that the said Clergy according to the Tenour of the King 's Writ and the Ancient Laws and Customs of this Noble Realm might have their Room and Place and be associated with the Commons in the Nether House of this present Parliament as Members of the Common-Wealth and the King 's most humble Subjects And if this may not be permitted and granted unto them that then no Statutes nor Laws concerning the Christian Religion or which shall concern especially the Persons Possessions Rooms Livings Jurisdictions Goods or Chattels of the said Clergy may pass nor be enacted the said Clergy not being made privy thereunto and their Answers and Reasons not heard The said Clergy do most humbly beseech an Answer and Declaration to be made unto them what the said most Reverend Father in God and all other the Bishops have done in this their humble Suit and Request to the end that the said Clergy if need be may chuse of themselves such able and discreet Persons which shall effectually follow the same Suit in the Name of them all And whereas in a Statute ordained and established by Authority of Parliament at Westminster in the 25th Year of the Reign of the most excellent Prince King Henry the 8th The Clergy of this Realm submitting themselves to the King's Highness did knowledg and confess according to the Truth That the Convocations of the same Clergy have been and ought to be assembled by the King 's Writ and did promise farther in Verbo Sacerdotii that they never from thenceforth would presume to attempt alledg claim or put in use or enact promulge or execute any new Canons Constitutions Ordinances Provincials or other or by whatsoever other Name they shall be called in the Convocation unless the King 's most Royal Assent and License may to them be had to make promulge and execute the same And his Majesty to give his most Royal Assent and Authority in that behalf upon pain of every one of the Clergy doing the contrary and being thereof Convict to suffer Imprisonment and make Fine at the King 's Will. And that no Canons Constitutions or Ordinances shall be made or put in execution within this Realm by Authority of the Convocation of the Clergy which shall be repugnant to the King's Prerogative Royal or the Customs Laws or Statutes of this Realm which Statute is eft-soons renewed and established in the 27th Year of the Reign of the most noble King as by the Tenour of both Statutes more at large will appear The said Clergy being presently assembled in Convocation by Authority of the King 's Writ do desire that the King's Majesty's License in writing may be for them obtained and granted according to the effect of the said Statutes authorising them to attempt entreat and commune of such Matters and therein freely to give their Consents which otherwise they may not do upon pain and peril premised Also the said Clergy desireth that such Matters as concerneth Religion which be disputable may be quietly and in good order reasoned and disputed among them in this House whereby the Verities of such Matters shall the better appear and the Doubts being opened and resolutely discussed Men may be fully perswaded with the quietness of their Consciences and the time well spent Number 18. A Paper offered to Q. Elizabeth and afterwards to K. James concerning the Inferior Clergies being brought to the House of Commons Reasons to induce her Majesty that Deans Arch-Deacons and some other of her grave and wise Clergie may be admitted into the Lower House of Parliament 1. IN former Times when Causes Ecclesiastical were either not at all Ex M.S. Dr. Borlace or else very rarely treated of in that Assembly the Clergy were thought Men most meet to consult and determine of the Civil Affairs of this Realm 2. The Supream Authority in Church Causes is not newly granted but reunited and restored to the Crown and an Order is by Law already established how all Abuses in the Church are to be reformed so as no cause concerning Religion may be handled in that House without her Majesty's special leave but with the manifest impeaching of her Prerogative Royal and contempt of the said Order 3. If it shall please her Highness to give way to this Course that Church-Matters be there debated and in part concluded How much more necessary is it now than it was in former Times that some of the Clergy should be there present at the same * In the same Paper written over to be presented to K. James this Article is thus varied It is thought the Clergie falling into a Premunire and so not in the King's Protection it did afterwards please the King to pardon them but not to restore them So began this Separation as far forth as can be collected then the Wisdom of a great Politician meeting with the Ambition of as great a Prelat wrought the continuance of the said Separation under this pretence That it should be most for the Honour of him and his Clergie to be still by themselves in two Assemblies of Convocation answerable in proportion to the two Houses of Parliament There are many other inconsiderable Amendments made by Bishop Ravis 's own hand It doth not appear why they were excluded but as it is thought either the King offended with some of them did so grievously punish the whole Body or else the Ambition of one of them meeting with the subtilty of an undermining Politick did occasion this causeless Separation 5. They are yet to this day called by several Writs directed into their several Diocesses under the Great Seal to assist the Prince in that High Court of Parliament 6. Though the Clergy and the Universities be not the worst Members of this Common-Wealth yet in that respect they are of all other in worst condition for in that Assembly every Shire hath their Knights and every incorporate Town their Burgesses only the Clergy and the Universities are excluded 7. The Wisdom and Justice of this Realm doth intend That no Subject should be bound to that Law whereunto he himself after a sort hath not yielded his Consent but the Clergy and the Universities may now be concluded by Law without their Consent without their just Defence without their Privity 8. The many Motions made so prejudicial to the State and being of the Clergy and Universities followed now with so great eagerness in that House would then be utterly silenced or soon repressed with the sober and sufficient Answers of the Clergy present 9. It would much repair the Reputation and Credit of the Clergy which now is exposed to great contumely and contempt as generally abroad in this Land so particularly in that House And whoso is religious and wise may observe That the Contempt of the Clergy is the high way to Atheism and all Prophaneness Men are Flesh and not Spirit led by ordinary outward Means and not usually overwrought by extraordinary Inspirations and therefore do easily
plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a â—acrament and hath given occasion to many Superâ—â—itions The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after an Heavenly and Spiritual Manner And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture and hath given occasion to many Superstitions Since the very Being of humane Nature doth require that the Body of one and the same Man cannot be at one and the same time in many places but of necessity must be in some certain and determinate place therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present in many different places at the same time And since as the Holy Scriptures testify Christ hath been taken up into Heaven and there is to abide till the end of the World it becometh not any of the Faithful to believe or profess that there is a Real or Corporeal presence as they phrase it of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's Ordinance reserved carried about lifted up or worshipped XXIX Of the Wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the Lord's Supper The wicked and such as be void of a lively Faith altho they do carnally and visibly press with their Teeth as St. Augustine saith the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the Sign or Sacrament of so great a thing XXX Of both Kinds The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people For both the parts of the Lord's Sacrament by Christ's Ordinance and Commandment ought not to be ministred to all Christian People alike XXX Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross The Offering of Christ once made is a perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the Sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for Sin but that alone Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in which it was commonly said That the Priests did offer Christ for the Quick and the Dead to have remission of Pain or Guilt were * blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits XXXI A single Life is imposed on none by the Word of God Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by God's Law either to vow the estate of a single Life or to abstain from Marriage Therefore it is lawful for them as for all other Christian Men to Marry at their own discretion as they shall judg thâ— same to serve better to Godliness XXXII Excommunicated Persons are to be avoided That Person which by open Denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the Unity of the Church and Excommunicated ought to be taken of the whole Multitude of the Faithful as an Heathen and Publican until he be openly reconciled by Penance and received into the Church by a Judg that hath Authority thereunto XXXIII Of the Tradition of the Church It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one and utterly alike for at all times they have been divers and may be changed according to the diversities of Countries Times and Mens Manners so that nothing be ordained against God's Word Whosoever through his private judgment willingly and purposely doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the Word of God and be ordained and reproved by common Authority ought to be rebuked openly that others may fear to do the like as he that offendeth against the common Order of the Church and hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Consciences of the weak Brethren Every Particular or National Church hath Authority to ordain change or abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by Man's Authority so that all things be done to edifying XXXIV Of the Homilies The second Book of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joined under this Article doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine and necessary for the Times as doth the former Book of Homilies which were set forth in the time of Edward the 6th and therefore we judg them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the People The Names of the Homilies Of the Right Use of the Church Of Repairing Churches Against the Peril of Idolatry Of Good Works c. The Homilies lately delivered and commended to the Church of England by the King's Injunctions do contain a godly and wholsome Doctrine and fit to be embraced by all Men and for that cause they are diligently plainly and distinctly to be read to the People XXXV Of the Book of Common Prayer and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England The Book lately delivered to the Church of England by the Authority of the King and Parliament containing the manner and form of publick Prayer and the Ministration of the Sacraments The Book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons lately set forth in the time of King Edward the Sixth and confirmed at the same time by Authority of Parliament doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering Neither hath it any thing that of it self is superstitious and ungodly And therefore whosoever are Consecrated and Ordered according to the Rites of that Book since the second Year of the afore-named King Edward unto this time or hereafter shall be Consecrated or Ordered according to the same Rites we decree all such to be rightly orderly and lawfully Consecrated and Ordered in the said Church of England as also the Book published by the same Authority for ordering Ministers in the Church are both of them very pious as to truth of Doctrine in nothing contrary but agreeable to the wholsome Doctrine of the Gospel which they do very much promote and illustrate And for that cause they are by all faithful Members of the Church of England but chiefly of the Ministers of the Word with all thankfulness and readiness of mind to be received approved and commended to the People of God XXXVI Of the Civil Magistrates The King of England is after Christ The Queens Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Cases doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any Forreign Jurisdiction Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous Folks to be offended We give not to our Princess the Ministry either of God's Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only Prerogative which we see to
the Writings of the Disciples and of the Prophets are read as much as may be Afterwards when the Reader doth cease the Head-Minister maketh an Exhortation exhorting them to follow so honest things After this we rise all together and offer Prayers which being ended as we have said Bread Wine and Water are brought forth then the Head-Minister offereth Prayers and Thanksgivings as much as he can and the People answereth Amen These words of Justin who lived about 160 Years after Christ considered with their Circumstances declare plainly That not only the Scriptures were read but also that the Prayers and Administration of the Lord's Supper were done in a Tongue understood Both the Liturgies of Basil and Chrysostom declare That in the Celebration of the Communion the People were appointed to answer to the Prayer of the Minister sometimes Amen sometimes Lord have mercy upon us sometimes And with thy Spirit and We have our Hearts lifted up unto the Lord c. Which Answers they would not have made in due time if the Prayers had not been made in a Tongue understood And for further proof Basil Epist 63. let us hear what Basil writeth in this Matter to the Clerks of Neocesarea Caeterum ad Objectum in Psalmodiis crimen quo maximè simpliciores terrent Calumniatores c. As touching that is laid to our charge in Psalmodies and Songs wherewith our Slanderers do fray the Simple I have this to say That our Customs and Usage in all Churches be uniform and agreeable For in the Night the People with us riseth goeth to the House of Prayer and in Travel Tribulation and continual Tears they confess themselves to God and at the last rising again go to their Songs or Psalmodies where being divided into two parts sing by course together both deeply weighing and confirming the Matter of the Heavenly Saying and also stirring up their Attention and Devotion of Heart which by other means be alienated and pluck'd away Then appointing one to begin the Song the rest follow and so with divers Songs and Prayers passing over the Night at the dawning of the Day all together even as it were with one Mouth and one Heart they sing unto the Lord a new Song of Confession every Man framing to himself meet words of Repentance If ye will flee us from henceforth for these things ye must flee also the Egyptians and both the Lybians ye must eschew the Thebians Palestines Arabians the Phenices the Syrians and those which dwell besides Euphrates And to be short all those with whom Watchings Prayers and common singing of Psalms are had in honour These are sufficient to prove that it is against God's Word and the Use of the Primitive Church to use a Language not understood of the People in Common Prayer and Ministration of the Sacraments Wherefore it is to be marvelled at not only how such an Untruth and Abuse crept at the first into the Church but also how it is maintained so stifly at this Day And upon what ground these that will be thought Guides and Pastors of Christ's Church are so loath to return to the first Original of St. Paul's Doctrine and the Practice of the Primitive Catholick Church of Christ J. Scory D. Whithead J. Juel J. Almer R. Cox E. Grindal R. Horn. E. Gest. The God of Patience and Consolation give us Grace to be like minded one towards another in Christ Jesus that we all agreeing together may with one mouth praise God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen Number 4. The Answer of Dr. Cole to the first Proposition of the Protestants at the Disputation before the Lords at Westminster Est contra Verbum Dei consuetudinem veteris Ecclesioe Linguâ Populo ignotâ uti in publicis precibus Administratione Sacramentorum Most Honourable Ex MS. Col. Cor. C. Cant. VVHereas these Men here present have declared openly That it is repugnant and contrary to the Word of God to have the Common Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments in the Latin Tongue here in England and that all such Common Prayer and Ministration ought to be and remain in the English Tongue Ye shall understand that to prove this their Assertion they have brought in as yet only one place of Scripture taken out of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians Cap. 14. with certain other places of the Holy Doctors whereunto answer is not now to be made But when the Book which they read shall be delivered unto us according to the appointment made in that behalf then God willing we shall make answer as well to the Scripture as other Testimonies alledged by them so as all good Men may evidently perceive and understand the same Scripture to be misconstrued and drawn from the native and true sense And that it is not St. Paul's mind there to treat of Common Prayer or Ministration of any Sacraments And therefore we now have only to declare and open before you briefly which after as opportunity serves in our Answer shall appear more at large causes which move us to persist and continue in the order received and to say and affirm that to have the Common Prayer or Service with the Ministration of the Sacraments in the Latin Tongue is convenient and as the state of the Cause standeth at this present necessary Second Section 1. And this we affirm first because there is no Scripture manifest against this our Assertion and Usage of the Church And though there were any yet it is not to be condemn'd that the Church hath receiv'd Which thing may evidently appear in many things that were sometime expresly commanded by God and his Holy Apostles 2. As for Example to make the Matter plain ye see the express Command of Almighty God touching the observation of the Sabbath-Day to be changed by Authority of the Church without any Word of God written for the same into the Sunday The Reason whereof appeareth not to all Men and howsoever it doth appear and is accepted of all good Men without any Controversy of Scripture yea without any mention of the Day saving only that St. John in his Apocalyps nameth it Diem Dominicam In the change whereof all Men may evidently understand the Authority of the Church both in this cause and also in other Matters to be of great weight and importance and therein esteemed accordingly 3. Another Example we have given unto us by the Mouth of our Saviour himself who washing the feet of his Disciples said I have herein given you an Example that as I have done even so do you Notwithstanding these express words the Holy Church hath left the thing undone without blame not of any Negligence but of great and urgent Causes which appeareth not to many Men and yet universally without the breach of God's Commandment as is said left undone Was not the Fact also and as it seemeth the express Commandment of Christ our Saviour changed and altered by the Authority
