contra Celsum proved That in his time Christen Men had no Altars by direct negative Propositions Besides this the abuse of the Altars was shewed unto him and Reasons declared how necessary it was to reform the same Touching the naming the Table an Altar it was left indifferent to him because Antient Writers sometimes call the Table an Altar But yet notwithstanding that his own Reasons were fully solved and divers good and weighty Reasons made he persevered in the pertinacy of his own singular Opinion Whereupon the Council rehersing to him the evil that should come of this his Disobedience if he should be suffered commanded him in the King's Majesty's Name upon his Allegiance expresly to become an obedient Subject and so to execute the King's Commandment And for that it should appear to him that there was as much Favor meant as might be not offending the King's Majesty in his Majesty's behalf they would be so bold as to appoint him Sunday next to make his final Answer And in the mean time he might advise himself and weigh the Cause as it ought to be And so the day was given him Decemb. 7. The Bishop of Chichester again appeared before the Council and being asked touching the execution of his Majesty's Commandment in the Letter he answered plainly He could not do it saving his Conscience For the Altars seemed to him a thing antiently established by the agreement of the Holy Fathers and confirmed by Antient Doctors with the Custom also of a number of Years and as he thought according to the Scriptures Wherefore he could not in Conscience consent to the abolishing of them and determined rather to lose all that ever he had than to condemn his own Conscience with many other Circumstances to that effect Finally the Matter being well debated it was thought good yet to give him two Days respit further to be advised in hope he might reconcile himself which if he did not upon his next Answer appointed to be upon Tuesday next the Council agreed to proceed ordinarily against him as against a contemptuous Person by way of Sequestration December 9. This day the Bishop of Chichester appeared before the Council and being demanded whether he would obey the King's Commandment in pulling down the Altars as is before rehersed he answered That he thanked both the King's Highness and his Council of their great Clemency used towards him but he said he could not by any means perswade himself to do that thing that was against his Conscience Wherefore he prayed them to do with him what they thought requisite for he would never obey to do the thing that his Conscience would not bear Whereupon for his Contempt he was by the Order of the whole Council committed to Ward in the Fleet till further Order should be taken for him We hear no more of him and his Fellow the Bishop of Worcester till nine Months hence And so we leave them both in the Fleet till September 27 1551. When we find Sir Roger Cholmely Kt. Lord chief Baron of the Exchequer Sir Richard Read Richard Goodrick Iohn Gosnold Iohn Oliver and Richard Ryel being Commissioners appointed by the King's Majesty for the Proceedings in the Causes laid against these two Bishops were commanded by Letter from the Council to call the said Bishops before them at Whitehall and beginning with the Bishop of Worcester's Cause to proceed also with Chichester So as the Judgment of the one might succeed the other without any delay of time more then needed And when the Acts of the Council proceeded in those Causes should be requisite the same upon knowledg given thither should be sent them And in the mean time to use for their Instruction the Acts that were passed upon Worcester's Cause and those that Mr. Read had already concerning Chichester with Admonition seeing their Contempts so evident not to give them any long delay by granting any Learned Counsel or otherwise by such Pretexts Septemb. 28. The Council sent a Letter to the Lord-Chancellor with the Commission directed to the above-named Persons for the examination and determining of the Bishops of Worcester and Chichester's Causes Praying him to send the same to such of the Council as are at or near London whose Hands be not thereto that they might sign it and then to seal it and send it with a Letter from the said Lords inclosed within his to the said Commissioners According to these Orders within less than a Month these two Bishops were at last Deprived after the expectation of their Compliances a long while And October 24 1551. The Council sent a Letter to the Chancellor of the Augmentations to take immediate Order for seizure in the King's Majesty's Hands of the Temporalties of their Bishopricks lately given to his Highness by the Judgment past by the Commissioners appointed for the hearing of those Bishops Causes These Bishops remained Prisoners in the Fleet after their Deprivation till the next Summer When as it seems for their Healths sake they desired to be removed to some place of better Air and more Liberty Whereupon Iune 15 1552. Dr. Day was sent to the Bishop of Ely Lord Chancellor and Dr. Hethe to the Bishop of London by the appointment of his Majesty And they were directed to use them as to Christian Charity should be most seemly At whose Hands the King doubted not but they should receive such Christian Advice as would tend to the Glory of God Iuly 17. Upon the motion of the Bishop of London the Lords of the Council were content that he should send Dr. Hethe unto the Bishop's own House at London from Fulham to recover his Health and then to have him again So far more kindly were these Popish Bishops dealt withal in this Reign than the Protestant Bishops were in the next Hoper Bishop of Glocester succeeded in the See of Worcester and Scory Bishop of Rochester in that of Chichester I will here crave the Reader 's leave to insert two or three words concerning Bishop Day thereby to judg the better of him About the Year 1547. Saying of Masses was laid aside in King's College in Cambridg the Members of which College generally favoured the Gospel Day the Provost thereof which Place he held in Commendam with his Bishoprick hearing of this wrote an angry Letter to the Vice-provost and in him to the whole College for divers things which they had done relating to Reformation and particularly for leaving off saying Masses In which he said They departed from the Institution of the House and that they did it rashly and besides the Law There being as yet no Law for so doing He charged them with the Breach of Statute and so would involve them in the Sin of Perjury And whereas in their publick Disputations they gave Questions against Popish Doctrines he charged them with disputing wickedly and turbulently to the wounding of tender Consciences and the Infamy of the House And finally required that
losing of Promotion nor hope of Gain or winning of Favour could move him to relent or give place unto the Truth of his Conscience As experience thereof well appeared as well in defence of the true Religion against the Six Articles in the Parliament as in that he offered to combate with the Duke of Northumberland in K. Edward's Time speaking then on behalf of his Prince for the staying of the Chauntries until his Highness had come unto lawful Age and that especially for the maintenance of his better State then But if at his Prince's Pleasure in case of Religion at any time he was forced to give place that was done with such humble Protestation and so knit up for the safeguard of his Faith and Conscience that it had been better his Good-will had never been requested than so to relent or give over as he did Which most dangerously besides sundry times else he especially attempted when the Six Articles past by Parliament and when my L. Crumwel was in the Tower At what time the Book of Articles of our Religion was new penned For even at that Season the whole Rabblement which he took to be his Friends being Commissioners with him forsook him and his Opinion and Doctrine And so leaving him Post alone revolted altogether on the part of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester As by Name Bishop Hethe Shaxton Day and all other of the meaner sort By whom these so named were chiefly advanced and preferred unto Dignities And yet this sudden Inversion notwithstanding God gave him such Favour with his Prince that Book altogether past by his Assertion against all their Minds More to be marvelled at the Time considered than by any Reason to compass how it should come to pass For then would there have been laid thousands of Pounds to Hundreds in London that he should before that Synod had been ended have been shut up in the Tower beside his Friend the Lord Crumwel Howbeit the King's Majesty having an assured and approved affiance of his both deep Knowledg in Religion and Fidelity both to God and Him suspected in that time other Men in their Judgments not to walk uprightly nor sincerely For that some of them swerved from their former Opinions in Doctrine And having great experience of the constancy of the Lord Cranmer it drave him all along to join with the said Lord Cranmer in the confirmation of his Opinion and Doctrin against all the rest to their great Admiration For at all Times when the King's Majesty would be resolved in any Doubt or Question he would but send word to my Lord over Night and by the next Day the King would have in writing brief Notes of the Doctors Minds as well Divines as Lawyers both Old and New with a Conclusion of his own Mind Which he could never get in such a readiness of any no not of all his Chaplains and Clergy about him in so short a Time For being thorowly seen in all kinds of Expositors he could incontinently lay open thirty forty sixty or more some whiles of Authors And so reducing the Notes of them altogether would advertise the King more in one Day than all his Learned Men could do in a Month. And it was no mervail for it was well known that commonly if he had not Business of the Prince's or special urgent Causes before him he spent three parts of the Day in Study as effectually as he had done at Cambridg And therefore it was that the King said on a time to the Bishop of Winchester the King and my said Lord of Winchester defending together that the Canons of the Apostles were of as good Authority as the four Evangelists contrary to my Lord Cranmer's Assertion My Lord of Canterbury said the King is too old a Truant for us twain Again His Estimation was such with his Prince that in Matters of great Importance wherein no Creature durst once move the King for fear of Displeasure or moving the King's Patience or otherwise for troubling his Mind then was my Lord Cranmer most violently by the whole Council obtruded and thrust out to undertake that Danger and Peril in Hand As beside many other times I remember twice he served the Council's Expectation The first time was when he staied the King 's determinate Mind and Sentence in that he fully purposed to send the Lady Mary his Daughter unto the Tower and there to suffer as a Subject because She would not obey the Laws of the Realm in refusing the Bishop of Rome's Authority and Religion Whose stay in that behalf the King then said unto the Lord Cranmer would be to his utter Confusion at the length The other dangerous Attempt was in the disclosing the unlawful Behaviour of Queen Katharine Howard towards the King in keeping unlawful Company with Durrant her Servant For the King's Affection was so mervailously set upon that Gentlewoman as it was never known that he had the like to any Woman So that no Man durst take in Hand to open to him that Wound being in great perplexity how he would take it And then the Council had no other Refuge but unto my Lord Cranmer Who with over-much Importunity gave the Charge which was done with such Circumspection that the King gave over his Affections unto Reason and wrought mervellous colourably for the Trial of the same Now as concerning the Manner and Order of his Hospitality and House-keeping As he was a Man abandoned from all kind of Avarice so was he content to maintain Hospitality both liberally and honourably and yet not surmounting the Limits of his Revenues Having more respect and foresight unto the Iniquity of the Times being inclined to pull and spoil from the Clergy than to his own private Commodity For else if he had not so done he was right sure that his Successors should have had as much Revenues left unto them as were left unto the late Abbies Especially considering that the Lands and Revenues of the said Abbies being now utterly consumed and spread abroad and for that there remained no more Exercise to set on work or no Officers but Surveyors Auditors and Receivers it was high time to shew an Example of liberal Hospitality For although these said Workmen only brought up and practised in subverting of Monastical Possessions had brought that kind of Hospitality unto utter Confusion yet ceased they not to undermine the Prince by divers Perswasions for him also to overthrow the honourable State of the Clergy And because they would lay a sure Foundation to build their Purpose upon they found the Means to put into the King's Head That the Arch-bishop of Canterbury kept no Hospitality or House correspondent unto his Revenues and Dignity but sold his Woods and by great Incomes and Fines made Money to purchase Lands for his Wife and Children And to the intent that the King should with the more facility believe this Information Sir Thomas Seymor the
Judg of the Prerogative Court and Counsellor to the Emperor and a Man of deep Learning Who confessed to the said Ambassador that the Marriage was naught but that he durst not say so openly for fear both of the Pope and Emperor Yet he was afterwards cast into Prison where he died for expressing his Mind as was thought somewhat more plainly in this Affair While he was now abroad in Germany he went to Norimberg where Osiander was Pastor And being a Man of Fame and Learning our Ambassador became acquainted with him sending for him sometimes to discourse with him and sometimes he would go to Osiander's House to visit him and his Study This eminent Divine of the German Protestant Church he also gained to favour the King's Cause For he wrote a Book of Incestuous Marriages wherein he determined the King's present Matrimony to be unlawful But this Book was called in by a Prohibition printed at Augsburgh And there was also a Form of a Direction drawn up by the same Osiander how the King's Process should be managed Which was sent over hither Cranmer's Discourse with Osiander at these their Meetings concerning divers Matters relating especially to Christian Doctrine and True Religion were so wise and good that that great Divine stood in admiration of him as though he had been inspired from Above In one of their Conferences Osiander communicated to him certain Papers wherein he had been attempting to harmonize the Gospels but by reason of the Difficulty that often arose had thrown them aside A thing this was which Cranmer declared to him his great Approbation of as he was always a Man greatly studious of the Scripture and earnestly desirous that the right knowledg thereof might be encreased So he vehemently exhorted him to go forward in this Study and to finish it with all convenient speed For that it would not only he said be of use to the Church of Christ but adorn it These Admonitions gave new strength to Osiander to fall afresh about this Work and at last to bring it to a conclusion In the Year 1537 he published it and dedicated it to Cranmer then Arch-Bishop the great Encourager of the Author In some of these Visits Crâ—nmer saw Osiander's Niece and obtained her for his Wife Whom when he returned from his Embassy he brought not over with him But in the Year 1534. he privately sent for her And kept her with him till the Year 1539 in the severe time of the six Articles when he sent her back in Secret to her Friends in Germany for a time By these Visits and this Affinity there grew a very cordial Love between Cranmer and Osiander and a great Correspondence was maintained by Letters between them long after A parcel of these Letters in Manuscript the Right Reverend the Bishop of Sarum mentioned in his History of the Reformation Which he met with in the exquisite Library of Mr. Richard Smith as he told a Friend of mine But notwithstanding my enquiry after them I had not the good fortune to see them nor to find into whose Hands they were come after the selling of that Library by Auction Which Letters if I could have procured a sight of might have served somewhat perhaps in this my Undertaking We are now slipp'd into the Year 1532. And among other Services which he did Abroad besides his promoting the King's great Matrimonial Cause among the German Princes and States as well as others he was employed for the establishing and securing a Traffick between the Merchants of England and the Emperor 's Low Countries Concerning which the former Contract it seems began to shake occasioned by that Luke-warmness of Affection that now grew between these two Monarchs About this Affair our Ambassador had divers Conferences with Monsieur Grandeville the Emperor 's great Minister at Regensburgh The effect of his last Sollicitation was that Grâ—ndeville had told him that the Diet concerning the said Contract was held in Flanders where the Queen of Hungary was Governess and therefore that the Emperor would do nothing therein without her advice and that he would make answer by her rather than by him And so Cranmer desired the King that it would please his Grace no further to look for Answer from him therein but from the Queen unto whom the whole Answer was committed Another Business our Ambassador was now agitating at this Court for the King was about sending Supplies to the Emperor against the Turk Who had now made a formidable Invasion in Hungary with an Army consisting of three hundred thousand Men. The Emperor had lately by virtue of a former League and for the Common Cause of Christianity demanded certain Forces of the King for this purpose Now what measures his Ambassador was to take with the Emperor in this Affair William Paget his Majesty's Servant the same that was afterward Secretary of State was dispatched to him with Instructions Wherein were contained what Answer he should make to the Emperor's Demands Which he reported accordingly to Grandeville The which Answer he delivered to him in writing upon the desire of Grandeville for this Reason as he urged that he might relate the same the more truly to the Emperor He was now in the Month of September drawing towards the Turk from Abagh a Place not far from Regensburgh where our English Ambassador now resided not having yet returned any Reply to him prevented by that hurry of Business that then lay upon the Emperor So that upon Grandeville's intimation to repair unto the Emperor at Lintz which was in his way to Vienna and that there he should have an Answer in Writing again the Ambassador followed thither in Company with the Ambassador of France And so he with the other Ambassador in eight or ten days space furnished themselves with Wagons Horses Ships Tents and other things necessary to the Journey for themselves and their Train But before his departure he informed the King of the News in those Parts As that the Turk resided still in Hungary in the same Place invironed on all parts Of which more at large he had written in his former Letters That King Ferdinando the Emperor's Brother who was then at Regensburgh was to meet the Emperor at Passaw fourteen miles from thence and so both were to pass forth to Lintz which was the mid-way from Regensburgh to Vienna That the Emperor would tarry there to take Counsel what to do and there all the Ambassadors should know his Pleasure He sent the King also the Copy of the Emperor's Proclamation concerning a General Council and a Reformation to be had in Germany for the Controversies of the Faith Which he was constrained to do his Affairs with the Turk pressing him so much The Sum thereof was That his Imperial Majesty declared Peace throughout all Germany Enjoining that none should be molested for the Cause of Religion until the Council should be called or in case there were
stuff their Histories with strange Prophecies and Falshoods mixed with some Truth And I suppose the Matter might be no more than this This grave and sober Arch-Bishop was sensible of the gross Encroachments of the Bishops of Rome upon the Authority of the Kings of this Realm in their own Dominions and his Judgment stood for the restoring of this Imperial Crown to its antient Right and Soveraignty and for the abridging the Papal Power And knowing how learned a Man Dr. Thomas Cranmer was and perceiving what an able Instrument he was like to prove in vindicating the King 's Right to the Supremacy in his own Kingdoms the Arch-Bishop upon these Accounts might think him the fittest to succeed in the Archiepiscopal Chair and might have some reason to believe that the King intended him thereunto And that Arch-Bishop Warham was of this Judgment it may appear if we trace some Footsteps of him In the Year 1530 when all the Clergy were under a Praemunire and a Petition was drawing up in the Convocation for that Cause the King in the said Petition was addressed to by the Title of Supream Head of the Church and Clergy of England At this Title when the Arch-Bishop found some of the Clergy to boggle who were yet afraid openly to declare their disallowance of it he took the opportunity of their Silence to pass the Title by saying That Silence was to be taken for their Consent In the last Synod wherein this Arch-Bishop was a Member and the main Director many things were debated about Abolishing the Papacy This Synod was prorogued from April 26 to October 5. In the mean time he died But had he lived and been well unto the next Sessions some further Steps had been made in evacuating the Bishop of Rome's Usurpations as may be guessed by what was done under his influence the last Sessions when the Supremacy of that foreign Prelate was rejected Something more of this Arch-Bishop's Endeavours of restoring the King to his Supremacy appears by what Arch-Bishop Cranmer said to Brooks Bishop of Glocester before a great Assembly not long before his Burning Brooks had charged him for first setting up the King's Supremacy To which Cranmer replied That it was Warham gave the Supremacy to Henry VIII and that he had said he ought to have it before the Bishop of Rome and that God's Word would bear it And that upon this the Universities of Cambridg and Oxford were sent to to know what the Word of God would allow touching the Supremacy Where it was reasoned and argued upon at length and at last both agreed and and set to their Seals and sent it to the King That he ought to be Supreme Head and not the Pope All which was in Arch-Bishop Warham's Time and while he was alive three quarters of a Year before ever Cranmer had the Arch-Bishoprick of Canterbury as he also added in that Audience So that these things considered we may conclude that Warham did think that none would be so fit to come after him as Cranmer a Learned and diligent Man to carry on this Cause which he before him had begun and so might speak of him as the properest Person to be advanced to this See To this I will add the Sense of an Ingenious and Learned Friend of mine concerning this Passage in Harpsfield's History Which the Author also of the Athenae Oxonienses hath made use of to the good Arch-Bishop's Discredit and which Somner also had unluckily selected though without design to hurt his good Name and is all he writes of him But may it not be considered saith he that the pretended Martyr Thomas Becket though he died in vindication of the Privileges of the Church yet he was the first betrayer of the Rights of his See He made the greatest Breach upon the Authority of the Primacy of Canterbury by resigning the Arch-Bishoprick into the Pope's Hands and receiving it again from him as the Pope's Donation But it is the Honour of the blessed Martyr Thomas Cranmer that he was the first who began to claim the Primacy and retrieve the Rights of his See from being slavishly subjected to the Roman Power Indeed little credit is to be given to the Author who first published this Story considering what a Violent Man he was and how much prejudiced against Cranmer and interessed in the Popish Cause and coming into the Arch-Deaconry of Canterbury by the deprivation of the Arch-Bishop's Brother Cranmer Noluit Episcopari had no mind to be Arch-Bishop He loved his Studies and affected Retirement and well knew the Dangers and Temptations of a publick Station But especially he could not induce his Mind to take his Office from the Pope and to swear Fidelity to him as well as to the King whereby he should ensnare himself in two contrary Oaths Wherefore when the King sent for him home from his Embassy in Germany with a design to lay that honourable Burden upon him he guessing the Reason first endeavoured to delay his coming by signifying to the King some Matters of Importance that would require his tarrying there somewhat longer for the King's Service Hoping in that while the King might have bestowed the Place upon some other In fine our Historians say he stayed abroad one half Year longer But I find him in England in the Month of November which was not much more than a quarter of a Year after Warham's Death Then the King was married to the Marchioness of Pembroke and Cranmer was present So that the King must have sent for him home in Iune two or three Months before the Arch-Bishop's Death probably while he was in a declining dying Condition But after when that which Cranmer seemed to suspect of certain Emergences in those parts wherein the English State might be concerned fell not out the King again commanded his return Home Now more perfectly knowing by some of his Friends the King's Intentions to make him Arch-Bishop he made means by divers of his Friends to shift it off desiring rather some smaller Living At length the King brake his Mind to him that it was his full Purpose to bestow that Dignity upon him for his Service and for the good Opinion he conceived of him But his long disabling himself nothing disswaded the King till at last he humbly craved the King's Pardon for that he should declare to him and that was That if he should accept it he must receive it at the Pope's Hand which he neither would nor could do for that his Highness was the only Supream Governour of the Church of England as well in Causes Ecclesiastical as Temporal and that the full Right of Donation of all manner of Benefices and Bishopricks as well as any other temporal Dignities and Promotions appertained to him and not to any other Foreign Authority And therefore if he might serve God him and his Countrey in that Vocation he would accept it of his Majesty and of no Stranger
their own Houses where they received Causes Complaints and Appeals and had learned Civilians living with them that were Auditors of the said Causes before the Arch-bishop gave Sentence pretending that he held it as the Pope's Legat Urging also the great Troubles and Inconveniences it caused both to the Clergy and the Laity and that every Man must by virtue of that Court be forced up to London from the farthest part of the Land for a slanderous Word or a Trifle And that they thought it convenient if it were the King's Pleasure to continue that Court that he would settle it upon some other and not upon the Arch-bishop that so it might appear the Original of that Court was from the King and not from the Pope And lastly that it would not be safe to constitute the Arch-bishop the Pope's Legat because it would infringe the Power of the Vicar-General This was drawn up in way of Petition and Complaint either to the King or Parliament by a Combination of some of the Convocation as I suspect the Paper being writ by the Hand of the Register of the Lower House of Convocation The great Wheel we may be sure that set a moving this Device was Winchester his never-failing Adversary The King notwithstanding bad the Arch-bishop maintain his Court. And he answered all their Pleas against it and by way of Protestation affirmed that he kept not his Court by virtue of his Bull from Rome for Legat and that none could suspect that he did And that he saw no Cause but that he might keep that Court by virtue of the late Act of Parliament that gave Power to enjoy all things that were before had from the See of Rome And finally he answered that it was the King's Will and Command that he should continue his Court. To which the Convocation or rather some part of it made a Reply that may be seen in the Appendix But notwithstanding these Discouragements which were thrown in probably to hinder his good Designs the Arch-bishop vigorously prosecuted a Reformation at this Convocation Where assisted by Crumwel the King's Vicar General he earnestly laboured for the redress of several Abuses and Errors in the English Church And that not without good Success at length For after much deliberation among the Clergy there assembled and much opposition too he got a Book of divers good Articles to that purpose to be agreed upon and subscribed An account of which by and by shall follow CHAP. XI Articles of Religion NOW though I do not find the King went so far as that it should be enjoined on all the Clergy to own the Articles of this Book by their own Hands subscribed yet he published and recommended them to all his loving Subjects in general to accept and repute them to be agreeable to God's Laws and proper for the establishment of Peace and Concord And further probably in prudence the King thought not fit yet to go considering the great Disputes and Arguments that had happened in the Convocation hereupon Now because this was one of the great Services our pious Prelate contributed to the Church and was one of the first Steps made in the Reformation of the Doctrine and Worship it will not be amiss here in order to the inlightning this History to set down the Heads of this Book though it be done by others before me And notwithstanding what the Noble Author of the History of Henry VIII saith he gathered by some Records that this Book was devised by the King himself and recommended afterwards to the Convocation by Crumwel yet we have reason to attribute a great share therein to the Arch-bishop They that are minded to see a Draught of these Articles from the Original with the Royal Assent prefixed to them may have it in Dr. Fuller's Church-History Which he tells us he transcribed out of the Acts of the Convocation The Bishop of Sarum also met with an Original of them in the Cotton Library wrote out fairly as it seems for the King 's own Use and subscribed with all the Hands of the Convocation thereunto He also hath inserted the Transcript of them in the first part of his History of the Reformation In the Rebellion in the North which happened this Year 1536 chiefly raised by Priests and Friars many Copies of these Articles for the Book was printed by Barthelet did Crumwel send by the King's Order to the Duke of Norfolk the King's Lieutenant there to disperse in those Parts together with the Original Copy it self as it was signed by the Hands of the Convocation amounting to the number of 116 Bishops Abbots Priors Arch-deacons and Proctors of the Clergy Which the said Duke had order to shew unto the Clergy and others as occasion served that they might understand it was a proper Act of the Church and no Innovation of the King and a few of his Counsellors as they gave out And after he had made his use of this Original he was required to reserve it safe for the King This choice Treasure which the King himself required such care to be taken of Sir Robert Cotton afterwards procured at his no small Expence no doubt It is very fairly written in Vellam and at the bottom of the first Page is written Robertus Cotton Bruceus by Sir Robert's own Hand signifying his Value of this Monument It is still extant in that incomparable Library in the Volume Cleopatra E. 5. And there I have seen it and diligently compared it Excuse this Digression and I now proceed to the Articles themselves These Articles were of two sorts some concerning Faith and some concerning Ceremonies The former sort were digested under these five Titles following I. The Principal Articles of Faith And they were these That all those things that be comprehended in the whole Body and Canon of the Bible and in the three Creeds are true and constantly to be believed That we take and hold the same for the most holy and infallible Words of God That the Articles of the Faith contained in the Creeds are necessary to be believed for Man's Salvation That the same words be kept in which the Articles of Faith are conceived That all Opinions contrary to the Articles and which were condemned in the four first Councils are to be utterly refused II. The Sacrament of Baptism That it was instituted and ordained by Iesus Christ as necessary to Everlasting Life That by it all as well Infants as such as have the use of Reason have Remission of Sins and the Grace and Favour of God offered them That Infants and Innocents must be Baptized because the Promise of Grace and Everlasting Life pertains as well to them as to those who have the use of Reason And that therefore Baptized Infants shall undoubtedly be saved That they are to be Baptized because of Original Sin which is remitted only by Baptism That they that are once Baptized must not be
your Face No not so my Lord said the King I have better regard unto you than to permit your Enemies so to overthrow you And therefore I will have you to Morrow come to the Council which no doubt will send for you And when they break this Matter unto you require them that being one of them you may have so much Favour as they would have themselves that is to have your Accusers brought before you And if they stand with you without regard of your Allegations and will in no Condition condescend unto your Request but will needs commit you to the Tower then appeal you from them to our Person and give to them this my Ring which he then delivered unto the Arch-bishop by the which said the King they shall well understand that I have taken your Cause into my Hand from them Which Ring they well know that I use it for no other Purpose but to call Matters from the Council into mine own Hands to be ordered and determined And with this good Advice Cranmer after most humble Thanks departed from the King's Majesty The next Morning according to the King's Monition and his own Expectation the Council sent for him by Eight of the Clock in the Morning And when he came to the Council-Chamber-Door he was not permitted to enter into the Council-Chamber but stood without among Serving-men and Lacquies above three quarters of an hour many Counsellors and others going in and out The Matter seemed strange unto his Secretary who then attended upon him which made him slip away to Dr. Butts to whom he related the manner of the thing Who by and by came and kept my Lord Company And yet e're he was called into the Council Dr. Butts went to the King and told him that he had seen a strange Sight What is that said the King Marry said he my Lord of Canterbury is become a Lacquey or a Serving-man For to my knowledg he hath stood among them this hour almost at the Council-Chamber-Door Have they served my Lord so It is well enough said the King I shall talk with them by and by Anon Cranmer was called into the Council there it was declared unto him That a great Complaint was made of him both to the King and to them That he and others by his Permission had infected the whole Realm with Heresy And therefore it was the King's Pleasure that they should commit him to the Tower and there for his Trial to be examined Cranmer required as is before declared with many both Reasons and Perswasions that he might have his Accusers come there before them before they used any further Extremity against him In fine there was no Intreaty could serve but that he must needs depart to the Tower I am sorry my Lords said Cranmer that you drive me unto this Exigent to appeal from you to the King's Majesty who by this Token hath resumed this Matter into his own Hand and dischargeth you thereof And so delivered the King's Ring unto them By and by the Lord Russel swore a great Oath and said Did not I tell you my Lords what would come of this Matter I know right well that the King would never permit my Lord of Canterbury to have such a Blemish as to be imprisoned unless it were for High-Treason And so as the manner was when they had once received that Ring they left off their Matter and went all unto the King's Person both with his Token and the Cause When they came unto his Highness the King said unto them Ah my Lords I thought that I had had a discreet and wise Council but now I perceive that I am deceived How have you handled here my Lord of Canterbury What make ye of him A Slave Shutting him out of the Council-Chamber among Serving-men Would ye be so handled your selves And after such taunting words as these spoken the King added I would you should well understand that I account my Lord of Canterbury as faithful a Man towards me as ever was Prelate in this Realm and one to whom I am many ways beholden by the Faith I owe unto God and so laid his Hand upon his Breast And therefore who loveth me said he will upon that Account regard him And with these words all and especially my Lord of Norfolk answered and said We meant no manner of Hurt unto my Lord of Canterbury that we requested to have him in Durance Which we only did because he might after his Trial be set at Liberty to his greater Glory Well said the King I pray you use not my Friends so I perceive now well enough how the World goeth among you There remaineth Malice among you one to another let it be avoided out of hand I would advise you And so the King departed and the Lords shook Hands every Man with the Arch-bishop Against whom never more after durst any Man spurn during King Henry's Life And because the King would have Love always nourished between the Lords of the Council and the Arch-bishop he would send them divers times to Dinner with him And so he did after this Reconciliation Thus did the King interpose himself divers times between his Arch-bishop and his irreconcileable Enemies the Papists and observing by these Essays against him under what Perils he was like to come hereafter for his Religion about this Time it was as I conjecture that the King changed his Coat of Arms. For unto the Year 1543 he bore his Paternal Coat of Three Cranes Sable as I find by a Date set under his Arms yet remaining in a Window in Lambeth-House For it is to be noted That the King perceiving how much ado Cranmer would have in the Defence of his Religion altered the Three Cranes which were parcel of his Ancestors Arms into Three Pelicans declaring unto him That those Birds should signify unto him that he ought to be ready as the Pelican is to shed his Blood for his young Ones brought up in the Faith of Christ. For said the King you are like to be tasted if you stand to your Tackling at length As in very deed many and sundry times he was shouldered at both in this King's Reign as you have heard and under the two succeding Princes CHAP. XXIX Occasional Prayers and Suffrages OCcasional Prayers and Suffrages to be used throughout all Churches began now to be more usual than formerly For these common Devotions were twice this Year appointed by Authority as they had been once the last which I look upon the Arch-bishop to be the great Instrument in procuring That he might by this means by little and little bring into use Prayer in the English Tongue which he so much desired and that the People by understanding part of their Prayers might be the more desirous to have their whole Service rendred intelligible whereby God might be served with the more Seriousness and true Devotion The last Year there was a plentiful Crop upon the Ground
