that was never done in such cases but by Order from the King Two dayes after that they were Executed Two other Monks of that same Order Iohn Rochester and Iames Wolver suffered on the same account at York in May this year Ten other Carthusian Monks were shut up within their Cells where nine of them dyed the tenth was hanged in the beginning of August Concerning those persons I find this said in some Original Letters that they had brought over into England and vented in it some Books that were written beyond Sea against the Kings Marriage and his other proceedings which being found in their house they were pressed to peruse the Books that were written for the King but obstinately refused to do it they had also been involved in the business of the Maid of Kent for which though all the Complices in it except those whom suffered for it were pardoned by Act of Parliament yet such as had been concerned in it were still under jealousie and it is no wonder that upon new provocations they met with the uttermost rigor of the Law These Tryals made way for two others that were more Signal of the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More The first of these had been a Prisoner above a year and was very severely used he complained in his Letters to Cromwell that he had neither Cloaths nor fire being then about fourscore This was understood at Rome and upon it Pope Clement by an Officious kindness to him or rather in spite to King Henry declared him a Cardinal and sent him a Red-hat When the King knew this he sent to Examine him about it but he protested he had used no endeavours to procure it and valued it so little that if the Hat were lying at his feet he would not take it up It never came nearer him than Picardy yet this did precipitate his ruin But if he had kept his opinion of the Kings Supremacy to himself they could not have proceeded further He would not do that but did upon several occasions speak against it so he was brought to his Tryal on the 17th of Iune The Lord Chancellor the Duke of Suffolk and some other Lords together with the Judges sate upon him by a Commission of Oyer and Terminer He pleaded not-Guilty but being found Guilty Judgment was passed on him to die as a Traitor but he was by a Warrant from the King beheaded Upon the 22d of Iune being the day of his Execution he dressed himself with more than ordinary care and when his man took notice of it he told him he was to be that day a Bridegroom As he was led to the place of Execution being stopt in the way by the croud he opened his new Testament and prayed to this purpose that as that Book had been his companion and chief comfort in his imprisonment so then some place might turn up to him that might comfort him in his last passage This being said he opened the Book at a venture in which these words of St. Iohns Gospel turned up This is Life eternal to know thâ—e the only true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent So he shut the Book with much saisfaction and all the way was repeating and meditating on them When he came to the Scaffold he pronounced the Te Deum and after some other devotions his head was cut off Thus dyed Iohn Fisher Bishop of Rochester in the 80th year of his Age. He was a Learned and devout man but much addicted to the superstitions in which he had been bred up And that led him to great severities against all that opposed them He had been for many years Confessor to the Kings Grand-Mother the Countess of Richmonâ— and it was believed that he perswaded her to these Noble designs for the advancement of Learning of Founding two Colledges in Cambridge St. Iohns and Christs Colledge and Divinity Professors in both Universities And in acknowledgment of this he was chosen Chancellor of the University of Cambridge Henry the 7th gave him the Bishoprick of Rochester which he following the rule of the Primitive Church would never change for a better he used to say his Church was his Wife and he would never part with her because she was poor He continued in great favour with the King till the business of the Divorce was set on foot and then he adhered so firmly to the Queens cause and the Popes Supremacy that he was carryed by that headlong into great Errors as appears by the business of the Maid of Kent Many thought the King ought to have proceeded against him rather upon that which was a point of State than upon
the Supremacy which was matter of Conscience But the King was resolved to let all his Subjects see there was no Mercy to be expected by any that denyed his being Supream head of the Church and therefore made him and More two Examples for terrifying the rest This being much censured beyond Sea Gardiner that was never wanting in the most servile complyances wrote a vindication of the Kings proceedings The Lord Herbert had it in his hands and tells us it was written in elegant Latine but that he thought it too long and others judged it was too vehement to be inserted in his History VERA EFFIGIES THOMAE MORI QVONDAM TOTIUS ANGLIAE CANCELLARII DIGNISSIMI ET H. Holbein pinxit R. White sculpsit Natus 1482 Angliae Cancellarius 1529 Capite truncatus An 1535 Iuly 6. to Printed for Ric Chiswell at the Rose and Crowne in St. Pauls Church yard Thus did Sir Thomas More end his days in the 53d year of his age He was a man of rare vertues and excellent parts In his youth he had freer thoughts of things as appears by his Vtopia and his Letters to Erasmus but afterwards he became superstitiously devoted to the interests