appealed in that to the Testimony of Sense as Infallible And St. Austin giving Rules concerning Figurative Speeches in Scripture one is this that they must be taken Figuratively where in the literal sense the thing were a Crime which he applies to these Words of eating Christs Flesh and drinking his Blood But that on which they put the stress of the whole cause as to the Doctrine of the Fathers was the reasoning that they used against the Eutychians who said that Christs Body and Humane Nature was swallowed up by his Divinity The Eutychians arguing from the Eucharists being called Christs Body and Blood in which they said Christs Presence did convert the Substance of the Bread and Wine into his own Flesh and Blood so in like manner said they his Godhead had converted the Manhood into it self Against this Gelasius Bishop of Rome and Theodoret one of the learnedest Fathers of his Age argue in plain words That the Substance of the Bread and Wine remained as it was formerly in its own Nature and Form and from their Opinion of the Presence of Christs Body in it without converting the Elements they turned the Argument to shew how the Divine and Humane Nature can be together in Christ without the ones being changed by the other Peter Martyr had brought over with him the Copy of a Letter of St. Chrysostomes which he found in a MS. at Florence written to the same purpose and on the same Argument which was the more remarkable because that Chrysostome had said higher things in his Sermons and Commentaries concerning Christs being present in the Sacrament than any of all the Fathers but it appeared by this Letter that those high Expressions were no other than Rhetorical Figures of Speech to beget a great reverence to this Institution and from hence it was reasonable to judge that such were the like Expressions in other Fathers and that they were nevertheless of Chrysostomes mind touching the Presence of Christ in this Sacrament That Epistle of his does lie still unpublished though a very learned Man now in France has procured a Copy of it but those of that Church know the consequence that the printing of it would have and so it seems are resolved to suppress it if they can From all these things it was plain that though the Fathers believed there was an extraordinary Vertue in the Sacrament and an unaccountable Presence of Christ in it yet they thought not of Transubstantiation nor any thing like it But when darkness and ignorance crept into the Church the People were apt to believe any thing that was incredible and were willing enough to support such Opinions as turned Religion into external Pageantry The Priests also knowing little of the Scriptures and being only or chiefly conversant in those Writings of the Ancients that had highly extolled the Sacrament came generally to take up the Opinion of the Corporal Presence and being soon apprehensive of the great esteem it would bring to them cherished it much In the 9th Century Bertram Rabanus Maurus Amalarius Alcuinus and Joannes Scotus all writ against it nor were any of them censured or condemned for these Opinions It was plainly and strongly contradicted by some Homilies that were in the Saxon Tongue in which not a few of Bertrams words occur particularly in that which was to be read in the Churches on Easter day But in the 11th or 12th Century it came to be universally received as indeed any thing would have been that much advanced the Dignity of Priesthood And it was farther advanced by Pope Innocent the third and so established in the fourth Council of Lateran That same Council in which the rooting out of Hereticks and the Popes Power of deposing Heretical Princes and giving their Dominions to others were also decreed But there was another curious Remark made of the Progress of this Opinion When the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence was first received in the Western Church they believed that the whole Loaf was turned into one entire Body of Jesus Christ so that in the distribution one had an Eye a Nose or an Ear another a Tooth a Finger or a Toe a third a Collop or a piece of Tripe and this was supported by pretended Miracles suited to that Opinion for sometimes the Host was said to bleed Parts of it were also said to be turned to pieces of Flesh This continued to be the Doctrine of the Church of Rome for near 300 Years It appears clearly in the Renunciation which they made Berengarius swear But when the School-men began to form the Tenets of that Church by more artificial and subtil Rules as they thought it an ungentle way of treating Christ to be thus mangling his Body and eating it up in Gobbets so the Maximes they set up about the Extension of matter and of the manner of Spirits filling a space made them think of a more decent way of explaining this Prodigious Mystery They taught that Christ was so in the Host and Chalice that there was one entire Body in every crumb and drop so that the Body was no more broken but upon every breaking of the Host a new whole Body flew off from the other parts which yet remained an entire Body notwithstanding that diminution And then the former Miracles being contrary to this conceit were laid aside and new ones invented fitted for this Explanation by which Christs Body was believed present after the manner of a Spirit It was given out that he sometimes appeared as a Child all in Raies upon the Host sometimes with Angels about him or sometimes in his Mothers Arms. And that the Senses might give as little contradiction as was possible instead of a Loaf they blessed then only Wafers which are such a shadow of Bread as might more easily agree with their Doctrine of the accidents of Bread being only present and least a larger measure of Wine might have encouraged the People to have thought it was Wine still by the sensible effects of it that came also to be denied them This was the Substance of the Arguments that were in those Writings But an Opinion that had been so generally received was not of a sudden to be altered Therefore they went on slowly in discussing it and thereby did the better dispose the People to receive what they intended afterwards to establish concerning it And this was the state of Religion for this Year At this time there were many Anabaptists in several parts of England They were generally Germans Proceedings against Anabaptists whom the Revolutions there had forced to change their Seats Upon Luthers first preaching in Germany there arose many who building on some of his Principles carried things much further than he did The chief Foundation he laid down was That the Scripture was to be the only Rule of Christians Upon this many argued that the Mysteries of the Trinity and Christs Incarnation and Sufferings of the Fall of Man and the Aids of Grace were indeed
Bonner turning to speak to the People was interrupted by one of the Delegates who told him he was to speak to them and not to the People at which some laughing he turned about in great fury and said Ah Woodcocks Woodcocks But to the chief Point he said he had prepared Notes of what he intended to say about the Kings Power in his Minority from the Instances in Scripture of Achaz and Osias who were Kings at Ten of Solomon and Manasses who Reigned at Twelve and of Josias Joachim and Joas who began to Reign when they were but Eight years old He had also gathered out of the English History that Henry the third Edward the third Richard the second Henry the sixth and Edward the fifth were all under Age and even their late King was but eighteen when he came to the Crown and yet all these were obeyed as much before as after they were of full Age. But these things had escaped his memory he not having been much used to preach There had been also a long Bill sent him from the Council to be read of the defeat of the Rebels which he said had disordered him and the Book in which he had laid his Notes fell out of his hands when he was in the Pulpit for this he appealed to his two Chaplains Bourn and Harpsfield whom he had desired to gather for him the Names of those Kings who Reigned before they were of Age. For the other Injunctions he had taken care to execute them and had sent Orders to his Arch-deacons to see to them and as far as he understood there were no Masses nor Service in Latin within his Diocess except at the Lady Maries or in the Chappels of Ambassadors But the Delegates required him positively to answer whether he had obeyed that Injunction about the Kings Authority or not otherwise they would hold him as guilty and if he denied it they would proceed to the examination of the Witnesses He refusing to answer otherwise than he had done they called the Witnesses who were Sir John Cheek and four more who had their Oaths given them and Bonner desiring a time to prepare his interrogatories it was granted So he drew a long Paper of twenty Interrogatories every one of them containing many Branches in it full of all the niceties of the Canon Law a tast of which may be had from the third in number which is indeed the most material of all The Interrogatory was Whether they or any of them were present at his Sermon where they stood and near whom when they came to it and at what part of his Sermon how long they tarried at what part they were offended what were the formal Words or Substance of it who with them did hear it where the other Witnesses stood and how long they tarried or when they departed The Court adjourned to the 18th of September And then there was read a Declaration from the King explaining their former Commission chiefly in the Point of the Denunciation that they might proceed either that way or ex Officio as they saw cause giving them also Power finally to determine the matter cutting off all superfluous delays Bonner gave in also some other Reasons why he should not be obliged to make a more direct Answer to the Articles objected against him The chief of which was That the Article about the Kings Age was not in the Paper given him by the Protector but afterwards added by Secretary Smith of his own Head Cranmer admonished him of his irreverence since he called them always his pretended Judges Smith added That though Proctors did so in common matters for their Clients yet it was not to be endured in such a Case when he saw they acted by a special Commission from the King New Articles were given him more explicite and plain than the former but to the same purpose And five Witnesses were sworn upon these who were all the Clerks of the Council to prove that the Article about the Kings Age was ordered by the whole Council and only put in writing by Secretary Smith at their Command He was appointed to come next day and make his Answer But on the 19th two of his Servants came and told the Delegates that he was sick and could not attend It was therefore ordered That the Knight-Marshal should go to him and if he were sick let him alone but if it were not so should bring him before them next day On the 20th Bonner appearing answered as he had done formerly only he protested that it was his opinion that the King was as much a King and the People as much bound to obey him before he was of Age as after it And after that Secretary Smith having taken him up more sharply than the other Delegates he protested against him as no competent Judge He protests against Secretary Smith since he had expressed much passion against him and had not heard him patiently but had compared him to Thieves and Traitors and had threatned to send him to the Tower to sit with Ket and Arundel and that he had added some things to the Injunctions given him by the Protector for which he was now accused and did also proceed to judge him notwithstanding his Protestation grounded on his not being present when the Commission was first opened and received by the Court But this Protestation also was rejected by the Delegates and Smith told him That whereas he took exception at his saying that he acted as Thieves and Traitors do it was plainly visible in his doings upon which Bonner being much inflamed said to him That as he was Secretary of State and a Privy Councellor he honoured him but as he was Sir Tho. Smith he told him he lied and that he defied him At this the Arch-bishop chid him and said he deserved to be sent to Prison for such irreverent carriage He answered he did not care whither they sent him so they sent him not to the Devil for thither he would not go he had a few Goods a poor Carkass and a Soul the two former were in their power but the last was in his own After this being made to withdraw he when called in again put in an Appeal from them to the King and read an Instrument of it which he had prepared at his own House that Morning and so would make no other answer unless the Secretary should remove For this contempt he was sent to the Prison of the Marshalsea and as he was led away he broke out in great passion both against Smith and also at Cranmer for suffering Hereticks to infect the People which he required him to abstain from as he would answer for it to God and the King On the 23d he was again brought before them where by a second Instrument he adhered to his former Appeal But the Delegates said they would go on and judge him unless there came a Supersedeas from the King and so required him to answer those
Articles which he had not yet answered otherwise they would proceed against him as Contumax and hold him as Confessing But he adhered to his Appeal and so would answer no more New matter was also brought of his going out of St. Pauls in the midst of the Sermon on the 15th of the Month and so giving a publick disturbance and scandal and of his writing next day to the Lord Major not to suffer such Preachers to sow their ill Doctrine This was occasioned by the Preachers speaking against the Corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament But he would give the Court no account of that matter so they adjourned to the 27th and from that to the first of October In that time great endeavours were used to perswade him to submit and to behave himself better for the future and upon that condition he was assured he should be gently used But he would yield to nothing So on the first of October when he was brought before them the Arch-bishop told him they had delayed so long being unwilling to proceed to extremities with him and therefore wished him to submit But he read another Writing by which he protested that he was brought before them by force and that otherwise he would not have come since that having appeal'd from them he looked on them as his Judges no more He said that he had also written a Petition to the Lord Chancellor complaining of the Delegates and desiring that his Appeal might be admitted and said by that Appeal it was plain that he esteemed the King to be cloathed with his full Royal Power now that he was under Age since he thus appealed to him Upon which the Arch-bishop the Bishop of Rochester Secretary Smith and the Dean of St. Pauls He is deprived from his Bishoprick gave Sentence against him that since he had not declared the Kings Power while under Age in his Sermon as he was commanded by the Protector and Council therefore the Arch-bishop with the Consent and Assent of his Colleagues did deprive him of the Bishoprick of London Sentence being thus given he appealed again by word of mouth The Court did also order him to be carried to Prison till the King should consider further of it This account of his Trial is drawn from the Register of London where all these Particulars are inserted From thence it was that Fox printed them For Bonner though he was afterward Commissioned by the Queen to deface any Records that made against the Catholick Cause yet did not care to alter any thing in this Register after his re-admission in Queen Maries time It seems he was not displeased with what he found Recorded of himself in this matter Thus was Bonner deprived of his Bishoprick of London Censures past upon it This Judgment as all such things are was much censured It was said it was not Canonical since it was by a Commission from the King and since Secular Men were mixed with Clergy-men in the censure of a Bishop To this it was answered That the Sentence being only of deprivation from the See of London it was not so entirely an Ecclesiastical Censure but was of a mixed nature so that Lay-men might joyn in it and since he had taken a Commission from the King for his Bishoprick by which he held it only during the Kings pleasure he could not complain of this deprivation which was done by the Kings Authority Others who looked further back remembred that Constantine the Emperor had appointed Secular Men to enquire into some things objected to Bishops who were called Cognitores or Triers and such had examined the business of Cecilian Bishop of Carthage even upon an Appeal after it had been tried in several Synods and given Judgment against Donatus and his Party The same Constantine had also by his Authority put Eustathius out of Antioch Athanasius out of Alexandria and Paul out of Constantinople and though the Orthodox Bishops complained of these Particulars as done unjustly at the false suggestion of the Arrians yet they did not deny the Emperors Authority in such Cases Afterwards the Emperors used to have some Bishops attending on them in their Comitatus or Court to whose Judgment they left most Causes who acted only by Commission from the Emperor So Epiphanius was brought to condemn Chrysostome at Constantinople who had no Authority to judge him by the Canons Others objected that it was too severe to deprive Bonner for a defect in his memory and that therefore they should have given him a new Tryal in that Point and not have proceeded to censure him on such an omission since he protested it was not on design but a pure forgetfulness and all People perceived clearly it had been before hand resolved to lay him aside and that therefore they now took him on this disadvantage and so deprived him But it was also well known that all the Papists infused this Notion into the People of the Kings having no Power till he came to be of Age and he being certainly one of them there was reason to conclude that what he said for his defence was only a Pretence and that it was of design that he had omitted the mentioning the Kings Power when under Age. The adding of Imprisonment to his Deprivation was thought by some to be an extream accumulation of Punishments But that was no more than what he drew upon himself by his rude and contemptuous behaviour However it seems that some of these Objections wrought on Secretary Petre for he never sate with the Delegates after the first day and he was now turning about to another Party On the other hand Bonner was little pitied by most that knew him He was a cruel and fierce Man he understood little of Divinity his Learning being chiefly in the Canon Law Besides he was looked on generally as a Man of no Principles All the obedience he gave either to the Laws or the Kings Injunctions was thought a compliance against his Conscience extorted by fear And his undecent carriage during his process had much exposed him to the People so that it was not thought to be hard dealing though the Proceedings against him were summary and severe Nor did his carriage afterward during his imprisonment discover much of a Bishop or a Christian For he was more concerned to have Puddings and Pears sent him than for any thing else This I gather from some original Letters of his to Richard Leechmore Esq in Worcester-shire which were communicated to me by his Heir Lineally descended from him the Worshipful Mr. Leechmore now the Senior Bencher of the Middle-Temple of which I transcribed the latter part of one Collection Number 37. that will be found in the Collection In it he desires a large quantity of Pears and Puddings to be sent him otherwise he gives those to whom he writes an odd sort of Benediction very unlike what became a Man of his Character he gives them to the Devil to the Devil