Sentence Definitive ready to be pronounced made an Appeal from them to the King For his doing which he produced these Reasons For that these his pretended Judges were not indifferent but prejudiced against him That my Lord of Canterbury had caused him to be sent to Prison whereas the Arch-bishop was only present at the Council when he was by them ordered to the Tower And so had Hales Goodrick and Gosnold counselled to send him thither Also that the Arch-bishop and the Bishops of London and Lincoln did contrary to the Laws Ecclesiastical and taught and set forth manifest condemned Errors against the Presence in the Sacrament And because the Bishop as well in his Writings as otherwise did set forth the Catholick Faith of the very Presence of Christ's Body and Blood therefore they shewed themselves unduly affected towards him That Sir William Petre decreed the Fruits of his Bishoprick to be sequestred de facto sed non de jure and now was Judg in his own Cause But notwithstanding this Appeal the Arch-bishop with the rest of the Commissioners pronounced him Deprived and his Bishoprick void After this was done the Bishop appealed again to the King instantly more instantly most instantly from their Sentence as Injust and of no effect in Law and asked of them Letters Dimissory to be granted to him and a Copy of the Judgment But the Judges declared they would first know the pleasure of the King and his Council therein And so this last Session brake up The day after being the 15 th of February the Council sitting at VVestminster upon debating the Bishop of VVinton's Case Forasmuch as it appeared he had at all times before the Judges of his Cause used himself unreverently to the King's Majesty and slanderfully towards his Council and especially Yesterday being the Day of his Judgment given against him he called his Judges Hereticks and Sacramentaries they being there the King's Commissioners and of his Highness's Council it was therefore concluded by the whole Board that he should be removed from the Lodging he hath now in the Tower to a meaner Lodging and none to wait upon him but one by the Lieutenant's Appointment in such sort as by the resort of any Man to him he have not the liberty to send out to any Man or to hear from any Man And likewise that his Books and Papers be taken from him and seen and that from henceforth he have neither Pen Ink nor Paper to write his detestable Purposes but be sequestred from all Conferences and from all means that may serve him to practise any way March 8. at VVestminster This day by the King's Majesty 's own Appointment Dr. Poynet Bishop of Rochester was chosen Bishop of VVinchester And the Arch-bishop of Canterbury had given him 266 l. 13 s. 4 d. i. e. 400 Marks for his Pains and Charges about the Bishop of VVinchester And thus I have from very Authentick Authority gathered together these Memorials of this turbulent haughty Man who was now so seasonably laid aside in this King's Reign till we hear of him loudly in the next when he sufficiently wracked his Revenge against our good Arch-bishop and the true Religion CHAP. XX. Bishop Hethe and Bishop Day their Deprivations WHile the aforesaid Bp lay under Sequestrationin the Tower two other Bps that were wayward to the King's Proceedings in the Reformation of the Church viz. of Worcester and Chichester came under the Hands of the Privy-Council resolving to make them comply or deprive them That others more willing and better affected to Reformation might succeed and do service in the Church and that the Arch-bishop might go forward with less Stop and Impediment in the good Work he had dedicated himself unto Both of them were of the Arch-bishop's raising and seemed very compliant with the Arch-bishop during K. Henry's Reign But now both hung off from him seeming much offended with him for his relinquishing the Doctrine of the Corporeal Presence and for writing a Book against it Whereof they made mention with dislike in their Depositions in the Bishop of Winchester's Trial before the Commissioners In the last Year the Year 1549 Twelve Learned Divines Bishops and others were appointed by the Council to prepare a new Book for the Ordination of Ministers purged of the Superstitions of the old Ordinal Hethe Bishop of Worcester was nominated for one of these But he not liking the thing would not agree to what the others did nor subscribe the Book when made For which in March he was committed to the Fleet where he lay under easy Confinement all the next Year the Year 1550 during which time I find him once produced as a Witness on Bishop Gardiner's behalf But in the Year 1551 the Court being at Chelsey and the Council sitting September 22. by virtue of the King 's express Commandment Nicolâ—s Bishop of Worcester was sent for and came before the Lords and others To whom was repeated the Cause of his Imprisonment to be For that he refused to subscribe the Book devised for the Form of making Arch-bishops Bishops Priests and Deacons being authorized by Parliament At the time of which refusal being not only gently and reasonably required to subscribe it but also being manifestly taught by divers other Learned Men that all Things contained in the Book were Good and True and that the Book was expedient and allowable the said Bishop declared himself to be a vâ—ry obstinate Man And for this his doing it was now shewed unto him that he deserved longer Imprisonment Nevertheless the King's Majesty's Clemency was such that now if he had or would reconcile himself to obey his Majesty in this former Commandment he should recover the King's Majesty's Favour For which Cause it was told him That he was then presently sent for and willed now to subscribe the same Whereunto he answered That he took the Cause of his Imprisonment to be as was alleged and that also he was very gently used rather like a Son than a Subject Nevertheless he said he remained still in the same mind not willing to subscribe it although he would not disobey it And although he was reasoned withal by every of the said Council in disproving his manner of answer that he would not subscribe it being every thing in the said Book True and Good and being devised by eleven other Learned Men to which he was joined as the twelfth and received of all the whole Estate of the Realm agreeing also that he would obey it not subscribe it which contained a Contradiction in Reason Yet he still as a Man not removeable from his own Conceit refused to subscribe it Whereupon to prove all manner of Ways for the winning of him to his Duty he was offered to have Conference with Learned Men and to have time to consider the Matter better Whereunto he said That he could not have better Conference than he had heretofore and well might he have
Carnal Presence For a Conclusion let the Reader not hear me but another speak for our Arch-bishop against one of these Calumniators and he a Portugal Bishop After Cranmer by hearing of the Gospel began to savour of Christian Profession what Wickedness was ever reported of him With what outrage of Lust was he enflamed What Murders what seditious Tumults what secret Conspiracies were ever seen or suspected so much to proceed from him Unless ye account him blame-worthy for this that when King Henry Father to Mary upon great Displeasure conceived was for some secret Causes determined to strike off her Head this Reverend Arch-bishop did pacify the Wrath of the Father and with mild continual Intercession preserved the Life of the Daughter Who for Life preserved acquitted her Patron with Death As concerning his Marriage if you reproachfully impute that to Lust which Paul doth dignify with so honourable a Title I do answer That he was the Husband of one Wife with whom he continued many Years more chastly and holily than Osorius in that his stinking sole and single Life peradventure one Month tho he flee never so often to his Catholick Confessions And I see no Cause why the Name of a Wife shall not be accounted in each respect as Holy with the true Professors of the Gospel as the Name of a Concubine with the Papists Thus Fox And so I have at last by God's favourable Concurrence finished this my Work and have compiled an imperfect History yet with the best Diligence I could of this singular Arch-bishop and blessed Martyr and in the conclusion have briefly vindicated him from those many false Surmises and Imputations that his implacable Enemies of the Roman Faction have reported and published abroad against him Not contented with the shedding of his Blood unless they stigmatized his Name and Memory and formed the World into a belief that he was one of the vilest Wretches that lived who in Reality and Truth appeareth to have been one of the holiest Bishops and one of the best Men that Age produced THE END THE APPENDIX TO THE MEMORIALS OF Archbishop Cranmer THE APPENDIX TO THE MEMORIALS OF Archbishop Cranmer NUM I. Account of Mr. Pool's Book by Dr. Cranmer To the Ryght honorable and my syngular good Lorde my Lorde of Wylshire IT may please your Lordeshipe to bee advertised that the Kynge his grace my Lady your wyfe my Lady Anne your doughter be in good helth whereof thankes be to God As concernynge the Kinge hys cause Mayster Raynolde Poole hath wrytten a booke moch contrary to the kinge hys purpose wyth such wytte that it appereth that he myght be for hys wysedome of the cownsel to the kinge hys grace And of such eloquence that if it were set forth and knowne to the commen people I suppose yt were not possible to persuade them to the contrary The pryncypal intent whereof ys that the kinge hys grace sholde be contente to commyt hys grete cause to the jugement of the pope wherein me semeth he lacketh moch jugement But he swadeth that with such goodly eloquence both of words and sentence that he were lyke to persuade many but me hee persuadeth in that poynt no thynge at al. But in many other thynges he satysfyeth me very wel The som wherof I shal shortly reherse Furst he sheweth the cause wherfore he had never pleasure to intromytte hymself in this cause And that was the trouble which was lyke to ensue to this realme therof by dyversitie of tytles Wherof what hurte myght come we have had exsample in our fathers dayes by the tytles of Lancaster and Yorke And where os god hath gyven many noble gyfts unto the kinge hys grace as wel of body and mynde os also of fortune yet this excedeth al other that in hym al tytles do mete and come togyder and this Realme ys restored to tranquillitie and peace so oweth he to provide that this londe fal not agayne to the forsaide mysery and troble which may come aswel by the people within this realme which thynke surely that they have an hayre lawful alâ—â—ady with whom they al be wel contente and wolde be sory to have any other And yt wolde be harde to persuade thaym to take any other levynge her os also by the Emperour whych ys a man of so grete power the quene beying hys awnt the Princes hys nece whome he so moch doth and ever hath favored And where he harde reasons for the kynge hys party that he was moved of god hys lawe which doth straytly forbed and that with many gret thretts that no man shal mary hys brother hys wife And os for the people yt longeth not to thayr judgement and yet yt ys to be thought that thay wil be contente whan thay shal knowe that the awncyente Doctores of the Chyrch and the determinations of so many grete vniversities be of the kynge hys sentence And os concernynge the Emperour if he be so unryghtful that he wyl mayntene an unjust cause yet god wil never fayl thaym that stonde opon his party and for any thynge wyl not transgresse hys commawndments And besyde that we shal not lacke the ayde of the Frenshe kynge whyche partely for the Lege whych he hath made with us and partly for the dyspleasure and olde grutch which he bereth toward the Emperour wolde be glad to have occasion to be avenged Thies reasons he bryngeth for the kyngs party agaynst hys owne opynyon To which he maketh answer in this maner Fyrst os towchynge the Lawe of god he thynketh that yf the kinge were pleased to take the contrary parte he myght os wel justifie that and have os good grownde of the scripture therfore os for that parte which he now taketh And yet if he thought the kyngs party never so juste and that this his mariage were undowtedly agaynst godds pleasure than he cowde not deny but yt sholde be wel done for the kynge to refuse this mariage and to take another wyfe but that he sholde be a doar therin and a setter forwarde therof he cowde never fynde in hys harte And yet he grawnteth that he hath no good reason therfore but only affection which he bereth and of dewty oweth unto the kyngs parson For in so doing he sholde not only wayke ye and utterly take away the Princes Title but also he must neds accuse the most and cheife parte of al the kyngs lyfe hiderto which hath bene so infortunate to lyve more than xx yers in a matrimony so shameful so abominable so bestial and agaynst nature yf it be so os the books which do defend the kyngs party do say that the abomination therof ys naturally wrytten and graven in every mans harte so that none excusation can be made by ignorance And thus to accuse the noble nature of the kyngs grace and to take away the title of hys succession he cowde never fynd in hys harte were the kyngs cause never so
that the Generality of the Clergy should with the example of such a few light persons procede to mariage without a common consent of his H. and the Realm doth streitly charge and command that al such as have attempted mariage as also such as wil presumptuously procede in the same not to minister the Sacrament or other Ministery mâ—stical nor have any office cure privilege profit or commodity heretofore accustomed and belonging to the Clergy of the Realm But shal be utterly after such marriage expelled and deprived and be held and reputed as Lay persons to al purposes and intents And that such as after this Proclamation shall of presumptuous minds take wives and be maried shal run into his Graces Indignation and suffer further punishment and imprisonment at his Graces will and plesure NUM IX Bishop Fisher to Secretary Crumwel declaring his willingness to swear to the Succession AFTER my most humble commendations Whereas ye be content that I shold write unto the Kings Highnes in good faith I dread me that I cannot be so circumspect in my writing but that some word shal scape me wherewith his Grace shal be moved to some further displeasure against me wherof I wold be very sorry For as I wil answer before God I wold not in any maner of point offend his Grace my duty saved unto God whom I must in every thing prefer And for this consideration I am ful lothe and ful of fear to write unto his Highnes in this matter Nevertheless sithen I conceive that it is your mind that I shal so do I will endeavour me to the best I can But first here I must beseech you good Master Secretary to cal to your remembrance that at my last being before you and the other Commissioners for taking of the othe concerning the Kings most noble succession I was content to be sworn unto that parcel concerning the Succession And there I did rehearse this reason which I said moved me I doubted not but that the Prince of any Realme with the assent of his Nobles and Commons might appoint for his Succession royal soche an order as was seen unto his Wisdom most according And for this reason I said that I was content to be sworn unto that part of the othe as concerning the Succession This is a very truth as God help my soul at my most nede albeit I refused to swear to some other parcels because that my Conscience wolde not serve me so to do NUM X. Lee Bishop Elect of Litchfield and Coventry to Secretary Crumwel concerning Bp. Fisher. PLeasyth you to be adverted that I have been with my Lord of Rochester who is as ye left him that is to say ready to take his othe for the Succession and to swear never to meddle more in disputation of the validity of the Matrimony or invalidity with the Lady Dowager but that utterly to refuse For as for the case of the prohibition Levitical his conscience is so knit thaâ— he cannot send it off from him whatsoever betide him And yet he wil and doth profess his Allegiance to our Soveraign Lord the King during his life Truly the man is nigh going and doubtless cannot continue unles the King and his Council be merciful unto him For the body cannot bear the clothes on his back as knoweth God Who preserve you In hast scribbled by your own most bounden Roland Co. Litch electus confirmatus NUM XI The Archbishop to Secretary Crumwel in behalf of Bp. Fisher and Sr. Thomas More Right Worshipful Master Crumwel AFTER most hearty Commendations c. I doubt not but you do right wel remembre that my Lord of Rochester and Master More were contented to be sworn to the Act of the Kings Succession but not to the Preamble of the same What was the cause of thair refusal thereof I am uncertain and they wold by no means express the same Nevertheless it must nedis be either the diminution of the authority of the Bushop of Rome or ells the reprobation of the Kings first pretensed Matrimony But if they do obstinately persist in thair opinions of the Preamble yet me semeth it scholde not be refused if they wil be sworne to the veray Act of Succession so that they wil be sworne to maintene the same against al powers and potentates For hereby shal be a great occasion to satisfy the Princess Dowager and the Lady Mary which do think they sholde dampne thair sowles if they sholde abandon and relinquish thair astates And not only it sholde stop the mouths of thaym but also of th' Emperor and other thair friends if thay geve as moche credence to my Lord of Rochester and Master More spekyng and doinge against thaym as they hitherto have done and thought that al other sholde have done whan they spake and did with thaym And peradventure it sholde be a good quietation to many other within this reaulm if such men sholde say that the Succession comprized within the said Act is good and according to Gods lawes For than I think there is not one within this reaulme that would ones reclaim against it And whereas divers persones either of a wilfulness wil not or of an indurate and invertible conscience cannot altre from thair opinions of the Kings first pretensed mariage wherein they have ones said thair minds and percase have a persuasion in thair heads that if they sholde now vary therefrom thair fame and estimation were distained for ever or ells of the authority of the Busschope of Rome yet if al the Reaulme with one accord wolde apprehend the said succession in my judgment it is a thing to be amplected and imbraced Which thing although I trust surely in God that it shal be brought to pass yet hereunto might not a little avayl the consent and othes of theis two persons the Busschope of Rochester and Master More with thair adherents or rather Confederates And if the Kings pleasure so were thair said othes might be suppressed but whan and whare his Highness might take some commodity by the publyshing of the same Thus our Lord have you ever in his conservation From my maner at Croyden the xvii day of April Your own assured ever Thomas Cantuar. NUM XII Nix Bishop of Norwich to Warham Archbishop of Cant. for suppressing such as read books brought from beyond Sea AFter most humble recommendations I do your Grace to understand that I am accumbred with such as kepyth and readyth these arroneous books in English and beleve and geve credence to the same and techyth others that they shold so do My Lord I have done that lyeth in me for the suppression of soch persons but it passeth my power or any spiritual man for to do it For divers saith openly in my Diocess that the Kinges grace wold that they shold have the said arroneous books and so maintaineth themselves of the King Wherupon I desired my L. Abbot of Hyde to show this
a Proctor represents him that he is Proctor for and may make or marr his Clients matier by one word speaking wel or il and that the office of a Proctor was first invented for men that might or would not intend to their own business theymself it were more consonant with reason that a man were suffered to take to his Proctor such as he lusteth and may best trust unto of his matier than be driven to commit the order of his cause being mefortune of great weight to such a one as he never knew ne saw before For whan a man is at his choise to choose him what Proctor he lust best if his matier do delay through the default of his Proctor than he can blame no body but himself For that that he would not take better heed to whom he should have committed his matier unto And whan a man is compelled to take one that he knows not if his matier do than delay he may put the blame therof to that Statute that constrained him to take such a Proctor Nevertheles though the tone of both those ways that is the same that is taken by the same Law be moche better than the tother yet the mean way betwixt both as of al other Extremes were best That is to say that nother every man unlearned or unexpert shuld forthwith be admitted to procure for every man in the said Courts lest of that there shuld be no good order but a confuse tumult there Nor yet that there shuld be so few admitted therunto that they were not able ne sufficient for the due exercise of causes there depending But most reasonable and highly expedient for the Common wele it is that it were enacted by the authority of this present Parlament that there should be as many of such as were sufficiently learned and exercised in the experience and practise of the said Courts admitted to procure there as shuld be seen convenient to my said Lord of Canterbury his Grace or other Presidents of the said Courts for the due exercise and expedition of causes there depending as it was used heretofore til the obtaining of the said Statute without prefixion of any precise nombre which for no cause may be exceded For how can a precise nombre of Proctors be prefixed when the nombre of causes can never be appoynted For causes doth grow and encrease as the nature of seasons and men doth require And therfore it were expedient that there were mo Proctors than shuld suffice admitted than fewer For better it were that some of theym shuld lack causes than causes shuld want theym And that such ones so admitted shuld not be removeable from the same their Offices at the said Juges or any other mans plesure as they were heretofore but only for certain great offences proved to be committed by theym after their admission and juged so to be of indifferent Juges chosen to examine the same by the consent of the Proctors that shal be accused therof And because that the Proctors aforesaid are al sworn at the time of their admission that they shal never after be against the Liberty jurisdiction and prerogatives of the said Courts but shal maintain and defend the same to their power And that there may be in the said Courts otherwhiles such causes depending as shuld appertaine to the Kings Gs. determination by his Royal Prerogative or such other as may be there attempted against the Juges or Presidents of the said Courts It were highly expedient as wel for the Conservation and soliciting of the Kings interest there as for the faithful and bold assistence of Proctors there to the Kings Subjects that were called thither at the instance of the said Juges or their fautors or any other person That like as his Grace hath in other his Courts temporal his Solicitors and Atturneys he shuld also have in his said Courts two Proctors or so admitted by his G. and his councel which shuld be sworn to promote and solicite his Gs. interest there and to advertise the same of any thing that shuld appertain to his Gs. prerogative and to defend such of the Kings subjects as shal desire their assistance boldly and without fear or affection of the said Juges And that the same Proctors so admitted be not removeable from the same their offices by any man but the Kings G. or his Councel Which so enacted and established shuld be the readiest means that the foresaid abuses with divers others here not rehearsed caused through the occasion of the said statute shuld be utterly taken away and justice more plainly and speedily proceed in the said Courts than heretofore hath been seen to do And the Kings subjects called thither from al parts of England shuld have plenty of counsil faithful assistance in their matters and speedy process in the same Which ought to be tendred affectantly of every man that regardeth the encrease of the Common wele and true execution of justice NUM XIX The Archbishop to the L. Crumwel giving him some account of his Visitation of his Diocess THese shal be to advertise your Lp. that since my last coming from London into Kent I have found the people of my Diocess very obstinately given to observe and keep with solemnity the hali dayes lately abrogated Wherupon I have punished divers of the Offendors and to divers I have given gentle monitions to amend But inasmuch as by examination I have perceived that the people were partly animated therto by their Curates I have given streit commandment and injunction unto al the Parsons and Vicars within my Diocess upon paine of deprivation of their benefices that they shal not only on their behalf cause the said hali dayes so abrogated from time to time not to be observed within their Cures but also shal from henceforth present to me such persons of their Parishes as wil practise in word or deed contrary to that Ordinance or any other which is or hereafter shal bee set forth by the Kings Graces authority for the redress or ordering of the doctrine or ceremonies of this Church of England So that now I suppose through this means all disobedience and contempt of the Kings Graces Acts and Ordinances in this behalf shal be clearly avoyded in my Diocess hereafter Not doubting also but if every Bp. in this realm had Commandment to do the same in their Diocess it would avoyd both much disobedience and contention in this said realm I would faine that al the enmity and grudge of the people in this matter should be put from the King and his Councel and that wee who be Ordinaries should take it upon us Or else I fear lest a grudge against the Prince and his Council in such causes of religion should gender in many of the peoples hearts a faint subjection and obedience But my Lord if in the Court you do keep such hali dayes and fasting dayes as be abrogated when shal we persuade the people to
silent in some things more fully and largely treated of elsewhere But here are numberless Notices given concerning the Archbishop some which are no where else others very imperfectly observed besides the Narrations of the State and History of the Church which are every where interposed in most of which the Archbishop bore a part The Cathedral Church of Canterbury now called Christ-Church I have in some places stiled Trinity Church because I so find it named in those particular Records I make use of in those places and it seems in some of the first years of our Archbishop it ordinarily went by that old Name My Stile may seem rough and unpolished and the Phrases here and there uncouth the reason of which is because I confess I have often taken the very Expressions and Words of the Papers I have used and so may fall sometimes into obsolete Terms and a Style not so acceptable to the present Age whose Language is refined from what it was an Hundred and fifty or forty years ago But I have chosen to do this that I might keep the nearer Truth and lest that by varying of the Language I might perhaps sometimes vary from the true meaning of my Writer And in truth he that is a Lover of Antiquity loves the very Language and Phrases of Antiquity The Reader will find some few things here which are already published in the late Specimen put forth by Anthony Harmer he and I it seems lighting unwittingly upon the same Records to wit K. Edward's Council-Book and the Register of Christ-Church Cant. Nor could I strike out of my Book what I found published in the said Specimen having fully finished it and the Copy being under the Press some Weeks before that Book came forth and the matters there related interwoven into the Contexture of my History And now after all this Pains that I have taken in fulfilling this Task which I assure the Readers have not been small nor of a few Years let me not for every little slip fall under their Censure and Reproach but rather let them use me with Gentleness and Charity considering how few tho much abler will trouble themselves to Labour and Drudge and take Journeys and be at Expences in making such Collections for the Publick Good It calls to mind what happened upon the Death of the Laborious Antiquary Iohn Stow who had been a Collector of Matters for the English History Seven and forty years and dyed 1605. and had all the Collections of Reiner Wolf another Historian and a Printer in K. Edward the Sixth's days and if he had lived but one year longer intended to have published his long Labours But after his death there was not a man to be found to take the small Pains to review his Papers and fit them for the Press Many indeed were talked of to do it both Persons of Quality among the Laity and Clergy For the World had great and earnest expectation to see Stow in Print But when they were spoke to to take the good Work in hand some of them said That they thought the giving out of their Names was rather done by secret Enemies on purpose to draw them into Capital Displeasure and to bring their Names and Lives into a general question Others said That they who did such a Work must flatter which they could not neither wilfully would they leave a Scandal unto their Posterity Another said he could not see how in any Civil action a man should spend his Travel Time and Money worse than in that which acquires no Regard or Reward except Backbiting and Detraction And one among the rest swore an Oath and said He thanked God that he was not yet mad to waste his Time spend Two hundred Pounds a Year which it seems Stow had done trouble himself and all his Friends only to gain assurance of endless Reproach loss of Liberty and bring all his days in question Yet at last one Edward Howes undertook it and effected it But it happened just so to him having been intolerably abused and scandalized for his Labour So slothful and backward are most to take Pains in Works of this nature and so apt to censure those that do I hope I shall meet if not with Thanks at least with more candid men and better usage But whatever happens I shall arm my self with Patience to undergo it since I intend nothing hereby but to be serviceable unto my Countrey and God's Church and to Justify the excellent Reformation of it in these Kingdoms and finally to do Right unto the Memory of that truly Great and Good Archbishop of Canterbury And thus recommending the Success of this Work unto God's Blessing I here make an End J. STRYPE Sept. 29. 1693. Low-Leyton I desire the Reader to take Notice That when I quote Fox's Acts and Monuments it is the Edition in the Year 1610. And when the Life of K. Henry VIII by the L. Herbert it is the Edition of 1672. And when the History of the Reformation by Bishop Burnet it is that of the Year 1681. Farewel A TABLE OF THE Books Chapters and Contents OF THESE MEMORIALS OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER BOOK I. CHAP. I. Cranmer 's Birth Education and Rise A Worthy Work to revive his Memory His Family Account of his younger years Sent to Cambridge An. 1503. Sets himself to study the Scripture Is made Doctor of Divinity Marries Refuses to go to Wolsey's College Oxon. He is made one of the University-Examiners The King 's great Cause first proposed to the Universities The occasion of his Rise His Opinion of the King's Cause The King sends for him Suitably placed with the Earl of Ormond Friendship and Correspondence between the Earl and Cranmer A Providence in his being placed here Cranmer disputes at Cambridge Grows dear to the King and his Court. CHAP. II. Pole 's Book about the King's Matrimony Pole's Book against the King's dissolving his Marriage Cranmer peruses it His Account of it His Censure thereof CHAP. III. Cranmer 's Embassies He is employed in Embassies To the Pope Offers him a Dispute in favour of the King's Cause To the Emperor Cornel. Agrippa gained by Cranmer to the King's Cause Becomes acquainted with Osiander and marries his Kinswoman Treats with the Emperor about the Contract of Traffick and about sending Supplies against the Turk Sends the King the News in those Parts And the Proclamation for a General Council And the Tax of the States of the Empire He goes in an Embassy to the Duke of Saxony and other Protestant Princes CHAP. IV. Cranmer made Archbishop of Canterbury Made Archbishop of Canterbury His Dignities before he was Archbishop Archbishop Warham foretels a Thomas to succeed him Archbishop Warham for the King's Supremacy Cranmer's Testimony of Warham A Reflection upon a Passage relating to Cranmer in Harpsfields History Cranmer tries to evade the Archbishoprick Declares the reason thereof to the King The Archbishop's Brother is made Archdeacon of Canterbury