and passions of the Popish Clergy and as he served them when he was in Authority even to assist them in in all their cruelties so he employed his pen in the same cause both in writing against all the new opinions in general and in particular against Tindal Frith and Barnes as also an unknown Writer who seemed of neither party but reprooved the corruptions of the Clergy and condemned their cruel proceedings More was no Divine at all and it is plain to any that reads his writings that he knew nothing of Antiquity beyond the quotations he found in the Canon-Law and in the Master of the sentences only he had read some of St. Austins treatises for upon all points of Controversie he quotes only what he found in these Collections nor was he at all conversant in the critical learning upon the Scriptures but his peculiar excellency in writing was that he had a natural easie expression and presented all the opinions of Popery with their fair side to the Reader disguising or concealing the black side of them with great Art and was no less dextrous in exposing all the ill consequences that could follow on the Doctrine of the Reformers and had upon all occasions great store of pleasant tales which he applyed wittily to his purpose And in this consists the great strength of his Writings which were designed rather for the Rabble than for Learned men But for justice contempt of money humility and a true generosity of mind he was an example to the Age in which he lived But there is one thing unjustly added to the praise of these two great men or rather feigned on design to lessen the Kings honour that Fisher and he penned the book which the King wrote against Luther This Sanders first published and Bellarmin and others since have taken it up upon his Authority Strangers may be pardoned such errors but they are inexcusable in an English man For in Mores printed works there is a Letter written by him out of the Tower to Cromwel in which he gives an account of his behaviour concerning the Kings Divorce and Supremacy among other particulars one is that when the King shewed him his Book against Luther in which he had asserted the Popes Primacy to be of Divine right More desired him to leave it out since as there had been many contests between Popes and other Princes so there might fall in some between the Pope and the King therefore he thought it was not fit for the King to publish any thing which might be afterwards made use of against himself and advised him either to leave out that point or to touch it very tenderly but the King would not follow his counsel being perhaps so fond of what he had writ that he would rather run himself upon a great inconvenience than leave out any thing that he fancied so well written This shews that More knew that Book was written by the Kings own pen and either Sanders never read this or maliciously concealed it lest it should discover his foul dealing These Executions so terrified all people that there were no further provocations given and all persons either took the Oaths or did so dextrously conceal their opinions that till the Rebellions of Lincolnshire and the North broke out none suffered after this upon a publick account But when these were quieted then the King resolved to make the chief Authors and Leaders of those Commotions publick examples to the rest The Duke of Norfolk proceeded against many of them by Martial Law there were also Tryals at common Law of a great many more that were taken Prisoners and sent up to London The Lords Darcy and Hâ—ssie were tryed by their Peers the Marquis of Exceter sitting Steward And a Commission of Oyer and Terminer being issued out for the Tryal of the rest Sir Robert Constable Sir Iohn Bulmer and his Lady Sir Francis Pigot Sir Stephen Hamilton and Sir Thomas Piercy and Ask that had been their Captain with the Abbots of Whalley Ierveux Bridlington Lenton Woburn and Kingstead and Mackrall the Monk that first raised the Lincolnshire Rebellion with sixteen more were Indicted of high Treason for the late Rebellions And after all the steps of the Rebellion were reckoned up it is added in the Indictment that they had met together on the 17th of Ianuary and consulted how to renew it and prosecute it further being encouraged by the new Risings that were then in the North by which they had forfeited all the favour to which they could have pretended by vertue of the Indemnity that was granted in the end of December and of the pardons which they had taken out They were all found Guilty and had judgment as in cases of Treason divers of them were carryed down into Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and executed in the places where their Treasons were committed but most of them suffered at London and among others the Lady Bulmer whom others call Sir Iohn Bulmers harlot was burnt for it in Smithfield The only censure that passed on this was that advantages were taken on too slight grounds to break the Kings Indemnity and pardon since it does not appear that after their pardon they did any thing more than meet and consult But the Kingdom was so shaken with that Rebellion that if it had not bâ—en for the great conduct of the Duke of Norfolk the King had by all appearance lost his Crown And it will not seem strange that a King especially so tempered as this was had a mind to strike terror into the rest of his Subjects by some signal Examples and to put out of the way the chief leaders of that design nor was it to be wondered at that the Abbots and other Clergy-men who had been so active in