afraid of burdening her Conscience by assuming that which belonged to them and that she was unwilling to enrich her self by the spoils of others But they told her all that had been done was according to the Law to which all the Judges and Counsellors had set their Hands This joined with their Persuasions and the Importunities of her Husband who had more of his Fathers temper than of her Philosophy in him at length prevailed with her to submit to it Of which her Father-in-Law did afterwards say in Council She was rather by enticement of the Counsellors and force made to accept of the Crown then came to it by her own seeking and request Upon this order was given for proclaiming her Queen the next day And an Answer was writ to Queen Mary signed by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Lord Chancellor the Dukes of Suffolk and Northumberland the Marquesses of Winchester and Northampton the Earls of Arundel Shrewsbury Huntington Bedford and Pembrook the Lords Cobham and Darcy Sir Thomas Cheyney Sir Robert Cotton Sir William Petre Sir William Cecil Sir John Cheek Sir John Mason Sir Edward North and Sir Robert Bowes in all one and twenty Council writes to Q. Mary letting her know That Queen Jane was now their Soveraign according to the Ancient Laws of the Land and the late King's Letters Patents to whom they were now bound by their Allegiance They told her That the Marriage between her Father and Mother was dissolved by the Ecclesiastical Courts according to the Laws of God and of the Land That many noble Universities in Christendom had consented to it That the Sentence had been confirmed in Parliaments and she had been declared illegitimate and uninheritable to the Crown They therefore required her to give over her Pretences and not to disturb the Government and promised that if she shewed her self Obedient she should find them all ready to do her any Service which in Duty they could The day following they proclaimed Queen Jane Lady Jane proclaimed Queen Collection Number 1. The Proclamation will be found in the Collection It sets forth That the late King had by his Letters Patents limited the Crown that it should not descend to his two Sisters since they were both illegitimated by Sentences in the Spiritual Courts and Acts of Parliament and were only his Sisters by the Half-Blood who though it were granted they had been legitimate are not inheritable by the Law of England It was added That there was also great cause to fear that the King's Sisters might marry Strangers and so change the Laws of the Kingdom and subject it to the Tyranny of the Bishops of Rome and other Forreign Laws For these Reasons they were excluded from the Succession and the Lady Frances Dutchess of Suffolk being next the Crown it was provided that if she had no Sons at the death of the King the Crown should devolve immediately on her eldest Daughter Jane and after her and her Issue to her Sisters since she was born within the Kingdom and already married in it Therefore she was proclaimed Queen promising to be most benign and gracious to all her People to maintain God's Holy Word and the Laws of the Land requiring all the Subjects to obey and acknowledg her When this was proclaimed great multitudes were gathered to hear it but there were very few that shouted with the Acclamations ordinary on such Occasions And whereas a Vintner's Boy did some-way express his scorn at that which was done it was ordered that he should be made an Example the next day by being set on a Pillory and having his Ears nail'd to it and cut off from his Head which was accordingly done a Herauld in his Coat reading to the multitude that was called together by sound of Trumpet the nature of his Offence Censures past upon it Upon this all People were in great distraction The Proclamation opening the new Queen's Title came to be variously descanted on Some who thought the Crown descended by right of Blood and that it could not be limited by Parliament argued that the King having his Power from God it was only to descend in the natural way of Inheritance therefore they thought the next Heir was to succeed And whereas the King 's two Sisters were both by several Sentences and Acts of Parliament declared Bastards and whether that was well judged or not they were to be reputed such as the Law declared them to be so long as it stood in force therefore they held that the Queen of Scotland was to succeed who though she pretended this upon Queen Mary's Death yet did not claim now because by the Papal Law the Sentence against Queen Mary was declared Null Others argued that though a Prince were named by an immediate appointment from Heaven yet he might change the course of Succession as David did preferring Solomon before Adonijah But this it was said did not belong to the King 's of England whose right to the Crown with the extent of their Prerogative did not come from any Divine Designation but from a long Possession and the Laws of the Land and that therefore the King might by Law limit the Succession as well as he and other Kings had in some Points limited the Prerogative which was clearly Sir Thomas More 's Opinion and that therefore the Act of Parliament for the Succession of the King's Sisters was still strong in Law It was also said That if the Kinâ—'â— Sisters were to be excluded for Bastardy all Charles Brandon's Issue were in the same predicament since he was not lawfully married to the French Queen his former Wife Mortimer being then alive and his Marriage with her was never dissolved for though some English Writers say they were divorced yet those who wrote for the Queen of Scots Title in the next Reign denied it But in this the difference was great between them since the King's Sisters were declared Bastards in Law whereas this against Charles Brandon's Issue was only a Surmise Others objected That if the Blood gave an Indefeasible Title How came it that the L. Jane's Mother did not Reign It is true Maud the Empress and Margaret Countess of Richmond were satisfied that their Sons Henry the Second and Henry the Seventh should reign in their Rights but it had never been heard of that a Mother had resigned to her Daughter especially when she was yet under Age. But this was imputed to the Duke of Suffolk's weakness and the Ambition of the Duke of Northumberland That Objection concerning the Half-Blood being a Rule of Common Law in the Families of Subjects to cut off from Step-Mothers the Inclinations and Advantages of destroying their Husbands Children was not thought applicable to the Crown Nor was that of Ones being born out of the Kingdom which was hinted at to exclude the Queen of Scotland thought pertinent to this Case since there was an Exception made in the Law for the King's Children which was thought to
to meet and consider of the Book of Service In the mean while the People were to be restrained from Innovating without Authority and the Queen to give some hope of a Reformation might appoint the Communion to be given in both kinds The Persons that were thought fit to be trusted with the Secret of these Consultations were the Marquess of Northampton the Earls of Bedford and Pembroke and the Lord John Gray The Place that was thought most convenient for the Divines to meet in was Sir Thomas Smiths House in Channon-Row where an Allowance was to be given for their Entertainment The forwardness in many to the Reformation As soon as the News of the Queens coming to the Crown was known beyond Sea all those who had fled thither for shelter did return into England and those who had lived in Corners during the late Persecution now appeared with no small assurance and these having notice of the Queens Intentions could not contain themselves but in many Places begun to make Changes to set up King Edwards Service to pull down Images and to affront the Priests Upon this the Queen to make some discovery of her own Inclinations gave order that the Gospels and Epistles and the Lords Prayer the Apostles Creed and the Ten Commandements should be read in English and that the Letany should be also used in English and she forbade the Priests to Elevate the Host at Mass Having done this on the 27th of December she set out a Proclamation against all Innovations requiring her Subjects to use no other Forms of Worship than those she had in her Chappel till it should be otherwise appointed by the Parliament which she had summoned to meet on the 23d of January The Writs were issued out by Bacon into whose Hands she had delivered the Great Seal On the fifth of December she performed her Sisters Funeral Rites with great Magnificence at Westminster The Bishop of Winchester being appointed to preach the Sermon did so mightily extoll her and her Government and so severely taxed the disorders which he thought the Innovators were guilty of not without reflections on the Queen that he was thereupon confined to his House till the Parliament met Parker designed to be Archbishop of Canterbury One of the chief things under consultation was to provide Men fit to be put into the Sees that were now vacant or that might fall to be so afterwards if the Bishops should continue intractable Those now vacant were the Sees of Canterbury Hereford Bristol and Bangor and in the beginning of the next Year the Bishops of Norwich and Glocester died so that as Cambden hath it there were but fourteen Bishops living when the Parliament met It was of great importance to find Men able to serve in these Imployments chiefly in the See of Canterbury For this Dr. Parker was soon thought on Whether others had the offer of it before him or not I cannot tell but he was writ to by Sir Nicholas Bacon on the ninth of December to come up to London and afterwards on the 30th of December by Sir William Cecil and again by Sir Nicholas Bacon on the fourth of January He understood that it was for some high preferment and being a Man of an humble Temper distrustful of himself that loved privacy and was much disabled by sickness he declined coming up all he could he begged he might not be thought of for any publick Imployment but that some Prebend might be assigned him where he might be free both from Care and Government since the Infirmities which he had contracted by his flying about in the Nights in Queen Maries time had disabled him from a more publick station That to which he pretended shews how moderate his desires were for he professed an Imployment of twenty Nobles a year would be more acceptable to him than one of two hundred Pound He had been Chaplain to Queen Anne Bullen and had received a special charge from her a little before she died to look well to the Instruction of her Daughter in the Principles of the Christian Religion and now the Queen had a grateful Remembrance of those Services This joyned with the high Esteem that Sir Nicholas Bacon had of him soon made her resolve to raise him to that great Dignity And since such high Preferments are generally if not greedily sought after yet very willingly undertaken by most Men it will be no unfit thing to lay open a modern Precedent which indeed savours more of the Ancient than the latter Times for then in stead of that Ambitus which has given such offence to the World in the latter Ages it was ordinary for Men to fly from the offer of great Preferments Some run away when they understood they were to be Ordained or had been Elected to great Sees and fled to a Wilderness This shewed they had a great sense of the Care of Souls and were more apprehensive of that weighty Charge than desirous to raise or enrich themselves or their Families It hath been shewed before that Cranmer was very unwillingly engaged in the See of Canterbury and now he that succeeded him in that See with the same designs was drawn into it with such unwillingness that it was almost a whole year before he could be prevailed upon to accept of it The account of this will appear in the Series of Letters both written to him and by him on that Head which were communicated to me by the present most Worthy and most Reverend Primate of this Church I cannot mention him in this place without taking notice that as in his other great Vertues and Learning he has gone in the steps of those most eminent Arch-bishops that went before him so the whole Nation is witness how far he was from aspiring to high Preferment how he withdrew from all those opportunities that might be steps to it how much he was surprized with his unlooked-for advancement how unwillingly he was raised and how humble and affable he continues in that high Station he is now in but this is a Subject that I must leave for them to enlarge on that shall write the History of this present Age. 1559. Bacon made Lord Keeper In the beginning of the next Year the Queen having found that Heath Arch-bishop of York then Lord Chancellor would not go along with her as he had done in the Reigns of her Father and Brother and having therefore taken the Seals from him and put them into Sir Nicholas Bacon's Hand did now by Patent create him Lord Keeper Formerly those that were Keepers of the Seal had no Dignity nor Authority annexed to their Office they did not hear Causes nor preside in the House of Lords but were only to put the Seals to such Writs or Patents as went in course and so it was only put in the Hands of a Keeper but for some short Interval But now Bacon was the first Lord Keeper that had all the Dignity and Authority of
removed and the Penalty of the refusal thereof turned only to disablement to take any Promotion or to exercise any Charge and yet of liberty to be reinvested therein if any Man should accept thereof during his Life But after when Pius Quintus excommunicated her Majesty and the Bulls of Excommunication were published in London whereby her Majesty was in a sort proscribed and that thereupon as upon a principal Motive or Preparative followed the Rebellion in the North yet because the ill Humours of the Realm were by that Rebellion partly purged and that she feared at that time no Foreign Invasion and much less the Attempt of any within the Realm not back'd by some potent Power and Succour from without she contented her self to make a Law against that special case of bringing in and publishing of any Bulls or the like Instruments Whereunto was added a Prohibition upon pain not of Treason but of an inferior degree of Punishment against the bringing of the Agnus Dei's and such other Merchandice of Rome as are well known not to be any essential part of the Romanish Religion but only to be used in practice as Love-Tokens to inchant and bewitch the peoples Affections from their Allegiance to their Natural Soveraign In all other Points her Majesty continued her former Lenity but when about the 20th Year of her Reign she had discovered in the King of Spain an intention to Invade her Dominions and that a principal part of the Plot was to prepare a Party within the Realm that might adhere to the Forreigner and that the Seminaries began to blossom and to send forth daily Priests and professed Men who should by Vow taken at Shrift reconcile her Subjects from their Obedience yea and bind many of them to attempt against her Majesty's Sacred Person and that by the Poison which they spread the Humours of most Papists were altered and that they were no more Papists in Conscience and of Softness but Papists in Faction Then were there new Laws made for the punishment of such as should submit themselves to such Reconcilements or Renunciation of Obedience And because it was a Treason carried in the Clouds and in wonderful secrecy and come seldom to light and that there was no presuspicion thereof so great as the Recusancy to come to Divine Service because it was set down by their Decrees that to come to Church before Reconciliation was to live in Schism but to come to Church after Reconcilement was absolutely heretical and damnable Therefore there were added Laws containing Punishment pecuniary videlicet such as might not enforce Consciences but to enfeeble and impoverish the means of those about whom it resteth indifferent and ambiguous whether they were reconciled or not and when notwithstanding all this Provision the Poison was dispersed so secretly as that there was no means to stay it but by restraining the Merchants that brought it in Then lastly There was added a Law whereby such seditious Priests of new Erection were exiled and those that were at that time within the Land shipped over and so commanded to keep hence upon pain of Treason This hath been the proceeding though intermingled not only with sundry Examples of her Majesty's Grace towards such as in her Wisdom she knew to be Papists in Conscience and not Faction and Singularity but also with extraordinary mitigation towards the Offenders in the highest Degree committed by Law if they would but protest that if in case this Realm should be invaded with a Forreign Army by the Pope's Authority for the Catholick Cause as they tearm it they would take part with her Majesty and not adhere to her Enemies For the other Party which have been offensive to the State though in another Degree which named themselves Reformers and we commonly call Puritans this hath been the proceeding towards them A great while when they enveighed against such Abuses in the Church as Pluralities Non-residence and the like their Zeal was not condemned only their Violence was sometime censured When they refused the use of some Ceremonies and Rites as Superstitious they were tolerated with much connivancy and gentleness yea when they called in question the superiority of Bishops and pretended to a Democracy into the Church yet their Propositions were here considered and by contrary Writings debated and discussed Yet all this while it was perceived that their Course was dangerous and very popular as because Papistry was odious theretofore it was ever in their Mouths that they sought to purge the Church from the Reliques of Papistry a thing acceptable to the people who love ever to run from one extream to another Because multitude of Rogues and Poverty was an Eye-sore and a dislike to every Man therefore they put into the peoples head that if Discipline were planted there should be no Vagabonds nor Beggars a thing very plausible and in like manner they promised the people many of the impossible Wonders of their Discipline besides they opened to the people a way to Government by their Consistory and Presbytery a thing though in consequence no less prejudicial to the Liberties of private Men than to the Soveraignty of Princes yet in first shew very popular Nevertheless this except it were in some few that entred into extream contempt was born with because they pretended in dutiful manner to make Propositions and to leave it to the Providence of God and the Authority of the Magistrate But now of late Years when there issued from them that affirmed the consent of the Magistrate was not to be attended when under pretence of a Confession to avoid Slander and Imputations they combined themselves by Classes and Subscriptions when they descended into that vile and base means of defacing the Government of the Church by ridiculous Pasquills when they begun to make many Subjects in doubt to take Oaths which is one of the Fundamental parts of Justice in this Land and in all Places when they began both to vaunt of their strength and number of their Partizans and Followers and to use Cominations that their Cause would prevaile though Uproar and Violence then it appeared to be no more Zeal no more Conscience but meer Faction and Division And therefore though the State were compelled to hold somewhat a harder hand to restrain them than before yet was it with as great moderation as the Peace of the State or Church could permit And therefore Sir to conclude consider uprightly of these Matters and you shall see her Majesty is no more a Temporizer in Religion It is not the Success Abroad nor the Change of Servants here at Home can alter her only as the things themselves alter she applyed her Religious Wisdom to Methods correspondent unto them still retaining the two Rules before mentioned in dealing tenderly with Consciences and yet in discovering Faction from Conscience and Softness from Singularity Farewel Your loving Friend F. Walsingham THUS I have prosecuted what I at first undertook the Progress of the