Nicene Creed The beginning of their Acquaintance The Archbishop propounds a weighty matter to Melancthon for the Union of all Protestant Churches The diligence of the Archbishop in forwarding this Design Mâ—lancthon's Judgment and Approbation thereof His Caveat of avoiding ambiguous expressions Renews the same Caution in another Letter Peter Martyr of this judgment What Melancthon thought of the Doctrine of Fate CHAP. XXV The Archbishop corresponds with Calvin The Archbishop breaks his purpose also to Calvin Calvin's Approbation thereof and Commendation of the Archbishop Offers his Service Excites the Archbishop to proceed This excellent purpose frustrated Thinks of drawing up Articles of Religion for the English Church Which he communicates to Calvin And Calvin's Reply and Exhortation Blames him for having not made more Progress in the Reformation But not justly The Clergy preach against Sacrilege The University-men declaim against it in the Schools And the Redress urged upon some at Court Calvin sends Letters and certain of his Books to the King Well taken by the King and Council What the Archbishop told the Messenger hereupon CHAP. XXVI The Archbishop highly valued Peter Martyr P. Martyr and the Archbishop cordial Friends The use the Archbishop made of him Martyr saw the Voluminous Writings and Marginal Notes of the Archbishop Two Letters of Martyr from Oxford An Instance of his love to the Archbishop CHAP. XXVII The Archbishop's favour to John Sleidan the Historian The Archbishop's favour to Iohn Sleidan Procures him a Pension from the King The Payment neglected Sleidan labours with the Archbishop to get the Pension confirmed by Letters-Patents Sends his Commentaries to the King Designs to write the History of the Council of Trent For the King's use Sends the King a Specimen thereof In order to the proceeding with his Commentaries desires Cecyl to send him the whole Action between K. Henry VIII and Pope Clement VII Bucer writes to Cecyl in behalf of Sleidan Iohn Leland CHAP. XXVIII Archbishop Cranmer 's Relations and Chaplains His Wives and Children His Wife survived him Divers Cranmers The Archbishop's stock Aslacton Whatton The Rectories whereof the Archbishop purchased His Chaplains Rowland Taylor His Epitaph A Sermon preached the day after his Burning Wherein the Martyr is grosly slandered Iohn Ponett Thomas Becon Richard Harman CHAP. XXIX Archbishop Cranmer 's Officers Robert Watson the Archbishop's Steward His Secretary Ralph Morice His Parentage Well known to divers eminent Bishops Presents Turner to Chartham And stands by him in his Troubles for his faithful Preaching An Instance of the Archbishop's Kindness to this his Secrerary Morice his Suit to Q. Elizabeth for a Pension His second Suit to the Queen to confirm certain Lands descended to him from his Father He was Register to the Commissioners in K. Edward's Visitation Suffered under Q. Mary Morice supplied Fox with many material Notices in his Book Morice a Cordial Friend to Latimer CHAP. XXX A Prospect of the Archbishop's Qualities Morice's Declaration concerning the Archbishop His Temperance of Nature His Carriage towards his Enemies Severe in his behaviour towards offending Protestants Stout in God's or the King's Cause His great Abilities in answering the King's Doubts Cranmer studied three parts of the Day Would speak to the King when none else durst Lady Mary Q. Katherine Howard His Hospitality Falsly accused of Ill Housekeeping CHAP. XXXI Archbishop Cranmer preserved the Revenues of his See The preserving the Bishops Revenues owing to the Archbishop The Archbishop vindicated about his Leases By long Leases he saved the Revenues Justified from diminishing the Rents of the See Oâ—ford and Knol Curleswood Chislet Park Pasture and Medow Woods Corn. The best Master towards his Servants An Infamy that he was an Hostler CHAP. XXXII Some Observations upon Archbishop Cranmer Observations upon the Archbishop His Learning very profound His Library An excellent Bishop His Care of his own Diocess At the great Towns he preached often Affected not his high Stiles His diligence in reforming Religion Puts K. Henry upon a purpose of reforming many things The King again purposeth a Reformation Hs Influence upon K. Edward CHAP. XXXIII Archbishop Cranmer procures the use of the Scriptures A great Scripturist Procures the publishing the English Bible The Bishops oppose it The first Edition of the Bible The Preface to the Bible made by the Archbishop The Contents thereof The Frontispiece of Cranmer's Edition of the Bible CHAP. XXXIV Archbishop Cranmer compassionate towards Sufferers for Religion His Affection and Compassion towards Professors of the Gospel Particularly for Sir Iohn Cheke a Prisoner And the Lord Russel A Patron to such as preached the Gospel in K. Henry's days His Succour of Afflicted Strangers in K. Edward's days England harborous of Strangers The Archbishop's favour to Foreigners Unjustly charged with Covetousness His Words to Cecyl upon this Charge Reduced as he feared to stark Beggary before his Death CHAP. XXXV Some account of Archbishop Cranmer'â— Housekeeping Some Account of his Housekeeping Retrenches the Clergy's superfluous House-keeping His Pious Design therein Others charged him with Prodigality CHAP. XXXVI Archbishop Cranmer Humble Peaceable Bold in a good Cause Humble and Condescending Peaceable and Mild. His Speech upon the News of Wars abroad Unacquainted with the Arts of Court-Flattery Would never crouch to Northumberland He and Ridley fall under that Duke's displeasure Bold and undaunted in God's Cause Falsly charged with Cowardice and too much Flexibility Of ardent Affections Cranmâ—r compared with Cardinal Wolsey CHAP. XXXVII Osiander 's and Peter Martyr 's Character of the Archbishop Osiander's Character of the Archbishop And Peter Martyr's Bale's Character of the Archbishop The difficult times wherein Cranmer lived CHAP. XXXVIII The Archbishop vindicated from Slanders of Papists A lying Character of this Archbishop by a late French Author Allen's Calumny of the Archbishop Wiped off Cleared from his Charge of Apostacy Saunders Falshoods of the Archbishop Parsons his Complements to the Archbishop Fox in behalf of Cranmer The Conclusion Errata and Emendations belonging to the Memorials Where the Reader finds this mark * after the Figure denoting the Line he is to tell from the bottom PAge 5. Line 21. for At read All. P. 29. l. 11. r. Imprisoned P. 30 31. in the Margent in three places r. 1534. P. 36. l. 8. after Appendix Note That the Dissolution of S. Swithins in Winchester tho laid here under the year 1535. happened not that year but about five years after viz. 1540. But the occasion of the Discourse there which was of the vast Wealth obtained to the King by the Fall of Religious Houses made the Author produce it in this place as an Instance thereof Ibid. l. 20. * r. Diocesan P. 37. Among the Diocesan Bishops Consecrated under the year 1535 place Hugh Latymer Consecrated Bishop of Worcester and Iohn Hildesly or Hilsey a Friar of the Order of Preachers first of Bristow and afterwards of Oxford Consecrated Bishop of Rochester next after Iohn Fisher Executed for Treason These two
lawful for one Brother to marry his Brother's Wife being known of his Brother Of the which Cambridg Doctors Cranmer was appointed for one such was his Fame then in that University for Learning But because he was not then at Cambridg another was chosen in his stead These Learned Men agreed fully with one Consent that it was lawful with the Pope's Dispensation so to do But if Cranmer had been there he would have been of another Mind as we shall see in the Sequel This great Matrimonial Cause gave the first step to Dr. Cranmer's Preferment For when Fox and Gardiner the one the King's Almoner and the other his Secretary lighting by chance in Dr. Cranmer's Company at one Mr. Cressies House situate in Waltham-Abbey Parish in Essex had on design fallen upon Discourse of that Matter purposely to learn his Judgment therein knowing him an eminent noted Reader of Divinity in Cambridg He gave his own Sense of the Cause in words to this effect I have nothing at all studied said he for the Verity of this Cause nor am beaten therein as you have been Howbeit I do think that you go not the next way to work to bring the Matter unto a perfect Conclusion and End especially for the satisfaction of the troubled Conscience of the King's Highness For in observing the common Process and frustratory Delays of these your Courts the Matter will linger long enough and peradventure in the end come to small effect And this is most certain said he there is but one Truth in it Which no Men ought or better can discuss than the Divines Whose Sentence may be soon known and brought so to pass with little Industry and Charges that the King's Conscience may thereby be quieted and pacified Which we all ought to consider and regard in this Question or Doubt and then his Highness in Conscience quieted may determine himself that which shall seem Good before God And let these tumultuary Processes give place unto a certain Truth His Opinion thus unwillingly drawn from him was so much liked of by them to whom he spake it that they thought it worth their acquainting the King with it Which they did within two days after at Greenwich Whereupon the King commanded he should be sent for to the Court. Which was done and he brought into the King's Presence Who having heard him discourse upon the Marriage and well observing the Gravity and Modesty as well as Learning of the Man resolved to cherish and make much of him This was about August 1529 the King having commanded him to digest in Writing what he could say upon the foresaid Argument retained him and committed him unto the Family and Care of the Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond named Sir Thomas Bolen dwelling then at Durham-House Esteeming him a fit Person for Cranmer to reside with who had himself been employed in Embassies to Rome and Germany about the same Matter and so able to instruct our Divine in particular Passages relating thereunto And likewise would be sure to afford him all the Security and Favour and Aid possible from the Prospect that if the King 's former Marriage could be proved unlawful and thereby null and void his own Family would be in a fair probability to be highly advanced by the King 's matching with his Daughter the Lady Ann Bolen Nor was Cranmer unsutably placed here in regard of the Disposition of his Noble Host being accounted one of the learnedest Noblemen in the Land and endued with a Mind enclined to Philosophy Erasmus who had good Intelligence in England and knew this Earl himself gives this Account of him to Damianus à Goes Est enim Vir ut uno ore praedicant omnes unus prope inter Nobiles eruditus animóque planè Philosophico He was also much addicted to the Study and Love of the Holy Scriptures as the same Erasmus in an Epistle to him mentioneth and commendeth him for I do the more congratulate your Happiness when I observe the Sacred Scriptures to be so dear to a Man as you are of Power one of the Laity and a Courtier and that you have such a desire to tha◠Pearl of Price He was also a Patron of Learning and Learned Men. And if there were nothing else to testify this it would be enough to say that he was well-affected to the Great Erasmus and a true valuer of his Studies The World is beholden to this Noble Peer for some of the Labours that proceeded from the Pen of that most Learned Man For upon his desire Erasmus wrote three Tracts One was Enarrations upon the Twenty second Psalm intituled Dominus regit me but more truly the Twenty third Another was an Explication of the Apostles Creed And the third Directions how to prepare for Death And from these Subjects which this Noble-man chose to desire Erasmus his Thoughts of we may conclude also his Pious and Religious Mind At which his vertuous Accomplishments as they rendred his House a sutable Harbour for the Learned and Pious Cranmer so they were not a little encreased by his Converse and Familiarity there For while Cranmer abode here a great Friendship was contracted between him and that Noble Family especially the chief Members of it the Countess and the Lady Ann and the Earl himself who often held serious Conferences with him about the great Matter And in the Earl's absence from Home Letters passed between them Cranmer writing to him of the Affairs of the Court and of the Welfare of his Family as well as of other more weighty Things In one Letter dated from Hampton-Court in the Month of Iune which by Circumstance must be in the Year 1530. he writ to him That the King's Grace my Lady his Wife my Lady Ann his Daughter were in good Health And that the King and my Lady Ann rode the Day before to Windsor from Hampton-Court and that Night they were look'd for again there praying God to be their Guide And I cannot look upon this Pious and Learned Man's placing here in this Family but as guided by a peculiar Hand of Divine Providence Whereby this House became better acquainted with the Knowledg of the Gospel and had the Seeds of true Religion scattered in the Hearts of those Noble Persons that were related to it Particularly of Her who was afterwards to be advanced to that high and publick Station to be Consort to the King And that she became a Favourer and as much as she durst a Promoter of the purer Religion must I think in a great measure be owing thereunto When Cranmer had accomplished the King's Request and finished his Book he himself the Secretary and the Almoner and other Learned Men had in Commission to dispute the Cause in Question in both the Universities Which being first attempted at Cambridg Dr. Cranmer by his Authority Learning and Perswasion brought over divers Learned Men in one Day of the contrary
Part and Opinion to be on his Part. For being now after some absence returned to Cambridg divers of the University and some of those Doctors that before had given in their Judgments to the King for the Validity of the Pope's Dispensation repaired to him to know his Opinion And after long Reasoning he changed the Minds of Five of the Six Then almost in every Disputation both in Private Houses and in the Common Schools this was one Question Whether the Pope might dispense with the Brother to marry the Brother's Wife after Carnal Knowledg And it was of many openly defended that he might not The Secretary when he came Home acquainted the King with what they had done and how Dr. Cranmer had changed the Minds of Five of the said Learned Men of Cambridg and of many others beside Afterward this University as well as the other determined the King's Cause against the Pope's Dispensation From an Academic our Doctor being now become a Courtier he so prudently demeaned himself that he was not only dear to the Earl of Wiltshire's Family but grew much favoured by the Nobility in general as the Lord Herbert collects from the Historians of those Times and especially by the King himself He was very much about him the King holding frequent Communication with him and seemed unwilling to have him absent Which may appear from hence that when Cranmer was minded for some reason to resort to the Earl of Wiltshire who was then from Hampton-Court and as it seems at London upon some Occasions of his own he doubted whether the King would let him go And so he writ to him that he would come the next Day to him If the King's Grace let him not CHAP. II. Pole's Book about the King's Matrimony ABout this time a Book of Reginald Pole afterwards Cardinal earnestly perswading the King to continue his Marriage with his Queen fell into Dr. Cranmer's Hands I do not find mention of this Book in any Historian that hath come to my Hands No not in his Life published by Bacatellus Bishop of Ragusa though he hath there given us a Catalogue of his Books But in likelihood the Reason was because this was some private Discourse or Letter chiefly intended for the King 's own Use as appears from some words of Cranmer concerning it Viz. That it was writ with that Eloquence that if it were set forth and known to the common People an evidence it was a more private Writing it were not possible to perswade them to the contrary It was penned about the Year 1530 as may be collected from another Passage in the said Writing wherein he mentioneth the King's living in Wedlock with Queen Katherine twenty Years the expiration of which fell in about that Time What induced Pole to write on this Subject is to me uncertain for he avoided as much as could be to meddle in this Affair out of Fear of the King's Displeasure which was the Reason of his departing Abroad Probably it was at the King's Command like as some Years after he commanded him to write his Judgment of the Title of Supream Head which he had lately assumed Which occasioned Pole's four Books of Ecclesiastical Vnity For some about the King had told him it would have a great Influence upon the People especially the Nobility if he could bring Pole over to allow and approve of his Marriage Who was a Person tho then but Young yet highly valued in the Nation for his Piety and Learning and great Descent The Book was soon delivered whether by the Earl of Wiltshire or the King himself unto the Examination and Consideration of Cranmer now the great Court-Divine Who after he had greedily perused it sent the Contents of it in a Letter to his Friend and Patron the Earl being then absent from Court The Book though the Argument of it chiefly depended upon Divinity proceeded more on Political Principles than Divine Take the following account of it as Cranmer gave it in his said Letter First Pole treated of the Danger of Diversity of Titles to the Crown Which might follow if the present Marriage with Queen Katherine were rejected in which there was an Heir and another consummated As appeared by the Titles and Pretensions of the two Houses of Lancaster and York And that the King ought to provide against the Miseries that might be brought upon his Realm by the People if he should reject his Daughter whom they took for his Lawful Heir and should perswade them to take another Then he urged the Danger of incurring the Emperor's Displeasure the Queen being his Aunt and the Princess his Cousin Then he proceeded to consider the Reasons that moved the King to his present Resolutions Namely That God's Law forbad marrying the Brother's Wife And that the People however averse at first besides that it belongâ—d not to them to judg of such Matters would be content in the King's Doings when they should know how the ancient Doctors of the Church and so many great Universities were on the King's Side And that however the Emperor might fall out with the King for this Matter yet God would never fail those that stood on his part and refused to transgress his Commandments and that England might depend on the French King's Aid by virtue of the League which he had entred into with the King and the old Grudg which he bore towards the Emperor Afterwards Pole goes on to review these Reasons And first his Judgment was that Scripture might be brought to justify this Marriage and that there was as good ground of Scripture for that as for the part which the King then took namely the unlawfulness of it That if indeed he thought the King's Part was just and that his Marriage were undoubtedly against God's Pleasure then he could not deny but that it should be well done for the King to refuse it and take another Wife Yet he confessed that for his own part he could not find in his Heart to have any Hand or be any furtherer or abetter in it Acknowledging however that he had no good Reason for it but only out of Affection and Duty to the King's Person Because he would not disannul the Princess his Daughter's Title nor accuse the most part of the King's Life as the Books written on the King's part did As though he had lived in a Matrimony Shameful Abominable Bestial and against Nature This seemed an high Complement of Pole's indeed that he would rather chuse to let the King live and die in an habitual Breach of God's Law than be guilty of something that might argue a want of civil Affection and Duty in him And as concerning the People his Judgment was That neither by Learning nor Preaching would they ever be brought into an ill Conceit of the King 's former Marriage and to think so dishonourably of their King as to live so many Years in Matrimony so abominable But as they had
begun to hate Priests this would make them much more to do so nay and the very Name of Learning too As for the Authority of the Universities they were many times led by Affection which was well known And he wished they had never erred in their Determinations He shewed that they were brought to the King's Part with great difficulty Moreover against the Universities Authority he set the Authority of the King's Father and his Council the Queen's Father and his Council and the Pope and his Then he proceeded to Political Considerations of the Pope and Emperor and the French King That the Pope was a great Adversary of the King's purpose he had shewed divers tokens already and that not without cause Because if he should consent he should do against his Predecessors and restrain his own Power which he would rather gladly enlarge and likewise raise Seditions in many Realms as in Portugal Of whose King the Emperor married one Sister and the Duke of Savoy the other Then he went on extolling the Emperor's Power and lessening that of the French King as to his aiding of us Mentioning the Mischief the Emperor might do England by forbidding only our trading into Flanders and Spain That the French never used to keep their Leagues with us but for their own Ends and that we could never find in our Hearts to trust them And that the two Nations never loved one another And that if the French should but suspect that this new Matrimony of the King with the Lady Ann Bolen now purposed should not continue we must not expect Succor of them but upon intolerable Conditions And then lastly he comes to deliberate for the saving the King's Honour Which as it was impossible to do if he proceeded one step further for he had already he said gone to the very Brink so he began to propound certain means for the rescue of it Thus far is Cranmer's Relation of the Book But here he breaks off the Messenger that tarried for the Letter being in haste promising the next Day to come to the Earl to whom he wrote all this and relate the rest to him by Word of Mouth These Means in short were as I collect from some other Passages of this Letter to refer the Matter wholly to the Pope and to reject the thoughts of matching with the Lady Ann. The which was now much talked of For the King and She were very great and about this very time they both rode together from Hampton-Court to Windsor though she were yet no more then the Lady Ann without any other Title The Censure which our Divine gave of this Book and the Writer was this wherein his Modesty and Candor as well as Judgment appeared That Pole had shewed himself both Witty and Eloquent And that for his Wisdom he might have been of Counsel to the King and such his Rhetorick that if his Book should have been set forth and known to the common People he believed it were not possible to perswade them to the contrary Concerning that which he chiefly drove at namely That the King should commit his great Matter to the Pope's Judgment Cranmer gave his Opinion That he seemed therein to lack much Judgment And that though he pressed it with such goodly Eloquence both of Words and Sentence that he were likely to perswade many yet him he said he perswaded in that Point nothing at all No Cranmer had too well studied the Point to leave such a Case of Conscience to the Pope's Decision But in many other things in this Discourse of Pole he professed he was much satisfied I have placed this whole Letter in the Appendix at the end of these Memorials as I shall do many other Letters and Papers of value partly for the Satisfaction of more curious Readers that love to see Originals and partly for the preservation of many choice Monuments relating to this Man and these Times and for the transferring them to posterity CHAP. III. Cranmer's Embassies IN the Year 1530 Dr. Cranmer was sent by the King into France Italy and Germany with the Earl of Wiltshire Chief Ambassador Dr. Lee Elect Arch-Bishop of York Dr. Stokesly Elect of London Divines Trigonel Karn and Benet Doctors of the Law to dispute these Matrimonial matters of his Majesty at Paris Rome and other places Carrying the Book he had made upon that Subject with him From France they took their Journey to the Pope where Cranmer's Book was delivered to him and he ready to justify it and to offer a Dispute against the Marriage openly upon these two Points which his Book chiefly consisted of viz. I. That no Man Iure Divino could or ought to marry his Brother's Wife II. That the Bishop of Rome by no means ought to dispense to the contrary But after sundry Promises and Appointments made there was no Man found to oppose him and publickly to dispute these Matters with him Yet in more private Argumentations with them that were about the Pope he so forced them that at last they openly granted even in the Pope's chief Court of the Rota that the said Marriage was against God's Law But as for the Pope's Power of Dispensing with the Laws of God it was too advantagious a Tenet to be parted with But Dr. Cranmer boldly and honestly denied it utterly before them all The King's Ambassadors from the Pope repaired to the Emperor Charles V. Cranmer only being left behind at Rome to make good his Challenge and withal more privately to get the Judgments and Subscriptions of the Learned Men there in the King's Case which was one of his Businesses also in Germany after What he did in this latter Affair he signified by a Letter to Crook another of the King's Agents for that purpose in Italy Namely That his Success there at Rome was but little and that they dared not to attempt to know any Man's Mind because of the Pope who had said that Friars should not discuss his Power And added That he looked for little Favour in that Court but to have the Pope and all his Cardinals declare against them Here at Rome Cranmer abode for some Months But in all the Journey he behaved himself so learnedly soberly and wittily that the Earl of Wilts gave him such Commendations to the King by his Letters that the rest coming home he sent him a Commission with Instructions to be his sole Ambassador to the Emperor in his said great Cause Which Commissional Letters of the King to him bare date Ianuary 24. 1531. wherein he was stiled Consiliarius Regius ad Caesarem Orator By this opportunity of travelling through Germany following the Emperor's Court by his Conferences he fully satisfied many Learned Germans which afore were of a contrary Judgment and divers in the Emperor 's own Court and Council also One of the chiefest of these and who suffered severely for it was Cornelius Agrippa Kt. Doctor of both Laws
who had no Authority within this Realm Whereat the King made a Pause and then asked him how he was able to prove it At which time he alledged several Texts out of Scripture and the Fathers proving the Supream Authority of Kings in their own Realms and Dominions and withal shewing the intolerable Usurpations of the Bishops of Rome Of this the King talked several times with him and perceiving that he could not be brought to acknowledg the Pope's Authority the King called one Dr. Oliver an eminent Lawyer and other Civilians and devised â—ith them how he might bestow the Arch-Bishoprick upon him salving his Conscience They said he might do it by way of Protestation and so one to be sent to Rome to take the Oath and do every thing in his Name Cranmer said to this It should be super animam suam and seemed to be satisfied in what the Lawyers told him And accordingly when he was consecrated made his Protestation That he did not admit the Pope's Authority any further than it agreed with the express Word of God And that it might be lawful for him at all times to speak against him and to impugn his Errors when there should be occasion And so he did Whether Warham the Arch-deacon had conceived any Prejudice against our new Arch-Bishop by some warning given him by the former Arch-Bishop as was hinted above or whether he was willing to give place upon Cranmer's Entreaty that he might provide for his Brother so it was that Edmund Cranmer Brother to the Arch-Bishop succeeded Warham in the Arch-deaconry of Canterbury and the Provostship of Wingham Who parted with both these Dignities by Cession And by the Privity and Consent of the Arch-Bishop he had a Stipend or Pension of sixty pounds per Annum allowed him during his Life out of the Arch-deaconary and twenty pounds per Annum out of Wingham by his Successor aforesaid Who continued Arch-deacon until Queen Mary's Days and was then deprived and his Prebend and his Parsonage of Ickham all taken from him in the Year 1554 for being a married Clerk The first was given to Nicholas Harpsfield the second to Robert Collins Bachelour of Law and Commissary of Canterbury and the third to Robert Marsh. The King had before linked him into his great Business about Queen Katharine and the Lady Anne So now when he had nominated him for Arch-Bishop he made him a Party and an Actor in every step almost which he took in that Affair For to fetch the Matter a little backward Not long before the Archiepiscal See was devolved upon Cranmer the King had created the Lady Anne Marchioness of Pembroke and taken her along with him in great State into France when by their mutual Consent there was an Interview appointed between the two Kings At Calais King Henry permitted Francis the French King to take a view of this Lady who then made both Kings a curious and rich Mask where both honoured her by dancing This was in the month of October In the Month before I find a parcel of very rich Jewels were sent from Greenwich to Hampton Court by Mr. Norrys probably he who was Groom of the Stole and executed upon Queen Ann's Business afterwards Which Jewels as some of them might be for the King 's own wearing now he was going into France so in all probability others were either lent or given to the Marchioness to adorn and make her fine when she should appear and give her entertainment to the French King For the sake of such as be curious I have set down in the Appendix a Particular of these most splendid and Royal Jewels from an Original signed with the King 's own Hand in token of his Receit of them Immediately after the King's and â—â—e Marchionesses return from France he married her At which Wedding though very private the Arch-Bishop was one that assisted according to the Lord Herbert but according to the Author of the Britannic Antiquities did the Sacred Office When she was crowned Queen which was Whitsontide following the Arch-Bishop performed the Ceremonies When after that the King had a Daughter by her he would have the Arch-Bishop assist at the Christening and be her Godfather And before this when Queen Katharine was to be divorced from the King and the Pope's Dispensation of that Marriage declared Null our Arch-Bishop pronounced the Sentence and made the Declaration solemnly and publickly at Dunstable Priory Thus the King dipped and engaged Cranmer with himself in all his Proceeding in this Cause Now as all these doings had danger in them so especially this last highly provoked the Pope for doing this without his Leave and Authority as being a presumptuous Encroachment upon his Prerogative Insomuch that a publick Act was made at Rome that unless the King undid all that he had done and restored all things in integrum leaving them to his Decision he would excommunicate him And this Sentence was affixed and set up publickly at Dunkirk Which put the King upon an Appeal from the Pope to the next General Council lawfully called The Arch-Bishop also foreseeing the Pope's Threatning hovering likewise over his Head by the King's Advice made his Appeal by the English Ambassador there I have seen the King's Original Letter to Dr. Bonner ordering him to signify to the Pope in Order and Form of Law his Appeal sending him also the Instrument of his Appeal with the Proxy devised for that purpose This bare date August 18 th from his Castle at Windsor I have reposited it in the Appendix Which Order of the King Bonner did accordingly discharge at an Audience he got of the Pope at Marceilles November 7. And that Letter which the Lord Herbert saith he saw of Bonner to the King wherein he signified as much must be his Answer to this of the King to him Dr. Cranmer having now yielded to the King to accept the Arch-Bishoprick it was in the beginning of the next Year viz. 1533. March 30. and in the 24 th of King Henry that he received his Consecration But that ushered in with abundance of Bulls some dated in February and some in March from Pope Clement to the number of Eleven as may be seen at length in the beginning of this Arch-Bishop's Register The first was to King Henry upon his Nomination of Cranmer to him to be Arch-Bishop The Pope alloweth and promoteth him accordingly The second was a Bull to Cranmer himself signifying the same The third Bull absolved him from any Sentences of Excommunication Suspension Interdiction c. It was written from the Pope to him under the Title of Arch-deacon of Taunton in the Church of Wells and Master in Theology and ran thus Nos ne forsan aliquibus sententiis censuris poenis Ecclesiasticis ligatus sis c. Volentes te a quibusvis excommunicationis suspensionis interdicti aliisque Ecclesiasticis sententiis censuris poenis a jure
vel ab Homine quavis occasâ—â—â—e vel causa latis c. Authoritate praedicta tenore praesentium absolvimus absolutum fore nuntiamus non obstantibus constitutionibus ordinationibus Apostolicis c. One might think that this Bull was drawn up peculiarly for Cranmer's Case Who by reason he might have been suspected as infected with Lutheranism or had meddled too much in the King 's Matrimonial Cause and so intangled in the Churches Censures might have need of such assoiling But I suppose it was but a customary Bull. A fourth Bull was to the Suffragans of Canterbury that is to all the Bishops in the Province signifying Cranmer's Advancement to be their Metropolitan Another to the City and Diocess of Canterbury Another to the Chapter of the said Church Another to the Vassals of the Church that is to all such as held Lands of it Another to the People of the City Another wherewith the Pall was sent to the Arch-Bishop of York and the Bishop of London Another of the Destination of the Pall Which the Bull saith was taken de corpore B. Petri to be presented to him by the Arch-Bishop of York and the Bishop of London or one of them after he had received the Gift of Consecration In this Bull of the Destination is an Order not to use the Pall but on those proper Days which were expresly mentioned in the Privileges of the Church On purpose to beget a greater Esteem and Veneration of this and whatsoever Baubles else came from Rome and brought such Treasure thither The Arch-Bishop according to Custom received these Bulls which the Pope sent him to invest him with the Arch-Bishoprick But he surrendred them up to the King because he would not own the Pope as the giver of this Ecclesiastical Dignity but the King only as he declared at his Trial before Queen Mary's Commissioners at Oxford in the Year 1555. As to the Act of Consecration first They assembled in the Chapter-House of the King's Colledg of S. Stephen near the King's Palace of Westminster Present as Witnesses Watkins the King's Prothonotary Dr. Iohn Tregonwel Thomas Bedyl Clerk of the King's Council Richard Guent Doctor of Decrees of the Court of Canterbury principal Official and Iohn Cocks the Arch-Bishop's Auditor of the Audience and Vicar-general in Spirituals The first thing that was done by the Arch-Bishop Elect was for the satisfaction of his Conscience Who was now before his Consecration to take an Oath of Fidelity to the Pope which will follow by and by This he saw consisted by no means with his Allegiance to his Soveraign And therefore how common and customary soever it were for Bishops to take it yet Cranmer in the first place in the said Chapter-house before the said Witnesses made a Protestation wherein he declared that he intended not by the Oath that he was to take and was customary for Bishops to take to the Pope to bind himself to do any thing contrary to the Laws of God the King's Prerogative or to the Common-wealth and Statutes of the Kingdom nor to tie himself up from speaking his Mind freely in Matters relating to the Reformation of Religion the Government of the Church of England and Prerogative of the Crown And that according to this Interpretation and Meaning only he wâ—â—ld take the Oath and no otherwise This Protestation because I think it is not recorded in our Historians except Mason and in him imperfect I have put it into the Appendix verbatim as I transcribed it out of the Arch-Bishop's Register And having made this Protestation he bad the Prochonotary to make one or more publick Instruments thereof and desired the forementioned Persons to be Witnesses thereunto After this Protestation made he in the presence of these Witnesses being arrayed in Sacerdotal Garments went up to the step of the high Altar to receive Consecration where was sitting in a Chair honourably adorned Iohn Longland the Bishop of Lincoln having on his Pontificals assisted by Iohn Voicy Bishop of Exon and Henry Standish Bishop of S. Asaph holding in his hand a Schedule with the Oath which he was now going to take to the Pope and having withal his Protestation he before the aforesaid Witnesses asserted and protested that he would read the Schedule and perform the Oath therein contained under the said Protestation which he said he made the same day in the Chapter-house before those Witnesses and no otherwise nor in any other manner And then presently after kneeling on his Knees read the Schedule containing the Oath to the Pope Which I have reposited in the Appendix Then the Bishops proceeded to the consecrating of the Arch-Bishop And then again after the solemn Consecration was finished being about to receive his Pall when he was to take another Oath to the Pope he protested again in the presence of the same Witnesses that he took the following Oath under the same Protestation as he made before in the Chapter-house nor would perform it any other ways and then took the Oath And after he had taken it desired the Prothonotary the third time to make a publick Instrument or Instruments thereof Which he did To these Oaths I will add one more which the Arch-Bishop took with a better Stomach to the King for his Temporalties This was for the most part the accustomable Oath of Bishops to the King when they sued for their Temporalties but hardly reconcilable with the Oath they had taken to the Pope Because in this Oath was mentioned a renouncing of all Privileges and Grants of the Pope by virtue of his Bulls that might be prejudicial to the King and an Acknowledgment that they held their Bishopricks only of the King which the Arch-Bishop worded more fully viz. That he held his Archbishoprick of the King immediately and only and of none other I refer the Reader to the Appendix for this Oath One of the first Services the Arch-Bishop did for the King was the pronouncing the Sentence of Divorce from his former Queen Katharine which was done May 23 but drew an implacable hatred upon him from the Pope and Emperor abroad as well as the Papists at home And Queen Mary would not forget it when She came to the Crown taking then her full Revenge upon him though in the same Commission wherein this Sentence was pronounced sat the Bishops of Winton London Bath Lincoln and many other great Clerks And though he pronounced the Sentence he was but the Mouth of the rest and they were all in as deep as he There is a short Account of Arch-Bishop Cranmer's Judgment of the unlawfulness of this Marriage digested under twelve Articles with his own Name writ by himself on the top of the Paper Which Bishop Burnet transcribed from a Cotton Manuscript and inserted into his History It bears this Title Articuli ex quibus plane admodum demonstratur Divortium inter Henricum VIII Angliae Regem Invictissimum