Abbeys All those Sir Edward Nevill only excepted pleaded Guilty and so they were condemned but Sir Geofrey Pole was the only person of the number that was not Executed for he had discovered the matter At the same time also Cardinal Pole Michael Throgmorton Gentleman Iohn Hilliard and Thomas Goldwell Clerks and William Pâ—â—to a Franciscan of the Observance were Attainted in Absence because they had cast off their duty to the King and had subjected themselves to the Bishop of Rome Pole being made Cardinal by him and for writing Treasonable Letters and sending them into England On the 4th of February following Sir Nicholas Carew that was both Master of the Horse and Knight of the Garter was Arraigned for being an adherent to the Marquess of Exeter and having spoke of his Attaindor as unjust and cruel he was also Attainted and Executed upon the 3d of March When he was brought to the Scaffold he openly acknowledged the errors and superstition in which he had formerly lived and blessed God for his Imprisonment for he then began to relish the Life and sweetness of Gods holy Word which was brought him by his Keeper one Phillips who followed the Reformation and had formerly suffered for it After these Executions followed the Parliament in the year 15â—9 in which not only these Attaindors that were already passed were confirmed but new ones of a strange and unheard-of nature were Enacted It is a blemish never to be washed off and which cannot be enough condemned and was a breach of the most sacred and unalterable Rules of Justice which is capable of no excuse it was the Attainting of some persons whom they held in custody without bringing them to a Tryal Concerning which I shall add what the great Lord Chief Justice Cook writes although I question not the Power of the Parliament for without question the Attaindor stands of force in Law yet this I say of the manner of proceeding Aâ—ferat Oblivio si potest si non utrumque silentium tegat For the more high and absolute the Jurisdiction of the Court is the more just and honourable it ought to be in the proceedings and to give Example of Justice to inferior Courts The chief of these were the Marchioness of Exeter and the Countess of Sarum The special matter charged on the former is her confederating her self to Sir Nicolas Carew in his Treasons to which is added that she had committed divers other abominable Treasons The latter is said to have confederated her self with her Son the Cardinal with other aggravating words It does not appear by the Journal that any Witnesses were examined only that day that the Bills were read the third time in the House of Lords Cromwell shewed them a Coat of white silk which the Lord Admiral had found among the Countess of Sarums Cloaths in which the Arms of England were wrought on the one side and the Standard that was carryed before the Rebels was on the other side This was brought as an evidence that she approved of the Rebellion Three Irish Priests were also Attainted for carrying Letters out of Ireland to the Pope and Cardinal Pole as also Sir Adrian Fortescue for endeavouring to raise Rebellion Thomas Dingley a Knight of St. Iohn of Ierusalem and Robert Granceter Merchant for going to several Forreign Princes and perswading them to make War upon the King and assist the Lords Darcy and Hussie in the Rebellion they had raised Two Gentlemen a Dominican Frier and a Yeoman were by the same Act Attainted for saying that that venemous Serpent the Bishop of Rome was Supream Head of the Church of England Another Gentleman two Priests and a Yeoman are Attainted for Treason in general no particular crime being specified Thus sixteen persons were in this manner Attainted and if there was any Examination of Witnesses for convicting them it was either in the Star-Chamber or before the Privy Council for there is no mention of any evidence that was brought in the Journals There was also much haste made in the passing this Bill it being brought in the 10th of May was read that day for the first and second time and the 11th of May for the third time The Commons kept it five days before they sent it back and added some more to those that were in the Bill at first but how many were named in the Bill Originally and how many were afterwards added cannot be known Fortescue and Dingley suffered the 10th of Iuly As for the Countess of Sarum the Lord Herbert saw in a Record that Bulls from the Pope were found in her House that she kept correspondence with her Son and that she forbade her Tenants to have the new Testament in English or any other of the Books that had been published by the Kings Authority She was then about seventy years of Age but shewed by the answers she made that she had a vigorous and masculine mind She was kept two years Prisoner in the Tower after the Act had passed the King by that reprieve designing to oblige her Son to a better behaviour but upon a fresh provocation by a new Rebellion in the North she was beheaded and in her the name and line of Plantagenet determined The Marchioness of Exceter died a natural death In November this year were the Abbots of Reading Glossenbury and Colechester Attainted of Treason of which mention was made formerly In the Parliament that sate in the year 1540 they went on to follow that strange precedent which they had made the former year By the 56th Act Giles Heron was Attainted of Treason no special matter being mentioned By the 57th Act Richard Fetherstoun Thomas Abell