another To the fifth Point 1. The Emperor is at this time so driven to his Shifts that neither he shall be able to attend the stay of Mony from coming to the Mart neither if he were able to attend could I think do it now the Flemings being put in such fear as they be of the loss of all they have 2. The Flemings and the Spaniards which be under him can hardlier be without us than we without them and therefore they would hardly be brought to forbear our Traffique To the sixth Point 1. It were good the Stiliard-men were for this time gently answered and that it were seen whether by any gentle offer of some part of their Liberties again they might be brought to ship their Wares to the Mart. The Frenchmen also I think would easily be brought to come hither having now none other Traffique but hither these two Nations would suffice to begin a Mart for the first part To the seventh Point 1. It is not the ability of the English Merchants only that maketh the Mart but it is the resort of other Nations to some one place when they do exchange their Commodities one with another for the bargaining will be as well amongst the Strangers themselves the Spaniards with the Almains the Italians with Flemings the Venetians with the Danes c. as other Nations will bargain with Us. 2. The Merchants of London of Bristol and other places will come thither for the Mart time and traffique 3. The Merchants will make shift enough for their Lodging 4. There may be some of these Clothes that shall go hereafter be bought with my Mony and so carried to Southampton to be there uttered To the eighth Point 1. Bruges where the Mart was before stood not on the River of Rhine nor Antwerp doth not neither stand on that River 2. Frankfort Mart may well stand for a Fair in Almain although Southampton serve for all Nations that lie on the Sea-side for few of those come to Frankfort Mart. Windsor Sept. 23. Sexto Edwardo Sexti 1552. Number 5. The Method in which the Council represented Matters of State to the King An Original Written by Sir William Cecil Secretary of State Questions 1. Whether the King's Majesty shall enter into the Aid of the Emperor Answ He shall A Pacto 1. THe King is bound by the Treaty and if he will be helped by that Treaty he must do the Reciproque A periculo vitando 2. If he do not Aid the Emperor is like to Ruin and consequently the House of Burgundy come to the French Possession which is perilous to England and herein the greatness of the French King is dreadful Religio Christiana 3. The French King bringeth the Turk into Christendom and therefore that exploit to be staied Periculum violati pacti 4. If the Emperor for Extremity should agree now with the French then our Peril were double greater 1. The Emperor's Offence for lack of Aid 2. The French King's Enterprises towards us and in this Peace the Bishop of Rome's devotion towards us Pro Repub. Patria 5. Merchants be so evil used that both for the loss of Goods and Honour some Remedy must be sought Pericula consequentia 6. The French King 's Proceedings be suspicious to the Realm by breaking and burning of our Ships which be the old strength of this Isle Declaration of Stuckley's Tale. Answer He shall not Difficile quasi impossibile 1. The Aid is to be chargeable for the Cost and almost to be executed is impossible Solitudo in periculis 2. If the Emperor should die in this Confederacy we should be left alone in the War Amicorum suspitio vitanda 3. It may be the German Protestants might be more offended with this Conjunction with the Emperor doubting their own Causes Sperandum bene ab amicis 4. The Amity with France is to be hoped will amend and continue and the Commissioners coming may perchance restore Corrolarium of a mean way Judicium 1. So to help the Emperor as we may also join with other Christian Princes and conspire against the French King as a common Enemy to Christendom Reasons for the Common Conjunction 1. The cause is common Auxilia communia and therefore there will be more Parties to it 2. It shall avoid the chargeable entry into Aid with the Emperor Sumptus vitandi according to the Treaties 3. If the Emperor should die or break off Amicorum copia yet it is most likely some of the other Princes and Parties will remain so as the King's Majesty shall not be alone 4. The Friendship shall much advance the King 's other Causes in Christendom Dignitas causae 5. It shall be most honourable to break with the French King for this common Quarrel of Christendom Pro fide Religione Reasons against this Conjunction 1. The Treaty must be with so many Parties Inter multos nihil secretum that it can neither be speedily or secretly concluded 2. If the Matter be revealed and nothing concluded Amicitiae irritatae then consider the French King's Offence and so may he at his leasure be provoked to practise the like Conjunction against England with all the Papists Conclusion 1. The Treaty to be made with the Emperor The King's Hand and by the Emperor's means with other Princes 2. The Emperor's Acceptation to be understanded before we treat any thing against the French King Number 6. A Method for the Proceedings in the Council written with King Edward's Hand The Names of the whole Council The Bishop of Canterbury The Bp of Ely Lord Chancellor The Lord Treasurer The Duke of Northumberland The Lord Privy-Seal The Duke of Suffolk The Marquess of Northampton The Earl oâ— Shrewsbury The Earl of Westmoreâ—â—nd The Earl of Huntington The Earl of Pembrâ—â—k The Viscount Hereford The Lord Admiral The Lord Chamberlain The Lord Cobham The Lord Rich. Mr. Comptroller Mr. Treasurer Mr. Vicechamberlain Mr. Secretary Petre. Mr. Secretary Cecil Sir Philip Hobbey Sir Robert Bowes Sir John Gage Sir John Mason Mr. Ralph Sadler Sir John Baker Judg Broomley Judg Montague Mr. Wotton Mr. North. Those that be now called in Commission The Bishop of London The Bishop of Norwich Sir Thomas Wroth. Sir Richard Cotton Sir Walter Mildmay Mr. Sollicitor Mr. Gosnold Mr. Cook Mr. Lucas The Counsellors above-named to be thus divided into several Commissions and Charges First For hearing of those Suits which were wont to be brought to the whole Board The Lord Privy-Seal The Lord Chamberlain The Bishop of London The Lord Cobham Mr. Hobbey Sir John Mason Sir Ralph Sadler Mr. Wotton Mr. Cook Masters of Requests Mr. Lucas Masters of Requests Those Persons to hear the Suits to answer the Parties to make Certificate what Suits they think meet to be granted and upon answer received of their Certificate received to dispatch the Parties Also
Soveraign Lord King Edward the 6th by the Grace of God King of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and in Earth of the Church of England and also of Ireland the Supream Head And have likewise for more ample testimony of this our Opinion of and upon the Premisses put and subscribed our Names to this present Duplicate of the same here asserted in this present Act of this 6th day of the month of March accordingly Number 6. The Duke of Somerset's Commission to be Protector Ex Libro Concilii Fol. 62. EDward the 6th by the Grace of God King of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth the Supream Head Whereas our Council and divers of the Nobles and Prelats of this our Realm of England considering Our young and tender Age have thought meet and expedient as well for Our Education and bringing up in Knowledg Learning and Exercises of Good and Godly Manners Vertues and Qualities meet and necessary for a Prince of Our Estate and whereby We should and may at Our full Age be the more able to minister and execute the Charge of our Kingly Estate and Office committed unto Us by the Goodness of Almighty God and left and come unto Us by right Inheritance after and by the decease of Our late Soveraign Lord and Father of most famous Memory King Henry the 8th whose Soul God pardon As also to the intent that during the time of our Minority the great and weighty Causes of our Realms and Dominions may be set forth conducted passed applied and ordered in such sort as shall be most to the Glory of God our Surety and Honour and for the Weal Benefit and Commodity of Us Our said Realms and Dominions and of all Our loving Subjects of the same have advised Us to nominate appoint and authorize some one meet and trusty Personage above all others to take the special Care and Charge of the same for Us and in our Name and Behalf without the which the things before remembred could not nor can be done so well as appertaineth We therefore using their Advices and Counsels in this behalf did heretofore assign and appoint our dear and well-beloved Uncle Edward now Duke of Somerset Governour of our Person and Protector of Our said Realms and Dominions and of our Subjects and People of the same Which thing albeit We have already declared heretofore and our Pleasure therein published by Word of our Mouth in the presence of Our said Council Nobles and Prelats of Our said Realm of England and not by any Writing set forth under Our Seal for that only purpose Yet for a more perfect and manifest knowledg and further corroboration and understanding of Our determination in that behalf and considering that no manner of Person is so meet to have and occupy the said Charge and Administration and to do Us service in the same as is Our said Uncle Edward Duke of Somerset eldest Brother to our Natural most gracious late Mother Queen Jane as well for the proximity of Blood whereby he is the more stirred to have special eye and regard to our Surety and good Education in this Our said Minority as also for the long and great experience which Our said Uncle hath had in the Life-time of Our said dear Father in the Affairs of our said Realm and Dominions both in time of Peace and War whereby he is more able to Order and Rule Our said Realms Dominions and Subjects of the same and for the special confidence and trust that We have in Our said Uncle as well with the Advice and Consent of our Council and other our Nobles and Prelats as also of divers discreet and sage Men that served Our said late Father in his Council and weighty Affairs We therefore by these Presents do not only ratify approve confirm and allow all and every thing and things whatsoever devised or set forth committed or done by Our said Uncle as Governor of our Person and Protector of our said Realms and Dominions and of the Subjects of the same sith the time he was by Us named appointed and ordained by Word Governor of our Person and Protector of Our said Realms and Dominions and of the Subjects of the same as is aforesaid or otherwise any time before sithence the death of Our said late Father But also by these Presents We for a full and perfect Declaration of the Authority of Our said Uncle given and appointed as aforesaid do nominate appoint and ordain Our said Uncle Governor of Our said Person and Protector of Our said Realms and Dominions and of the Subjects of the same until such time as We shall have by the sufferance of God accomplished the Age of eighteen Years And We also do grant to Our said Uncle by these Presents full Power and Authority from time to time until such time as We shall have accomplished the said Age of eighteen Years to do procure and execute and cause to be done procured and executed all and every such Thing and Things Act and Acts which a Governor of the King's Person of this Realm during his Minority and a Protector of his Realms Dominions and Subjects ought to do procure and execute or cause to be done procured and executed and also all and every other thing and things which to the Office of a Governor of a King of the Realm during his Minority and of a Protector of his Realms Dominions and Subjects in any wise appertaineth or belongeth Willing Authorising and Commanding Our said Uncle by these Presents to take upon him the Name Title and Authority of Governor of our Person and Protector of our Realms Dominions and Subjects and to do procure and execute and cause to be done procured and executed from time to time until We shall have accomplished the said Age of eighteen Years all and every Thing and Things Act and Acts of what Nature Quality or Effect soever they be or shall be concerning our Affairs Doings and Proceedings both Private and Publick as well in Outward and Forreign Causes and Matters as also concerning our Affairs Doings and Proceedings within Our said Realms and Dominions or in any of them or concerning any Manner Causes or Matters of any of our Subjects of the same in such like manner and form as shall be thought by his Wisdom and Discretion to be for the Honour Surety Prosperity good Order Wealth or Commodity of Us or of any of Our said Realms and Dominions or of the Subjects of any of the same And to the intent Our said Uncle should be furnished with Men qualified in Wit Knowledg and Experience for his Aid and Assistance in the managing and accomplishment of Our said Affairs We have by the Advice and Consent of Our said Uncle and others the Nobles Prelats and wise Men of Our said Realm of England chosen taken and accepted and by these Presents do chuse take accept
never defame them so much to be seen to fear it And of what strength an Act of Parliament is the Realm was taught in the case of her that we called Queen Ann where all such as spake against her in the Parliament-House although they did it by special Commandment of the King and spake that was truth yet they were fain to have a Pardon because that speaking was against an Act of Parliament Did you never know or here tell of any Man that for doing that the King our late Soveraign Lord willed devised and required to be done He that took pains and was commanded to do it was fain to sue for his Pardon and such other also as were doers in it and I could tell who it were Sure there hath been such a Case and I have been present when it hath been reasoned That the doing against an Act of Parliament excuseth not a Man even from the Case of Treason although a Man did it by the King's Commandment You can tell this to your remembrance when you think further of it and when it cometh to your remembrance you will not be best content with your self I believe to have advised me to enter the breach of an Act of Parliament without surety of Pardon although the King command it and were such indeed as it were no matter to do it at all And thus I answer the Letters with worldly civil Reasons and take your Mind and Zeal towards me to be as tender as may be and yet you see that the following of your Advice might make me lose my Bishoprick by mine own Act which I am sure you would I should keep and so would I as might stand with my Truth and Honesty and none otherwise as knoweth God who send you heartily well to fare Number 14. The Conclusion of Gardiner's Letter to the Protector against the lawfulness of the Injunctions Cotton Libr. Vesp D. 18. VVHether the King may command against the Common Law or an Act of Parliament there is never a Judg or other Man in the Realm ought to know more by experience of that the Lawyers have said than I. First My Lord Cardinal had obtained his Legacy by our late Soveraign Lord's Request at Rome yet being it was against the Laws of the Realm the Judges censured the Offence of Premunire which Matter I bore away and take it for a Law of the Realm because the Lawyers said so but my Reason digested it not The Lawyers for the confirmation of their Doings brought in a Case of my Lord Typtest an Earl he was and learned in Civil Laws who being Chancellor because in execution of the King's Commission he offended the Laws of the Realm he suffered on Tower-Hill they brought in the Examples of many Judges that had Fines set on their Heads in like case for transgression of the Laws by the King's Commandment and this I learned in this Case Since that time being of the Council when many Proclamations were devised against the Carriers out of Corn when it came to punishing the Offenders the Judges would answer it might not be by the Laws because the Act of Parliament gave liberty Wheat being under a price Whereupon at the last followed the Act of Proclamations in the passing whereof were many large words When the Bishop of Exeter and his Chancellor were by one Body brought into a Premunire I reasoned with the Lord Audley then Chancellor so far as he