themselves and are as much bound to obey as their Temporal Subjects or Lay-men as the Priests call them that the Issue was the abolishing of that Foreign Papal Power and the expulsion of it out of this Realm by the full consent of Parliament A Licence dated Feb. 13. this Year was granted by the Arch-Bishop to Mary the Relict of Sir Henry Guilford Kt. to have the Eucharist Matrimony and Baptism ministred in any Chappel or Oratory within her Mannors where she should reside during her Life And such a Licence dated also Feb. 13. the next Year was granted by him to Margaret Marchioness of Dorset Whether indulged to them by the Arch-Bishop the rather to free them from danger for not frequenting their Parish-Churches and for the avoiding the Superstitious and Idolatrous Worship there performed and that there might be some private Places for purer worshipping God and administration of the Sacraments or only for the Convenience of those Ladies the Reader hath liberty to judg CHAP. VI. The Arch-bishop presseth the Translation of the Bible THIS Rub of the Papal Power being now taken out of the way and the King's Supremacy settled in the next Sessions of Parliament in Novemb. 1534. a Way was opened for a Reformation of Errors and Abuses in Religion So that as the Arch-bishop judged it a thing impossible to make any amendment of Religion under the Pope's Dominion so he thought it now the same being dispatched out of the Realm a meeâ— time to restore the true Doctrine of Christ according to the Word of God and the old Primitive Church within his Jurisdiction and Cure and with the said Pope to abolish also all false Doctrine Errors and Heresies by him brought into the Church for the accomplishing of which he let pass no Opportunities A Convocation now afforded him one Our Arch-bishop from his first entrance upon his Dignity had it much in his mind to get the Holy Scriptures put into the Vulgar Language and a Liberty for all to read them The Convocation now was so well disposed by the influence of the Arch-bishop and his Friends that they did petition the King that the Bible might be translated by some Learned Men of his Highnesses nomination And as this good Motion was briefly made in the House by the Arch-bishop so they agreed upon him to carry their Petition But they clogged it with another which the Arch-bishop did not so well approve of For about the Month of December they pass'd this Order of Convocation The Bishops Abbots Priors of this Upper House of Convocation of the Province of Canterbury met together in the Chapter-House of St. Paul unanimously did consent that the most Reverend Father the Arch-bishop should make instance in their Names to the King that his Majesty would vouchsafe for the encrease of the Faith of his Subjects to decree and command That all his Subjects in whose possession any Books of suspect Doctrine were especially in the Vulgar Language imprinted beyond or on this side the Sea should be warned within three Months to bring them in before Persons to be appointed by the King under a certain Pain to be limited by the King And that moreover his Majesty would vouchsafe to decree that the Scriptures should be translated into the Vulgar Tongue by some honest and learned Men to be nominated by the King and to be delivered unto the People according to their Learning This was resolved in the Convocation Decemb. 19. Accordingly the King issued out soon after his Proclamation What this Proclamation was I do not know unless it were one I meet with about this time against bringing in or printing seditious Books of Anabaptists and Sacramentaries who were said to be lately come into the Realm and against some of his own Subjects who publickly disputed in Taverns and other open Places upon those Points of Religion which the King was offended withal For the Correction and Regulating of which the King in the said Proclamation commanded sundry Articles to be observed which for the length of them I have put into the Appendix Unless perhaps this Proclamation may belong to the Year 1538. About the month of Iune this Year was a Book drawn up for Bishops and Priests wherein was an Order for preaching and in the same were Forms devised for the Beads as well for Preachers as Curates In which Forms the King's Title of Supream Head was specified In this Book was commandment given by the King that â—very Preacher should before Easter once in solemn Audience deâ—â—are the usurped Jurisdiction within this Realm of the Bishop of â—ome and the King 's just Cause to decline from the same and also to open and declare such things as might avow and justify the King's refusal of Marriage with the Princess Dowager and his contract anew with Queen Ann. And also in the same Book an Order was given for the suppression of the General Sentence or Curse This Book the Arch-bishop who we may well suppose had a great hand in it sent by the King's Commandment to all the Bishops and to the Arch-bishop of York though out of his Province that Arch-bishop lying under some Jealousy as it seems with the King Therefore after the receit of the Book the said Arch-bishop of York the next Sunday which was the second Sunday after Trinity went from Cawood to York and there in his own Person declared as well the King's Cause touching the Matrimony as his refusal of the Pope's Jurisdiction so fully that nothing that needed to be opened was left unspoken as that Arch-bishop wrote himself to the King in his own Vindication And that the Auditory might be the greater he sent to York forthwith upon the receit of the Book to publish there that he would be there the next Sunday following and caused the Churches to make an end of their Service in such time as every Man might have opportunity to be at the Sermon and especially required the Mayor and his Brethren and one Mr. Magnus and Sir George Lawson his Majesty's Chaplains to be there And a very great Confluence there was Then the Arch-bishop preached from that Text Vxorem duxi c. Whence he took occasion to utter and declare both his foresaid Matters and the Injury done to the King's Highness by Pope Clement As the Convocation this Year had declared the Pope to have no Jurisdiction in this Kingdom so this would not serve the King till all the Learned and Spiritual Men in England had subscribed to it with their Hands The Arch-bishop's Church of Canterbury began For the Prior and Convent thereof moved and influenced not a little by their Diocesan solemnly subscribed an Instrument for abolishing the Pope's Supremacy and for acknowledgment of the King Supream Head of the Church of England under this Position Quod Romanus Episcopus non habet majorem aliqâ—am jurisdictionem a Deo sibi collatam in hoc regno
it a Matter of Conscience and Sin to abandon their Titles Also that it might tend to stop the Emperor's Mouth and the Mouths of other their Friends when Fisher and More who had stickled so much for them should now own that Succession which would be in effect a disowning of them Secondly That it might be a means to resolve and quiet also many others in the Realm that were in doubt when such great Men should affirm by Oath and Subscription that the Succession mentioned in the said Act was good and according to God's Laws And he thought that after two such had sworn there would be scarce one in the Kingdom would reclaim against it And thirdly That though a great many in the Realm could not be brought to alter from their Opinions of the Validity of the King 's former Marriage and of the Bishop of Rome's Authority that it would be a great Point gained if all with one accord would own and acknowledg the Succession Weaver the Author of the Funeral Monuments transcribed this Letter out of the Cotton Library and inserted it into his said Book and the thing he takes notice of therein is the Wisdom and Policy of the prudent Arch-bishop I shall take notice of another thing and which I suppose was the great Cause that employed his Pen at this time namely his tender Heart and abhorrence from Blood-shedding Propounding these Politick Considerations to the Secretary which were the properest Arguments to be used with a Statesman and for him to use and urge before the King that so he might be an Instrument of saving the Lives of these Men however they differed from him and it may be were none of his very good Friends This Letter of the Arch-bishop's as I my self took it from the Original I thought worthy depositing among Cranmer's Monuments in the Appendix But this Offer of theirs notwithstanding the Arch-bishop's Arguments and Endeavours would not be accepted The King would not be satisfied with this Swearing by halves CHAP. VII The Arch-bishop visits the Diocess of Norwich THE Popish Bishops were now at a low ebb and being under the Frowns of their Prince other Men took the opportunities upon their Slips to get them punished A Storm now fell upon Richard Nix Bishop of Norwich a vitious and dissolute Man as Godwin writes Against him was a Premunire this Year 25 of Hen. VIII brought That De tout temps there had been a Custom in the Town of Thetford in the County of Norfolk that no Inhabitant of the same Town should be drawn in Plea in any Court Christian for any Spiritual Causes but before the Dean in the said Town And there was a Presentment in the King's Court before the Mayor of the Town by twelve Jurors that there was such a Custom And beside that whosoever should draw any Man out of the said Town in any Spiritual Court should forfeit six shillings and eight pence The Bishop nevertheless cited the Mayor to appear before him pro Salute animae And upon his appearance libelled for that Cause and enjoined him upon pain of Excommunication not to admit the said Presentment And whenas the Bishop could not deny his Fact Judgment was given that he should be out of the King's Protection his Goods and Chattels forfeited and his Body in Prison during the King's Pleasure For which he had the King's Pardon Which was afterwards confirmed in Parliament This Bishop's Diocess was now in such disorder that the Arch-bishop instituted a Visitation of that See wherein William May LL. D. was the Arch-bishop's Commissary The 28 th of Iuly the Bishop was called and summoned to appear but appeared not And so was pronounced Contumax But at another meeting he sent Dr. Cap his Proctor by whom he made a Protestation against their Doings and Jurisdiction and that it was not decent for that Reverend Father to appear before him the Arch-bishop's Official However at another meeting the Bishop not appearing at the Time and Place appointed Dr. May declared him obstinate and to incur the Penalty of Obstinacy After this the Bishop by his Proctor was willing to submit to obey Law and to stand to the Command of the Church and to do Penance for his said Contumacy to be enjoined by the Arch-bishop or his Commissary At another Court the Bishop appeared in Person and then shewed himself willing to take the said Commissary for Visitor or any other in the Name of the Arch-bishop of Canterbury This Bishop was now fourscore Years old and blind as appears by a Writing of his sent by his Proctor dated Septemb. 1534. He died two Years after and came in to be Bishop in the Year 1500. This Bishop seems to have made himself very odious in his Diocess by his Fierceness and Rigors against such as were willing to be better informed in Religion whom he would stile Men savouring of the Frying-pan He seized such Books as were brought from beyond-Sea of which sort there were now many which tended to lay open the Corruptions of the Church and especially the New Testament which he could not endure should be read And when some of these commonly gave out that it was the King's Pleasure that such Books should be read he sent up studiously by the Abbot of Hyde to have this shewed to the King and begged his Letters under his Seal to be directed to him or any body else whom the King pleased in his Diocess to declare it was not his Pleasure such Books should be among his Subjects and to punish such as reported it was He sent also a Letter to Warham then Arch-bishop of Canterbury making his Complaint and Information to him desiring him to send for the said Abbot who should tell him what his Thoughts were for the suppression of these Men and intreating the Arch-bishop to inform the King against these erroneous Men as he called them Some part of his Diocess was bounded with the Sea and Ipswich and Yarmouth and other Places of considerable Traffick were under his Jurisdiction And so there happened many Merchants and Mariners who by Converse from Abroad had received knowledg of the Truth and brought in divers good Books This mightily angred the zealous Bishop and he used all the Severity he could to stop the Progress of Evangelical Truth and wished for more Authority from the King to punish it for his Opinion was that if they continued any time he thought they would undo them all as he wrote to the Arch-bishop This Letter is in the Appendix Bishops Consecrated April the 19 th the Arch-bishop of Canterbury invested in his Pontificals consecrated Thomas Goodrick Doctor of Decrees Bishop of Ely in his Chappel at Croydon together with Rowland Lee Doctor of Law Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry and Iohn Salcot alias Capon Doctor of Law Bishop of Bangor being assisted by Iohn Bishop of Lincoln and Christopher Bishop of Sidon CHAP. VIII The Arch-bishop preacheth
at Canterbury IN order to the bettering the State of Religion in the Nation the Arch-bishop's Endeavours both with the King and the Clergy were not wanting from time to time And something soon after fell out which afforded him a fair opportunity which was this The King resolving to vindicate his own Right of Supremacy against the Encroachments of Popes in his Dominions especially now the Parliament had restored it to him being at Winchester sent for his Bishops thither about Michaelmas ordering them to go down to their respective Diocesses and there in their own Persons to preach up the Regal Authority and to explain to the People the Reason of excluding the Pope from all Jurisdiction in these Realms Our Arch-bishop according to this Command speeds down into his Diocess to promote this Service for the King and the Church too He went not into the neerer parts of Kent about Otford and Knol where his most frequent Residence used to be because his Influence had a good effect for the Instruction of the People thereabouts in this as well as in other Points of sound Religion But he repaired into the East parts of his Diocess where he preached up and down upon the two Articles of the Pope's Usurpations and the King's Supremacy But the People of Canterbury being less perswaded of these Points than all his Diocess besides there in his Cathedral Church he preached two Sermons wherein he insisted upon three things I. That the Bishop of Rome was not God's Vicar upon Earth as he was taken Here he declared by what Crafts the Bishop of Rome had obtained his usurped Authority II. That the Holiness that See so much boasted of and by which Name Popes affected to be stiled was but a Holiness in Name and that there was no such Holiness at Rome And here he launched out into the Vices and profligate kind of living there III. He inveighed against the Bishop of Rome's Laws Which were miscalled Divinae Leges and Sacri Canones He said that those of his Laws which were good the King had commanded to be observed And so they were to be kept out of obedience to him And here he descended to speak of the Ceremonies of the Church that they ought not to be rejected nor yet to be observed with an Opinion that of themselves they make Men holy or remit their Sins seeing our Sins are remitted by the Death of our Saviour Christ. But that they were observed for a common Commodity and for good Order and Quietness as the Common Laws of the Kingdom were And for this Cause Ceremonies were instituted in the Church and for a remembrance of many good things as the King's Laws dispose Men unto Justice and unto Peace And therefore he made it a general Rule that Ceremonies were to be observed as the Laws of the Land were These Sermons of the Arch-bishop it seems as they were new Doctrines to them so they were received by them at first with much gladness But the Friars did not at all like these Discourses They thought such Doctrines laid open the Truth too much and might prove prejudicial unto their Gains And therefore by a Combination among themselves they thought it convenient that the Arch-bishop's Sermons should be by some of their Party confuted and in the same place where he preached them So soon after came up the Prior of the black Friars in Canterbury levelling his Discourse against the three things that the Arch-bishop had preached He asserted the Church of Christ never erred that he would not slander the Bishops of Rome and that the Laws of the Church were equal with the Laws of God This angry Prior also told the Arch-bishop to his Face in a good Audience concerning what he had preached of the Bishop of Rome's Vices that he knew no Vices by none of the Bishops of Rome And whereas the Arch-bishop had said in his Sermon to the People that he had prayed many Years that we might be separated from that See and that he might see the Power of Rome destroyed because it wrought so many things contrary to the Honour of God and the Wealth of the Realm and because he saw no hopes of amendment and that he thanked God he had now seen it in this Realm for this the Prior cried out against him that he preached uncharitably The Arch-bishop not suffering his Authority to be thus affronted nor the King's Service to be thus hindred convented the Prior before him before Christmass At his first examination he denied that he preached against the Arch-bishop and confessed that his Grace had not preached any thing amiss But sometime afterward being got free from the mild Arch-bishop and being secretly upheld by some Persons in the Combination he then said he had preached amiss in many things and that he purposely preached against him This created the Arch-bishop abundance of Slander in those parts The Business came to the King's Ears who seemed to require the Arch-bishop to censure him in his own Court But upon occasion of this the Arch-bishop wrote his whole Cause in a Letter to the King dated from his House at Ford 1535. Declaring what he had preached and what the other had preached in contradiction to him And withal entreated his Majesty that he the Arch-bishop might not have the judging of him lest he might seem partial but that he would commit the hearing unto the Lord Privy Seal who was Crumwel or else to assign unto him other Persons whom his Majesty pleased that the Cause might be jointly heard together He appealed to the King and his Council If the Prior did not defend the Bishop of Rome though he had said nothing else than that the Church never erred For then they were no Errors as he inferred that were taught of the Pope's Power and that he was Christ's Vicar in Earth and by God's Law Head of all the World Spiritual and Temporal and that all People must believe that de necessitate Salutis and that whosoever did any thing against the See of Rome is an Heretick But if these be no Errors then your Grace's Laws said he be Erroneous that pronounce the Bishop of Rome to be of no more Power than other Bishops and them to be Traitors that defend the contrary In fine in the stomach of an Arch-bishop and finding it necessary to put a stop to the ill designs of these Friars he concluded That if that Man who had so highly offended the King and openly preached against him being his Ordinary and Metropolitan of the Province and that in such Matters as concerned the Authority Mis-living and Laws of the Bishop of Rome and that also within his own Church if he were not looked upon he left it to the King's Prudence to expend what Example it might prove unto others with like colour to maintain the Bishop of Rome's Authority and of what estimation he the Arch-bishop should be reputed hereafter and what Credence would be
given unto his preaching for time to come And he left his Majesty to hear the Testimony of Dr. Leighton one of the King's Visitors who was present at the Sermon the Arch-bishop then made This Letter the Contents whereof I have now set down I have placed in the Appendix as well worthy the preserving among the rest of the Monuments of this Arch-bishop as I transcribed it out of the Cotton Library I do not find what Issue this Business had but I suspect the Black Friars of Canterbury had a black Mark set upon them by the King for this Opposition of his Arch-bishop in the discharge of his Commands But to speak a little of a Provincial Visitation Iure Metropolitico which the Arch-bishop had begun the last Year viz. 1534 being his first Visitation It was somewhat extraordinary for such a Visitation had not been in an hundred Years before For this he got the King's Licence to countenance his doings knowing what oppositions he should meet with In the Month of May we find him at his House at Otford about this Business The main End whereof was to promote the King's Supremacy and as opportunity served to correct the Superstitions of this Church and to inspect even Bishops and Cathedrals themselves In Apr. 1535 Cranmer had sent his Monition to Steph. Gardiner Bishop of Winchester that he would visit his Diocess The Bishop who never loved the Arch-bishop and being a great upholder of the old Popish Superstitions was the more jealous of this Visitation opposing himself as much as he could against it and would have picked an Hole in Cranmer's Coat for stiling himself in the Instrument of the Process Totius Angliae Primas as though this had been an high Reflection upon the King and detracted much from his Supremacy Of this therefore he went and made a Complaint to the King himself and taking it in some Indignation that the Arch-bishop should visit his Diocess he pretended to the King that the Clergy of his Diocess would be driven to great streights and mightily oppress'd if it should be now visited again having been visited but five Years ago by his Predecessor Warham especially being also to pay a new Duty enjoined by the Parliament namely their Tenths hoping hereby to evade the Arch-bishop's inspection into the Corruptions of the Diocess of Winchester All this Crumwel his Friend certified him of by his Chaplain one Champion Winchester indeed whatsoever he pretended tendred not so much the King's Cause as his own that he might not be visited For otherwise he would have complained to the King of this Matter before Cranmer's signification to him of a Visitation since he always bare the Title of Primate of all England as being the common Stile of the Arch-bishop And if this Stile of Primacy was a diminution to the King it would have been so to the Pope when Winchester held him as he did once for Supream Head of the Church but then he never made any complaint against those Arch-bishops that stiled themselves Primats The Pope's Supream Authority was not less thought of because he had such Primates under him but rather more And the King might therefore have such as were Primates under him without any derogation to his Authority Nor did Cranmer value at all Names and Titles and if he thought it any thing interfering with the King's Honour he would himself have been the first to sue for the taking it wholly away This he signified in a Letter to Secretary Crumwel which because it hath many excellent things declarative of the good Temper and Spirit of Cranmer I have presented it to the Reader 's Eye in the Appendix being an Original in the Cotton Library And as Winchester had pick'd a Quarrel with him for one part of his Archiepiscopal Stile so Stokesly Bishop of London a Man of the same inveterate Temper against Cranmer refused his Visitation because he stiled himself in his Monitions Apostolicae Sedis Legatus For under that Title he Convented that Bishop with the Abbots Priors and Arch-deacon of London to appear before him at a Visitation which he intended to hold at the Chapter-house in St. Paul's Church London But the Bishop of London and the Chapter warned him of assuming that Title as making against the King's Prerogative And at the Visitation it self in S. Paul's they made a Protestation which was openly read The import whereof was that they would not accept him as such a Legate and neither admit nor submit to his Visitation under that Name and required the Arch-bishop's Register to enter their Protestation And upon his refusal thereof delivered a Certificate of what they had done Stokesly also contended with him for suspending all the Jurisdiction of the Bishop Dean and Arch-deacon during his Visitation To which the Arch-bishop answered it was no more than his Predecessors had usually done in those Cases In fine they appealed in their own justification unto the King and desired his Licence to defend themselves against him by the Laws and as the Parliament had provided Thus they shewed before their secret Malice and violent Opposition against the good Arch-bishop and how afraid they were of his Visitation glad to catch any thing to enervate his Authority The sum of which Appeal drawn up by Stokesly being somewhat too long to be subjoined here may be read in the Appendix Finally upon the Arch-bishop's visiting of his Diocess he entred three Protestations against it as may appear in Stokesley's Register for preserving his Privileges This Man ever carried himself perversely to the Arch-bishop It was not long after this time that the Arch-bishop whose Mind ran very much upon bringing in the free use of the Holy Scripture in English among the People put on vigorously a Translation of it And that it might not come to be prohibited as it had been upon pretence of the Ignorance or Unfaithfulness of the Translators he proceeded in this method First He began with the Translation of the New Testament taking an old English Translation thereof which he divided into nine or ten Parts causing each Part to be written at large in a paper Book and then to be sent to the best Learned Bishops and others to the intent they should make a perfect Correction thereof And when they had done he required them to send back their Parts so corrected unto him at Lambeth by a day limited for that purpose and the same course no question he took with the Old Testament It chanced that the Acts of the Apostles were sent to Bishop Stokesly to oversee and correct When the Day came every Man had sent to Lambeth their Parts corrected only Stokeslye's Portion was wanting My Lord of Canterbury wrote to the Bishop a Letter for his Part requiring him to deliver them unto the Bringer his Secretary He received the Arch-bishop's Letter at Fulham Unto which he made this Answer I marvel what my Lord of
Lordship writeth to me in the favour of this Bearer Massey an old Servant to the King's Highness that being contracted to his Sister's Daughter of his late Wife deceased he might enjoy the Benefit of a Dispensation in that behalf especially considering it is none of the Causes of Prohibition contained in the Statute Surely my Lord I would gladly accomplish your Request herein if the Word of God would permit the same And where you require me that if I think this Licence may not be granted by the Law of God then I should write unto you the Reasons and Authorities that move me so to think that upon Declaration unto the King's Highness you may confer thereupon with some other Learned Men and so advertise me the King 's farther Resolution For shortness of time I shall shew you one Reason which is this By the Law of God many Persons be prohibited which be not expressed but be understood by like Prohibition in equal degree As S. Ambrose saith that the Niece is forbid by the Law of God although it be not exprest in Leviticus that the Unkle shall not marry his Niece But where the Nephew is forbid there that he shall not marry his Aunt by the same is understood that the Niece shall not be married unto her Unkle Likewise as the Daughter is not there plainly expressed yet where the Son is forbid to marry his Mother it is understood that the Daughter may not be married to her Father because they be of like degree Even so it is in this Case and many others For where it is there expressed that the Nephew shall not marry his Unkle's Wife it must needs be understood that the Niece shall not be married unto the Aunt 's Husband because that also is one equality of degree And although I could allege many Reasons and Authorities mo for this purpose yet I trust this one Reason shall satisfy all that be Learned and of Judgment And as touching the Act of Parliament concerning the Degrees prohibited by God's Law they be not so plainly set forth as I would they were Wherein I somewhat spake my Mind at the making of the said Law but it was not then accepted I required then that there must be expressed Mother and Mother-in-Law Daughter and Daughter-in-Law and so in further degrees directly upwards and downwards in Linea recta also Sister and Sister-in-Law Aunt Aunt-in-Law Niece and Niece-in-Law And this Limitation in my Judgment would have contained all degrees prohibited by God's Law expressed and not expressed and should have satisfied this Man and such others which would marry their Nieces-in-Law I have no News to send you from these Parts but I much long to hear such News as be concurrent with you And therefore if you have any good News I pray you to send me some Thus my Lord right heartily fare you well At Ford the 7 th Day of September Your Lordship 's own Tho. Cantuarien About this Year as near as I can guess the Arch-bishop made an Order concerning the Proctors of his Court of Arches The Numerousness and Irregularities of Proctors made these Civil Courts uneasy to the People Complaints were made of their Clamorousness by reason of the plenty of them that neither Advocates nor Judges could be heard of the Injuries they did to Advocates in retaining and concluding Causes oftentimes without them and of thrusting themselves into Causes without the knowledg or will of the Parties and such like The Evils of which long after endured were endeavoured to be redrest by the Canons and Constitutions made in the beginning of the Reign of King Iames I. Our Arch-bishop conceived that in order to the Reformation of the Proctors it were good to begin at first with a restraint of the Numbers of them Wherefore he decreed That whereas the Number of the Proctors in the Court of Arches was heretofore about Twenty or four and Twenty and my Lord's Grace at liberty to add more Thenceforth no more should be admitted till the Number were reduced to Ten and then that Number never to be encreased This liberty which his Predecessors always had he willingly infringed himself of out of no other intent but for the benefit and ease of the People whom he saw were inticed to Contention by the crafty Insinuations of this kind of Men setting Neighbours together by the Ears for their own Lucre. And therefore the fewer of them the better And this Number he thought sufficient for the necessary Business of the Court. But some looked upon this as a crafty Fetch and Plot of the Proctors of that Time upon the good Nature and pious Disposition of the Arch-bishop That so all others being excluded from officiating as Proctors they might have all the Business of the Arches in their own Hands And hence might divers Abuses come into that Court. And for the confirmation of this Order of the Arch-bishop for the tying of his Hands they who were Counsellors to the Arch-bishop in this matter got it confirmed by the Chapter and Convent of Christ's-Church Canterbury This giving Offence to many there were some who drew up a long Paper against this Order and presented it to the consideration of the Parliament because it could be redressed no other way the Arch-bishop having put it out of his own Power to do it In this Paper they set forth that the said Statute was prejudicial unto the Common-wealth because the Number of ten Proctors was not sufficient to dispatch the Causes that came into that Court and so there must be Delays and prolix Suits while these Proctors were attending other Causes in the Arch-bishop's Court of Audience and the Bishop of London's Court of Consistory Whereas before it had been seen by experience that Twenty Proctors could not suffice for the managery of the Causes in these Courts without Delays and Prorogations from Day to Day That Causes by this means could not be diligently attended when there were many Causes and few Proctors to look after them And hereby many good Causes were like to perish for lack of good looking after That this had occasioned the Proctors to neglect a very good Oath called Iuramentum Calumpniae which was the best Provision that could be against unlawful Suits and lengthning them out further than was necessary This Oath was that the Parties or the Proctors should swear that they believed their Cause was just and that they should not use unlawful Delays whereby Justice might be deferred that they should answer the Judg truly to what he should demand of them that nothing should be given or promised to the Judges or any other Officer besides the Fees allowed by Law and that they should not procure any false Witness Again this Paper urged for a good Number of Proctors that this would be a means that the Judges could not so easily keep them in subjection and fear of them whereby they had been hindred sometimes in speaking freely before them in