and Edward Pole Priests and William Horn a Yeoman were Attainted for denying the Kings Supremacy and adhering to the Bishop of Rome by the same Act the Wife of one Tirrell Esquire was Attainted for refusing her duty of Alleageance and denying Prince Edward to be Prince and heir of the Crown and one Laurence Cook of Doncaster was also Attainted for contriving the Kings death By the 58th Act Gregory Buttolph Adam Damplip and Edward Brindeholm Clerks and Clement Philpot Gentleman were Attainted for adhering to the Bishop of Rome for corresponding with Cardinal Pole and endeavouring to surprize the Town of Callais By the same Act Barnes Gerard and Ierome were Attainted of whose sufferings an account has been already given By the 59th Act William Bird a Priest and Chaplain to the Lord Hungerford was attainted for having said to one that was going to Assist the King against the Rebels in the North I am sorry thou goest seest thou not how the King plucketh down Images and Abbies every day and if the King go thither himself he will never come home again nor any of them all which go with him and in truth it were pity he should ever come home again and at another time upon ones saying O good Lord I ween all the World will be
The Laws made in England against Hereticks p. 25. Vnder Richard the 2d ibid. Vnder Henry the 4th ibid. And Henry the 5th p. 26 Heresie declared by the Kings Iudges p. 27 Warhams proceeding against Hereticks ib. The Bishop of London's proceedings against them p. 29 The Progress of Luthers Doctrine p. 30 His Books were Translated into English p. 31 The King wrote against him ibid. He replyed ibid. Endeavours to suppress the New Testament p. 32 Sir Thomas More writes against Luther ibid. Bilney and others proceeded against for Heresie ibid. BOOK II. Of the Process of Divorce between King Henry and Queen Katherine and of what passed from the 19th to the 25th year of his Reign in which he was declared Supream Head of the Church of England THe beginning of the Sute of Divorce p. 34 Prince Arthur Marryed the Infanta ibid. And died soon after p. 35 A Marriage proposed between Henry and her ibid. It is allowed by the Pope ibid. Henry Protested against it p. 36 His Father disswaded it ibid. Being come to the Crown he Marries her ibid. Shâ— bore some Children but only the Lady Mary lived ibid. Several Matches proposed for her p. 37 The Kings Marriage is questioned by Forreigners ibid. Anno 1527. He himself has Scruples concerning it ib. The Grounds of these p. 38 All his Bishops except Fisher condemn it ibid. The reasons of State against it p. 39. Wolsey goes into France ibid. The Kings fears and hopes ibid. Arguments against the Bull p. 40 Calumnies cast on Anne Boleyn p. 41 They are false and ill-contrived p. 42 Her Birth and Education p. 43 She was contrâ—cted to the Lord Piercy p. 44 The Divorce moved for at Rome ibid. The first Dispatch concerning it ibid. Anno 1528. The Pope granted it p. 47 And gave a Bull of dispensation p. 48 The Popes craft and policy ibid. A subtile method proposed by the Pope p. 49 Staphileus sent from England p. 50 The Cardinals Letters to the Pope p. 57 A fuller Bull is desired by the King ibid. Gardiner and Fox are sent to Rome p. 52 The Bull desired by them ibid. Wolsey's earnestness to procure it p. 53 Campegio declared Legate p. 54 He delaies his Iourney ibid. The Pope grants the Decretal Bull p. 55 Two Letters from Anne Boleyn to Wolsey ibid. Wolsey desires the Bull may be seen by some of the Kings Council p. 56 The Emperor opposes the Kings business p. 57 A Breve is found in Spain ibid. It was thought to be forged ibid. Campegio comes to England p. 58 And lets the King see the Bull ibid. But refuses to shew it to others ibid. Wolsey moves the Pope that some might see it ibid. But in vain p. 59 Campana is sent by the Pope to Engl. p. 60 The King offers the Pope a Guard ibid. The Pope inclines to the Emperor ibid. Threatnings used to him p. 61 Anno 1529. HE repents the sending over a Bull ibid. But feeds the King with Promises p. 62 The Popes sickness p. 63 Wolsey aspires to the Papacy Ibid. Instructions for promoting him p. 64 New motions for the Divorce p. 65 The Pope Relapses dangerously ibid. A new Dispatch to Rome p. 66 Wolseys Bulls for the Bishoprick of Winton p. 67 The Emperor Protests against the Legates ib. Yet the Pope promises not to recal it ibid. The Legates write to the Pope p. 68 Campegio led an ill life p. 69 The Emperor moves for an Avocation ibid. The Popes Dissimulation p. 70 Great contests about the Avocation ibid. The Legates begin the Process p. 72 A severe charge against the Queen ibid. The King and Queen appear in Court ibid. The Queens speech p. 73. The King declares his scruples ibid. The Queen Appeals to the Pope p. 74 Articles framed and witnesses examined ib. An Avocation prest at Rome ibid. The Pope joyns with the Emperor p. 75 Yet is in great perplexities ibid. The Avocation is granted p. 76 The Proceedings of the Legates ibid. Campegio adjourns the Court p. 77 Which gave great offence ibid. Wolseys danger ibid. Anne Boleyn returns to Court p. 78 Cranmers Opinion about the Divorce p. 79 Approved by the King p. 80 Cardinal Wolsey's fall ibid. The meanness of his temper p. 81 He is Attached of Treason ibid. He dies his Character p. 82. A Parliament called ibid. Complaints against the Clergy p. 83 The Kings debts are discharged ibid. The Pope and the Emperor unite p. 84 The Womens peace ibid. Anno 1530. The Emperor is Crowned at Bononia ib. The