bad me hold my peace for fear of entring a Premunire my self But I concluded that although I must take it as of their Authority that it is Common Law yet I could not see how a Man authorised by the King as since the King's Majesty hath taken upon him the Supremacy every Bishop is that Man could fall in a Premunire I reasoned once in the Parliament House where was free Speech without danger and there the Lord Audley Chancellor then to satisfie me because I was in some secret estimation as he knew Thou art a good Fellow Bishop quoth he look the Act of the Supremacy and there the King's doings be restrained to Spiritual Jurisdiction And in an other Act No Spiritual Law shall have place contrary to a Common Law or an Act of Parliament And if this were not quoth he the Bishops would enter in with the King and by means of his Supremacy order the Law as you listed but we will provide quoth he that the Premunire shall never go off your Heads This I bare away there and held my peace Since that time in a Case of Jewels I was fain with the Emperor's Ambassador Chapinius when he was here and in the Emperor's Court also to defend and maintain by Commandment that the King's Majesty was not above his Laws and therefore the Jeweller although he had the King's Bill signed yet it would not serve because it was not obtained after the Order of the Law in which Matter I was very much troubled Even this time twelve-month when I was in Commission with my Lord great Master and the Earl of Southampton for the altering of the Court of Augmentations there was my Lord Montague and other of the King 's Learned Council of whom I learned what the King might do against an Act of Parliament and what danger it was to them that medled It is fresh in my Memory and they can tell whether I say true or no and therefore being learned in so notable Causes I wrote in your absence therein as I had learned by hearing the Common Lawyers speak whose Judgments rule these Matters howsoever my reason can digest them When I wrote thereof the Matter was so reasonable as I have been learned by the Lawyers of the Realm that I trusted my Lords would have staied till your Graces return Number 15. A Letter from the Duke of Somerset to the Lady Mary in the beginning of King Edward's Reign Madam my humble Commendations to your Grace premised THese may be to signify unto the same Cotton Libr. Faustin C. 2. that I have received your Letters of the second of this present by Jane your Servant reknowledging my self thereby much bound unto your Grace nevertheless I am very sorry to perceive that your Grace should have or conceive any sinister or wrong Opinion in me and others which were by the King your late Father and our most gracious Master put in trust as Executors of his Will albeit the truth of our doings being known to your Grace as it seemeth by your said Letter not to be I trust there shall be no such fault found in us as in the same your Grace hath alleadged and for my part I know none of us that will willingly neglect the full execution of every Jot of his said Will as far as shall and may stand with the King our Master's Honour and Surety that now is otherwise I am sure that your Grace nor none other his Faithful Subjects would have it take place not doubting but our Doings and
the poor Man and his Heirs put from their Right which his Majesty wisheth to be considered And albeit he thinketh that the King your Master being under Age cannot himself by the order of the Law conclude upon any thing now in his Minority that shall be of due force and strength able to bind him and his Country when he shall come to his perfect Age. Yet taking that his Tutors being authorised thereto by the common Assent of your Parliament may go through and conclude upon these or like things in his Name his Majesty thinketh it will do well when his Subjects shall be recompenced of the Wrongs they have hitherto sustained that some order be devised for the administration of Justice hereafter in like Cases As touching the Confirmation of the Treaty considering that the same was first made between the Emperor and King Henry the Eighth and not ratified by the King your Master since his Father's Death his Majesty thinketh that he hath most cause to require the same Wherefore because as I told you even now he thinketh that these things the King himself should conclude upon during his Minority cannot be of sufficient force if his Tutors shall be by the Authority of your Parliament enabled thereto his Majesty is content the Treaty be confirmed by them in the King's Name and by the Prince of Spain in such form as shall be thought best for both Parties As to the comprehension of Bulloign ye must know that we have a Treaty with France as well as with you which the Emperor cannot without some touch of his Honour break without just Grounds And albeit his Majesty would be loath to see the King his good Brother forgoe either that Peece or any other Jot of his Right yet can he not enter this Defence unless he would break with France out of hand which in respect of his other Affairs he cannot yet do howbeit he will gladly assist his good Brother in any other thing the best he may and will not fail to shew him all the Pleasure he can with regard to his Honour but with Bulloign he cannot meddle at this time And here he staying Is this the Emperor's resolute and full Answer Monsieur d' Arras quoth I. Yea quoth he wherewith he prayeth the King his good Brother to rest satisfied and take it in good part Albeit quoth I I have no Commission to make any Reply thereto because it was not known to your Grace what the Emperor's Resolution should be yet in the way of talk I will be bold to say my mind herein We have Monsieur d' Arras quoth I always esteemed the Emperor's Friendship and desired the observation of the Treaties and the entertainment of the Amity as a thing necessary and common to both the Parties for the better establishment whereof and that now and in this time some good Fruit to the benefit of both might appear to the World to follow of the same I was sent hither which was the chiefest cause of my coming And because that the Amity between both Princes might be the firmer and that all Doubts being taken away no cause of Quarrel shall be left we thought best to put you in mind of the Confirmation and Revisitation of the Treaty to the intent that by the one the World might see an establishment of our Friendship by our deed and that by the other one of us might understand another and consider whether any thing were to be added for the Commodity of both Parties which I suppose standeth you as much upon to desire as it doth us And whereas ye say that the King's Majesty because he is under Age cannot conclude or go through with any thing that shall be of sufficient force I must needs tell you plainly That ye touch his Majesty's Honour over-near herein for we think that the Majesty of a King is of such efficacy that he hath even the same Authority and full Power at the first hour of his Birth that he hath thirty Years after And what your Laws are I know not but sure I am that by our Laws whatsoever is done by the King in his Minority or by his Ministers in his Name is of no less force and strength than if it had been done in time of his full Age and Years if once the Great Seal of his Realm have passed there is no Remedy but needs must he stand thereto Marry let the Ministers take heed what they do and look that they may be able to discharge themselves towards him of their Doings if he shall require account of them when he cometh to Age for it is they must answer him but he must needs stand to whatsoever they have counselled him to agree unto during his Minority And to prove that our Laws giveth him the same Authority now that he shall have when he cometh to his perfect Age if any Man either for instruction of Learning or any other Cause should presume to lay hands on or touch his Majesty in way of correction he should by Law be taken for a Traitor And if the Matter were as ye take it we should then be in a strange and evil case for neither might we conclude Peace League or Treaty nor make Laws or Statutes during the King's Minority that should be of sufficient force to bind him and his to the observation of the same But ye mistake the Matter much and therefore if the Emperor mind to proceed to this Confirmation he may or otherwise do as it shall please him And as touching my Case quoth I ye must understand I did not move it without some just ground for remembring that all your Commissioners and all ours being together at Vtrecht for the Esclarcisement of the Treaty although the words of the Treaty were plain enough and could receive none other interpretation than was there plainly written yet would ye needs understand the Article for common Enmity in case of Invasion after your own minds And whereas by the words of the Treaty no mention is made of any number and therefore with howsoever few in number the Invasion be made ought the Invaders to be taken for common Enemies Your Commissioners did nevertheless interpret the Matter at their pleasure and would needs prescribe a number of 8000 Men under which number of Invasion were made the Treaties in this case should not stand to any force And like-as ye put a doubt here where none was to be found so thought I ye might do in other things were they never so plain and that moved me to put this case to see whether ye understood this Point as ye ought to do after the literal sense and partly to know your minds therein because perhaps the Matter hath been already in ure This I say was the occasion why I put further this Question and not for any mistrust of the Emperor's Friendship whom I must confess we have always found our Well-willer and so we doubt not he will continue and
That against Law he held a Court of Request in his House and did enforce divers to answer there for their Freehold and Goods and did determine of the same 8. That being no Officer without the advice of the Council or most part of them he did dispose Offices of the King's Gift for Mony grant Leases and Wards and Presentations of Benefices pertaining to the King gave Bishopricks and made sales of the King's Lands 9. That he commanded Alchimie and Multiplication to be practised thereby to abase the King's Coin 10. That divers times he openly said That the Nobility and Gentry were the only cause of Dearth whereupon the People rose to reform Matters of themselves 11. That against the mind of the whole Council he caused Proclamation to be made concernig Inclosures whereupon the People made divers Insurrections and destroyed many of the King's Subjects 12. That he sent forth a Commission with Articles annexed concerning Inclosures Commons High-ways Cottages and such-like Matters giving the Commissioners authority to hear and determine those causes whereby the Laws and Statutes of the Realm were subverted and much Rebellion raised 13. That he suffered Rebels to assemble and lie armed in Camp against the Nobility and Gentry of the Realm without speedy repressing of them 14. That he did comfort and encourage divers Rebels by giving them Mony and by promising them Fees Rewards and Services 15. That he caused a Proclamation to be made against Law and in favour of the Rebels that none of them should be vexed or sued by any for their Offences in their Rebellion 16. That in time of Rebellion he said That he liked well the Actions of the Rebels and that the Avarice of Gentlemen gave occasion for the People to rise and that it was better for them to die than to perish for want 17. That he said The Lords of the Parliament were loath to reform Inclosures and other things therefore the People had a good cause to reform them themselves 18. That after declaration of the Defaults of Bulloign and the Pieces there by such as did survey them he would never amend the same 19. That he would not suffer the King's Pieces of Newhaven and Blackness to be furnished with Men and Provision albeit he was advertised of the Defaults and advised thereto by the King's Council whereby the French King was emboldned to attempt upon them 20. That he would neither give Authority nor suffer Noblemen and Gentlemen to suppress Rebels in time convenient but wrote to them to speak the Rebels fair and use them gently 21. That upon the 5th of October the present Year at Hampton-Court for defence of his own private Causes he procured seditious Bills to be written in counterfeit Hands and secretly to be dispersed into divers parts of the Realm beginning thus Good People intending thereby to raise the King's Subjects to Rebellion and open War 22. That the King's Privy-Council did consult at London to come to him and move him to reform his Government but he hearing of their Assembly declared by his Letters in divers places that they were high Traitors to the King 23. That he declared untruly as well to the King as to other young Lords attending his Person That the Lords at London intended to destroy the King and desired the King never to forget but to revenge it and desired the young Lords to put the King in remembrance thereof with intent to make Sedition and Discord between the King and his Nobles 24. That at divers times and places he said The Lords of the Council at London intended to kill me but if I die the King shall die and if they famish me they shall famish him 25. That of his own head he removed the King so suddenly from Hampton-Court to Windsor without any provision there made that he was thereby not only in great fear but cast thereby into a dangerous Disease 26. That by his Letters he caused the King's People to assemble in great numbers in Armour after the manner of War to his Aid and Defence 27. That he caused his Servants and Friends at Hampton-Court and Windsor to be apparelled in the King's Armour when the King's Servants and Guards went unarmed 28. That he intended to fly to Gernsey or Wales and laid Post-horses and Men and a Boat to that purpose Number 47. A Letter written by the Council to the Bishops to assure them That the King intended to go forward in the Reformation By the KING RIght Reverend Father in God Right trusty and well-beloved Regist Cran. Fol. 56. we greet you well Whereas the Book entituled the Book of Common Prayers and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church after the use of the Church of England was agreed upon and set forth by Act of Parliament and by the same Act commanded to be used of all Persons within this our Realm Yet nevertheless we are informed that divers unquiet and evil-disposed Persons sithence the apprehension of the Duke of Somerset have noised and bruited abroad That they should have again their old Latin Service their Conjured Bread and Water with such-like vain and superfluous Ceremonies as though the setting forth of the said Book had been the only Act of the said Duke We therefore by the advice of the Body and State of our Privy-Council not only considering the said Book to be our Act and the Act of the whole State of our Realm assembled together in Parliament but also the same to be grounded upon the Holy Scripture agreeable to the Order of the Primitive Church and much to the re-edifying of our Subjects to put away all such vain expectation of having the Publick Service the Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies again in the Latin Tongue which were but a preferment of Ignorance to Knowledg and Darkness to Light and a preparation to bring in Papistry and Superstition again have thought good by the advice aforesaid to require and nevertheless straitly do command and charge you That immediately upon the receipt hereof you do command the Dean and Prebendaries of your Cathedral Church the Parsons Vicar or Curat and Church-wardens of every Parish within your Diocess to bring and deliver unto you or your Deputy any of them for their Church or Parish at such convenient place as you shall appoint all Antiphonals Missals Graylles Processionals Manuels Legends Pies Portasies Journals and Ordinals after the use of Sarum Lincoln York or any other private use And all other Books of Service the keeping whereof should be a lett to the using of the said Book of Common Prayers and that you take the same Books into your hands or into the hands of your Deputy and them so to deface and abolish that they never after may serve either to any such use as they were provided for or be at any time a lett to that godly and uniform Order which by a common Consent is now set forth And if