he had his Commission and took it down with him Which he advisedly did the better to warrant and bear him out in what he intended to do in his Diocess which he purposed to visit This was a Year of Visitation For there was a new Visitation now again appointed throughout all England to see how the People stood affected to the King to discover Cheats and Impostures either in Images Relicks or such like The Arch-bishop also thinking good now to visit his Diocess procured the Licence of the Vice-Gerent Lord Crumwel so to do Because I suppose all other Visitations were to cease to give way to the King's Visitation And to render his Power of Visiting the more unquestionable and void of scruple he desired the Vice-gerent that in drawing up of his Commission his Licence to visit might be put into it by Dr. Peter who was then if I mistake not Master of the Faculties to the said Vice-gerent and afterwards Secretary of State And because he would not do any thing without the Counsel and Allowance of the Vice-gerent he asked his Advice how he should order in his Visitation such Persons as had transgressed the King's Injunctions Which came out the Year before under Crumwel's Name Whereof some were for the restraint of the Number of Holy Days a great cause of Superstition and of the continuance of it And afterwards other Injunctions came out whereof the first was that in all Parishes once every Sunday for a quarter of a Year together the Supremacy should be taught and the Laws to that intent read These Injunctions were in number Eleven as they are set down in the Lord Herbert's History The Vicar of Croydon under the ABp's Nose had been guilty of certain Misdemeanors Which I suppose were speaking or preaching to the disparagement of the King's Supremacy and in favour of the Pope Now before he went into the Countrey and having as yet divers Bishops and Learned Men with him at Lambeth he thought it advisable to call this Man before them at this time But before he would do it he thought it best to consult with Crumwel and take his Advice whether he should now do it and before these Bishops or not So ticklish a thing then was it for the Bishops to do any things of themselves without the privity and order of this great Vice-gerent Cranmer was aware of it and therefore required Direction from him in every thing But whatsoever was done with this Vicar the Arch-bishop was soon down in his Diocess and having taken an Account of the People and Clergy what Conformity they bare to the King's Laws and Injunctions he found them superstitiously set upon the observation of their old Holy Days Some whereof he punished and others he admonished according to the degree of their Crimes And he discovered the chief Cause to lie in the Curates and Priests who did animatâ— the People to what they did indeed their Interest and Gain was concerned The great inconvenience of these Holy Days lay partly in the numerousness of them so that the attendance upon them hindred dispatching and doing Justice in Westminster-hall in the Terms and the gathering in Harvest in the Countrey partly in the Superstitions that these Holy Days maintained in the idolatrous Worship of supposed Saints and partly in the Riot Debauchery and Drunkenness that these Times were celebrated with among the common People and lastly the Poverty it brought upon the meaner sort being detained from going about their ordinary Labours and Callings to provide for themselves and Families For the prevention of these Superstitions for the Future and to make the People more obedient to the King's Laws he gave out strict Orders to all Parsons of Parishes upon pain of Deprivation that they should cause the abrogated Holy Days not to be observed for the future and to present to the Arch-bishop all Persons in their respective Parishes as should do contrary to any of the King's Ordinances already set forth or that should be hereafter by his Authority relating to the Doctrine and Ceremonies of the Church And this course he conceived so good an Expedient that he counselled the Lord Vice-gerent that all Bishops in their several Diocesses might be commanded to do the same for the avoiding of Disobedience and Contention in the Realm By which means he said The Evil-Will of the People might be conveyed from the King and his Council upon the Ordinaries And so the Love and Obedience of the People better secured to their Soveraign Such was his care of his Prince to preserve him in the Affections of his People that he was willing to take upon himself their Enmity that it might not light upon the King But Cranmer had observed these Holy Days were kept by many even in the Court under the King's Eye which he well knew was an Example and Encouragement to the whole Nation And therefore he signified to the Lord Crumwel that they could never perswade the People to cease from keeping them when the King 's own Houshold were an Example unto the rest to break his own Ordinances See his Letter to Crumwel in the Appendix CHAP. XV. The Bible printed HE was now at Ford and it was in the Month of August when something fell out that gave the good Arch-bishop as much Joy as ever happened to him in all the time of his Prelacy It was the printing of the Holy Bible in the English Tongue in the great Volume Which was now finished by the great Pains and Charges of Richard Grafton the Printer Osiander who knew the Arch-bishop well when he was the King's Ambassador in Germany saith of him that he was Sacrarum Literarum Studiossimum Indeed he always had a great value for the Scriptures because they were the Word of God and extraordinary desirous he was from the very first entrance upon his Bishoprick that the People might have the liberty of reading it and for that purpose to have it interpreted into the Vulgar Language And so by Crumwel's means he got leave from the King that it might be translated and printed The care of the Translation lay wholly upon him assigning little Portions of this Holy Book to divers Bishops and Learned Men to do and being dispatched to be sent back to him And to his inexpressible Satisfaction he saw the Work finished in this Year about Iuly or August As soon as some of the Copies came to his Hand one he sent to Crumwel entreating him that he would present it from him to the King and no question he thought it the noblest Present that ever he made him and withal to intercede with his Majesty that the said Book might by his Authority be both bought and used by all indifferently Both which Crumwel did For which the Arch-bishop was full of Gladness and Gratitude and wrote two Letters to him soon after one another wherein he thanked him most heartily telling him How he had hereby made
Person openly in the Church after Mass upon a Holy-day say the Lord's Prayer the Creed and the Ten Commandments That they twice a Quarter declare the Bands of Matrimony and the danger of using their Bodies but with such Persons as they might by the Law of God and that no privy Contracts be made as they would avoid the extream Peril of the Laws of the Realm No Diocesan Bishop Consecrated this Year Bishops Suffragans Robert Bishop of S. Asaph recommended to the King Iohn Bradley Abbot of the Monastery of Milton of the order of S. Benedict or William Pelles both Batchellors of Divinity to the Dignity of Suffragan within the Diocess Province rather of Canterbury mentioning no particular See The Bishop of Bath and Wells also recommended two to the King out of which to nominate a Suffragan to some See within the Province of Canterbury viz. William Finch late Prior of Bremar and Richard Walshe Prior of the Hospital of S. Iohn Baptist of Bridgewater April the 7 th William Finch was nominated by the King to the Arch-bishop to be Consecrated for Suffragan of Taunton and then consecrated in the Chappel of S. Maries in the Conventual Church of the Friars Preachers London by Iohn Bishop of Rochester by virtue of Letters Commissional from the Arch-bishop Robert Bishop of S. Asaph and William Suffragan of Colchester assisting And March the 23. Iohn Bradley was consecrated Suffragan of Shaftsbury in the Chancel of the Parish-Church of S. Iohn Baptist in Southampton by Iohn Bishop of Bangor by the Letters Commissional of Thomas Arch-bishop of Canterbury Iohn Ipolitanen and Thomas Suffragan of Marleborough assisting CHAP. XIX The Act of Six Articles THIS Year October the 6 th I meet with a Commission ad Facultates granted from the Arch-bishop to a famous Man Nicolas Wotton LL. D. a Man of great Learning and made use of by the King afterwards in divers Embassies and a Privy-Counsellor to King Henry and his three Children successively Princes of the Realm and Dean of Canterbury and York This Commission was in pursuance of a late Act of Parliament to this Tenor That in whatsoever Cases not prohibited by Divine Right in which the Bishop of Rome or Roman See heretofore accustomed to Dispence and also in all other Cases in which the Bishop or See of Rome accustomed not to dispence if so be they were not forbid by Divine Right in these Cases the Arch-bishop had Power granted him to Dispense In this Office he constituted Wotton his Commissary or Deputy for the Term of his natural Life He succeeded Edmund Boner Master of the Arch-bishop's Faculties now preferred to the Bishoprick of Hereford So that Cranmer took notice of the Merits of this Man who was so much made use of afterwards in the Church and State and was of that great Esteem and Reputation that he was thought on in the beginning of Q. Elizabeth's Reign for ABp of Canterbury In the Year 1528. he was Doctor of Laws and the Bishop of London's Official In the Year 1540 he was Resident for the King in the Duke of Cleve's Court and had been employed in the Match between the King and the Lady Ann of that House the Year before and perhaps this might be the first time he was sent abroad in the King's Business In the Year 1539 the King took occasion to be displeased with the Arch-bishop and the other Bishops of the new Learning as they then termed them because they could not be brought to give their Consent in the Parliament that the King should have all the Monasteries suppressed to his own sole use They were willing he should have all the Lands as his Ancestors gave to any of them but the Residue they would have had bestowed upon Hospitals Grammar-Schools for bringing up of Youth in Vertue and good Learning with other things profitable in the Common-wealth The King was hereunto stirred by the crafty Insinuations of the Bishop of Winchester and other old dissembling Papists And as an effect of this Displeasure as it was thought in the Parliament this Year he made the terrible bloody Act of the Six Articles Whereby none were suffered to speak a word against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation upon pain of being burnt to Death as an Heretick and to forfeit all his Lands and Goods as in case of Treason And moreover it was made Felony and forfeiture of Lands and Goods to defend the Communion in both kinds Marriage in a Priest or in any Man or Woman that had vowed Chastity or to say any thing against the necessity of Private Masses and Auricular Confession Which Articles were plainly enough designed against any that should dare to open their Mouths against these Romish Errors and especially to impose Silence and that on pain of Death upon many honest Preachers that were now risen up and used to speak freely against these Abuses and as a good means to keep the poor People still securely in their old Ignorance and Superstition But before this Act passed marvellous great struggling there was on both Parts for and against it But the side of the Favourers of the Gospel at this time was the weaker the King now enclining more to the other Party for the reason abovesaid and for other Causes Wherein I refer the Reader to the Conjectures of the Lord Herbert The Bishops disputed long in the House some for it and some against it The Arch-bishop disputed earnestly three days against it using divers Arguments to disswade passing the Act. Which were so remarkable for the Learning and Weight of them that the King required a Copy of them And though he was resolved not to alter his purpose of having this Act made yet he was not offended with the Arch-bishops freedom as knowing the Sincerity of the Man Even those in the House that dissented from him were greatly taken with the Gravity Eloquence and Learning he then shewed and particularly the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk Who told him so at his Table soon after being sent by the King to him to comfort him under his dejection for this Act with Crumwel and many other Lords The Papist Writers say he opposed it because himself was a Married Man and so it would touch him close But it is plain that there were other of these Six Articles which he utterly disliked And especially he abhorred the rigorous penalty of the Act. But hereupon he privately sent away his Wife into Germany among her Friends On this side also were beside the Arch-bishop the Bishops of Ely Sarum Worcester Rochester and St. Davids York Durham Winchester and Carlile went vigorously the other way Against the former the King himself argued with his Learning out of the Scriptures and would by all means prove these Articles thence The Parliament Men said little against this Bill but seemed all unanimous for it Neither did the Lord Chancellor Audley no nor the Lord Privy Seal
one of the great Incendiaries was censured at Windsor For he and one Symons a Lawyer and Ockham that laid Traps for others were catch'd at length themselves They were Men that busied themselves in framing Indictments upon the six Articles against great Numbers of those that favoured or professed the Gospel and in sending them to Court to Winchester who was to prefer the Complaints to the Council The King being more and more informed of their base Conspiracies and disliking their bloody Dispositions commanded the Council should search into the Matters And so London and his Fellows being examined before the said Council were in the end found to be perjured in denying upon their Oaths what they had indeed done and was proved manifestly to their Faces Hereupon they were adjudged perjured Persons and appointed to ride through Windsor Reading and Newbery where they had done most Mischief with their Faces towards the Horse-Tail and a Paper upon their Heads declaring their Crime and to stand upon the Pillory in each of those Towns And that Punishment they underwent and then were sent to the Fleet. London not long after died there probably out of Shame and Sorrow This was the End of one of these Conspirators German Gardiner was a Year after hanged drawn and quartered as a Traitor for denying the King's Supremacy And the Bishop of Winchester after this never had Favour or Regard of the King more And Heywood another of the Crew of the Informers and Witnesses was condemned for Treason with Gardiner but making a Recantation his Life was spared CHAP. XXVIII The Arch-bishop falls into more Troubles AFter this the Arch-bishop received two terrible Shocks more if I am right in the placing them as I think I am though I leave Fox to follow Morice the Arch-bishop's Secretary in his Manuscript Declaration of the said Arch-bishop The former was a Complaint that was made openly against him in Parliament and the latter when the Lords of the Privy-Council accused him unto the King and required that he should be sent to the Tower Sir Iohn Gostwick a Knight for Bedforshire a Man of great Service in his Time but Papistical stood up in the House and laid to his Charge his Sermons and Lectures both at Sandwich and Canterbury containing as he said manifest Heresy against the Sacrament of the Altar Though it was much they should accuse him in that Point seeing he then held a Corporal Presence but it displeased them that it was after the Lutheran way rather than after theirs of Transubstantiation But the King perceived easily this proceeded of Malice for that he was a Stranger in Kent and had neither heard the Arch-bishop preach nor read there Knowing thereby that he was set on and made an Instrument to serve other Mens Purposes the King marvellously stormed at the Matter calling Gostwick openly Varlet and said That he had plaid a villanous part to abuse in open Parliament the Primate of the Realm especially being in Favour with his Prince as he was What will they do with him said he if I were gone Whereupon the King sent word unto Gostwick by one of his Privy-Chamber after this sort Tell the Varlet Gostwick That if he do not acknowledg his Fault unto my Lord of Canterbury and so reconcile himself towards him that he may become his good Lord I will soon both make him a poor Gostwick and otherwise punish him to the Example of others He wondred he said he could hear my Lord of Canterbury preaching out of Kent And that if he had been a Kentish-Man he might have had some more shadow to put up an Accusation against him Now Gostwick hearing of this grievous Threat came with all possible speed unto Lambeth and there submitted himself in such sorrowful case that my Lord out of hand not only forgave all his Offences but also went directly unto the King for the obtaining of the King's Favour which he obtained very hardly and upon condition that the King might hear no more of his meddling that way This happened I suppose in the Parliament that began in Ianuary and continued till March 29. 1544. The Arch-bishop's Palace at Canterbury was this Year burnt and therein his Brother-in-Law and other Men according to Stow. I find no Bishops Consecrated in this Year At length the Confederacy of the Papists in the Privy-Council whereof I suspect the Duke of Norfolk to be one a great Friend of Winchester's by whose Instigation this Design was set on Foot came and accused him most grievously unto the King That he with his Learned Men had so infected the whole Realm with their unsavoury Doctrine that three parts of the Land were become abominable Hereticks And that it might prove dangerous to the King being like to produce such Commotions and Uproars as were sprung up in Germany And therefore they desired that the Arch-bishop might be committed unto the Tower until he might be examined The King was very strait in granting this They told him That the Arch-bishop being one of the Privy-Council no Man dared to object Matter against him unless he were first committed to durance Which being done Men would be bold to tell the Truth and say their Consciences Upon this Pâ—rswasion of theirs the King granted unto them that they should call him the next Day before them and as they saw cause so to commit him to the Tower At Midnight about Eleven of the Clock before the Day he should appear before the Council the King sent Mr. Denny to my Lord at Lambeth willing him incontinently to come over to VVestminster to him The Arch-bishop was in Bed but rose straitway and repaired to the King whom he found in the Gallery at VVhitehall Being come the King declared unto him what he had done in giving Liberty to the Council to commit him to Prison for that they bare him in hand that he and his learned Men had sown such Doctrine in the Realm that all Men almost were infected with Heresy and that no Man durst bring Matter against him being at Liberty and one of the Council And therefore I have granted to their Request said the King but whether I have done well or no what say you my Lord The Arch-bishop first humbly thanked the King that it had pleased him to give him that warning before-hand And that he was very well content to be committed to the Tower for the trial of his Doctrine so that he might be indifferently heard as he doubted not but that his Majesty would see him so to be used Whereat the King cried out O Lord God what fond Simplicity have you so to permit your self to be imprisoned that every Enemy of yours may take Advantage against you Do not you know that when they have you once in Prison three or four false Knaves will soon be procured to witness against you and condemn you which else now being at Liberty dare not once open their Lips or appear before
Possession of Arch-bishop Parker From whence he published the Book in the Year 1571 intituling it Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum c. Which was printed again in the Year 1640. Both these Manuscript Draughts were diligently compared together by Iohn Fox and the main Difference seemed to consist in putting the latter into a new Method and placing the Titles differently For in this Matter Cranmer was much busied in King Edward's Reign also being greatly desirous to bring that good Work to perfection For he thought it greatly inconvenient when the Pope's Power was abrogated that his Laws should remain in Force holding it highly necessary that the Nation might have a Body of wholsome Laws for the good Administration of Justice in the Spiritual Courts Wherefore he procured in the fifth Year of that King Letters Commissional to him and seven more diligently to set about the perusal of the old Church-Laws and then to compile such a Body of Laws as should seem in their Judgments most expedient to be practised in the Ecclesiastical Courts and Jurisdictions These seven were Thomas Goodrick Bishop of Ely Richard Cox the King's Almoner Peter Martyr William May Rowland Taylour Iohn Lucas and Richard Goodrick But the Matter was in effect wholly intrusted by the King to the Arch-bishop who associated to himself in the active part of this Work Taylour Martyr and Haddon The Method they observed in managing this Affair was that after they had finished a Title and drawn it up it was then sent to Dr. Haddon who was a Civilian and an accurate Latinist to peruse And if any thing was less elegantly expressed to correct it So I find at the Title De Decimis these words writ by Cranmer This is finished by us but must be over-seen again by Dr. Haddon Thus for instance I observe these Corrections by Haddon's Pen in the Chapter intituled De Commodis quae perveniunt à Sacris ritibus instead of Gratiarum actionis mulierum a partu he corrected it Levatarum puerperarum And in another place Cuicunque hoc Praerogativum est instead of hoc Praerogativum he put Hoc peculiare jus tribuitur quod Praerogativum vocant But his Corrections are very few and but of words less proper The Work and Words were mainly Cranmer's own But all this great and long Labour of the Arch-bishop came to no effect by reason of the King 's untimely Death and it may be the secret opposition of Papists At the same time that he being at Hampton-Court dealt with the King concerning the Reformation of the Canon-Laws he also gave him an Account of a Business his Majesty had imployed him in and with him also Heth and Day Bps of Worcester and Chichester and some other of his Chaplains and Learned Men whom he had of late appointed with the Arch-bishop to peruse certain Books of Service delivered by the King to them wherein there were many Superstitions fit to be amended Which the Arch-bishop in the Name of the rest at this time acquainted the King with As namely the Vigil and ringing of Bells all the Night long upon Alhallow-Night and the covering of Images in the Church in the time of Lent with the lifting the Vail that covereth the Cross on Palm-Sunday and kneeling to the Cross at the same time He moved the King in his own Name and the Name of the rest that these things might be abolished and the Superstitions and other Enormities and Abuses of the same And that because all other Vigils which in the beginning of the Church were godly used yet for the manifold Superstitions and Abuses which did after grow by means of the same were many Years past taken away throughout Christendom and there remained nothing but the Name of the Vigil in the Calendar saving only upon Alhallow-Day at Night he moved that it might be observed no more And because creeping to the Cross was a greater Abuse than any of the other for there the People said Crucem tuam adoramus Domine And the Ordinal saith Procedant Clerici ad Crucem adorandum nudis pedibus and it followeth in the said Ordinal Ponatur Crux ante aliquod Altare ubi à Populo adoretur Which by the Bishop's Book intituled A necessary Instruction is against the second Commandment therefore he desired of the King that the creeping to the Cross might also cease hereafter These superstitious Usages were allowed in the Articles of Religion put forth Anno 1536. Cranmer then not having Interest enough to procure the laying them aside or thinking it then not a fitting season to attempt it as being in vain to oppose what the King himself at that time approved of But now the King listned to the Arch-bishop and bad him confer with the Bishop of Worcester and send to him their Thoughts what course they would advise him to take for Redress The Arch-bishop accordingly consulted with the said Bishop who then went along with Cranmer in the Reformation The Effect of which was as the Arch-bishop wrote to the King soon after from Bekesbourn That his Majesty should send his Letters to both the Arch-bishops to reform these Superstitions and they to send in the King's Name to all the Prelates within their respective Provinces to the same purpose The Arch-bishop withal sent to the King the Minutes of a Letter to be sent to him the said Arch-bishop to that intent He also advised the King that at the same time that this Alteration was commanded to be made he should set forth some Doctrine which should declare the Cause of the abolishing these Usages for the Satisfaction of the Consciences of the People For he knew well as he wrote that the People would think the Honour of Christ was taken away when this honouring of the Cross was taken away And therefore that they should need some good Instruction herein He nominated the Bishops of Worcester and Chichester and some other his Graces Chaplains for the preparing this And this he said would make the People obey him without murmuring nay be thankful to him for shewing them the Truth And it would be a Satisfaction to other Nations when they should see the King do nothing but by the Authority of God's Word and for the setting forth of God's Honour and not the diminishing thereof This Letter of the Arch-bishop to the King is extant in the Paper-Office whence the Bishop of Sarum extracted a Copy These things were agitated in the Bishop of VVinchester's Absence whom the King had sent Ambassador this Year with the Bishop of VVestminster to Charles the Emperor about the Mediation of a Peace between England and France The Arch-bishop took this occasion to move the King in these good Purposes for a further Reformation of Abuses in Religion towards the which the King appeared to be in so good a Mind VVinchester being absent who if he had been at Home would undoubtedly have done his Endeavour to put a Check to these Attempts But it
of old Popish Curats The Letter is dated the 23 d of Iuly and is extant in Fox In London by the Connivance and Remisness of the Bishop many neglected the Divine Service then established and others did in secret Places of the Diocess often frequent the Popish Mass and other Superstitious Rites not allowed by the Laws of England The Sins of Adultery greatly encreased The Churches and particularly the Mother-Church of S. Paul's ran into Dilapidations the Glass was broken and the Ornaments and other Buildings belonging to Churches neglected Many refused to pay Tithes to their Curates probably of both sorts such as were Papists to those Curats as more diligently preached Reformation and obeyed the King's Laws and such as were not so to such Curats as were more backward thereunto Bishop Boner also himself now seldom came to Church seldomer preached and celebrated the English Communion Wherefore the Council sent certain private Injunctions to Boner for the redress of these things That he should preach in his own Person at Paul's Cross and declare certain Articles relating to the before-mentioned Neglects which the Council now sent to him to redress That he should preach once in a Quarter and exhort the People to Obedience and that he should be present at every Sermon at Paul's Cross that he should on the principal Feasts celebrate the Communion and at all times that his Predecessors used to Celebrate and sing High Mass. That he should call before him all such as did not frequent the Church and Common-Prayer and the Holy Communion and punish them as also Adulterers and that he should look to the Reparation of S. Paul's and other Churches and that the People pay their Tithes The Adulteries before hinted which the Council thought fit to recommend to the Bishop to take particular cognizance of makes me add that about this time the Nation grew infamous for this Crime It began among the Nobility and so spread at length among the inferior sort Noblemen would very frequently put away their Wives and marry others if they liked another Woman better or were like to obtain Wealth by her And they would sometimes pretend their former Wives to be false to their Beds and so be divorced and marry again such whom they fancied The first occasion of this seemed to be in the Earl of Northampton divorcing himself from his first Wife Anne Daughter to the Earl of Essex and after marrying Elizabeth Daughter to the Lord Cobham In like manner Henry Son of William Earl of Pembroke put away Katharine Daughter to Henry the Duke of Suffolk and married Mary the Daughter of Sir Henry Sidney These Adulteries and Divorces encreased much yea and marrying again without Divorce which became a great Scandal to the Realm and to the Religion professed in it and gave much Sorrow and Trouble in good Men to see it In so much that they thought it necessary to move for an Act of Parliament to punish Adultery with Death This Latimer in a Sermon preached in the Year 1550 signified to the King For the Love of God saith he take an order for Marriage here in England This is some Account of the Retardation of Religion On the other hand the Endeavors of those that wished well to it were not wanting Now the Protestants began more freely to put forth Books and to disperse such as were formerly printed beyond Sea in the behalf of Religion against Popery and concerning such as had suffered under the Cruelties of the Church of Rome Bale about these Days dispersed his Books One was The Image of both Churches applying the Divine Prophecy of the Revelations to the Apostate Church of Rome Another was a Vindication of the Lady Anne Ascue who suffered the cruel Death of Burning about the end of King Henry's Reign Whose Cause the Papists studiously had rendred bad This Book he intitled The Elucidation of Anne Ascue's Martyrdom Which was this Year exposed publickly to sale at Winchester and the Parts thereabouts as a Reproach to the Bishop of Winchester who was the great Cause of her Death Four of these Books came to that Bishop's own Eyes being then at Winchester they had Leaves put in as Additions to the Book some glewed and some unglewed which probably contained some further Intelligences that the Author had gathered since his first writing of the Book And herein some Reflexions were made freely according to Bale's Talent upon some of the Court not sparing Paget himself though then Secretary of State Another of Bale's Books that went now about was touching the Death of Luther Therein was a Prayer of the Duke of Saxony mentioned which the Bishop of Winchester gladly took hold on Wherein that Duke as to the justness of his Cause remitted himself to God's Judgment to be shewed on him here in this World if the Cause he undertook were not Just concerning Religion and desired God if it were not Good to order him to be taken and spoiled of his Honors and Possessions Since which the Duke was taken Prisoner and at the very time of his taking the Papists made an Observation that the Sun appeared so strangely in England as the like had not been seen before So apt are Men to interpret Events according to their own preconceived Opinions But at this Winchester took much Advantage Whereas indeed the Issues of God's Providence in this World are not favourable always even to the best Causes The keeping of Lent was now called into Controversy and asserted that it was not to be observed upon a religious Account And this was done the rather because the Papists placed so much Religion in the bare Fast. In the Pulpit it began to be cried down Tongue and Ioseph two great Preachers in London said That Lent was one of Christ's Miracles which God ordained not Men to imitate or follow And that it was an insupportable Burden There was a set of Rhimes now made about the burial of Lent which was called Iack of Lent 's Testament and publicly sold in Winchester Market therein Steven Gardiner the Bishop was touched who was a great Man for keeping it For in the Ballad Stephen Stockfish was bequeathed in this Will to Stephen Gardiner Of this he made a long Complaint to the Protector But yet this Neglect of Lent was not encouraged by the Superiors For it was kept at Court and Preparations for the King's Diet were made accordingly this Lent by the Protector The Protestants indeed were for keeping it and an Order was issued out for that purpose tho not upon a Religious but Politick Account But the greater part of the ordinary People would not be brought to it by this Distinction So that the Preachers were fain to be employed Latimer preached That those that regard-not Laws and Statutes were despisers of Magistrates There be Laws made of Diet he said what Meats we shall eat at all times And this Law is made in Policy as I suppose for
even from the very first Times The Festivals of the Resurrection of the Nativity of Pentecost and of the Death of Christ are all Footsteps of the Old Law And are they to be therefore abolished He wished with all his Heart that the Churches in Germany by this one Loss might obtain their former Liberty As to the second Argument He could not see how it could be asserted upon good Grounds that nothing is to be used by us that is observed in the Popish Religion We must take heed that the Church of God be not prest with too much Servitude that it may not have liberty to use any thing that belonged to the Pope Our Ancestors took the Idol-Temples and used them for Sacred Houses to worship Christ. And the Revenues that were Consecrated to the Gentile Gods and to the Games of the Theatre and of the Vestal Virgins were made use of for the maintenance of the Ministers of the Church when these before had served not only to Antichrist but to the Devil Nor could he presently grant that these Differences of Garments had their Original from the Pope For we read in Ecclesiastical History that Iohn at Ephesus wore a Petalum a Mitre And Pontius Diaconus saith of Cyprian that when he went to be Executed he gave his Birrus to the Executioner his Dalmatica to the Deacons and stood in Linnen And Chrysostom makes mention of the white Garments of Ministers And the Ancients witness that when the Christians came to Christ they changed their Garments and for a Gown put on a Cloak for which when they were mocked by the Heathens Tertullian wrote a Learned Book De Pallio And he knew Hoper was not ignorant that to those that were initiated in Baptism was delivered a white Garment Therefore before the Tyranny of the Pope there was a Distinction of Garments in the Church Nor did he think that in case it were granted that it was invented by the Pope that the iniquity of Popery was so great that whatsoever it touched was so dyed and polluted thereby that good and godly Men might not use it to any holy purpose Hoper himself granted that every humane Invention was not therefore presently to be Condemned It was an humane Invention to communicate before Dinner it was an humane Invention that the things sold in the Primitive Church were brought and laid at the Apostles Feet That he was ready to confess with him that these Garments were an humane Invention and of themselves edified not but it was thought by some conducive to be born with for a time For that it might be a cause of avoiding those Contentions whereby greater Benefits might be in danger to be obstructed But that if hence an occasion of Erring might be given to the Weak they were to be admonished that they should hold these things indifferent and they were to be taught in Sermons that they should judg not God's Worship to be placed in them Hoper had writ that the Eyes of the Standers-by by reason of these Garments would be turned away from thinking of serious things and detained in gazing upon them But this would not happen when the Garments were simple and plain without Bravery and such as hitherto were used in the Service of God But Martyr answered That Use and Custom would take away Admiration And perhaps when the People were moved with Admiration they would the more attentively think of those things that are serious For which end he said the Sacraments seemed to be invented that from the Sight and Sense of them we might be carried to think of Divine Things Hoper urged moreover That whatsoever was not of Faith was Sin But said Martyr That we may enjoy a quiet Conscience in our Doings that of the Apostle seems much to tend and that to the Clean all things are clean saith the same Apostle to Titus and to Timothy that every Creature of God is good He urged also That we ought to have express Scripture for what we do in holy things But Martyr was not of that Mind But that that was enough in general to know by Faith that indifferent things cannot defile those who act with a pure and sincere Mind and Conscience And this was the substance of P. Martyr's Judgment of these things Which might give much light to that Reverend Man in this Controversy though he was not yet convinced nor could comply As Hoper all this while refused the Habits so we may conjecture by a Passage in the former Letter that he liberally declamed against them in the London Pulpits For Martyr takes notice to him of his unseasonable and too bitter Sermons Whether it were for this or his incompliance or both together I know not but at length he was by the Privy-Counsel commanded to keep his House unless it were to go to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury or the Bishops of Ely London or Lincoln for Counsel and Satisfaction of his Conscience and neither to Preach nor Read till he had further Licence from the Council But notwithstanding this Command he kept not his House and writ a Book and Printed it intituled A Confession of his Faith Written in such a manner that it gave more distaste and wherein was contained Matter he should not have written He went about also complaining of the King's Councellors as Martyr wrote in a private Letter to Bucer On Ianuary the 13 th The Court then at Greenwich he appeared there before the Council the Arch-bishop being then present touching the matter of not wearing the Apparel and for disobeying the Council Who for this Disobedience and for that he continued in his former Opinion of not wearing the Apparel prescribed for Bishops to wear committed him to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury's Custody either there to be reformed or further punished as the obstinacy of his Cause required Being with the Arch-bishop he did his endeavour to satisfy him But Hoper was as immoveable to whatsoever the said ABp could propound and offer as he was before with Ridley So the Arch-bishop signified to the Council that he could bring him to no Conformity but that he declared himself for another way of Ordination than was established The Effect of this was that on Ianuary 27 Upon this Letter of the Arch-bishop That Hoper could not be brought to any Conformity but rather persevering in his Obstinacy they are the words of the Council-Book coveted to prescribe Orders and necessary Laws of his Head it was agreed that he should be committed to the Fleet. And a Letter was drawn for the Arch-bishop to send Mr. Hoper to the Fleet upon the occasion aforesaid and another Letter to the Warden of the Fleet to receive him and to keep him from the Conference with any Person saving the Ministers of that House This Disobedience of Hoper to the Council's Orders will make the severity of the Council less liable to censure Neither was Cranmer any other ways