Vniversities consulted in the Kings sute of Divorce p. 85 The answers from Oxford and Cambridge p. 86. D. Crook Imployed in Venice p. 87 Many in Italy wrote for the Divorce p. 88 It was opposed by the Pope and the Emperor p. 89 No Money given by the Kings Agents ibid. Great Rewards given by the Emperor p. 90 It is determined for the King at Bononia Padua Ferrara and Orleance p. 91 At Paris Bourges and Tholose p. 92 The Opinions of some Reformers ibid. And of the Lutherans p. 94 The King will not appear at Rome ibid. Cranmer offers to defend the Divorce p. 95 The Clergy Nobility and Gentry write to the Pope for the Divorce ibid. The Popes answer to them p. 96 A Proclamation against Bulls ibid. Books written for the Divorce p. 97 Reasons out of the Old and New Testament ibid. The Authorities of Popes and Councils p. 98 And the Greek and Latine Fathers p. 99 And Canonists p. 100 Marriage is Compleat by Consent ibid. Violent Presumptions of the Consummation of the former Marriage ibid. The Popes Dispensation of no force p. 101. Bishops are not to obey his Decrees p. 102 The Authority of Tradition ibid. The Reasons against the Divorce p. 103 Answers made to these p. 104 The Queen is intractable p. 105 Anno 1531. A Session of Parliament ibid. The Clergy found in a Premunire p. 106 The Prerogatives of the Kings of England in Ecclesiastical affairs ibid. The Encroachments of Popes ibid. Statutes made against them p. 107 The Popes endeavoured to have those repealed p. 109 But with no effect p. 111 The Clergy excused themselves p. 112 Yet they submit and acknowledg the King Supream Head of the Church ibid. The King Pardons them p. 113 And with some difficulty the Laity ibid. One Attainted for Poysoning ibid. The King leaves the Queen p. 114 A disorder among the Clergy ibid. The Pope turns to the French p. 115 And offers his Niece to the Duke of Orleance ibid. The Turk invades the Empire p. 116 Anno 1532. THe Parliament complains of the Spiritual Courts ibid. They reject a Bill concerning Wards p. 117 An Act against Annates ibid. The Pope writes to the King p. 118 The Kings answer ibid. Sir Edward Car sent to Rome p. 119 His Negotiation there p. 120 He corrupts the Cardinal of Ravenna ibid. The Process against the King at Rome p. 121 A Bull for new Bishopricks ibid. The Pope desires
or Monk of this House have any Child or Boy laying or privily accompanying with him or otherwise haunting unto him other than to help him to Mass. Also that the Brethren of this House when they be sick or evil at ease be seen unto and be kept in the Infirmary duly as well for their sustenance of Meat and Drink as for their good keeping Also that the Abbot or President keep and find in some University one or two of his Brothers according to the Ability and Possessions of this House which Brethren after they be learned in good and holy Letters when they return home may instruct and teach their Brethren and diligently preach the Word of God Also that every day by the space of one hour a Lesson of Holy Scripture be kept in this Covent to which all under pain by this said President to be moderated shall resort which President shall have Authority to dispense with them that they with a low and treatable voice say their long hours which were wont to be sung Also that the Brethren of this House after Divine Service done read or hear somewhat of Holy Scripture or occupy themself in some such like honest and laudable exercise Also that all and every Brethren of this House shall observe the Rule Statutes and laudable Customs of this Religion as far as they do agree with Holy Scripture and the Word of God And that the Abbot Prior or President of this Monastery every day shall expound to his Brethren as plainly as may be in English a certain part of the Rule that they have professed and apply the same always to the Doctrine of Christ and not contrariwise and he shall teach them that the said Rule and other their Principles of Religion so far as they be laudable be taken out of Holy Scripture and he shall show them the places from whence they were derived and that their Ceremonies and other observances of Religion be none other things than as the first Letters or Principles and certain Introductions to true Christianity or to observe an order in the Church And that true Religion is not contained in Apparel manner of going shaven Heads and such other marks nor in silence fasting up-rising in the night singing and such other kind of Ceremonies but in cleanness of mind pureness of living Christ's Faith not feigned and brotherly Charity and true honouring of God in Spirit and Verity And that those above-said things were instituted and begun that they being first exercised in these in process of time might ascend to those as by certain steps that is to say to the chief point and end of Religion and therefore let them be diligently exhorted that they do not continually stick and surcease in such Ceremonies and Observances as tho they had perfectly fulfilled the chief and outmost of the whole true Religion but that when they have once past such things they endeavour themselves to higher things and convert their minds from such external Matters to more inward and deeper Considerations as the Law of God and Christian Religion doth teach and show And that they assure not themselves of any Reward or Commodity any wise by reason of such Ceremonies and Observances except they refer all such to Christ and for his sake observe them and for that they might thereby the more