in all things with Authority sufficient to execute Justice as well in Causes Criminal as in Matters of Controversy between Party and Party his Majesty hath commanded and appointed two Commissions to be made out under his Grace's Great Seal of England by virtue whereof they shall have full Power and Authority in either Case to proceed as the Matter occurrent shall require And for the more speedy expedition to be used in all causes of Justice his Majesty's Pleasure is That the said Lord President and Council shall cause every Complainant and Defendant that shall have to do before them to put and declare their whole Matter in their Bill of Complaint and Answer without Replication Rejoinder or other Plea or Delay to be had or used therein which Order the said L. President and Council shall manifest unto all such as shall be Councellors in any Matter to be intreated and defined before them charging and commanding the said Councellors and Pleaders to observe this Order upon such Penalties as they shall think convenient as they will eschew the danger of the same and not in any ways to break it without the special License of the said Lord President and that only in some special Causes And further his Highness by these Presents doth give full Power and Authority to the said Lord President and Council as well to punish such Persons as in any thing shall neglect contemn or disobey their Commandments or the Process of the Council as all other that shall speak seditious Words invent Rumors or commit such-like Offences not being Treason whereof any Inconvenience might grow by Pillory cutting their Ears wearing of Papers Imprisonment or otherwise at their Discretions And the said L. President and Council at their discretions shall appoint Counsellors and other Requisites to poor Suitors having no Mony without paying Fees or other things for the same And his Highness giveth full Power and Authority to the said L. President Council being with him or four of them at the least whereof the said L. President Sir John Hind Sir Edmond Molineux Sir Robert Bowes Sir Leonard Becquith Sir Anthony Nevill Sir Thomas Gargrave Knights Robert Mennell and Robert Chaloner to be two with the Lord President to assess Fines of all Persons that shall be convict or indicted of any Riot how many soever they be in number unless the Matter of such Riot shall be thought unto them of such importance as the same shall be meet to be signified unto his Majesty to be punished in such sort by the Order of his Council attending upon his Grace's Person as the same may be noted for an Example to others And his Grace giveth full Power and Authority to the said Lord President and Council or four of them at the least whereof the Lord President and two others bound to continual Attendance to be three to Award and Assess Costs and Dammages as well to the Plaintiffs as to the Defendants by their discretions and to award execution of their Decrees and Orders and to punish the breakers of the same being Parties thereunto by their discretions All which Decrees and Orders the Secretary shall be bound incontinently upon the promulgation of the same to write or cause to be written in one fair Book which shall remain in the hands and custody of the said Lord President And to the intent it may appear to all Persons there what Fees shall be paid and taken for all Processes and Writings to be used by the said Council his Majesty therefore appointeth that there shall be a Table affixed in every place where the said Lord President and Council shall sit at any Sessions and a like Table to hang openly that all Men may see it in the Office where the said Secretary and the Clerks shall commonly sit and expedite the said Writings wherein shall be declared what shall be paid for the same That is to say For every Recognisance wherein one alone or more standeth bounden 12 d. for the cancelling of every like Recognisance 12 d. For the entring of every Decree 6 d. for the Copy of the same if it be asked 6 d. For every Letter Commission Attachment or other Precept or Process sent to any Person 4 d. For every Dismission before the said Council if it be asked 4 d. For the Copies of Bills and Answers and other Pleas for every ten lines reasonably writ 1 d. for the Examination of every Witness 4 d. And his Grace's Pleasure is That the Examination of Witnesses produced in Matters before the said Council shall be examined by such discreet Person and Persons as shall be thought convenient and meet by the said Lord President and two of the said Council bound to continual Attendance and that the said Lord President with such-like two of the said Council shall reform appoint and allow such Persons to write Bills Answers Copies or other Process in that Court as they shall think convenient over and beside the said Secretary and his two Clerks which Clerks also the said Lord President and Council shall reform and correct as they shall have cause and occasion In which Reformation and Appointments the said Lord President shall have a Voice Negative And for the more certain and brief determination of Matters in those parts his Majesty by these Presents ordaineth that the said Lord President and Council shall keep four general Sittings or Sessions in the Year every of them to continue by the space of one whole Month whereof one to be at York another at Kingston upon Hull one at New-Castle and another at Duresme within the limits whereof the Matters rising there shall be ordered and decreed if they conveniently so may be And they shall in every of the same Places keep one Goal Delivery before their departure from thence his Grace nevertheless referring it to their Discretions to take and appoint such other Place and Places for their said four general Sittings as they or the said Lord President with three of the Council bounden to continual Attendance shall think most convenient for the time and purpose so that they keep the full term of one Month in every such place if they may in any wise conveniently so do And forsomuch as a great number of his Majesty's Tenants and Farmers have been heretofore retained with sundry Persons by Wages Livery Badg or Connysance by reason whereof when his Grace should have had service of them they were rather at Commandment of other Men than according to their Duties of Allegiance of his Highness of whom they have their Livings his Majesty's Pleasure and express Commandment is That none of his said Council nor others shall by any means retain or entertain any of his Graces Tenants or Farmers in such sort as they or any of them should account themselves bounden to do him or them any other Service than as to his Highness Officers having Office or being appointed in Service there unless the same Farmers and Tenants be continually
clam Autographum surripuerat 5. Septemb. Anno Dom. 1553. Number 9. The Conclusion of Cardinal Pool's Instructions to Mr. Goldwell sent by him to the Queen An Original Cotton Libr. Titus B. 2. FOr the conclusion of all that is comprised in your Instruction as that the which containeth the whole Sum of my poor Advice and Counsel it pleaseth her Grace to ask of me you shall say That my most humble desire is that in all deliberation her Grace shall make touching the maintenance of her State the same will ever well ponder and consider what the Providence of God hath shewed therein above that which hath been shewed in her Predecessors Kings of this Realm in this one Point which is to have the Crown not only as a King's Daughter and Heir but hath ordered that this Point of right Inheritance shall depend as it doth of the Authority he hath given to his Church and of the See of Rome which is the See Apostolick approving her Mother to be Legitimate Wife of King Henry the Eighth whereby she is bound afore God and Man as she will show her self the very Daughter of the said King Henry the Eighth right Heir of the Crown so also to show her self right Daughter of the Church and of them that be resident in the See Apostolick who be the right Heirs of Peter to whom and his Successors Christ chief Head of the Church in Heaven and in Earth hath given in Earth to bear his Place touching the Rule of the same Church and to have the Crown thereof which well considered and pondered her Grace shall soon see how in her Person the Providence of God hath joined the Right she hath by her Father in the Realm with the Right of the Church that she cannot prevail by the one except she join the other withal and they that will separate these two take away not only half her Right but her whole Right being not so much Heir because she is King Henry's only Daughter without Issue Male as she is his lawful Daughter which she hath by the Authority of the Church Which thing prudently and godly considered she cannot but see what faithful counsel this is That above all Acts that in this Parliament shall be made doth advertise her Grace to establish that the which pertaineth to the establishing of the Authority of the Church and the See of the same what rendering to him that is right Successor to Peter therein his right Title of Head in the Church in Earth without the which she cannot be right Head in the Realm and this established all Controversy is taken away and who will repine unto this he doth repine unto her right of the Crown Wherefore this is my first Advice That this Point above all other should be entreated and enacted in the Parliament and so I know her Graces full mind was and is that it should be But she feareth Difficulties and hereupon dependeth that her Grace asketh my poor Advice how these Difficulties may be taken away Unto this you may say That they must be taken away by the help of him that by his high Providence above Man's expectance hath given her already the Crown Which will have as well this second Act known of the maintainance thereof to depend of him as the first in attaining thereto And to have his help the mean is by humble Prayer wherein I would advertise her Highness not only to give her self to Prayer but also by Alms to the needy excitate the Minds of others to Prayer these be the means of most efficacy and with this to take that ardent Mind to establish the Authority of the Church casting away all fear of Man that she to be to have her Crown and not so much for her own sake as for the Honour of God which gave her the Crown And if any Difficulty should be feared in the Parliament herein leave the honour to take away the difficulty thereof to none other but assume that person to her self as most bound thereto and to propone that her self which I would trust to be of that efficacy that if inwardly any Man will repugn outwardly the Reasons be so evident for this part that joined with the Authority of her Person being proponent none will be so hardy temerarious nor impious that will resist And if in this deliberation it should seem strange to put forth these Matters in the Parliament as I have said in the Instructions without communicating the same with any of her Council I would think it well her Grace might confer it with two of the chiefest that be counted of the People most near her favour one Spiritual and another Temporal with declaring to them first how touching her Conscience afore God and her Right afore the World she can never be quiet until this Matter be stablished touching the Authority of the Church requiring their uttermost help in that as if she should fight for the Crown her Majesty may be sure she putting the same forth with that earnest manner they will not lack to serve her and they may serve quietly in the Parliament after her Grace hath spoken to prosecute and justify the same with efficacy of words to give all others example to follow her Grace leaving this part unto them That if the Name of Obedience to the Pope should seem to bring as it were a Yoke to the Realm or any other kind of servitude beside that it should be profitable to the Realm both afore God and Man that her Grace that bringeth it in again will never suffer it nor the Pope himself requireth no such thing And herein also that they say That my Person being the Mean to bring it in would never agree to be an Instrument thereof if I thought any thraldom should come thereby they shall never be deceived of me And if they would say beside I would never have taken this Enterprize upon me except I thought by the same to bring great Comfort to the Country wherein the Pope's Authority being accepted I would trust should be so used that it might be an Example of Comfort not only to that Country but to all other that hath rejected it afore and for that cause hath been ever since in great misery This is the sum of all my poor Advice at this time in this Case whereof I beseech Almighty God so much may take effect as shall be to his Honour and Wealth to her Grace and the whole Realm besides Amen Number 10. A Copy of a Letter with Articles sent from the Queens Majesty unto the Bishop of London and by him and his Officers at her gracious Commandment to be put in speedy execution with effect in the whole Diocess as well in places exempt as not exempt whatsoever according to the Tenour and Form of the same Sent by the Queen's Majesty's Commandment in the Month of March Anno Dom. 1553. By the QUEEN RIght Reverend Father in God Right trusty and well-beloved We
chuse And as for our own Persons we shall bestow with all that ever we have to the death where and however it shall please him submitting our selves to his Majesty's Judgment in this Matter and to the execution and doing of that whatsoever either his Majesty or any other Man shall devise to be done better than we have said in this Answer and more for the honour and surety of their Majesties and Common-Wealth of this their Realm Feb. 1. 1577. Number 37. Sir Thomas Pope's Letter concerning the Answer made by the Lady Elizabeth to a proposition of Marriage sent over by the Elected King of Sweden FIrst Ex M. S. D G. Petyt After I had declared to her Grace how well the Queen's Majesty liked of her prudent and honourable Answer made to the same Messenger I then opened unto her Grace the Effect of the said Messengers Credence which after her Grace had heard I said The Queen's Highness had sent me to her Grace not only to declare the same but also to understand how her Grace liked the said Motion Whereunto after a little pause taken her Grace answered in form following Master Pope I require you after my most humble Commendations to the Queen's Majesty to render unto the same like thanks that it pleased her Highness of her Goodness to conceive so well of my Answer made to the same Messenger and here withal of her Princely Consideration with such speed to command you by your Letters to signify the same unto me who before remained wonderfully perplexed fearing that her Majesty might mistake the same for which her Goodness I acknowledg my self bound to honour serve love and obey her Highness during my Life Requiring you also to say unto her Majesty That in the King my Brother's time there was offered me a very honourable Marriage or two and Ambassadors sent to treat with me touching the same whereupon I made my humble Suit unto his Highness as some of Honour yet living can be testimonies that it would like the same to give me leave with his Grace's favour to remain in that Estate I was which of all others best liked me or pleased me And in good Faith I pray you say unto her Highness I am even at this present of the same mind and so intend to continue with her Majesty's favour and assuring her Highness I so well like this Estate as I perswade my self there is not any kind of Life comparable unto it And as concerning my liking the said Motion made by the said Messenger I beseech you say unto her Majesty That to my remembrance I never heard of his Master before this time and that I so well like both the Message and the Messenger as I shall most humbly pray God upon my Knees that from henceforth I never hear of the one nor of the other assure you that if it should eft-soons repair unto me I would forbear to speak to him And were there nothing else to move me to mislike the Motion other than that his Master would attempt the same without making the Queen's Majesty privy thereunto it were cause sufficient And when her Grace had thus ended I was so bold as of my self to say unto her Grace her pardon first required that I thought few or none would believe but that her Grace could be right-well contented to marry so there were some honourable Marriage offered her by the Queen's Highness or her Majesty's Assent Whereunto her Grace answered What I shall do hereafter I know not but I assure you upon my Truth and Fidelity and as God be merciful unto me I am not at this time otherwise minded than I have declared unto you no though I were offered the greatest Prince in all Europe And yet percase the Queen's Majesty may conceive this rather to proceed of a maidenly shamefastness than upon any such certain determination Tho. Pope FINIS A COLLECTION OF RECORDS c. BOOK III. Number 1. The Device for Alteration of Religion in the first Year of Queen Elizabeth offered to Secretary Cecill Question 1. WHen the Queen's Highness may attempt to reduce the Church of England again to the former purity Ex M. SS Nob. D. Grey dc Ruthen and when to begin the Alteration Answer At the next Parliament so that the Dangers be foreseen and Remedies provided for the sooner that Religion is restored God is the more glorified and as we trust will be more merciful unto us and better save and defend her Highness from all Dangers Quest 2. What Dangers may ensue thereof Answ 1. The Bishop of Rome all that he may will be incensed he will Excommunicate the Queen's Highness Interdict the Realm and give it in Prey to all Princes that will enter upon it and stir them up to it by all manner of means 2. The French King will be encouraged more to the War and make his People more ready to fight against us not only as Enemies but as Hereticks He will be in great hope of Aid from hence of them that are discontented with this Alteration looking for Tumults and Discords He will also stay concluding of Peace upon hope of some alteration 3. Scotland also will have the same Causes of boldness and by that way the French King will seem soonest to attempt to annoy us Ireland also will be very difficultly stayed in the Obedience by reason of the Clergy that is so addicted to Rome 4. Many People of our own will be very much discontented especially all such as governed in the late Queen Mary's Time and were chosen theâ—â—to for no other Causes or were then most esteemed for being hot and earnest in that other Religion and now remain unplaced and uncalled to Credit will think themselves discredited and all their Doings defaced and study all the ways they can to maintain their own Doings destroy and despise all this Alteration 5. Bishops and all the Clergy will see their own ruin and in Confession and Preaching and all other means and ways they can will persuade the People from it they will conspire with whomsoever will attempt and pretend to do God a Sacrifice in letting the Alteration though it be with murder of Christian Men and Treason Men which be of the Papists Sect which of late were in a manner all the Judges of the Land the Justices of the Peace chosen out by the late Queen in all the Shires such as were believed to be of that Sect and the more earnest therein the more in estimation These are most like to join and conspire with the Bishops and Clergy Some when the Subsidy shall be granted and Mony levied as it appeareth that necessarily it must be done will be therewith offended and like enough to conspire and arise if they have any heed to stir them to do it or hope of Gain or Spoil 6. Many such as would gladly have Alteration from the Church of Rome when they shall see peradventure that some old Ceremonies be left still