W. Wilts I. Bedford E. Clynton T. Ely A. Wyngfeld W. Herbert W. Petre. Edw. North. Accordingly Iune 9. The Duke of Somerset the Marquess of Northampton the Lord Treasurer the Earl of Bedford and Secretary Petre went to the Bishop of Winchester to know what he would stick to Whether to conform to and promote the King's Laws or no He answered That he would obey and set forth all things set forth by the King and Parliament And if he were troubled in Conscience he would reveal it to the Council and not reason openly against it And then he desired to see the King's Book of Proceedings At Greenwich Iune 10. Report was made by the Duke of Somerset and the rest sent to the Bishop of Winchester that he desired to see the said Book The next day were the Books sent to him and delivered to him by the Lieutenant of the Tower as the Council appointed to see if he would set his Hand to them and promise to set them forth to the People At Greenwich Iune 13. the Lieutenant of the Tower declared unto the Council that the Bishop having perused the Books of the Proceedings said unto him He could make no direct answer unless he were at Liberty and so being he would say his Conscience On the 14 th Day the Duke of Somerset and five more of the Council again repaired to the Bishop to whom he made this Answer I have deliberately seen the Book of Common-Prayer Altho I would not have made it so my self yet I find such things in it as satisfy my Conscience And therefore I will both execute it my self and also see others my Parishioners to do it And this the Councellors testified under their Hands as his Saying Iuly the 9 th There were certain Articles drawn up signed by King and Council for the Bishop to subscribe which contained the Confession of his Fault the Supremacy of the King and his Successors the establishing of Holy Days or dispensing with them to be in the King the Service-Book to be Godly and Christian the acknowledgment of the King to be Supream Head and to submit to him and his Laws under Age the abolishing the Six Articles and the King's Power of correcting and reforming the Church These Articles together with a Letter from the King the Earl of Warwick Lord great Master the Lord S. Iohn Lord Treasurer Sir William Herbert Master of the Horse and Secretary Petre carried to the Bishop requiring him to sign them Which he did only making exception to the first Iuly 10. The said Lords made report unto the Council that they had delivered the King's Letter unto the Bishop together with the Articles Unto all which Articles he subscribed thus with his own Hand Stev Winton saving the first Against which he wrote in the Margin these words I cannot in my Conscience confess the Preface knowing my self to be of that sort I am indeed and ever have been To which Articles thus subscribed by the Bishop these of the Council wrote their Names E. Somers W. Wilts I. Warwick I. Bedford W. Northampton E. Clynton G. Cobham William Paget W. Herbert W. Petre Edw. North. Iuly 11. at Westminster This was brought to the Council And his boggling in this manner at the Confession displeased the King that being the principal Point But to the intent he should have no just cause to say he was not mercifully handled it was agreed that Sir VVilliam Herbert and the Secretary should go the next day to him to tell him that the King marvelled he refused to put his Hand to the Confession And that if the words thereof seemed too sore then to refer it to himself in what sort and with what words he should devise to submit himself That upon the acknowledgment of his Fault the King might extend his Mercy towards him as was determined Iuly 13. Sir VVilliam Herbert and the Secretary reported that the Bishop stood precisely in his own Justification He said That he could not subscribe to the Confession because he was Innocent and also because the Confession was but the preface to the Articles Upon this it was agreed by the Council that a new Book of Articles and a new Submission should be devised for the Bishop to subscribe And the Bishop of London Secretary Petre Mr. Cecyl and Goodrick a Common Lawyer were commanded to make these Articles according to Law And then for the more authentick proceeding with the Bishop the two former Persons were again to resort to him with the new Draught and to take with them a Divine which was the Bishop of London and a Lawyer which was Goodrick These Articles were 22 in Number and to this Tenor That King Henry VIII had justly supprest Monasteries That persons may Marry who are not prohibited to contract Matrimony by the Levitical Law without the Bishop of Rome's Dispensation That vowing or going Pilgrimages were justly abolished the Conterfeyting S. Nicholas St. Clement c. was mere Mockery That it is convenient that the Scriptures should be in English That the Late King and the present did upon just ground take into their Hands Chauntries which were for maintenance of private Masses That private Masses were justly taken away by the Statutes of the Realm and the Communion placed instead thereof is very Godly That it is convenient that the Sacrament should be received in both Kinds That the Mass where the Priest doth only receive and others look on is but the Invention of Man That it was upon good and Godly Consideration ordered in the Book that the Sacrament should not be lifted up and shewed to the People to be adored That it is politickly and godly done that Images in Churches and Mass-Books were enacted to be abolished That Bishops Priests and Deacons have no Commandment in the Law of God to vow Chastity or abstain from Marriage And that all Canons and Constitutions which do prohibit Marriage to the Clergy be justly taken away by Parliament That the Homilies and the Forms set forth of making Arch-bishops Bishops Priests and Deacons are Godly and wholsome and ought to be received That the Orders of Subdeacon Benet and Colet c. be not necessary and justly left out in the Book of Orders That the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all Doctrines necessary to Salvation That upon good and godly Consideration it was injoined that Erasmus's Paraphrases should be set up in Churches And that it was the King's Pleasure that the Bishop should affirm these Articles by Subscription of his Hand and declare himself willing to publish and preach the same These Articles were brought to the Bishop by the Master of the Horse and Secretary Petre with the Bishop of London and Goodrick To whom the Bishop answered That he would not consent to the Article of Submission Praying to be brought to his Trial and desired nothing but Justice And for the rest of the Articles when he was at Liberty then it should appear what he
time but of other Mind he thought never to be Adding that there were many other things whereunto he would never consent if he were demanded as to take down the Altars and set up Tables And in this sort seeing him obstinately settled in Mind not to be conformable he was in the King's Majesty's Name expresly commanded and charged to subscribe the same Book before Thursday next following being the 24 th hereof upon pain of Deprivation of his Bishoprick to all and singular Effects which might follow thereof And hearing the Commandment he resolutely answered He could not find in his Conscience to do it and should be well content to abide such End either by Deprivation or otherwise as pleased the King's Majesty And so as a Man incorrigible he was returned to the Fleet. This Order was subscribed by these of the Privy-Council W. Wilts I. Warwyck W. Herbert W. Cecyl Io. Mason That which gave the Council the first Occasion against Day Bishop of Chichester was partly his refusal of complying with the Order of changing the Altars in his Diocess into Tables and partly going down into his Diocess and there preaching against it and other Matters of that nature then in agitation to the raising of dangerous Tumults and Discontents among the People This came to the Council's Ears and Octob. 7. this Year Dr. Cox the King's Almoner was ordered to repair into Sussex to appease the People by his good Doctrine which were now troubled through the seditious preaching of the Bishop of Chichester and others Novemb. 8. The said Bishop appeared before the Council to answer such things as should be objected against him for preaching And because he denied the words of his Accusation therefore he was commanded within two days to bring in writing what he preached Novemb. 30. This day the Duke of Somerset declared to the Council That the Bishop of Chichester came within two days past and shewed to him that he received Letters from the King's Majesty signed with his Majesty's Hand and subscribed with the Hands of divers Lords of the Council The Tenor of which Letter here ensueth Right Reverend Father in God c. It is the same Letter as is printed in Fox's Acts about pulling down Altars According to this Letter the said Bishop said He could not conform his Conscience to do that he was by the said Letter commanded and therefore prayed the said Duke he might be excused Whereunto the said Duke for Answer used divers Reasons moving the said Bishop to do his Duty and in such things to make no Conscience where no need is Nevertheless the said Bishop would not be removed from his former Opinion Therefore the said Duke said He would make report to the rest of the Council And so in the end he prayed the Lords of the Council this Day that the Bishop might be sent for and shew his Mind touching this Case Which was agreed and Commandment given for the Bishop to be at the Council the next Day Decemb. 1. The Bishop came before the Council and being asked what he said to the Letters sent to him from the King's Majesty He answered That he could not conform his Conscience to take down the Altars in the Churches and in lieu of them to set up Tables as the Letter appointed For that he seemed for his Opinion to have the Scripture and Consent of the Doctors and Fathers of the Church and contrariwise did not perceive any strength in the six Reasons which were set forth by the Bishop of London to perswade the taking down Altars and erection of Tables And then being demanded what Scripture he had he alledged a saying in Esay Which place being considered by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Bishop of London and other Lords of the Council was found of no purpose to maintain his Opinion And thereupon by the said Arch-bishop and Bishop of Ely divers good Reasons were given to prove that it was convenient to take down the Altars as things abused and in lieu of them to set up Tables as things most meet for the Supper of the Lord and most agreeable to the first Constitution And besides that his other Reasons were then fully answered Wherefore the Council commanded him expresly in the King's Name to proceed to the execution of his Majesty's Commandment in the said Letter expressed Whereunto he made request That he might not be commanded to offend his Conscience saying If his Conscience might be instructed to the contrary he would not thus molest the Council with his refusal Which his Saying considered by the Council moved them to shew thus much Favor unto him that they willed him to resort unto the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Ely or London and confer with them in the Matter so as he might be instructed by them to accept the just Command of the King's Majesty with a safe Conscience And for his second Answer Day was given him until the 4 th of this Month. At which day he was commanded to return again Decemb. 4. This day the Bishop of Chichester came before the Council and was demanded Whether he had been with the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops according to former Order given him Who answered That he was one Afternoon at Lambeth to have waited on the Arch-bishop but he was answered that he was at the Court. And upon a demand what time his Grace would come home one of the Chamberlains as he saith answered That he doubted it would be late e're his Grace come home because he so used Therefore he tarried not And to any other Bishops he made no repair saying further He had not been well in Health For the which cause he took some Physick yesterday The Arch-bishop thereunto said that the same Afternoon that the Bishop of Chichester had been there he came home very early on purpose to have conferred with the said Bishop For the which cause he had leave of the King's Majesty to depart the same day home sooner than for other Business he might conveniently To the Matter he was asked what mind he was of touching the executing the King's Command and what he could say why the same should not be obeyed Who answered as he did before That his Conscience would not permit him to do the same for that the same was against the Scripture and the Doctors And being asked of the first he alledged a place in the last to the Hebrews mentioning the word ALTAR Which place being considered was manifestly by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely declared to be meant of Christ as by the very Context of the same most manifestly appeared to every Reader Next to this he alledged the former place of Esay which also was most evident to be meant otherwise than he alledged and so proved As to the use of the Primitive Church besides the Texts of the New Testament it was most clearly by Origen
dubito quin T. P. jamdudum scripserit ad reginam eique consuluerit quae pro illius regni conservatione regni Christi instauratione facienda judicarit c. That he doubted not he had before now written to the Queen and given her his Advice what he judged fit to be done for the preservation of her Kingdom and for the restoring of the Kingdom of Christ. Yet he would not omit to pray him to do it again and again by his repeated Letters For I know said he how great your Authority is with the English and with the Queen her self Now certainly is the time that you and such as you be should by your Counsels help so pious a Queen and consult for the Safety of so great a Kingdom yea and succour the whole Christian Church every where afflicted and vexed For we know that if Christ's Kingdom be happily introduced into the Kingdom of England no small Aid will thence come to all the other Churches dispersed through Germany Poland and other Countries There is one thing that is wont to be urged against him and which makes him to this Day to be somewhat ill thought of which was that he opposed himself so openly by writing against the Habits prescribed the Clergy and the posture of Kneeling at the Reception of the Holy Sacrament Whereby he incurred the Censure of a meddling Temper and of Ingratitude to that Nation that so kindly had entertained him Concerning the Habits Bucer and he had some Controversy The sum of which on both parts Arch-bishop Parker drew up upon the desire I suppose of Sir William Cecyl about the Year 1565 when that Controversy was hotly renewed again by Humfrey and Sampson This Sum whosoever is minded to see may probably hereafter find it in the Memorialls of that Arch-bishop if God grant Life and Opportunity to me to write them About this time viz. in the Year 1550 or 1551 there was also a Church of Italians constituted in London by the influence and care of our Arch-bishop and Sir William Cecyl under A Lasco's Superintendency This Church consisted of divers Italian Nations as Florentines Genoezes Milanois Venetians and others though several of them joined themselves with this Congregation more out of worldly Ends than Conscience as will appear afterward For they had a kindness for the Mass and could not endure to hear the Pope's Supremacy called in question and inveighed against One Michael Angelo Florio a Florentine by birth was appointed their Preacher probably Brother or Kinsman unto Simon Florio Preacher at the City of Clavenna among the Rhaetii an eminent Professor of the Gospel in those parts who wrote a Letter to Gratalorius an Italian Physician concerning two whole Towns in Calabria utterly destroyed by reason of the rigor of Persecution exercised there and about eight hundred or a thousand of the Inhabitants put to Death because they professed the Gospel Which Letter is extant in Fox in his Table of the Italian Martyrs For the encouragement of this Congregation the Arch-bishop procured the Members of it to be free Denizens to live and traffick here with as much Freedom as natural English Subjects Which they were admitted to by swearing Fidelity and Allegiance For their more easy and convenient dwelling here they often petitioned thâ— King for new Privileges and Immunities as they saw they needed them And such Favour and Countenance was shewn them that they seldom failed of their Suits The Arch-bishop also that their Preacher might be provided for dealt with the Congregation and made them oblige themselves to provide him with all Necessaries as a Dwelling and a competent yearly Salary In the Year 1552 Michael Angelo sued again to our Arch-bishop for some favour to be obtained from the King whether it were for the better establishment of his Church or for some further Immunities to be granted to the Members thereof it doth not appear But this the most Reverend Man readily furthered by writing in that behalf to the Duke of Northumberland from his House at Ford near Canterbury the Duke being I suppose with the King in Progress at this time He likewise dispatched another dated Novemb. 20. the Year abovesaid to the Secretary entreating him to forward that Cause as much as lay in him But however serviceable this their Minister had been unto these Italians in preaching the Gospel to them and soliciting the Arch-bishop for their Benefit yet many of them carried themselves but little obliging to him Whether it were some Misbehaviour or Imprudences in him which he was not altogether void of or his too violent declaiming against the Pope and Popish Doctrines which they were not yet enough ripened in Evangelical Knowledg to receive or that he too roughly charged them with the hardness of their Hearts and backwardness to receive Gospel-Truths as he did use to do but many of them wholly withdrew from him and went to Mass again His Contribution also fell very low not having received above five Pounds in a considerable time from them Hereupon he resorted to the Secretary Making heavy Complaints of his own Poverty that many of his People had forsaken his Assembly spake very slanderously against him and his Ministery and the Gospel which he preached after they saw and heard him in an open manner preaching against the Pope's Doctrines his Tyranny and Hypocrisy and reproving them for their Unbelief and the hardness of their Hearts The too much Vehemency and Passion of this Man and his neglect of informing the Judgments of these Italians in milder and more leisurely Methods I suspect to have been a great cause of this Apostacy But upon this Complaint the Secretary bade the Pastor send him a List of the Names of those that had thus behaved themselves and that he himself would call them before him and discourse with them Accordingly he sent the Names of fourteen in a Letter to the said Secretary withal aggravating to him their Misbehaviour and informing of their daily going to Mass and adding that therefore they being free Denizons and so Subjects to the English Laws ought to be punished as any English-Man would be if he heard Mass. He quoted a place or two in Deuteronomy where those that rebelled against God the Laws and the Judges should be slain without Mercy He subjoined that Elisha by God's Command anointed Iehu to be King for this very purpose that he should wholly root out the House of Ahab and kill all the Priests of Baal And thence makes his uncharitable Conclusion more agreeable to the Religion that he was so hot against that therefore these Italians should be so served since they opposed the Gospel and the King 's Pious Proceedings But it might make one apt not to think over-favourably of this Man a Pastor thus to turn Accuser of his Flock a Professor of the Reformed Religion to require the utmost Rigor of Punishment for differing in Religion I also find
was much offended that he was named in the Book and pretended this to be one Reason why he did write against it to vindicate himself as well as the Papal Church hereby so dangerously struck at This Book of Cranmer's was turned into Latin by Iohn Yong who complied afterwards with the old Religion under Queen Mary and was Master of Pembroke-Hall Cambridg At this Book the Defenders of Popery were so nettled that in the same Year 1550 Winchester then in the Tower and fickle Dr. Smith then at Lovain printed Answers Of Smith's Book I shall only note by the way that March 8. 1550. there was an Order of Council to examine the bringer over of his Book against Cranmer Such a Countenance did the State give to the Arch-bishop and his Book Gardiner's Book made the greatest noise Which was printed in France and intituled An Explication and Assertion of the true Catholick Faith touching the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar with the Confutation of a Book written against the same In the Beginning of his Book he wrote That his Sermon before the King on St. Peter's Day touching the Sacrament of the Altar gave occasion to the Arch-bishop's Book against it and that he was called before the King's Commissioners at Lambeth for his Catholick Faith in the Sacrament Whereas indeed this was not the Cause of his Troubles nor had some former Copies of his Book these words But after the Commission was issued forth against him to make his Cause appear the more specious as if it were the Cause of the Church he thought fit to make an Alteration in the beginning of his Book in the manner abovesaid And to carry on the Scene he in open Court offered his Book before the King's Commissioners To this Book of Gardiners our Arch-bishop studied and composed an Answer holding himself bound for the Vindication of the Evangelical Truth as well as of his own Writing and for the Satisfaction of the People not to suffer it to lie untaken notice of When it was known the Arch-bishop was preparing an Answer against Gardiner the People were in very great expectation and conceived an earnest desire to see and read it Having therefore dispatched his Copy and sent it to Rainold Wolf his Printer it was printed off in the Month of September 1551. But there was some stop put to the publishing of it occasioned by a Proclamation issued out from the King whereby for some political Ends both the printing and selling of English Books without the Allowance of the King's Majesty or six of his Privy-Council was forbidden The Arch-bishop being desirous that his Book might come abroad the next Term for the Contentation of many who had long expected the same sent to Secretary Cecyl and Sir Iohn Cheke to procure either from the King or Council a Licence to the said Wolf for printing and selling his Book Which was obtained and the Book published accordingly This Letter of the ABp's dated Sept. 29. I have thought not amiss to reposit in the Appendix Octob. 1. A Licence was granted to Wolf to publish the Book under the King's Privilege the Court then being at Hampton-Court and the Arch-bishop himself present The Title this second Book of the Arch-bishop's bore was An Answer by the Reverend Father in God Thomas Arch-bishop of Canterbury Primate of all England and Metropolitan unto a crafty and sophistical Cavillation devised by Stephen Gardiner Doctor of Law late Bishop of Winchester against the true and godly Doctrine of the most Holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ. Wherein is also as occasion serveth answered such Places of the Book of Dr. Richard Smith as may seem any thing worthy the answering Also a true Copy of the Book written and in open Court delivered by Dr. Stephen Gardiner not one Word added or diminished but faithfully in all Points agreeing with the Original This Book of Arch-bishop Cranmer's was printed again at London 1580 with his Life and some other things His Reply to Gardiner was in the most fair and candid Method that could be devised For he first set down his own Treatise Piece by Piece then Gardiner's Reply thereunto Word for Word leaving not one Paragraph without a full Answer His Reply to Smith was only of some things most worthy to be taken notice of the rest of Smith's Book being meer Trifles This Reply to Smith he inserted in the Body of his Answer to Gardiner as occasion served Only at the end he made a particular Reply to Smith's Preface It seemed to be a very compleat Exercitation upon that Subject The Book was stored with so great Learning and Plenty of Arguments Vt ea Controversia saith one of his Successors a nemine unquam contra Pontificios accuratius tractata esse videatur That no one Controversy was by any ever handled against the Papists more accurately It may not be amiss to mention here the Opinion that Cranmer himself had of his Book in that famous and renowned Confession he made of his Faith in S. Mary's Church Oxon immediately before he was led away to his Burning Where he expressed his full Approbation and great Confidence of the Doctrine contained therein saying That as for the Sacrament he believed as he had taught in his Book against the Bishop of VVinchester The which Book he said taught so true a Doctrine of the Sacrament that it should stand at the last Day before the Judgment of God where the Papistical Doctrine contrary thereto should be ashamed to shew her Face The Papists spake as much against this Book being much galled by it Dr. Tresham in his Disputation with Latimer said There were six hundred Errors in the Book Weston thinking to invalidate the Book by the pretended Novelty of the Doctrine asked the same Father How long he had been of that Opinion He said Not past seven Years that is about the Year 1547 and that Arch-bishop Cranmer's Book confirmed his Judgment therein and added That if he could but remember all therein contained he would not fear to answer any Man in this Matter The Arch-bishop had acknowledged to the Queen's Commissioners at Oxford that Ridley had first begun to enlighten him as to the true Notion of the Presence as he had maintained it in his Book Hereupon one of them took occasion to try to baffle the true Doctrine by making the whole stress of it to depend upon the Authority of single Ridley Latimer said he leaned upon Cranmer and Cranmer leaned upon Ridley Whereas the truth of this was no more but that Ridley reading Bertram's Book of the Body and Blood of Christ was sharpened to examine the old Opinion more accurately of the Presence of Christ's Flesh and Blood and looking into Ecclesiastical Authors he found it greatly controverted in the ninth Century and learnedly writ against Which made him begin to conclude it none of the ancient Doctrines of the Church but more lately
corrupt Religion within his Province and Territories But finding the Opposition against him so great and lying under the Excommunication of the Pope for what he had done and being deprived thereupon by the Emperor of his Lands and Function he resigned his Ecclesiastical Honour and betook himself to a retired Life which was done about the Year 1547. But no question in this private Capacity he was not idle in doing what Service he could for the good of that Cause which he had so generously and publickly espoused and for which he had suffered so much I find that in this Year 1552 our Arch-bishop had sent a Message to Secretary Cecyl who accompanied the King in this Summer's Progress desiring him to be mindful of the Bishop of Colen's Letters And in another Letter dated Iuly 21 he thanked the Secretary for the good remembrance he had thereof What the Contents of these Letters of the Arch-bishop of Colen were it appeareth not But I am very apt to think the Purport of them was that Cranmer would solicite some certain Business in the English Court relating to the Affairs of Religion in Germany and for the obtaining some Favour from the King in that Cause But the King being now abroad and the Arch-bishop at a distance from him he procured the Secretary who was ever cordial to the State of Religion to solicit that Arch-bishop's Business for him sending him withal that Arch-bishop's Letters for his better Instruction And this whatever it was seems to have been the last good Office that Arch-bishop Herman did to the Cause of Religion for he died according to Sleidan in the Month of August and our Arch-bishop's Letter wherein that Elector's Letters are mentioned were writ but the Month before And if one may judg of Mens commencing Friendship and Love according to the sutableness of their Tempers and Dispositions our Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the Arch-bishop of Colen must have been very intimate Friends It was said of this Man that he often wished That either he might be instrumental to the propagating the Evangelical Doctrine and Reformation of the Churches under his Iurisdiction or to live a private Life And when his Friends had often told him what Envy he would draw upon himself by the changing of Religion he would answer like a true Christian Philosopher That nothing could happen to him unexpectedly and that he had long since fortified his Mind against every Event These two Passages spake the very Spirit and Soul of Cranmer Which they may see that are minded to read what Fox saith of him as to his Undauntedness and Constancy in the maintaining of the Truth against the many Temptations and Dangers that he met with during these three Reigns successively And lastly as our Arch-bishop devoted himself wholly to the reforming of his Church so admirable was the Diligence Pains and Study this Arch-bishop took in contriving the Reformation of his He procured a Book to be writ concerning it called Instauratio Ecclesiarum which contained the Form and Way to be used for the redressing the Errors and Corruptions of his Church It was composed by those great German Divines Bucer and Melancthon which Book was put into English and published here as a good Pattern in the Year 1547. This Book he intended to issue forth through his Jurisdiction by his Authority to be observed But first he thought fit well and seriously to examine it and spent five Hours in the Morning for five Days to deliberate and consult thereupon Calling to him to advise withal in this great Affair his Coadjutor Count Stolberg Husman Ienep Bucer and Melancthon He caused the whole Work to be read before him and as many Places occurred wherein he seemed less satisfied he caused the Matter to be disputed and argued and then spake his own Mind accurately He would patiently hear the Opinions of others for the information of his own Judgment and so ordered things to be either changed or illustrated And so dextrously would he decide many Controversies arising that Melancthon thought that those great Points of Religion had been long weighed and considered by him and that he rightly understood the whole Doctrine of the Church He had always lying by him the Bible of Luther's Version and as Testimonies chanced to be alledged thence he commanded that they should be turned to that he might consider that which is the Fountain of all Truth Insomuch that the said Melancthon could not but admire and talk of his Learning Prudence Piety and Dexterity to such as he conversed with and particularly to Iohn Caesar to whom in a Letter he gave a particular Account of this Affair And it is to be noted by the way that the said Book according to which the Reformation was to be modelled contained only as Melancthon in his Letter suggested a necessary Instruction for all Children and the Sum of the Christian Doctrine and the Appointments for the Colleges and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy were very moderate the Form of the Ecclesiastical Polity being to remain as it was and so were the Colleges with their Dignities Wealth Degrees Ornaments thereunto belonging only great Superstitions should be taken away Which the wise Melancthon aforesaid did so approve of that he professed he had often propounded it in Diets of the German Nation as the best way to Peace And this I add that it might be observed how Arch-bishop Cranmer went by the same Measures in the Reformation of the Church of England maintaining the Hierarchy and the Revenues Dignities and Customs of it against many in those Times that were for the utter abolishing them as Relicks of Popery Such a Correspondence there was between our Arch-bishop and the wisest moderatest and most learned Divines of Germany But let us look nearer Home CHAP. XXXII Troubles of Bishop Tonstal AS the last Year we heard of the Deprivation of two Popish Bishops so this Year another underwent the like Censure I mean Tonstal Bishop of Durham whose Business I shall the rather relate because our Arch-bishop had some Concern in it Septemb. 21. A Commission was issued out to the Lord Chief Justice and his Colleagues to examine and determine the Cause of Tonstal Bishop of Durham and eight Writings touching the same which he is willed to consider and to proceed to the hearing and ordering of the Matter as soon as he may get the rest of his Colleagues to him It was not long after viz. about the midst of October that this Bishop by these Commissioners whose Names besides the Chief Justice do not occur was deprived and his Estate confiscated Octob. ult Sir Iohn Mason was ordered by the Council to deliver to the use of Dr. Tonstal so he is now stiled remaining Prisoner in the Tower such Money as should serve for his Necessities until such time as further Order shall be taken touching his Goods and Money lately appertaining to him Decemb. 6. It was agreed by the Council that Dr.