easily keep such things as he hath commanded as well to them as to all Christian People Also that the Abbot and President of this Place shall make a full and true reckoning and accompt of his Administration every year to his Brethren as well of his Receipts as Expences and that the said Accompt be written in a great Book remaining with the Covent Also that the Abbot and President of this House shall make no waste of the Woods pertaining to this House nor shall set out unadvisedly any Farmes or Reversions without the consent of the more part of the Convent Also that there be assigned a Book and a Register that may copy out into that Book all such Writings word by word as shall pass under the Convent-Seal of this House Also that no Man be suffered to profess or to wear the Habit of Religion in this House e're he be 24 years of Age compleat And that they entice nor allure no Man with suasions and blandyments to take the Religion upon him Item that they shall not shew no Reliques or feigned Miracles for encrease of Lucre but that they exhort Pilgrims and Strangers to give that to the Poor that they thought to offer to their Images or Reliques Also that they shall suffer no Fairs or Markets to be kept or used within the limits of this House Also that every Brother of this House that is a Priest shall every day in his Mass pray for the most happy and most prosperous estate of our Sovereign Lord the King and his most noble and lawful Wife Queen Ann. Also that if either the Master or any Brother of this House do infringe any of the said Injunctions any of them shall denounce the same or procure to be denounced as soon as may be to the King's Majesty or to his Visitor-General or his Deputy And the Abbot or Master shall minister spending Mony and other Necessaries for the way to him that shall so denounce Other Spiritual Injunctions may be added by the Visitor as the place and nature of the Comperts shall require after his discretion Reserving Power to give more Injunctions and to examine and discuss the Comperts to punish and reform them that be convict of any notable Crime to search and try the Foundations Charters Donations Appropriations and Muniments of the said Places and to dispose all such Papistical Escripts as shall be there found to the Right Honourable Mr. Thomas Cromwell General-Visitor to the King 's said Highness as shall seem most expedient to his high wisdom and discretion III. Some Particulars relating to the Dissolution of Monasteries Section I. The Preamble of the Surrender of the Monastery of Langden OMnibus Christi fidelibus c. Willielmus Dyer Abbas Monasterii Beatae Mariae Virginis S. Thomae Martyris de Langden in Com. Kent ejusdem loci Conventus Ordinis Praemonstrat capitulum dictae domus plene facientes ejusdemque domus quae in suis fructibus redditibus provenien even emolumen non mediocriter deteriorata est quasi in totum diminuta ingentique aere alieno obruta oppressa gravata extitit statum usque adeo matura deliberatione diligenti tractatu considerantes ponderantes pensantes quod nisi celeri remedio regia provisione huic Monasterio sive Prioratui quippe quod de ejus fundatione personatu existit brevi succuratur provideatur funditus in Spiritualibus Temporalibus annihiletur per praesentes damus concedimus c. The rest follows in the ordinary form of Law but the ordinary Preamble in most Surrenders is Omnibus Christi fidelibus c. Nos Salutem Sciatis
lingring Disease The Plot goes on but scurvily when the next thing that is brought to confirm it is contradicted by Records Prince Arthur was born the 20 th of September in the year 1486 and so was 15 years old and two months passed at the 14 th of November 1501 in which he was married to the Princess and was then of a lively and good Complexion and did not begin to decay till the Shrovetide following which was imputed to his excesses in the Bed at the Witnesses deposed 3. He says Upon the motion for the marrying of his Brother Henry to the Princess it was agreed to by all that the thing was lawful It was perhaps agreed on at Rome where Mony and other political Arts sway their Counsels but it was not agreed to in England for which we have no meaner Author than Warham Arch-Bishop of Canterbury who when examined upon Oath deposed that himself then thought the Marriage was not honourable nor well-pleasing to God and that he had thereupon opposed it much and that the People murmured at it 4. He says There was not one Man in any Nation under Heaven or in the whole Church that spake against it The common Stile of the Roman Church calling the See of Rome the Catholick Church must be applied to this to bring off our Author otherwise I know not how to save his Reputation Therefore by all the Nations under Heaven must be understood only the Divines at Rome tho when it came to be examined they could scarce find any who would justify it all the most famous Universities Divines and Canonists condemned it and Warham's Testimony contradicts this plainly besides the other great Authorities that were brought against it for which see lib. 2. from pag. 91. to pag. 103. 