for that their Doctrine which they embrace is not allowed and commanded only and all other abolished and disproved shall be discontented and call the Alteration a Cloak'd Papistry or a Mingle-Mangle Quest 3. What Remedy for the same Dangers What shall be the manner of doing of it and what is necessary to be done before Answ 1. First for France to practise a Peace or if it be offered not to refuse it If Controversy of Religion be there amongst them to kindle it Rome is less to be feared from whom nothing is to be feared but evil Will Cursing and Practising Scotland will follow France for Peace but there may be Practice to help forward their Division and especially to augment the Hope of them who inclined them to good Religion For certainty to fortify Barwick and to employ Demilances and Horsemen for safety of the Frontiers and some Expences of Mony in Ireland The fourth divided in five parts 1. The first is of them which were of Queen Mary's Council elected or advanced to Authority only or chiefly for being of the Pope's Religion and earnest in the same Every Augmentation or Conservation of such Men in Authority or Reputation is an encouraging those of their Sect and giveth hope to them that it shall revive and continue although it hath a contrary shew lest seeing the Pillars to stand still untouched it be a confirmation of them that are wavering Papists and a discouraging of such as are but half inclined to this Alteration Dum in dubio est animus parvo momento huc illuc impellitur This must be searched by all Law so far as Justice may extend and the Queen's Majesty's Clemency not to be extended before they do acknowledg themselves to have fallen into the lapse of the Law They must be abased of Authority discredited in their Countries so long as they seem to repugn the true Religion or to maintain the old Proceedings and if they should seem to allow and bear with the new Alteration yet not lightly to be credited quia neophiti and no Man but he loveth that time wherein he did flourish and when he came and as he came those Ancient Laws and Orders he will defend and maintain with whom and in whom he was in Estimation and Authority and a Doer for every Man naturally loveth that which is his own Work and Creature And contrary as those Men be abased so must her Highness old and sure Servants who have tarried with her and not shrunk in the late Storm be advanced with Authority and Credit that the World may see that her Highness is not unkind nor unmindful And throughout all England if such Persons as are known to be sure in Religion and God's Cause shall be slack yet their own Safety and Estate should cause to be vigilant careful and earnest for the conservation of her Estate and maintenance of this Alteration and in all this she shall do but the same that the late Queen Mary did to establish her Religion 2. The second is the Bishops and Clergy being in manner all made and chosen such as were thought the stoutest and mightiest Champions of the Pope's Church who in the late Queen Mary's Times taking from the Crown impoverishing it by extorting from private Men and all other means possible per fas nefas have sought to enrich and advance themselves These her Majesty being inclined to use much clemency yet must seek as well by Parliament as by the just Laws of England in the Premunire or other such Penal Laws to bring again in order and being found in the default not to pardon until they confess their Fault put themselves wholly to her Highness Mercy abjure the Pope of Rome and conform themselves to the new Alteration and by these means well handled her Majesty's necessity of Mony may be somewhat relieved 3. The third is to amended even as all the rest above by such ways as Queen Mary taught That no such as were may be in Commission of Peace in their Shires but rather Men meaner in Substance and younger in Years so that they have discretion to be put in Place A sharp Law made and extended against Assemblies of People without Authority Lieutenants made in every Shire one or two Men known to be sure of the Queen's Devotion In the mean time Musters and Captains appointed Young Gentlemen which do favour her Highness No Office of Jurisdiction or Authority to be in any discontented Man's hands so far as Justice or Law may extend 4. The fourth is to be remedied otherwise than by gentle and dulce handling it is by the Commissioners and by the readiness and good-will of the Lieutenants and Captains to repress them if any should begin a Tumult or murmur or provide any Assembly or stoutness to the contrary 5. The fifth For the Discontentation of such as could be content to have Religion altered but would have it to go for fear the strait Laws upon the Promulgation of the Book and severe execution of the same at the first would so oppress them that it is great hope it shall touch but a few And better it were that they did suffer than her Highness and Common-Wealth should shake or be in danger and to this they must well take heed that draw the Book And herein the Universities must not be neglected and the hurt which the last Visitation in Queen Mary's Time did must be amended Likewise such Colleges where Children be instructed to come to the University as Eaton and Winchester that as well the encrease hereafter as this present time may be provided for Quest 4. What may be done of her Highness for her own Conscience openly before the whole Alteration or if the Alteration must tarry longer Answer This consultation is to be referred to such Learned Men as be meet to shew their Minds therein and to bring a Plot or Book hereof ready drawn to her Highness which being approved by her Majesty may so be put in the Parliament-House To which for the time it is thought that these are apt Men Dr. Bill Dr. Parker Dr. May Dr. Cox Mr. Whitehead Grindall Pilkington and Sir Thomas Smith to call them together and to be amongst them and after the consultation with these to draw in other Men of Learning and grave and apt Men for your Purpose and Credit to have their Assents As for that is necessary to be done before it is thought to be most necessary that a strait Prohibition be made of all Innovation until such time as the Book come forth as well that there should be no often Changes in Religion which would take away Authority in the common Peoples estimation as also to exercise the Queen's Majesty's Subjects to Obedience Quest 5. What Orders be sit to be in the whole Realm as in the interim Answer To alter no further than her Majesty hath except it be to receive the Communion as her Majesty pleaseth at high Feasts and that where there be
enabling of their own Judgments to treat and conclude of such Laws as might depend thereupon This also being thought very reasonable was signified to both Parties and so fully agreed upon And the day appointed for the first Meeting to be the Friday in the Forenoon being the last of March at Westminster Church where both for good Order and for Honour of the Conferences by the Queen's Majesty's Commandment the Lords and others of the Privy-Council were present and a great part of the Nobility also And notwithstanding the former Order appointed and consented unto by both Parties yet the Bishop of Winchester and his Colleagues alleadging that they had mistaken that their Assertions and Reasons should be written and so only recited out of the Book said Their Book was not then ready written but they were ready to Argue and Dispute and therefore they would for that time repeat in Speech that which they had to say to the first Proposition This variation from the former Order and specially from that which themselves had by the said Arch-Bishop in writing before required adding thereto the Reason of the Apostle that to contend with words is profitable to nothing but to the subversion of the Hearer seemed to the Queen's Majesty somewhat strange and yet was it permitted without any great reprehension because they excused themselves with mistaking the Order and argued that they would not fail but put it in writing and according to the former Order deliver it to the other Part. And so the said Bishop of Winchester and his Colleagues appointed Dr. Cole Dean of Pauls to be their Utterer of their Minds who partly by Speech only and partly by reading of Authorities written and at certain times being informed of his Colleagues what to say made a declaration of their Meanings and their Reasons to the first Proposition Which being ended they were asked by the Privy Council If any of them had any more to be said and they said No. So as then the other Part was licensed to shew their Minds which they did accordingly to the first Order exhibiting all that which they meant to propound in a Book written Which after a Prayer and Invocation made most humbly to Almighty God for the enduing of them with his Holy Spirit and a Protestation also to stand to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church builded upon the Scriptures and the Doctrine of the Prophets and the Apostles was distinctly read by one Robert Horn Batchelor in Divinity late Dean of Duresm And the same being ended with some likelyhood as it seemed that the same was much allowable to the Audience certain of the Bishops began to say contrary to their former Answer that they had now much more to say to this Matter wherein although they might have been well reprehended for such manner of cavillation yet for avoiding any more mistaking of Orders in this Colloquie or Conference and for that they should utter all that which they had to say it was both ordered and thus openly agreed upon of both Parts in the full Audience that upon the Monday following the Bishops should bring their Minds and Reasons in Writing to the second Assertion and the last also if they could and first read the same and that done the other Part should bring likewise theirs to the same and being read each of them should deliver to other the same Writings And in the mean time the Bishops should put in writing not only all that which Doctor Cole had that day uttered but all such other Matters as they any otherwise could think of for the same and as soon as might possible to send the same Book touching the first Assertion to the other part and they should receive of them that Writing which Master Horn had there read that day and upon Monday it should be agreed what day they should exhibit their Answer touching the first Proposition Thus both parts assented thereto and the Assembly was quietly dismissed And therefore upon Monday the like Assembly began again at the Place and Hour appointed and there upon what sinister or disordered meaning is not yet fully known though in some part it be understanded the Bishop of Winchester and his Colleagues and specially Lincoln refused to exhibit or read according to the former notorious Order on Friday that which they had prepared for the second Assertion and thereupon by the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal they being first gently and favourably required to keep the Order appointed and that taking no place being secondly as it behoved pressed with the more earnest request they neither regarding the Authority of that Place nor their own Reputation nor the Credit of the Cause utterly refused that to do And finally being again particularly every one of them apart distinctly by Name required to understand their Opinions therein they all saving one which was the Abbot of Westminster having some more consideration of Order and his Duty of Obedience than the other utterly and plainly denied to have their Book read some of them as more earnestly than other some so also some others more indiscreetly and irreverently than others Whereupon giving such Example of Disorders Stubbornness and Self-will as hath not been seen and suffered in such an Honourable Assembly being of the two Estates of this Realm the Nobilities and Commons besides the Persons of the Queen's Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council the same Assembly was dismissed and the Godly and most Christian Purpose of the Queen's Majesty made frustrate And afterwards for the contempt so notoriously made the Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln who have most obstinately disobeyed both Common Authority and varied manifestly from their own Order specially Lincoln who shewed more folly than the other were condignly committed to the Tower of London and the rest saving the Abbot of VVestminster stand bound to make daily their personal appearance before the Council and not to depart the City of London and VVestminster until further Order be taken with them for their Disobedience and Contempt N. Bacon Cust Sigill F. Shrewsbury F. Bedford Pembrok E. Clynton G. Rogers F. Knollys W. Cecill A. Cave Number 6. An Address made by some Bishops and Divines to Queen Elizabeth against the Use of Images To the Queen 's most Excellent Majesty WE knowing your gracious Clemency and considering the necessity of the Matter that we have to move the one doth encourage us and the other compel us as before to make our humble Petition unto your Highness and to renew our former Suit not in any respect of self-will stoutness or striving against your Majesty God we take to Witness for with David we confess that we are but as Canes mortui aut Pulices in comparison But we do it only for that fear and reverence which we bear to the Majesty of Almighty God in whose Hands to fall 't is terrible for it lieth in his Power to destroy for ever and to cast both Body and Soul into Hell Fire
two several times that is to say the Sundays next following Easterday and St. Michael the Arch-Angel or on some other Sunday within one month after those Feasts immediately after the Gospel FOrasmuch as it appertaineth to all Christian Men but especially to the Ministers and the Pastors of the Church being Teachers and Instructers of others to be ready to give a Reason of their Faith when they shall be thereunto required I for my part now appointed your Parson Vicar or Curat having before my Eyes the Fear of God and the Testimony of my Conscience do acknowledg for my self and require you to assent to the same I. First That there is but one living and true God of infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness the maker and preserver of all Things And that in Unity of this God-head there be three Persons of one Substance of equal Power and Eternity the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost II. I believe also whatsoever is contained in the Holy Canonical Scriptures In the which Scriptures are contained all things necessary to Salvation by the which also all Errors and Heresies may sufficiently be reproved and convicted and all Doctrine and Articles necessary to Salvation established I do also most firmly believe and confess all the Articles contained in the Three Creeds The Nicene Creed Athanasius Creed and our Common Creed called the Apostles Creed for these do briefly contain the principal Articles of our Faith which are at large set forth in the Holy Scriptures III. I do acknowledg also that Church to be the Spouse of Christ wherein the Word of God is truly taught the Sacraments orderly ministred according to Christ's Institution and the Authority of the Keys duly used And that every such particular Church hath authority to institute to change clean to put away Ceremonies and other Ecclesiastical Rites as they be superfluous or be abused and to constitute other making more to Seemliness to Order or Edification IV. Moreover I confess That it is not lawful for any Man to take upon him any Office or Ministry either Ecclesiastical or Secular but such only as are lawfully thereunto called by their High Authorities according to the Ordinances of this Realm V. Furthermore I do acknowledg the Queen's Majesty's Prerogative and Superiority of Government of all Estates and in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal within this Realm and other her Dominions and Countries to be agreable to God's Word and of right to appertain to her Highness in such sort as is in the late Act of Parliament expressed and sithence by her Majesty's Injunctions declared and expounded VI. Moreover touching the Bishop of Rome I do acknowledg and confess that by the Scriptures and Word of God he hath no more Authority than other Bishops have in their Provinces and Diocesses And therefore the Power which he now challengeth that is to be the Supream Head of the Universal Church of Christ and so to be above all Emperors Kings and Princes is an usurped Power contrary to the Scriptures and Word of God and contrary to the Example of the Primitive Church and therefore is for most just Causes taken away and abolished in this Realm VII Furthermore I do grant and confess That the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Holy Sacraments set sorth by the Authority of Parliament is agreeable to the Scriptures and that it is Catholick Apostolick and most for the advancing of God's Glory and the edifying of God's People both for that it is in a Tongue that may be understanded of the People and also for the Doctrine and Form of ministration contained in the same VIII And although in the Administration of Baptism there is neither Exorcism Oil Salt Spittle or hallowing of the Water now used and for that they were of late Years abused and esteemed necessary Where they pertain not to the substance and necessity of the Sacrament they be reasonably abolished and yet the Sacrament full and perfectly ministred to all intents and purposes agreeable to the Institution of our Saviour Christ IX Moreover I do not only acknowledg that Privat Masses were never used amongst the Fathers of the Primitive Church I mean publick Ministration and receiving of the Sacrament by the Priest alone without a just number of Communicants according to Christ's saying Take ye and eat ye c. But also that the Doctrine that maintaineth the Mass to be a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Quick and the Dead and a mean to deliver Souls out of Purgatory is neither agreeable to Christ's Ordinance nor grounded upon Doctrine Apostolick But contrary-wise most ungodly and most injurious to the precious Redemption of our Saviour Christ and his only-sufficient Sacrifice offered once for ever upon the Altar of the Cross X. I am of that mind also That the Holy Communion or Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ for the due obedience to Christ's Institution and to express the vertue of the same ought to be ministred unto the People under both kinds And that it is avouched by certain Fathers of the Church to be a plain Sacrilege to rob them of the Mystical Cup for whom Christ hath shed his most precious Blood seeing he himself hath said Drink ye all of this Considering also That in the time of the Ancient Doctors of the Church as Cyprian Hierom Augustine Gelasius and others six hundred Years after Christ and more both the Parts of the Sacrament were ministred to the People Last of all As I do utterly disallow the extolling of Images Reliques and feigned Miracles and also all kind of expressing God Invisible in the form of an Old Man or the Holy Ghost in form of a Dove and all other vain worshipping of God devised by Man's fantasy besides or contrary to the Scriptures As wandering on Pilgrimages setting up of Candles praying upon Beads and such-like Superstition which kind of Works have no promise of Reward in Scripture but contrary-wise Threatnings and Maledictions So I do exhort all Men to the Obedience of God's Law and to the Works of Faith as Charity Mercy Pity Alms devout and fervent Prayer with the affection of the Heart and not with the Mouth only Godly Abstinence and Fasting Chastity Obedience to the Rulers and Superior Powers with such-like Works and godliness of Life commanded by God in his Word which as St. Paul saith hath Promises both of this Life and of the Life to come and are Works only acceptable in God's sight These things above-rehearsed though they be appointed by common Order yet do I without all compulsion with freedom of Mind and Conscience from the bottom of my Heart and upon most sure persuasion acknowledg to be true and agreeable to God's Word And therefore I exhort you all of whom I have Cure heartily and obediently to embrace and receive the same That we all joining together in unity of Spirit Faith and Charity may also at length be joined together in the Kingdom of God and that