Synodal Authority unto them committed And moreover he desired the Prolocutor would be a Means unto the Lords that some of those that were Learned and the publishers of this Book might be brought into the House to shew their Learning that moved them to set forth the same and that Dr. Ridley and Rogers and two or three more might be Licensed to be present at this Disputation and be associate with them But this would not be allowed The last thing we hear of concerning our Arch-bishop in this King's Reign was his denial to comply with the new Settlement of the Crown devised and carried on by the domineering Duke of Northumberland for the Succession of Iane Daughter to Gray Duke of Suffolk whom he had married to one of his Sons This he did both oppose and when he could not hinder refused to have any hand in it First he did his endeavour to stop this Act of the King He took the boldness to argue much with the King about it once when the Marquess of Northampton and the Lord Darcy Lord Chamberlain were present And moreover he signified his desire to speak with the King alone that so he might be more free and large with him But that would not be suffered But if it had he thought he should have brought off the King from his Purpose as he said afterward But for what he had said to the King the Duke of Northumberland soon after told him at the Council-Table That it became him not to speak to the King as he had done when he went about to disswade him from his Will To the Council the Arch-bishop urged the entailing of the Crown by K. Henry upon his two Daughters and used many grave and pithy Reasons to them for the Lady Mary's Legitimation when they argued against it But the Council replied That it was the Opinion of the Judges and the King 's Learned Counsel in the Law that that Entailing could not be prejudicial unto the King and that he being in possession of the Crown might dispose of it as he would This seemed strange unto the Arch-bishop Yet considering it was the Judgment of the Lawyers and he himself unlearned in the Law he thought it not seemly to oppose this Matter further But he refused to sign Till the King himself required him to set his Hand to his Will and saying That he hoped he alone would not stand out and be more repugnant to his Will than all the rest of the Council were Which words made a great Impression upon the Arch-bishop's tender Heart and grieved him very sore out of the dear Love he had to that King and so he subscribed And when he did it he did it unfeignedly All this he wrote unto Queen Mary To which I will add what I meet with in one of my Manuscripts When the Council and the chief Judges had set their Hands to the King's Will last of all they sent for the Arch-bishop who had all this while stood off requiring him also to subscribe the same Will as they had done Who answered That he might not without Perjury For so much as he was before sworn to my Lady Mary by King Henry's Will To whom the Council answered That they had Consciences as well as he and were also as well sworn to the King's Will as he was The Arch-bishop answered I am not judg over any Man's Conscience but mine own only For as I will not condemn their Fact no more will I stay my Fact upon your Conscience seeing that every Man shall answer to God for his own Deeds and not for other Mens And so he refused to subscribe till he had spoken with the King herein And being with the King he told the Abp that the Judges had informed him that he might lawfully bequeath his Crown to the Lady Iane and his Subjects receive her as Queen notwithstanding their former Oath to King Henry's Will Then the Arch-bishop desired the King that he might first speak with the Judges Which the King gently granted And he spake with so many of them as were at that time at the Court and with the King's Attorney also Who all agreed in one that he might lawfully subscribe to the King's Will by the Laws of the Realm Whereupon he returning to the King by his Commandment granted at last to set his Hand From the whole Relation of this Affair we may note as the Honesty so the Stoutness and Courage of the Arch-bishop in the management of himself in this Cause against Northumberland who hated him and had of a long time sought his Ruin and the Ingratitude of Q. Mary or at least the Implacableness of Cranmer's Enemies that the Queen soon yielded her Pardon to so many of the former King's Council that were so deep and so forward in this Business but would not grant it him who could not obtain it till after much and long suit And that it should be put into two Acts of her Parliament to make him infamous for a Traitor to Posterity that he and the Duke of Northumberland were the Devisers of this Succession to deprive Q. Mary of her Right Which was so palpably false and untrue on the Arch-bishop's part But this was no question Winchester's doing through whose Hands being now Lord Chancellor all these Acts of Parliament past and the wording of them Finally I have only one thing more to add concerning this matter Which is that besides the Instrument of Succession drawn up by the King's Council Learned in the Law signed by himself and 32 Counsellors and dated Iune 21 according to the History of the Reformation there was another Writing which was also signed by 24 of the Council And to this I find our Arch-bishop's Name Herein they promised by their Oaths and Honours being commanded so to do by the King to observe all and every Article contained in a Writing of the King 's own Hand touching the said Succession and after copied out and delivered to certain Judges and Learned Men to be written in Order This Writing thus signed with the other Writing of the King being his Devise for the Succession may be seen in the Appendix as I drew them out of an Original CHAP. XXXV The King dies THE good King made his most Christian departure Iuly the 6 th to the ineffable loss of Religion and the Kingdom being in aâ—â— likelihood by his early Beginnings to prove an incomparable Prince to the English Nation It was more than whispered that he died by Poison And however secretly this was managed it was very remarkable that this Rumour ran not only after his Death but even a Month or two before it Reports spred that he was dead For which as being rash Speeches against the King they studiously took up many People and punished them Before his Father K. Henry had him his only Son lawfully begotten it was 28 Years from his first entrance upon his Kingdom And
but according to the Laws then in Force before the Parliament had repealed the Book of Common-Prayer and the rest of K. Edward's Reformation And there were forward Men in most Parishes that were very active and violent for the restoring the old Superstitions For the Queen had set forth a Proclamation which did declare what Religion She did profess in her Youth That She did continue in the same and that She minded therein to end her Life Willing all her Loving Subjects to embrace the same And this they reckoned to be sufficient Warrant to set up Mass and introduce Popish Priests and Popish Usages every-where without staying for Orders and Acts of Parliament Nor was this Change of Religion and these Miseries following it unexpected The Learned and pious Sort in King Edward's Time did reckon upon a great Calamity impending over their Heads Concluding thereupon from two Causes among others One was the corrupt Manners that generally overspred the Nation notwithstanding the Light of the Gospel and the much and earnest preaching up of Sobriety and Vertue The other was the taking off by Death divers most eminent Men the great Stays of Religion So that the Preachers did commonly in their Sermons declare and foretel what afterwards indeed fell out This Becon an Exile in his Epistle to those in England that suffered Persecution for the Testimony of Christ's Gospel spake of in these words Divers Signs had we long before besides the Godly Admonitions of the faithful Preachers which plainly declared unto us an utter subversion of the true Christian Religion to be at Hand except it were prevented by hasty and harty Repentance What shall I speak of that good and mighty Prince Edward Duke of Somerset which in the Time of his Protectorship did so banish Idolatry out of this our Realm and bring in again God's true Religion that it was a wonder so weighty a Matter to be brought to pass in so short a Time Was not the ungentle handling of him and the unrighteous thrusting him out of Office and afterwards the cruel Murthering of him a Man yea a Mirror of true Innocency and Christian Patience an evident token of God's Anger against us The sudden taking away of those most goodly and vertuous young Imps the Duke of Suffolk and his Brother by the sweating Sickness was it not also a manifest Token of God's heavy Displesure against us The Death of those two most worthy and godly Learned Men M. Paulus Fagius and D. Martin Bucer was it not a sure Prognostication some great Mishap concerning Christen Religion to be at Hand But passing over many other to come to that which is most lamentable and can never be remembred of any true English Heart without large Tears I mean the Death of our most Godly Prince and Christen King Edward VI. that true Iosias that earnest destroyer of false Religion that fervent setter up of God's true Honour that most bounteous Patron of the godly Learned that most worthy Maintainer of good Letters and Vertue and that perfect and lovely Mirror of true Nobility and sincere Godliness Was not the taking away of him alas for Sorrow a sure Sign and an evident Token that some great Evil hanged over this Realm of England Who considering these things perceived not a Shipwreck of the Christen Religion to be at Hand CHAP. III. The Arch-bishop adviseth Professors to fly THE Favourers of Religion seeing it was now determined to proceed in all manner of Severity against them began to flee into other Countries for their Safety as fast as they could Indeed there were some that made a Case of Conscience of it Among the rest one Mrs. Wilkinson a Woman of good Quality and a great Reliever of good Men. Her the Arch-bishop out of Prison advised to escape and avoid a Place where She could not truly and rightly serve God He took off with spiritual Arguments the Objections which She or others might make for their stay As their lothness to leave their Friends and Relations and that it might look like a slandering of God's Word if they should thus run away and decline the open and bold Defence of it The Letter of the Arch-bishop deserves to be read as it fell from that Venerable Prelat's own Pen. Which I have therefore put in the Appendix Though Cranmer himself refused to flee being advised by his Friends so to do because of the Reports that were abroad that he should be speedily carried to the Tower For he said It would be no ways fitting for him to go away considering the Post in which he was and to shew that he was not afraid to own all the Changes that were by his means made in Religion in the last Reign But great numbers fled some to Strasburgh some to VVesel some to Embden some to Antwerp some to Duisburgh some to Wormes some to Frankford some to Basil Zuric and Arrow in Switzerland and some to Geneva to the number of eight hundred and upwards And these are the Names of some of these Refugees BISHOPS Poynet of VVinchester Barlow of Bath and Wells Scory of Chichester Coverdale of Exon And Bale of Ossory DEANS Richard Cox Dean of Christ's Church Oxon and of Westminster Iames Haddon Dean of Exeter Robert Horn of Durham William Turner of Wells Thomas Sampson of Chichester ARCH-DEACONS Edmund Cranmer the Arch-bishop's Brother Arch-deacon of Cant. Iohn Aelmer of Stow Bullingham of Lincoln Thomas Young Precenter of S. Davids DOCTORS of Divinity and Preachers Edmund Grindal Robert King Edwin Sands Ios. Iewel Reinolds Pilkingtons two Brothers Iohn Ioseph David Whitehead Iohn Alvey Iohn Pedder Iohn Biddil Thomas Becon Robert and Richard Turner Edmund Allein Levers three Brothers Iohn Pekins Tho. Cottisford Tho. Donel Alex. Nowel with hiâ— Brother Barthol Traheron Iohn Wollock Iohn Old Iohn Medwel Ioh. Rough Iohn Knocks Iohn Appleby Iohn Perkhurst Edward Large Galf. Iones Robert Crowley Robert Wisdome Robert VVatson VVilliam Goodman Ant. Gilby VVill. VVhittingham Iohn Makebrey Hen. Reynolds Iames Perse Iugg Edmunds Cole Mounteyn two Fisher's Da. Simson Iohn Bendal Beaumont Humfrey Bentham Reymiger Bradbridg Saul c. Besides of Noble-men Merchants Trades-men Artificers and Plebeians many hundreds And God provided graciously for them and raised them up Friends in England that made large Contributions from time to time for their Relief and for the maintenance of such as were Scholars and Students in Divinity especially And great was the Favour that the Strangers shewed to their Fugitive Guests Here at home Vengeance was taken upon those that set up the Lady Iane. And the Chief of all the Duke of Northumberland was brought to Towerâ—ill to lose his Head Who indeed was cared for by no Body and was the only Instrument of putting the King upon altering the Succession and who was broadly talked of to have been the shortner of that excellent Prince's Life by Poison to make Room the sooner for his Son's Advancement who
sent also their Benevolences Among these was Christopher Duke of Wirtemberg who gave at one time to the Exiled English at Strasburgh three or four hundred Dollers besides what he gave at Frankford as Grindal Bishop of London signified to Secretary Cecyl in the Year 1563 when that Prince had sent a Gentleman upon Business to the Queen The Bishop desired the Secretary to move the Queen to make some signification to this Person that She had heard of his Master 's former Kindness to the poor English that it might appear his Liberality was not altogether buried in Oblivion Or at least he wished some remembrance thereof might pass from the Secretary's own Mouth CHAP. XVI Many Recant Some go to Mass. MANY of the Clergy that were very forward Men under K. Edward now by the Terror of the Times recanted and subscribed And these were of two Sorts Some out of weakness did it but persisted not in it But as soon as they could revoked their Subscriptions and Recantations and after their Releases and Escapes out of Prison made a sorrowful Confession in publick of their Falls Of this sort were Scory and Barlow Bishops Iewel and others But some after their Recantations persisted in the Popish Communion Of this sort was Bush and Bird Bps Harding Chaplain to the D. of Suffolk to whom the Lady Iane sent an Expostulatory Letter Sydal and Curtop of Oxon Pendleton West c. Of this last-named Person let me cast in here one or two Remarks West was in Orders and had been Steward to Bishop Ridley Of whom the said Bishop wrote thus to Grindal then in Strasburg That his old Companion and sometime his Officer relented but that the Lord had shortned his Days For it was but a little after his Compliance that he died Fox writes the Occasion of it namely That when he had relented and said Mass against his Conscience he shortly after pined away and died for Sorrow When his Master the Bishop was laid in Prison for Religion he shrank away and out of his compassion to him being very loth as it appeared that his said Master should be put to Death he wrote a Letter to him whereby to move him if he could to alter his Judgment The Contents of whose Letter may be gathered out of Ridley's Answer Which Answer being so excellent I have put into the Appendix as I transcribed it out of a Manuscript Which concluded thus in Answer to a Sentence that West had concluded his with namely That he must agree or die the Bishop told him in the Word of the Lord that if he and all the rest of his Friends did not Confess and Maintain to their Power and Knowledg what was grounded upon God's Word but either for Fear or Gain shrank and played the Apostates they themselves should die the Death After the receit of which Answer West either out of Compassion to his Master or rather out of Anguish for his own Prevarication died within a few Days himself and his Master out-lived him and writ the News thereof into Germany to Grindal his Fellow-Chaplain as was said before The Persecution was carried on against the Gospellers with much Fierceness by those of the Roman Perswasion who were generally exceeding Hot as well as Ignorant Chiefly headed by two most cruel-natured Men Bishop Gardiner and Bishop Boner in whose Diocesses were London and Southwark and the next bordering Counties wherein were the greatest Numbers of Professors And the Servants were of the same Temper with their Masters One of Boner's Servants swore By his Maker's Blood That wheresoever he met with any of these vile Hereticks he would thrust an Arrow into him Many now therefore partly out of Fear and Terror and partly out of other worldly Considerations did resort to Mass though they approved not of it and yet consorted likewise with the Gospellers holding it not unlawful so to do viz. That their Bodies might be there so long as their Spirits did not consent And those that used this Practice bore out themselves by certain Arguments which they scattered abroad This extraordinarily troubled the good Divines that were then in Prison for the Cause of Christ and particularly Bradford Who complained in a Letter to a Friend That not the tenth Person abode in God's Ways and that the more did part Stakes with the Papist and Protestant So that they became maungy Mongrels to the infecting of all the Company with them to their no small Peril For they pretended Popery outwardly going to Mass with the Papists and tarrying with them personally at their Antichristian and Idolatrous Service but with their Hearts they said and with their Spirits they served the Lord. And so by this means said he as they saved their Pigs I mean their worldly Pleasures which they would not leese so they would please the Protestants and be counted with them for Gospellers This whole Letter deserveth to be transcribed as I meet with it in one of the Foxian Manuscripts but that I find it printed already at Oxon by Dr. Ironside in the Year 1688. The same Bradford counselled the true Protestants not to consort with these Compliers but to deal with them as a certain eminent Man named Simeon Arch-bishop of Seleucia did with Vstazades an antient Courtier to Sapores King of Persia who by his Threatnings and Perswasions had prevailed with the said Courtier a Christian to bow his Knee to the Sun For which base compliance Simeon passing by where this Vstazades was formerly his great Friend and Acquaintance would not now look at him but seemed to contemn and despise him Which when he perceived it pierced him so to the Heart that he began to pull asunder his Clothes and to rend his Garments and with weeping Eyes cryed out Alas that ever he had so offended God in his Body to bow to the Sun For saith he I have herein denied God although I did it against my Will And how sore is God displeased with me with whom mine old Father and Friend Simeon his dear Servant will not speak nor look towards me I may by the Servant's Countenance perceive the Master's Mind This Lamentation came to the King's Ear and therefore he was sent for and demanded the Cause of his Mourning He out of Hand told him the Cause to be his unwilling bowing to the Sun By it said he I have denyed God And therefore because he will deny them that deny him I have no little cause to complain and mourn Wo unto me for I have played the Traitor to Christ and also dissembled with my Leige Lord. No Death therefore is sufficient for the least of my Faults and I am worthy of two Deaths When the King heard this it went to his Stomach for he loved Vstazades who had been to him and to his Father a faithful Servant and Officer Howbeit the Malice of Satan moved him to cause this Man to be put to Death Yet in this Point he
I find in a Supplication made to Queen Elizabeth by Ralph Morice that had been his Secretary for the space of twenty Years During which time he was employed by that most Reverend Father in writing for him about the serious Affairs of the Prince and Realm committed unto him by those most noble and worthy Princes King Henry VIII and King Edward VI concerning as well the Writings of those great and weighty Matrimonial Causes of the said K. Henry VIII as also about the extirpation of the Bishop of Rome his usurped Power and Authority the Reformation of corrupt Religion and Ecclesiastical Laws and Alteration of Divine Service and of divers and sundry Conferences of Learned Men for the Establishing and Advancement of sincere Religion with such like Wherein he said he was most painfully occupied in writing of no small Volumes from time to time CHAP. XXIII The Arch-bishop's Regard to Learned Men. FROM these truly Noble and Useful Exercises of his great Knowledg and Learning let us descend unto the Respect he bare to good Letters Which appeared from his Favour to Places of Learning and Men of Learning We shewed before what were the Applications of the University of Cambridg to him and what a gracious Patron he was to it and its Members Among whose good Offices to that University besides those already mentioned it must not be omitted that he was the great Instrument of placing there those two very Learned Foreign Divines Paulus Fagius and Martin Bucer By his frequent Letters to them then at Strasburg urging them with the distracted and dangerous State of Germany he first brought them over into England in the Year 1548 and having entertained them in his Family the next Year he preferred them both in Cambridg Fagius to be publick Professor of the Hebrew Tongue and Bucer of Divinity And beside the University-Salary he procured for each of them from the King in the third Year of his Reign Patents for an Honorary Stipend of an hundred Pounds per Annum each De gratiâ speciali Domini Regis to be paid by the Hands of the Clerk of the Hanaper or out of the Treasury of the Court of Augmentations Durante beneplacito Domini Regis As I find by King Edward the Sixth's Book of Sales formerly mentioned Which Patents bare date Septemb. 26. Anno 1549. and their Salaries payable from the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin By the way I do not see any where in the said Book of Sales that Peter Martyr placed Professor of Divinity in the other University of Oxon enjoyed any such Royal Salary though he also had been invited over by Canterbury with the King's Knowledg and Allowance and placed there by that Arch-bishop's Means Yet he and his Companion Ochinus had their Annual Allowances from the King and so I suppose had all other Learned Foreigners here Melancthon also who was now expected over was intended some more extraordinary Gratuity Unto this Noble Christian Hospitality and Liberality Latimer the great Court-Preacher excited the King in one of his Sermons before him The Passage may deserve to be repeated I hear say Master Melancthon that great Clerk should come hither I would wish him and such as he is two hundred Pounds a Year The King should never want it in his Coffers at the Year's end There is yet among us two great Learned Men Petrus Martyr and Bernard Ochin which have an hundred Mark a piece I would the King would bestow a thousand Pounds on that Sort. These Matters I doubt not were concerted between Latimer and our Arch-bishop before at whose Palace he now was for the most part As I find by one of his Sermons wherein he speaks of his taking Boat at Lambeth and in another Place he mentioneth a Book he met with in my Lord of Canterbury's Library and elsewhere of many Suitors that applied to him at my Lord of Canterbury's that interrupted his Studies there The use I make of this is that it is a fair Conjecture hence that this and the many other excellent Things so plainly propounded by this Preacher to King Edward happened by the Counsel and Suggestion of the Arch-bishop But to return There was one Dr. William Mowse a Civilian and probably one of his Officers whom for his Merits and Learning our Arch-bishop for many a Year had been a special Benefactor to Sir Iohn Cheke also bare him a very good Will Upon the removal of Dr. Haddon to some other Preferment this Dr. Mowse succeeded Master of Trinity-hall in Cambridg And in the Year 1552 the Arch-bishop valuing his Worth and Integrity was a Suitor at Court for some further Preferment for him whatever it were which the Study of the Civil Law had qualified him for writing his Letters on Mowse's behalf to Secretary Cecyl who was then with the King in his Progress not to forget him And accordingly he was remembred and obtained the Place For which the Arch-bishop afterwards gave him his most hearty Thanks And Dr. Mowse also sent the same Secretary a Letter of Thanks from Cambridg for the Preferment he had obtained by his Means The main Drift thereof was to excuse himself for his Neglect in that he had not sooner paid his Acknowledgments Which as it seems the Secretary had taken some notice of having expected to be thanked for the Kindness he had done him This Letter because there is therein mention made of our Arch-bishop's singular Munificence and Cheke's Affection towards him and Mowse himself once making a Figure in that University I have thought it not amiss to insert in the Appendix Though this Man seemed to be none of the steadiest in his Religion For I find him put out of his Mastership of Trinity-Hall in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign for having been a Protestant and to make way for the Restoration of Dr. Gardiner Bishop of Winchester who had been outed before Upon whose Death that Mastership falling void and Mowse having complied with the Romish Religion he became Master there again And soon after in Queen Elizabeth's Reign he was deprived by her Commissioners for being a Papist and one Harvey came in his Room Dr. Mowse's Fickleness appeared that upon the first tidings that fled to Cambridg of Queen Mary's Success against the Lady Iane's Party he with several other temporizing University-Men changed his Religion and in four and twenty Hours was both Protestant and Papist The Truth is his Judgment varied according to his worldly Interest And being one of those that came about so roundly he was appointed by the complying Party of the University to be one of the two Dr. Hatcher being the other that should repair unto Dr. Sands then the Vice-Chancellor to demand of him without any colour of Reason or Authority the University-Books the Keys and such other things as were in his keeping And so they did And my Author makes an Observation of his Ingratitude as well as of
Apostles of Iesus Christ. And wished heartily that the Christian Conversation of the People were the Letters and Seals of their Offices as the Corinthians were to St. Paul who told them that They were his Letters and the Signs of his Apostleship and not Paper Parchment Lead or Wax Great indeed and painful was his Diligence in promoting God's Truth and reforming this Church Insomuch that he raised up against himself the Malice and Hatred of very many thereby These Memorials before related do abundantly evince the same The Words of Thomas Becon in an Epistle Dedicatory deserve here to be transcribed In plucking up the Enemies Tares and in purging the Lord's Field that nothing may grow therein but pure Wheat your most godly and unrestful Pains most Reverend Father are well known in this Church of England and thankfully accepted of all faithful Christen Hearts Insomuch that very many do daily render unto God most humble and hearty Thanks for the singular and great Benefits which they have received of him through your vertuous Travel in attaining the true Knowledg of Justification and of the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood those two things especially he laboured to retrieve and promote a true Knowledg of and such other Holy Mysteries of our Profession And albeit the Devil roar the World rage and the Hypocrites swell at these your most Christian Labours which you willingly take for the Glory of God and the Edifying of his Congregation yet as you have godly begun so without ceasing continue unto the end And so he did to the effusion of his Blood not many Years after For he was very sensible of the gross Abuses and Corruptions into which the Christian Church had sunk Which made him labour much to get it purged and restored to its Primitive Constitution and Beauty And this he ceased not to make King Henry sensible of putting him upon the Reformation of the English Church as he could find Occasion and Convenience serve him to move him thereunto Which found at last that good effect upon the King that towards the latter Years of his Reign he was fully purposed to proceed to a regulating of many more things than he had done But the subtilty of Gardiner Bp of Winton and his own Death prevented his good Designs While the aforesaid Bishop was Ambassador Abroad employed about the League between the Emperor and the English and French Kings our Arch-bishop took the opportunity of his Absence to urge the King much to a Reformation and the King was willing to enter into serious Conference with him about it And at last he prevailed with the King to resolve to have the Roods in every Church pulled down and the accustomed Ringing on Alhallow-Night suppress'd and some other vain Ceremonies And it proceeded so far that upon the Arch-bishop's going into Kent to visit his Diocess the King ordered him to cause two Letters to be drawn up prepared for him to sign The one to be directed to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other to the Arch-bishop of York Who were therein to be commanded to issue forth their Precepts to all the Bishops in their respective Provinces to see those Enormities redressed without delay Which our Arch-bishop accordingly appointed his Secretary to do And the Letters so drawn up were sent by the Arch-bishop up to Court But the King upon some Reasons of State suggested to him in a Letter from Gardiner his Ambassador beyond Sea being by some made privy to these Transactions suspended the signing of them And that put a stop to this Business for that time till some time after the King at the Royal Banquet made for Annebault the French King's Ambassador leaning upon him and the Arch-bishop told them both his Resolution of proceeding to a total Reformation of Religion signifying that within half a Year the Mass both in his Kingdom and in that of France should be changed into a Communion and the usurped Power of the Bishop of Rome should be wholly rooted out of both and that both Kings intended to exhort the Emperor to do the same in his Territories or else they would break off the League with him And at that time also he willed the Arch-bishop to draw up a Form of this Reformation to be sent to the French King to consider of This he spake in the Month of August a few Months before his Death This his Purpose he also signified to Dr. Bruno Ambassador here from Iohn Frederick Duke of Saxony some little time after saying That if his Master's Quarrel with the Emperor was only concerning Religion he advised him to stand to it strongly and he would take his part But the King's Death prevented all And as for this King 's next Successor King Edward the Arch-bishop had a special Care of his Education Whose Towardliness and zealous Inclination to a Reformation was attributed to the said Arch-bishop and three other Bishops viz. Ridley Hoper and Latimer by Rodulph Gualter of Zurick Who partly by his living sometime in England and partly by his long and intimate Familiarity and Correspondence with many of the best Note here was well acquainted with the Matters relating to this Kingdom Of the great Influence of one of these upon this King viz. the Arch-bishop the former Memorials do sufficiently shew CHAP. XXXIII Arch-bishop Cranmer procures the Use of the Scriptures THE Arch-bishop was a great Scripturist and in those darker Times of Popery was the chief Repairer of the Reputation of the Holy Scriptures Urging them still for the great Standard and Measure in all controverted Matters relating to Religion and the Church By these he disintangled King Henry VIII his great Matrimonial Cause when all his other Divines who had the Pope's Power and Laws too much in their Eyes were so puzzled about it Shewing how no Humane Dispensation could enervate or annul the Word of God And in the Course he took about the Reforming of Religion the Holy Scripture was the only Rule he went by casting by School-men and the Pope's Canons and Decretals and adhering only to the more sure Word of Prophecy and Divine Inspiration And so Roger Ascham in a Letter to Sturmius in the Year 1550 when they were very busy in the Reformation writes Thaâ—â—uch was the Care of their Iosiah meaning King Edward the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the whole Privy-Council for true Religion that they laboured in nothing more than that as well the Doctrine as Discipline of Religion might be most purely drawn out of the Fountain of the Sacred Scriptures and that that Roman Sink whence so many Humane Corruptions abounded in the Church of Christ might be wholly stopped up This his high Value of the Scriptures made him at last the happy Instrument of restoring them to the Common People by getting them after divers Years opposition printed in the English Tongue and set up in Churches for any to read that would for
have brought it to pass But I verily believe the quite contrary to this confident Assertion and that he would have owned the Truth to the last as he did afterwards in the Reign of that King's Daughter Q. Mary That he always fell jump with them that governed and could do most No he never fell in with Gardiner who sometime had the Ascendent over King Henry nor with the Duke of Northumberland who could do most and did all for a time with the King Edward That when King Henry was large towards the Protestants Cranmer was so also joining with Crumwel to protect them But when the King became more strait and rigorous especially after the Six Articles Cranmer was ready to prosecute the same He argued long and earnestly in the House against those Six Articles and when he saw they would pass he protested against it and was so troubled about it that the King sent the Duke of Norfolk and the Lord Crumwel and divers other Noble Persons to comfort him in the King's Name So that I hardly think he would after this be brought to prosecute that bloody Act the making of which he so utterly disliked Nor is there the least Foot-step of it in History Indeed Parsons bringeth in some Persons in whose Deaths he would have the Arch-bishop to have a Hand As may appear saith he by the Sentence of Death pronounced against Lambert Tho. Gerard William Jerome and Ann Ascue and others condemned by him for denying the Real Presence Though in King Henry's Time the Arch-bishop believed the Real Presence yet he was not for putting any to Death that denied it No such extream Rigours for an Error he utterly detested Lambert suffered before the Act of the Six Articles Nor did the Arch-bishop condemn him but only by the King's Command disputed against him Gerard he means Garret and Ierome and Ann Ascue were condemned and burnt indeed but he had no manner of hand either in their Condemnation or Death as we can find in our Histories But Winchester Boner and Wriothesly and others of that Gang shed those good Peoples Blood And it is an impudent Falshood to lay their Condemnation to the Arch-bishop's Charge He saith further That to the King's Will and Liking he resolved to conform himself as well in Religion as in all other Things If he had said this of Bishop Gardiner the Character would have better by far fitted him He saith That he divorced the King of his own Authority from Queen Katherine Whereas in truth what he and Winchester and other Bishops did in this Affair was by Commission from the King and not by their own Authority That he married the King to Queen Ann. That it was in open Parliament under his Hand-writing yet extant in publick printed Records to his eternal shame that the Queen that is Queen Ann was never true Wife unto the said King Where was the eternal Shame of this when he set his Hand to no more than what she her self confessed before him See more of this before That after this he married the King to Jane Seymour and after to Queen Ann of Cleves and after that to Katherine Howard and after that to Katherine Parre Which we must take upon his Word For I think it hard by any good History to know it And what if Cranmer did all this That he joined with the Protector in overthrowing K. Henry 's Will and with Dudley against the Protector Palpable Falshoods The contrary whereof is notoriously known to any ordinary Historian Of the same Truth is That he joined with Dudley and the Duke of Suffolk for the overthrow of the King 's two Daughters and after that with Arundel Pembroke Paget for the overthrow of Northumberland and Suffolk He joined with these for the setting the true Heir in the Throne not for the overthrow of any particular Persons Again he saith Cranmer and Ridley followed K. Henry 's Religion and Humour while he lived and resolved to enjoy the Pleasures and Sensualities of this Time of K. Edward so far as any way they might attain unto No they were Men more mortified and that made littlâ— Account of the Pleasures and Vanities of this wretched World Getting Authority into their Hands by the Protector and others that were in most Place began to lay lustily about them and to pull down all them both of the Clergy and others whom they thought to be able and likely to stand in their way or resist their Inventions Instancing in Gardiner and Boner and speaking of their unjust Persecution and Deprivation by such violent and calumnious manner as is proper to Hereticks to use Whereby a Man may take a taste what they meant to have done if they had had time Here they are set forth as a couple of most worldly ambitious haughty Men contriving by all however base and unlawful ways to build up themselves and their Fortunes upon the Ruin of others and to beat down all that opposed their Designs Whereas to any that shall read their Histories there is nothing in the World so contrary to their Aims Tempers and Inclinations And things were done towards the two Bishops before-mentioned with great Mildness and Patience under unsufferable Provocations offered by them Nor was it Cranmer's and Ridley's doings but rather the King's Council who thought not fit to put up the Affronts those Bishops had offered to the Government He saith That in King Edward 's Time Cranmer plaid the Tyrant That be punished one Thomas Dobb a Master of Arts of Cambridg casting him into the Counter where he died And John Hume imprisoned for the same Cause by Cranmer Both these Passages the Author had from Fox Dobbs indeed in the very beginning of K. Edward's Reign disturbed the Mass that was saying in a Chappel in S. Pauls For which the Mayor complained of him to the Arch-bishop And what could he do better than commit him to the Counter both to punish him for making a publick Disturbance in the Church and also to deliver him from the Rage of the Multitude till his Pardon could be gotten him Which was obtained soon after from the Duke of Somerset But he suddenly died in Prison before his Deliverance And as for Hume he was a Servant to a very stiff Papist who sent him up to the Arch-bishop with a grievous Complaint against him for speaking against the Mass but whether the Arch-bishop imprisoned him or what followed Fox mentioneth not and leaves it uncertain what was done with him He saith That Cranmer stood resolutely for the Carnal Presence in the Sacrament in K. Edward 's first Parliament Wherein a Disputation about it was continued for the space of four Months that is from Novemb 4. to March 14. Which was the full time of the second Session of that first Parliament and was in the Year 1548. What he means by this long Disputation in that Parliament for so many Months I cannot tell Does he mean that the Parliament did nothing else all