5. He says The King once said He would not marry the Queen Here is a pretty Essay of our Authors Art who would make us think it was only in a transient discourse that the King said he would not marry Queen Katherine but this was more maturely done by a solemn Protestation which he read himself before the Bishop of Winchester that he would never marry her and that he revoked his consent given under Age. This was done when he came to be of Age see pag. 36. it is also confessed by Sanders himself 6. He says The Queen bore him three Sons and two Daughters All the Books of that time speak only of two Sons and one Daughter but this is a flourish of his Pen to represent her a fruitful Mother 7. He says The King had sometimes two sometimes three Concubines at once It does not appear he had ever any but Elizabeth Blunt and if we judge of his Life by the Letters the Popes wrote to him and many printed Elogies that were published then he was a Prince of great Piety and Religion all that while 8. He says The Lady Mary was first desired in marriage by Iames the 5 th of Scotland then by Charles the 5 th the Emperor and then Francis asked her first for the Dolphin then for the Duke of Orleance and last of all for himself But all this is wrong placed for she was first contracted to the Dolphin then to the Emperor and then treated about to the King of Scotland after that it was left to Francis his choice whether she should be married to himself or his second Son the Duke of Orleance So little did our Poet know the publick Transactions of that time 9. He says She was in the end contracted to the Dolphin from whence he concludes that all Forreign Princes were satisfied with the lawfulness of the Marriage She was first of all contracted to the Dolphin Forreign Princes were so little satisfied of the lawfulness of the Marriage that tho she being Heir to the Crown of England was a Match of great advantage yet their Counsellors excepted to it on that very account that the Marriage was not good This was done in Spain and she was rejected as a Writer who lived in that time informs us and Sanders confesses it was done by the French Ambassadour 10. He says Wolsey was first Bishop of Lincoln then of Duresme after that of Winchester and last of all Arch-Bishop of York after that he was made Chancellor then Cardinal and Legate The order of these Preferments is quite reversed for Wolsey soon after he was made Bishop of Lincoln upon Cardinal Bembridge his death was not only promoted to the See of York but advanced to be a Cardinal in the 7 th year of the King's Reign And some months after that he was made Lord Chancellor and seven years after that he got the Bishoprick of Duresme which six years after he exchanged for Winchester He had heard perhaps that he enjoyed all these Preferments but knowing nothing of our Affairs beyond hear-say he resolved to make him rise as Poets order their Heroes by degrees and therefore ranks his Advancement not according to Truth but in the method he liked best himself 11. He says Wolsey first designed the Divorce and made Longland that was the King's Confessor second his motion for it The King not only denied this in publick saying That he himself had first moved it to Longland in Confession and that Wolsey had opposed it all he could but in private discourse with Grinaeus told him he had laboured under these scruples for seven years septem perpetuis annis trepidatio Which reckoning from the year 1531 in which Grinaeus wrote this to one of his Friends will fall back to the year 1524. long before Wolsey had any provocation to tempt him to it 12. He says In the year 1526 in which the King was first made to doubt of his Marriage he was resolved then whom to marry when he was once divorced But by his other Story Ann Boleyn was then but fifteen years old and went to France at that Age where she staied a considerable time before she came to the Court of England 13. He says The King spent a year in a private search to see what could be found either in the Scriptures or the Pope's Bull to be made use of against his Marriage but they could find nothing In that time all the Bishops of England except Fisher declared under their Hands and Seals that they thought the Marriage unlawful for which see pag. 38. and upon what Reasons this was grounded has been clearly opened pag. 97. 14. He says If there were any ambiguities in the Pope's first Letters meaning the Bull for dispensing with the marriage they were cleared by other Letters which Ferdinand of Spain had afterwards procured These other Letters by which he means the Breve bear date the same day with the Bull and so were not procured afterwards There were indeed violent presumptions of their being forged long after even after the Process had been almost an year in agitation But tho they helped the matter in
are only due unto God trusting to attain at their hands that which must be had only of God but that they be thus to be honoured because they be known the Elect persons of Christ because they be passed in Godly Life out of this transitory World because they already do Reign in Glory with Christ and most specially to laude and praise Christ in them for their excellent vertues which he planted in them for example of and by them to such as are yet in this World to live in vertue and goodness and also not to fear to dye for Christ and his cause as some of them did and finally to take them in that they may to be the advancers of our prayers and demands unto Christ. By these ways and such like be Saints to be honoured and had in reverence and by none other Of Praying to Saints AS touching Praying to Saints We will that all Bishops and Preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge that albeit grace remission of sin and Salvation cannot be obtained but of God only by the mediation of our Saviour Christ which is only sufficient mediator for our sins yet it is