Hostages though that Assurance might be good to preserve her from Violence in Scotland yet it may be doubted how the same will be sufficient to keep her from escaping or governing a-again seeing for her part she will make little Conscience of the Hostages if she may prevail and the punishing of the Hostages will be a small satisfaction to the Queen's Majesty for the Troubles that may ensue And for the doubt of her escape or of Rebellion within this Realm it may be said That if she should not be well guarded but should be left open to practise then her Escape and the other Perils might be doubted of but if the Queen's Majesty hold a stricter hand over her and put her under the Care of a fast and circumspect Man all practice shall be cut from her and the Queen's Majesty free from that Peril And more safe it is for the Queen to keep the Bridle in her own Hand to restrain the Scottish Queen than in returning her home to commit that trust to others which by Death composition or abusing of one Person may be disappointed And if she should by any means recover her Estate the doubt of Rebellion there is not taken away but rather to be feared if she have ability to her Will And if she find strength by her own or Forreign Friends she is not far off to give Aid upon a main Land to such as will stir for her which so long as she is here they will forbear lest it might bring most Peril to her self being in the Queen's Hands The like respect no Doubt will move Forreign Princes to become Requesters and no Threatners for her delivery And where it is said That the Queen's Majesty cannot be quiet so long as she is here but it may breed danger to her Majesty's Health That is a Matter greatly to be weighed for it were better to adventure all than her Majesty should inwardly conceive any thing to the danger of her Health But as that is only known to such as have more inward Acquaintance with her Majesty's disposition than is fit for some other to have So again it is to be thought that her Majesty being wise if the Perils like to follow in returning her Home were laid before her and if she find them greater than the other she will be induced easily to change her Opinion and thereby may follow to her Majesty's great satisfaction and quietness Cautions if she be retained To remove her somewhat nearer the Court at the least within one days Journey of London whereby it shall be the more easie to understand of her Doings To deliver her in custody to such as be thought most sound in Religion and most void of practice To diminish her number being now about forty Persons to the one half to make thereby the Queen's Charges the less and to give her the fewer means of Intelligence To cut from her all Access Letters and Messages other than such as he that shall have the Charge shall think fit To signify to all Princes the occasion of this streight Guard upon her to be her late practice with the Duke of Norfolk which hath given the Queen cause to doubt further assuring them that she shall be used honourably but kept safely from troubling the Queen's Majesty or this State That she be retained here until the Estate of Scotland be more setled and the Estate of other Countries now in garboil be quieted the Issue whereof is like to be seen in a Year or two Number 12. A Letter written by the Earl of Leicester to the Earl of Sussex concerning the Queen of Scots taken from the first Draught of it written with his own hand MY good Lord I received your Letter in the answer of mine Ex M. SS Nob. D. Evelyn and though I have not written sooner again to your Lordship both according to your desire and the necessity of our Cases at this time yet I doubt not but you are fully advertised of her Majesty's Pleasure otherwise For my own part I am glad your Lordship hath prospered so well in your Journey and have Answered in all Points the good Opinion conceived of you And touching her Majesty's further Resolution for these Causes my Lord I assure you I know not well what to write First I see her Majesty willing and desirous as Reason is to work her own Security and the quietness of her State during her time which I trust in God shall be far longer than we shall live to see end of And herein my Lord there be sundry Minds and among our selves I must confess to your Lordship we are not fully agreed which way is best to take And to your Lordship I know I may be bold beside the Friendship I owe you the Place you hold presently doth require all the understanding that may be to the furtherance of her Majesty's good Estate wherefore I shall be the bolder even to let you know as much as I do and how we rest among us Your Lordship doth consider for the State of Scotland her Majesty hath those two Persons being divided to deal with the Queen of Scotland lately by her Subjects deprived and the young King her Son Crown'd and set up in her Place Her Majesty of these two is to chuse and of necessity must chuse which of them she will allow and accept as the Person sufficient to hold the principal Place And here groweth the Question in our Council to her Majesty Which of these two are most fit for her to maintain and join in Amity with To be plain with your Lordship The most in number do altogether conceive her Majesty's best and surest way is to maintain and continue the young King in this his Estate and thereby to make her whole Party in Scotland which by the setling of him with the cause of Religion is thought most easiest most safest and most probable for the perpetual quieting and benefit to her own Estate and great assurance made of such a Party and so small Charges thereby as her Majesty may make account to have the like Authority and assured Amity in Scotland as heretofore she had in the time of the late Regent The Reasons against the other are these shortly The Title that the Queen claimeth to this Crown The overthrow of Religion in that Country The impossibility of any assurance for the observing of any Pact or Agreement made between our Soveraign and her These be Causes your Lordship sees sufficient to dissuade all Men from the contrary Opinion And yet my Lord it cannot be denied upon indifferent looking into the Matter on both sides but the clearest is full enough of Difficulties And then my Lord is the Matter disputable and yet I think verily not for Argument-sake but even for Duty and Conscience-sake to find out Truth and safest means for our Soveraign's best doing And thus we differ The first you have heard touching the young King On the other side this it
is thought and of these I must confess my self to your Lordship to be one And God is my Judg whether it be for any other respect in this World but that I suppose and verily believe it may prove best for her Majesty 's own quietness during her time And here I must before open to your Lordship indeed her Majesty's true State she presently stands in which though it may be granted the former Advice the better way yet how hardly it layeth in her Power to go thorow withal you shall easily judg For it must be confessed That by the taking into her protection the King and the Faction she must enter into a War for it And as the least War being admitted cannot be maintained without great Charge so such a War may grow France or Spain setting in foot as may cause it to be an intollerable War Then being a War it must be Treasure that must maintain it That she hath Treasure to continue any time in War surely my Lord I cannot see it And as your Lordship doth see the present Relief for Mony we trust upon which either failing us or it rising no more than I see it like to be not able long to last Where is there further hope of help hereafter For my own part I see none If it be so then my Lord that her Majesty's present estate is such as I tell you which I am sure is true How shall this Counsel stand with security by taking a Party to enter into a War when we are no way able to maintain it for if we enter into it once and be driven either for Lack or any other way to shrink what is like to follow of the Matter your Lordship can well consider the best is we must be sorry for that we have done and per-chance seek to make a-mends where we neither would nor should This is touching the present State we stand in Besides we are to remember what already we have done how many ways even now together the Realm hath been universally burdened First For the keeping of new bands after the furnishing of Armour and therein how continually the Charge sooner hath grown than Subsidies payed And lastly the marvellous charge in most Countries against the late Rebellion with this Loan of Mony now on the neck of it Whether this State doth require further cause of imposition or no I refer to your Lordship And whether entring into a further Charge than her Majesty hath presently wherewithal to bear it will force such a Matter or no I refer to wiser to judg And now my Lord I will shew you such Reasons as move me to think as I do In Worldly Causes Men must be governed by Worldly Policies and yet so to frame them as God the Author of all be chiefly regarded From him we have received Laws under which all Mens Policies and Devices ought to be Subject and through his Ordinance the Princes on the Earth have Authority to give Laws by which also all Princes have the Obedience of the People And though in some Points I shall deal like a Worldly Man for my Prince yet I hope I shall not forget that I am a Christian nor my Duty to God Our Question is this Whether it be meeter for our Soveraign to maintain the young King of Scotland and his Authority or upon Composition restore the Queen of Scots into her Kingdom again To restore her simply we are not of Opinion for so I must confess a great over-sight and doubt no better Success than those that do Object most Perils thereby to ensue But if there be any Assurances in this World to be given or any Provision by Worldly Policy to be had then my Lord I do not see but Ways and Means may be used with the Queen of Scots whereby her Majesty may be at quiet and yet delivered of her present great Charge It is granted and feared of all sides that the cause of any trouble or danger to her Majesty is the Title the Queen of Scotland pretends to the Crown of this Realm The Danger we fear should happen by her is not for that she is Queen of Scotland but that other the great Princes of Christendom do favour her so much as in respect of her Religion they will in all Causes assist her and specially by the colour of her Title seem justly to aid and relieve her and the more lawfully take her and her Causes into their Protection Then is the Title granted to be the chief Cause of danger to our Soveraign If it be so Whether doth the setting up the Son in the Mothers Place from whence his Title must be claimed take away her Title in the Opinion of those Princes or no notwithstanding she remain Prisoner It appeareth plainly No for there is continual Labour and means made from the greatest Princes our Neighbours to the Queen's Majesty for restoring the Queen of Scotland to her Estate and Government otherwise they protest open Relief and Aid for her Then though her Majesty do maintain the young King in his present Estate yet it appears that other Princes will do the contrary And having any advantage how far they will proceed Men may suspect And so we must conceive that as long as this Difference shall continue by the maintaining of these two so long shall the same Cause remain to the trouble and danger of the Queen's Majesty And now to avoid this whilst she lives What better Mean is there to take this Cause away but by her own consent to renounce and release all such Interest or Title as she claimeth either presently or hereafter during the Life of her Majesty and the Heirs of her Body Albeit here may two Questions be moved First Whether the Scots Queen will renounce her Title or no Secondly If she will do so What Assurance may she give for the performance thereof To the first It is most certain she hath and presently doth offer wholly and frankly to release and renounce all manner of Claims and Titles whatsoever they be to the Crown of this Realm during her Majesty's Life and the Heirs of her Body And for the second She doth likewise offer all manner of Security and Assurances that her Majesty can devise and is in that Queen 's possible Power to do she excepteth none Then must we consider what may be Assurances for here is the difficulty For that Objections be that Princes never hold Promises longer than for their own Commodity and what Security soever they put in they may break if they will All this may be granted but yet that we must grant also that Princes do daily Treat and deal one with another and of necessity are forced to trust to such Bonds and Assurances as they contract by And as there is no such Surety to be had in Worldly Matters but all are subject to many Casualties yet we see such Devices made even among Princes as doth tie them to perform that which
if they might conveniently chuse they would not And in this Matter of the Queen of Scotland since she doth offer both to leave the cause of the difference that is between the Queen's Majesty and her and also to give all Surety that may be by our selves devised to observe the same I do not see but such means may be devised to tie her so strongly as though she would break yet I cannot find what advantage she shall get by it For beside that I would have her own simple Renunciation to be made by the most substantial Instrument that could be devised The assent of some others should confirm the same also Her own Parliaments at home should do the like with the full Authority of the whole Estates They should deliver her Son and such other principal Noblemen of her Realm for Hostages as the Queen's Majesty should name She should also put into her Majesty's Hands some one piece or two of her Realm and for such a time as should be thought meet by her Majesty except Edinburgh The Queens Majesty might also by ratifying this by a Parliament here make a Forfeiture if the Queen of Scotland should any way directly or indirectly go about to infringe this Agreement of all such Titles and Claims that did remain in the Queen of Scotland after her Majesty and her Issue never to be capable of any Authority or Soveraignty within this Realm These I would think to be sufficient Bonds to bind any Prince specially no mightier than she is And this much more would I have that even as she shall be thus bound for the relief of her Title to the Queen's Majesty and her Issue So shall she suffer the Religion received and established in Scotland already to be confirmed and not altered In like sort the Amity between these two Realms to be such and so frankly united as no other League with any Forreign Prince should stand in force to break it For I think verily as the first is chiefest touching her Majesty's own Person so do I judg the latter I mean the confirmation of the Religion already there received to be one of the assuredst and likeliest means to hold her Majesty a strong and continual Party in Scotland The trial hereof hath been already sufficient when her Majesty had none other Interest at all but only the maintenance of the True Religion the same Cause remaining still the same affection in the same Persons that do profess it I trust and it is like will not change And thougn the Scots Queen should now be setled in her Kingdom again yet is she not like to be greater or better esteemed now than heretofore when both her Authority was greater and her good will ready to alter this Religion but could not bring it to pass No more is it like these further Provisions being taken she shall do it now And the last Cause also is not without great hope of some good Success for as the oppression of Strangers heretofore had utterly wearied them of that Yoke so hath this peaceable time between them and us made them know the Liberty of their own and the Commodity of us their Neighbours This my Lord doth lead me to lean to this Opinion finding thereby rather both more surety and more quietness for my Soveraign's present time having by the contrary many occasions of trouble cut off and the intolerable Charge eschewed which I cannot find by any possible means her Majesty able to sustain for any long time Thus hastily I am driven to end my long cumbersome Letter to your Lordship though very desirous to impart my mind herein to your Lordship Number 13. The Bull of Pope Pius the Fifth Deposing Queen Elizabeth absolving her Subjects from the Oaths of Allegiance and Anathematising such as continued in their Obedience Pius Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei ad futuram rei memoriam REgnans in Excelsis cui data est omnis in Coelo in Terra Potestas Potestas Petri unam Sanctam Catholicam Apostolicam Ecclesiam extra quam nulla est Salus uni soli in Terris videlicet Apostolorum Principi Petro Petrique Successori Romano Pontifici in potestatis plenitudine tradidit gubernandam Hunc unum super omnes gentes omnia Regna Principem constituit qui evellat destruat disperdat plantet edificet ut fidelem populum mutuae charitatis nexu constrictum in unitate Spiritus contineat salvumque incolumem suo exhibeat Salvatori Quo quidem in munere obeundo nos ad praedictae Ecclesiae gubernacula Dei benignitate vocati nullum laborem intermittimus omni opere contendentes ut ipsa Unitas Catholica Religio quam illius autor ad probandum suorum fidem correctionem nostram tantis procellis conflictare permisit integra conservetur Sed impiorum numerus tantum potentia invaluit Elizabethae Flagitia ut nullus jam in Orbe locus sit relictus quem illi pessimis doctrinis corrumpere non tentarint adnitente inter caeteros flagitiorum Serva Elizabetha praetensa Angliae Regina ad quam veluti ad asylum omnium infestissimi profugium invenerunt Haec eadem Regno occupato Supremi Ecclesiae capitis locum in omni Anglia ejusque praecipuam autoritatem atque Jurisdictionem monstrose sibi usurpans Regnum ipsum jam tum ad fidem Catholicam bonam frugem reductum rursus in miserum exitium revocavit Usu namque verae Religionis quam ab illius desertore Henrico Octavo olim eversam clarae memoriae Maria Regina legitima hujus sedis praesidio reparaverat potenti manu inhibito Secutisque amplexis Haereticorum erroribus Regium Consilium ex Anglica Nobilitate confectum diremit illudque obscuris hominibus Haereticis complevit Catholicae Fidei cultores oppressit improbos Concionatores atque impietatum administros reposuit Missae Sacrificium Preces Jejunia ciborum delectum Coelibatum Ritusque Catholicos abolevit libros manifestam Haeresim continentes toto Regno proponi impia mysteria instituta ad Calvini praescriptum a se suscepta observata etiam a subditis servari mandavit Episcopos Ecclesiarum Rectores alios Sacerdotes Catholicos suis Ecclesiis Beneficiis ejicere ac de illis aliis rebus Ecclesiasticis in Haereticos homines disponere deque Ecclesiae causis decernere ausa Prelatis Clero Populo ne Romanam Ecclesiam agnoscerent neve ejus praeceptis Sanctionibusque Canonicis obtemperarent interdixit plerosque in nefarias leges suas venire Romani Pontificis autoritatem atque obedientiam abjurare seque solam in Temporalibus Spiritualibus Dominam agnoscere jurejurando coegit poenas supplicia eis qui dicto non essent audientes imposuit easdemque ab iis qui in unitate fidei predicta obedientia perseverarunt exegit Catholicos Antistites Ecclesiarum Rectores in vincula conjecit ubi multi diuturno languore tristitia