very laudable to pray to Saints in Heaven everlastingly living whose charity is ever permanent to be intercessors and to pray for us and with us unto Almighty God after this manner All holy Angels and Saints in Heaven pray for us and with us unto the Father that for his dear Son Jesus Christ's sake we may have grace of him and remission of our sins with an earnest purpose not wanting Ghostly strength to observe and keep his holy Commandments and never to decline from the same again unto our lives end And in this manner we may pray to our Blessed Lady to St. Iohn Baptist to all and every of the Apostles or any other Saint particularly as our devotion doth serve us so that it be done without any vain superstition as to think that any Saint is more merciful or will hear us sooner than Christ or that any Saint doth serve for one thing more than another or is Patron of the same And likewise we must keep Holy-days unto God in memory of him and his Saints upon such days as the Church hath Ordained their memories to be celebrated except they be mitigated and moderated by the assent or commandment of the Supream head to the Ordinaries and then the Subjects ought to obey it Of Rites and Ceremonies AS concerning the Rites and Ceremonies of Christs Church as to have such vestments in doing God service as be and have been most part used as Sprinkling of holy-Water to put us in remembrance of our Baptism and the blood of Christ sprinkled for our redemption upon the Cross Giving of holy bread to put us in remembrance of the Sacrament of the Altar that all Christen men be one body mystical of Christ as the bread is made of many grains and yet but one Loaf and to put us in remembrance of the receiving the holy Sacrament and body of Christ the which we ought to receive in right Charity which in the beginning of Christs Church men did more often receive than they use now adays to do Bearing of Candles on Candlemas-day in memory of Christ the spiritual light of whom Simeon did prophesie as is read in the Church that day Giving of ashes on Ash-Wedensday to put in remembrance every Christen man in the beginning of Lent and Penance that he is but ashes and earth and thereto shall return which is right necessary to be uttered from henceforth in our mother-tongue always on the same day Bearing of Palms on Palm-Sunday in memory of receiving of Christ into Ierusalem a little before his death that we may have the same desire to receive him into our hearts Creeping to the Cross and humbling our selves to Christ on Good-Friday before the Cross and offering there unto Christ before the same and kissing of it in memory of our Redemption by Christ made upon the Cross Setting up the Sepulture of Christ whose body after his death was buried the Hallowing of the Font and other like Exorcisms and Benedictions by the Ministers of Christs Church and all other like laudable Customs Rites and Ceremonies be not to be contemned and cast away but to be used and continued as things good and laudable to put us in remembrance of those spiritual things that they do signifie not suffering them to be forgotten or to be put in oblivion but renuing them in our memories from time to time but none of these Ceremonies have Power to remit sin but only to stir and lift up our minds unto God by whom only our sins be forgiven Of Purgatory FOrasmuch as due order of Charity requireth and the book of Maccabees and divers ancient Doctors plainly shewing that it is a very good and charitable deed to pray for Souls departed and forasmuch also as such usage hath continued in the Church so many years even from the beginning We will that all Bishops and Preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge that no man ought to be grieved with the continuance of the same and that it standeth with the very due Order of Charity for a Christen man to pray for Souls departed and to commit them in our prayers to Gods mercy and also to cause others to pray for them in Masses and Exequies and to give Alms to others to pray for them whereby they may be relieved and holpen of some part of their pain But forasmuch as the place where they be the name thereof and kind of pains there also be to us uncertain by Scripture therefore this with all other things we remit to God Almighty unto whose mercy it is meet and convenient for us to commend them trusting that God accepteth our prayers for them referring the rest wholly to God to whom is known their estate and condition wherefore it is much necessary that such Abuses be clearly put away which under the name of Purgatory hath been advanced as to make men believe that through the Bishop of Romes Pardon Souls might clearly be delivered out of Purgatory and all the pains of it or that Masses said at Scala caeli or otherwhere in any place or before any Image might likewise deliver them from all their pain and send them streight to Heaven and other like Abuses Signed Thomas Cromwell T. Cantuarien Edwardus Ebor. Ioannes London Cuthbertus Dunelmen Ioannes Lincoln Ioannes Lincoln Nomine procuratorio pro Dom. Ioan. Exon. Hugo Wygornen Ioannes Roffen Richardus Cicestren Ioannes Bathonien Thomas Elien Ioannes Lincoln nomine procuratorio pro Dom. Rowlando Coven Lichfielden Ioannes Bangoren Nicholaus Sarisburien Edwardus Hereforden Willielmus Norwicen Willielmus Meneven Robertus Assaven Robertus Abbas Sancti Albani Willielmus Ab. Westmonaster Ioannes Ab. Burien A Richardus Ab. Glasconiae A Hugo Ab. Redying Robertus Ab. Malmesbur Clemens Ab. Eveshamen