that Session Indeed there was once a notable Dispute of the Sacrament in order to an Uniformity of Prayer to be established Or does he mean that this four Months Disputation was the Work of thâ— Convocation sitting that Parliament-time Before it indeed lay now thâ— Matter of the Priests Marriage Which they agreed to almost three against one And likewise of receiving the Sacrament in both Kinds Which was also agreed to Nemine Contradiâ—ente But not a word of any Disputation thâ—n about the Real Presence And yet 't is strange that he should with such Confidence put this Story upon thâ— World of four Months Disputation in the Parliament concerning thâ— Real Presence and that the Arch-bishop then was so resâ—â—ute for it Which cannot be true neither on this Account that Cranmer was a Year or two before this come off from that Opinion He adds That Cranmer stood resolutely in that first Parliament for a Real Presence against Zuinglianism But there was neither in that Parliament nor in that Convocation a word of the Real Presence And that Cranmer and Ridley did allow a Râ—al Presence and would not endure the Sacrament should be contemptibly spoken of as some now began to do The Real Presence that Parsons here means is the gross Corporal Presence Flesh Blood and Bone as they used to say This Real Presence Cranmer and Ridley did not allow of at this time of Day Now they were better enlightned But most true it is notwithstanding that they could not endure to have the Sacrament contemptibly spoken of He tells us Romantickly on the same Argument That many Posts went to and fro between P. Martyr and Cranmer while the imaginary Disputation before-mentioned lasted whether Lutheranism or Zuinglianism should be taken up for the Doctrine of the Church of England For that he was come in his Reading upon the Eleventh of the first Epistle to the Corinthians to those words This is my Body and did not know how to determine it till it was resolved about The Message returned him was That he should stay and entertain himself in his Readings upon other Matters for a while And so the poor Friar did as Parsons calls that Learned Man with Admiration and Laughter of all his Scholars Surely some of them had more Esteem and Reverence for him Standing upon those precedent words Accepit Panem c. And Gratias dedit c. Fregit Et dixit Accipite Manducate c. Discoursing largely of every one of these Points And surely they were words of sufficient weight to be stood upon and Points to be discoursed largely of And bearing one from the other that ensued Hoc est Corpus meum But when the Post at length came that Zuinglianism must be defended then stepped up P. Martyr boldly the next Day and treated of This is my Body Adding moreover that he wondred how any Man could be of any other Opinion The Reporters of this Story Parsons makes to be Saunders Allen and Stapleton and others that were present Excellent Witnesses P. Martyr is here represented as a Man of no Conscience or Honesty but ready to say and teach whatsoever others badâ— him be the Doctrine right or wrong and at the Beck of the State to be a Lutheran or a Zuinglian But if he were of such a versatile Mind why did he leave his Country his Relations his Substance his Honour that he had there Which he did because he could not comply with the Errors of the Church in which he lived But all this fine pleasant Tale is spoiled in case Martyr were not yet come to Oxford to be Reader there For he came over into England but in the end of November 1548 and was then sometime with the Arch-bishop before he went to Oxford Which we may well conjecture was till the Winter was pretty well over so that he could not well be there before the 14 th of March was past The Author of the Athenae Oxonienses conjectures that he came to Oxon in February or the beginning of March but that it was the beginning of the next Year that the King appointed him to read his Lecture So that either he was not yet at Oxon or if he were he had not yet begun his Reading till the Parliament was over And thus we have traced this Story till it is quite vanished Further still he writes That Cranmer wrote a Book for the Real Presence and another against it afterwards Which two Books Boner brought forth and would have read them when he was deposed by Cranmer and Ridley or at leastwise certain Sentences thereof that were contrary one to the other If Cranmer wrote any Book for the Real Presence it was in Luther's not in the Popish Sense and against that Sense indeed he wrote in his Book of the Sacrament Nor did Boner bring any such Books forth at his Deposition or Deprivation nor offered to read them nor any Sentences out of them for ought I can find in any Historians that speak of Boner's Business And I think none do but Fox who hath not a word of it though he hath given a large Narration of that whole Affair Indeed Boner at his first appearance told the Arch-bishop That he had written well on the Sacrament and wondred that he did not more honour it To which the Arch-bishop replied seeing him commend that which was against his own Opinion That if he thought well of it it was because he understood it not Thus we may see how Parsons writ he cared not what and took up any lying flying Reports from his own Party that might but serve his Turn But observe how this Writer goes on with his Tale But Cranmer blushing suffered it not to be shewed but said he made no Book contrary to another Then he needed not to have blushed But if he did it must be at the Impudence of Boner who carried himself in such a tumultuous bold manner throughout his whole Process as though he had no Shame left And lastly to extract no more Passages out of this Author to prove that our Arch-bishop was for a Corporal Presence in the beginning of King Edward he saith That in the first Year of that Reign he was a principal Cause of that first Statute intituled An Act against such Persons as shall unreverently speak against the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ commonly called The Sacrament of the Altar And a very good Act it was But it does not follow that because the Arch-bishop was the Cause of this Act that therefore he believed a gross Carnal Presence the plain Design of the Act being occasioned by certain Persons who had contemned the whole Thing for certain Abuses heretofore committed therein I use the very words of the Act and had called it by vile and unseemly Words And it was levelled against such as should deprave despise or contemn the Blessed Sacrament Nor is there any word in that Act used in favour of the
good Which he doth knowlege to be only affection Now os concernynge the people he thynketh not possible to satisfye thaym by lernynge or prechynge but os thay now do begyn to hate preists this shal make thaym rather to hate moch more both lerned men and also the name of lernynge and bryng them in abomination of every man For what lovynge men towarde their prynce wolde gladly heare that eyther thayr prynce sholde be so infortunate to lyve so many yers in matrimony so abominable or that thay sholde be taken and cownted so bestial to approve and take for lawful and that so many yeres a matrimony so unlawful and so much agaynst nature that every man in hys harte naturally doth abhorre yt And that ys more whan they heare this matrimony dyspraysed and spoken agaynst neyther by thayr own minds nor by reasons that be made agaynst this matrimony can thay be persuaded to grutge agaynst the matrimony but for any thynge thay do grutge against the divorse Wherin the people sholde shew thaym selfes no men but bests And that the people sholde be persuaded herto he cannot thynke yt And os for the autoritie of the Vniversities he thynketh and sayeth that many tymes thay be led by affections which ys well known to every man and wyssheth that thay never did erre in thayr determinations Than he sheweth with how gret difficultie the Vniversities were brought to the kyngs party And moreover agaynst the autoritie of the Vniversities he setteth the autoritie of the kyngs grace fathâ—r and hys cowncel the quenes father and hys cowncel and the pope and hys cowncel Than he cometh agayn to the pope and themperour and French kynge And fyrst the Pope how moch he ys adversary unto the kyngs purpose he hath shewed diverse tokens alredy and not without a cause For yf he sholde consent to the kyngs purpose he must neds do against hys predecessores and also restrayne hys owne power more than yt hath bene in tyme past which rather he wolde be glad to extend and moreover he sholde set gret sedition in many realmes os in Portugal of which kynge themperour hath maried on suster and the Duke of Savoy the other Than he extolleth the power of themperour and diminish the ayd of the Frensh kynge towarde us sayinge that themperour without drawynge of any sworde but only by forbyddynge the course of marchandise into Flawnders and Spayne may put this realme into gret dammage and ruyne And what yf he wil therto draw hys sworde wherein ys so moch power which beyng of moch lasse power than he ys now subdued the Pope and the French kynge And os for the French men they never used to kepe leage with us but for thayr own advantage and wee can never fynde in our harts to trust thaym And yet yf now contrary to thayr olde nature thay kepe thayr leage yet our nation shal thynk thaymselfes in miserable condition yf thay shal be compelled to trust opon thayr ayde which alwayes have be our mortal enemyes and never we loved thaym nor thay us And yf the French men have any suspicion that this new matrimony shal not continue then we shal have no succur of thaym but opon such conditions os shal be intolerable to this realme And yf thay followynge thayr olde nature and custome than do breake leage with us than we shal loke for none other but that Englonde shal be a prey betwene themperour and thaym After all this he commeth to the poynte to save the kyngs honour sayinge that the kynge stondeth evyn opon the brynke of the water and yet he may save al hys honour but yf he put furth hys fote but on steppe forwarde all hys honour ys drowned And the meanes which he hath devised to save the kyngs honour ys this The reste of this mater I must leave to shewe your Lordshippe by mouth whan I speake with you which I purpose god Willynge shal be to morow yf the kyng's grace let me not Now the berer maketh such hast that I can wryte no more but that I heare no worde from my benefice nor Mayster Russel's servunte ys not yet retourned ageyn whereof I do not a lytle marveil The kynge and my Lady Anne rode yesterday to Windsower and this nyght they be loked for agayne at Hampton Courte god be their guyde and preserve your Lordshippe to hys most pleasure From Hampton courte this xiij day of June You re most humble beideman Thomas Cranmer NUM II. Dr. Cranmer Ambassador with the Emperor his letter to the King To the Kings Highness PLeasith it your Highnes to understande that at my last sollicitacion unto Monsieur Grandeveile for an answer of the contracte of Merchandize betwene the Merchaunts of your graces reaulme and the Merchaunts of themperors Low-Countreys the said Monsieur Grandeveile shewed me that forsomoch as the Diate concernynge the said Contracte was lately held in Flaundres where the Quene of Hungary is Governatrice themperor thought good to do nothynge therein without her advice but to make answere by her rather than by me Wherefore it may please your grace no further to loke for answere of me herin but of the Quene unto whome the whole Answere is commytted Morover whan the said Monsieur Grandeveile enquered of me if I had any answere of the aide and subsidy which themperor desyered of your grace I reported unto hym fully your graces answere accordyngâ— unto myn instructions sent unto me by your graces servant William Paget Which answere he desyered me to delyver hym in wrytynge that he myght referre the same truly unto themperor and so I dyd Nevertheles themperor now at his departynge hath had such importune busynes that Monsieur Grandeveile assigned me to repaire unto themperor agayn at Lintz for there he said I shal have an answere agayn in wrytynge The French Ambassador and I with al diligence do make preparacion to furnish our selfs of wagans horses shippes tents and other thynges necessary to our viage but it wil be at the lest viij or x dayes before we can be redy to depart hens Yet we trust to be at Lyntz before themperor for he wil tary by the way at Passaw x or xij dayes As for the Turke he resideth stil in Hungary in the same place environned opon al parties whereof I wrote unto your Highnes in my last letters And themperor departed from Abagh toward Vienna the seconde day of this month by lande not commynge by this towne but the same day the kynge Ferdinando departed from this Towne by water and at Passaw xiiij myls hens thay shal mete and so pase furth unto Lyntz which is the mydds way from hens unto Vienna And there themperor wil tary to counsel what he wil do and there al the Ambassadours shal know his pleasure as Monsieur Grandeveile shewed me I have sent herewith unto your grace the copy of themperors Proclamation concernynge a general Councel and a reformation to be had in Germany for
ultra vero montes singulis biennijs Visitabo aut per-me aut per meum nuntium nisi Apostolica absolvat Licentia Possessiones vero ad mensam mei Archiepiscopatus pertinentes non vendam neque donabo neque impignerabo neque de novo infeudabo vel aliquo modo alienabo inconsulto Romano Pontifice Sic me Deus adjuvet haec Sancta Dei Evangelia NUM VII Cranmer's Oath to the King for his Temporalties I Thomas Cranmer renounce and utterly forsake al such clauses words sentences and grants which I have of the Popes Holines in his Bulls of the Archbishopric of Cant. that in any manner was is or may be hurtful or prejudicial to your highnes your heires Successors Estate or Dignity Royal. Knowing my self to take and hold the said Archbishopric immediately and only of your Highnes and of none other Most lowly beseeching the same for restitution of the Temporalties of the said Archbishopric Professing to be faithful true and obedient subject to your said Highnes your Heires and Successors during my life So help me God and the holy Evangelists NUM VIII The King's Proclamation for bringing in Seditious Books IT set forth that sundry contentions and sinister opinions had by wrong teaching and naughty printed Books encreased among his Subjects contrary to the true faith and reverence and due observation of the Sacraments and Sacramentals rites and ceremonies heretofore used And as the Books are blamed so the additions and Annotations in the margents the Prologues and Kalendars to them made by sundry strange persons called Anabaptists and Sacramentaries lately comen into the Realm and by some other his Majesties Subjects Wherby many of the Kings loving but simple Subjects were induced arrogantly and superstitiously to dispute in open places and tavernes upon Baptism and upon the holy Sacrament of the Altar not only to their own slander but to the reproch of the whole realm and his Graces high discontentation and displesure with the danger of the encrease of the said enormities Therfore the King did streitly charge and command by his present Proclamation as wel al his subjects as al others whatsoever resiant within his Realm that from henceforth they observe and keep these Articles following First That no person shal without his Majesties special leave transport and bring from foreign parts any Books printed in the English tongue nor sel give and publish such books upon pain that the Offenders forfeit al their goods and chattels and have imprisonment during his Majesties plesure Item None to print any book in the English tongue unless upon examination made by some of the privy Councel or other appointed by his Highnes and shal have Licence so to do Nor shal print or bring â—n any books of the holy scripture in the English tongue with any Annotations in the Margin or any Prologue or Addition in the Kalendar or Table except such annotations c. be first duely examined and allowed by the Kings Highnes or such of his Councel as shal please his Majesty to assign therto but only the plain Sentence and Text with a Table or Repertory instructing the Reader to find readily the Chapters contained in the said Book and the effects thereof Nor to print any Book of translations in the English tongue unles the plain name of the translator therof be contained in the same book or else that the Printer wil answer for the same as for his own privy deed and otherwise to make the Translator the Printer to suffer imprisonment and make a fine at the Kings Wil. Item None using the occupation of printing shal print or cause to be published any book of Scripture in the English tongue unles his books be first viewed and examined by the King or one of his Privy Councel or one Bishop of the Realm upon pain to loose and forfeit all their goods and chattels and suffer imprisonment during plesure Item The King declared concerning Anabaptists and other Sacramentaries lately comen into the realm that he abhorred and detested their errors and intended to procede against them that were already apprehended according to their merits to thintent his subjects should take example by their punishments not to adhere to such false and detestable opinions but utterly to forsake and relinquish them And that whersoever any of them be known they be detected and his Majesty or Councel be enformed with al convenient speed with al maner Abetters and printers of the same opinion And his Majesty charged the same Anabaptists and Sacramentaries not apprehended or known that they within eight or ten dayes depart out of the Realm upon pain of los of their life and forfeiture of their goods Item Forasmuch as the holy Sacrament of the Altar is the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and so hath and ought to be taken upon peril of damnation his Majesty minded to continue his Subjects in this true and just Faith and that they be not beguiled away from it charged that none should henceforth reason or dispute upon the said blessed Sacrament or of the Mysteries therof upon pain of los of life and forfeiture of goods Except to learned men in holy scripture instructed and taught in the Universities their Liberties and privileges in their schools and places accustomed concerning the same and otherwise in communication without slaunder of any man for the only confirmation and declaration of the truth therof Item And forasmuch as many brooked divers and many laudable ceremonies and rites heretofore used and accustomed in the Church of England not yet abrogated by the Kings authority Whereby arose different strifes and contentions as for and concerning holy bread holywater processions kneeling and creeping on Good Friday to the Cros and Easter day setting up lights before the Corpus Christi bearing of Candles on the day of Purification Ceremonies used at the Purification of women delivered of child and offering of their Chrysomes Keeping of the four offering dayes Payment of tiths according to the old custom of the Realm and other such like ceremonies 〈◊〉 Majesty charged and commanded al his subjects to observe and keep them so as they shal use and observe the same without superstition and esteem them for good and lawful ceremonies tokens and signes to put us in remembrance of things of high perfection and none otherwise And not to repose any trust of salvation in them but take them for good Instructions until such time as his M. change or abrogate any of them as his Highnes upon reasonable consideration both may and intendeth to do Finally Whereas a few Priests as wel Religious as others have taken Wives and married themselves contrary to the wholsome monitions of S. Paul to Timothy and Titus and to the Corinthians and contrary to the opinion of many of the old Fathers and Expositors of scripture not esteeming also the promise of chastity which they made at the receiving of Holy Orders his Highnes minding in no wise
Diocess should not be charged with my Visitation at this time First as concerning my style Wherein I am named Totius Angliae Primas I suppose that to make his cause good which else indeed were naught he doth mix it with the King's cause As ye know the man lacketh neither learning in the law neither witty invention ne craft to set forth his matters to the best that he might appear not to maintain his own cause but the Kings Against whose Highnes he knoweth right wel that I wil maintain no cause but give place and lay both my cause and my self at my Princes feet But to be plain what I think of the Bp. of Winchester I cannot persuade with my self that he so much tendereth the Kings cause as he doth his own that I should not visit him And that appeareth by the veray time For if he cast no further then the defence of the Kings G's authority or if he intend that at al why moved he not the matier before he received my Monition for my Visitation Which was within four miles of Winchester delivered unto him the xxii day of April last as he came up to the Court. Moreover I do not a little mervayl why he should now find fault rather then he did before when he took the Bp. of Rome as chief Head For though the Bp. of R. was taken for Supreme Head notwithstanding that he had a great number of Primates under him And by having his Primates under him his Supreme authority was not less esteemed but much the more Why then may not the Kings Highnes being Supreme Head have Primates under him without a diminishing but with the augmenting of his said Supreme Authority And of this I doubt not at all but the Bp. of Winchester knoweth as well as any man living that in case this said style or title had been in any poynt impediment or hindrance to the Bp. of Rome's usurped authority it would not have so long been unreformed as it hath been For I doubt not but all the Bushops of England would ever gladly have had the Archbushops both authority and title taken away that they might have been equal together Which well appeareth by the many contentions against the Archbushops for jurisdiction in the Court of Rome Which had be easily brought to pass if the Bushops of R. had thought the Archbushops titles and styles to be an erogation to their Supreme authority Al this notwithstanding if the Bushops of this realm pas no more of their names styles and titles then I do of mine the Kings Highnes shal soon order the matier betwixt us al. And if I saw that my style were against the Kings authority whereunto I am especially sworn I would sue my self unto his G. that I might leave it and so would have done before this time For I pray God never be merciful unto me at the general judgment if I perceive in my heart that I set more by any title name or style that I write then I do by the paring of an apple further then it shal be to the setting forth of Gods word and will Yet I wil not utterly excuse me herein For God must be judge who knoweth the bottome of my heart and so do not I my self But I speak for so much as I do feel in my heart For many evil affections ly lurking there and wil not lightly be espied But yet I would not gladly leave any just thing at the pleasure and suite of the Bp. of Wynchester he being none otherwise affectionate unto me than he is Even at the Beginning of Christs profession Diotrephes desired gerere primatum in Ecclesia as saith S. Iohn in his last Epistle And since he hath had mo successors than al the Apostles had Of whom have come al these glorious titles styles and pomps into the Church But I would that I and al my Brethren the Bushops would leave al our stiles and write the style of our Offices calling our selves Apostolos Iesâ— Christi so that we took not upon us the name vainly but were so even indeed So that we might order our Diocess in such sort that neither paper parchment lead nor wax but the very Christian Conversation of the people might be the letters and seals of our offices As the Corinthians were unto Paul to whom he said Literae nostrae signa Apostolatus nostri vos estis Now for the second Where the Bp. of Winchester alledgeth the Visitation of my Predecessor and the tenth part now to be payd to the King Truth it is that my Predecessor visited the Dioces of Winchester after the decease of my L. Cardinal Wolsey as he did al other Diocesses Sede Vacante But else I think it was not visited by none of my Predecessors this forty years And notwithstanding that he himself not considering their charges at that time charged them with a new Visitation within less then half a year after and that against al right as Dr. Incent hath reported to my Chancellor the Clergy at that time paying to the King half of their benefices in five years Which is the tenth part every year as they payd before and have payd since and shal pay stil for ever by the last Act. But I am very glad that he hath now some compassion of his Diocess although at that time he had very smal when he did visit them the same year that my Predecessor did visit And al other Bushops whose course is to visit this year kept their Visitations where I did visit the last year notwithstanding the tenth part to be paid to the Kings G. Howbeit I do not so in Winchester Dioces For it is now the third year since that Diocess was Visited by any man So that he hath the least cause to complain of any Bushop For it is longer since his Dioces was visited then the other Therfore where he layeth to aggravate the matier the charges of the late Act granted it is no more against me then against al other Bushops that do visit this year nor maketh no more against me this year then it made against me the last year and shal do every year hereafter For if they were true men in accounting and paying the Kings Subsidies they are no more charged by this new Act then they were for the space of ten years past and shal be charged ever hereafter And thus to conclude if my said L. of Winchesters objections should be allowed this year he might by such arguments both disallow al maner Visitations that hath bee done these ten years past and that ever shal be done hereafter Now I pray you good Master Secretary of your advise whether I shal need to write unto the Kings Highnes herein And thus our Lord have you ever in his preservation At Otteford the 12 day of May. Your own ever assured Thomas Cantuar. NUM XV. The Appeal of Stokesly Bishop of London to the King against the Archbishops Visitation Contra
value Item One and twenty pair of Hangings for the Altars of the Church Vestments Albes c. Item Twelve Albes of silk Item Of linnin Albes belonging to the Sextre and other Altars 326. Item Vestments belonging to the Altars and Chauntries are of divers Values and works to the number of twenty six Item Corporows cases and Corporaws thirty six Item Altar cloths of Diaper and linnin One and twenty Item Mas books thirteen belonging to the Sextre and Altars The Inventary of our Ladies Chappel Imprimis Five little shrines of copper and guilt Item Three chalices of silver and gilt Item Two Paxes the one of silver and gilt and the other of silver Item Two pair of Beads and silver and gilt being but of ten stones a piece Item Three chappels of divers suites Item Two Copys of silk Item Thirteen Albes and three of them white silk Item Three Collars for the three Altars of silk garnished with plate of silver and gilt and with stones Item Four Altar cloths of linnin Item Two Altars of silk for the Altar The Inventory of the Priors house Imprimis Six salts with three covers of silver and gilt Item Six spoons of silver and gilt Item Five and twenty other spoons of silver Item Three standing Cups one plain and other two swaged with their Covers of silver and gilt Item Seven bollis of silver and gilt with one Cover Item Six silver cupps with one Cover Item Four nuts with three covers Item Two Masers with one cover Item Two silver Basins with their Ewers Item Two Gallon pots of silver and gilt to serve Peter and Paul Item Two smal silver pots Item Two chalices of silver and gilt The Inventary of the Subpriors house Item Two salts of silver and gilt with a Cover Item One little salt of silver with a Cover Item Three silver peeces Item Eighteen silver spoons Item Three old Masers perused The Inventary of the Hordars house Item Two Salts of silver and gilt with a Cover Item One standing Nut with a Cover Item Three silver peeces Item Eighteen silver spoons Item Three old Masers perused The Inventary of the Fratrie Imprimis One standing Cup of mother pearle the foot and Cover being of silver and gilt Item Two great bollys of silver Item One standing Cup of silver and gilt with his Cover Item One standing Massar with a Cover of Wood. Item Three great bollis of Wood with bonds of silver and gilt Item Seven and thirty silver spoons of divers fashions Item Four old Massars perused NUM XVII A Reply to the Archbishop against his Court of Audience TO the first His Protestation sheweth no more but that he is not to be suspected to keep that Court of his Audience by the authority of any Legacy from Rome as by the name of Legate of Rome But forasmuch as no ABp within Christendom hath nor never had any authority to keep any such Court by the reason of the ABric but only Legates of the See of Rome Which Legates what vexations and oppressions they have done by the pretence thereof not only to Ordinaries but also to the Layfee by calling of poor men from the furthest parts of the realm to London for an halfpeny candle or for a little opprobrious word as was declared and proved plainly in this Parliament Which was a great cause of making of a Statute to remedy that before the Statute of the abolishment of the Bishops of Romes authority within this realm Insomuch that this execution of Legacies in other jurisdictions and realms hath been one of the greatest and intolerablest usurpations of the Bp. of Rome these many years among the Commonalty and therfore a thing most necessary of reformation in consideration of the premises no ABp can exercise this authority except he implyeth to al the world tho he speak it not nor write it not that he is a Legate of the See of Rome And in case it shal please the Kings Grace to give like authority notwithstanding so many incommodities to his Graces Subjects by the use therof and not one commodity at al to be abyden by it should seem better to give it to some other by special Commission at his Grace's pleasure Wherby it shal be known certainly to come from his Grace rather than to join it to the ABps See Wherby the old poyson might stil lurk and break out one day again if it should chance some to be ABp of Cant. that would change their copy as hath been in times past And moreover if his Grace should make his Legate it should peradventure derogate the power of his Graces General Vicar And if both should occupy then shall the people so much the rather take occasion to think and say that his Graces Vicar exerciseth the power of a Legate by his Graces authority and the ABp of Canterbury by authority of the Bp. of Rome And where the ABp saith that he seeth no cause why he should not keep that Court at the lest by authority of the Act of Parlament as al others enjoy by that Act al things that they had before from the See of Rome it seems that he never read the said Act nor yet can discern betwixt a thing absolute that may endure without a Dependence and an Advouson in gross and a thing that standeth in a continual Dependence as Service to the Seignory For Exemptions and Dispensations and such others be Absolutes depending nothing of the Grantor after his Grant But Legacies be but respectives And as no longer Lord no longer Service so no longer Bp. of Rome Lord here no longer his Vicar which was but his Servant as appeareth by the text of his Legacy whereof these be the words in the Chapter Quum non ignoretis De officio Legati qui in Provincia sua vices nostras gerere comprobatur And the Act of Parlament which he allegeth is so plain to every Reader that it cannot be drawn with twenty team of Oxen to stretch to the continuance of this Court of his Audience It is in the xxj th Chapter of the Session Anno xxv and in the xxvj th leafe in the latter end The words therof there be these Provided alwayes that this Act or any thing therin contained shal not hereafter be taken nor expounded to the derogation or taking away of any Grants or Confirmations of any Liberties Privileges or Jurisdictions of any Monasteries Abbies Priories or other Houses or Places exempt which before the making of this Act have been obtained at the See of Rome or by the authority thereof Loo this Act speaketh only of Exemptions which is a thing absolute and that only of Houses exempt and of their Jurisdictions Which might be suffered upon their few Parochians and neibours as Prebends have in their Cathedral churches But this Act speaketh not of no jurisdiction universal of Archbishops Bishops or other person Legacy is of that other sort and universal jurisdiction depending on him that usurped an universal
authority through the world And considering that the Bp. of Cant. beside al the Courts within his own Diocess keepeth in London a Court at the Arches sufficiently authorized to hear and to determine al causes and complaints appertaining to a Metropolitane why should he require this other Court of the Audience to keep it in London within the Church and jurisdiction of another Bp. except he mâ—nded to call other Bps. obedientially out of their jurisdiction contrary to the Act Or else at the lest forasmuch as this Court is kept within the Church and jurisdiction of London and the Arches Court within the city but not within the jurisdiction if he may not vex the Citizens and Diocesans of London at the Arches without an Appele first from the Ordinary immediately because of the Canon Lawes yet he might pul them to his Audience at Pauls as he did heretofore by his Legacy and yet offend not that Act made anno xxiij That no man shall be called out of his own Diocess And where the ABp saith that the Kings Grace bad him continue that Court stil it is to be marvelled that he then hath not in his Citations and other wrirings of that Court expressed or signified the same as he did cal himself in al his Writings Legatum Apostolicae Sedis long after that Act of the Abolishing NUM XVIII Archbishop Cranmers order concerning the Proctors of the Court of Arches shewn to be inconvenient by a Paper presented to the Parlament as followeth ALthough it be expedient that every thing which any way may be noyful unto the common wele be duely reformed yet is there nothing that should be rather looked upon for Reformation than such abuses as may be occasion of not indifferent ministration of justice Wherfore among so many things as heretofore hath been wel and condignely reformed touching other the Spiritualty or the Temporalty there is nothing that requireth speedyer Reformation than a certain Ordinance Lately procured in the Court of the Arches at London by the means of the Proctors there for the advancement of their singular wil only By which may and do come divers abuses in the said Court and occasion not indifferent ministration of justice and chargeable and prolix process there The effect whereof is this The Proctors of the said Court of Arches hath of late upon feigned suggestion surmised unto the most reverend Father in God my Lord Archbp. of Canterbury President and Head of the said Court to have been for the common wele and ease of his Provincialls induced his Grace to make such an Ordinance or Statute in the said Court of the Arches That wher heretofore there were in the same twenty or four and twenty Proctors and my said Lords G. at his liberty alwayes to admit mo or fewer Proctors there as should be seen expedient to his G. for the sufficient attending of the causes there depending for the time there shuld be from thenceforth no mo admitted Proctors there until the said nombre of Proctors than being there were decreased and come down to the nombre of Ten and than the said nombre of Ten Proctors never after to be exceeded And furthermore lest my said Lords G. might be advertised afterwards upon better causes and considerations to dissolve the said Statute as his Predecessors did alike other Statutes made in semblable cause long before the said Proctors knowing that his G. would as alwayes did apply himself to that thing that shuld be most profitable for the Common wele and intending to take away that liberty from him abusing also his G's benignity and good zeal to the restraint of his liberties and â—ulfilling of their covetous intent incontinently upon the obtaining of the said Statute procured the same to be confirmed by the Chapter and Convent of Christ's church in Canterbury So that by reason of the same confirmation my said Lords G. ne his Successors cannot as the said Proctors do pretend though they see never so good a cause therto infringe ne dissolve the same And so therby made in maner an Incorporation among them tho they call it not so Wherin be it considered whether they have first offended the King's Laws which do prohibit such Incorporations to be made without licence had of the King's Highness first thereunto And though all Incorporations in any mystery or faculty be not lightly to be admitted in this case wherupon depends good or evil ministration of justice most of al such Confederacies are to be eschued Also the said Statute is divers wayes noyful to the Commonwele of this Royalm and prejudicial to the King's G. Subjects in the same and occasion of divers abuses in the said Court hereafter to be declared But because the said Proctors are persuaded that my said Lord of Canterbury cannot himself Dissolve the same and seeing that no man wil lighty contend alone with al the said Proctors for the Dissolving thereof For though it touch every man generally no man singularly wil suppose the same to touch him so moche that he should for the impugnation of the same put himself in business against so many and so rich a company as the said Proctors be it were not only expedient but also necessary for the indifferent and speedy ministration of justice in the said Court that his said unreasonable Statute were infringed and dissolved by the authority of this present Parliament where al other abuses and excesses noyeful to the Commonwele ought to be reformed for these causes following First The said Statute is prejudicial unto the Commonwele because it is occasion of prolix sutes and superfluous delayes in the said Court else more necessary to be restrained than augmented For the said nombre of Ten Proctors appointed by the said Statute is unsufficient for the speedy and diligent attending of mens causes in the said Court tho al Ten were procuring there at once as it is not like but that three or four of the same shal bee alwayes impotent or absent For such they account also with the nombre of Ten. And besides that the same Ten or fewer that shal be onely procuring shal serve not onely for the said Court of the Arches but also for my said Lord of Canterburies Audience wherein be as many causes as in the Arches and for the Consistory of the Bp. of London For by the Statutes of both the same Courts of Audience and Consistory there is no man admitted to procure in the same unless he be a Proctor admitted first in the Arches So that so few Proctors appoynted for so many causes as shal be under travayl in al the said Courts can never be able to speed their business without great delayes taking For heretofore when there were in the said Court twenty Proctors continually occupying and more it hath been seen that divers of theym hath been than so overlayd with causes that they were driven to take oft and many delayes and Prorogations ad idem for to bring in their matiers
libells and plees Than moche more must they do the same now being but Ten of theym And most of al when of the same Ten there shal be as like it is alwayes to be three or four absent or impotent Undoubtedly they must needs use infinite delayes Which had else rather more need to be restrained then that any occasion shuld be yet given of more using the same For by reason of the same the King's Subjects called to the same Court are put to great expences tedious Labour and loss of time And therefore divers that have good right to many things pleadable in the said Courts had lever renounce and forgoe their interest in the same than enter so desperate a Sute in the said Courts therefore Also mens causes cannot be diligently attended by so few Proctors And men shal be destitute of councel whereof shuld be alwayes plenty in every Court. And through the negligence of the Proctors that they must be than of whan they shal have so much busines divers good causes must needs perish for lack of good looking unto as likely may be for the forgetting one houre or mistaking of a word doth in the said Courts other whiles marr the best matier And it is impossible that the said Ten Proctors only shal be able to apply accordingly al the causes that shal be depending in al the said Courts as Proctors of duty shuld For a Proctor's office is Laborious and requireth much business First a Proctor must take sufficient instructions of his Clients and keep every Court-day remember every hour that is appointed him to do any thing at solicite and instruct his Advocates write and pen every Instrument that shal be requisite to be made in the matiers And whosoever of the Proctors that shal be negligent or forgetful in doing any of these his matiers must needs delay But so few Proctors as be appoynted by the said Statute are not able not only to do so in each matier but also scant able to remember their Clients names for so many that they shal than have Each matier if it were exactly applied and men able so to do would require a Proctor alone But because every man is not able to find a Proctor for every one matier it were best next the same that there were so many Proctors appoynted as might most easily apply their causes as they shuld And though that were less profit to the said Proctors whose wele is best when they are most charged with busines yet it shuld be more profit for the Common wele whose interest were to have causes speedily and diligently applied in the said Courts Also the fewer that there be of the said Proctors the sooner may they agree among theymselves to give delayes each to other because that one may have the same leave that he gave the other as they do in termes to Prove Where to each of the three termes which they cal Terminos ad proband a month would suffice though they dwelled never so far from the Court within this Royalm they take now by cross sufferance of each other of theym a quarter of a year commonly for each of the same three termes Which were enough and too moche though the parties dwelled in Paris Which delayes though they be nothing profitable ne commodious for the poor Suitors be both profitable to the said Proctors by reason that the causes are kept thereby the longer in their hands And also commodious by reason that they being greatly occupied should have the longer time to do their business in And for like consideration the said Proctors do omit commonly in every matier a certain oath ungeven called Iuramentum Calumpniae which is the best provision ordained in al the said Law of Civil and Canon for the restraint of unlawful Suites and prolix processes The effect wherof is this Both parties being in suite or their Proctors shal by the same oath swear first the Plaintiff That he believeth himself to have a just cause to sue and the Defendant a just cause to defend Secondarily That neitherof them shal use any unlawful delayes whereby justice may be deferred or letted Thirdly That either of theym whan they shal be asked by the Judge shal answer truly to every thing that is asked of theym according to their belief Fourthly That there is nor shal be nothing geven ne promised to the Judge or any other Officer but only the Fees and duty permitted by the Law And fiftly That neither of them shal use ne procure any false witnes wittingly in the matier Which Oath if it were given in every matier as it shuld be there shuld not be so many wrongful causes attempted and kept in the said Courts nor so many delayes as in the same But because that neither of both standeth with the profit of the said Proctors by common assent and cross sufferance of each another of theym they omit the same most commonly not only ungeven but also not spoken of And if they say that they do so because that oft accustoming of oaths maketh men to set less by an oath Truth it is that it doth so And therefore the said oath ought to be chiefly commended For the geving of the same but once in any matier shuld excuse them from geving of many other oaths requisite And where one shuld serve for al better it were for avoyding of too oft swearing that the same alone shuld be given and al others omitted than that it alone shuld be left that al the other doth supply Also The said Statute of Ten Proctors may be occasion that the same shal wax hault arrogant negligent and loth to take paines and excessive in taking by reason that they shuld be so few As we see experiently in al other faculties where fewest Occupiers be of the same trust they be most dangerous and hardest to be gotten to do their faculties and most excessive in taking for the same as scarcity or rarity of any thing else maketh the same dear For whan there be few of a faculty they know than that be they never so excessive in taking or negligent in their doing they shal be occupied wel enough whan men can have no other choice but of a few that be al alike agreed upon the price of every thing as they may soon do whan they be but a few Where if they were many al shuld be contrary Moreover the said Statute of Ten Procters may be occasion that justice shuld not indifferently procede in the said Courts for lack of lawful defence As if the Juges of the said Courts or any of theym be affectionate in any matier depending before them as it may be that the Juges there shal not be alwayes of such integrity as they be of that be there now the said Proctors dare not be retained on his part that the Juge doth not favor or if they be retained they dare not purpose propose their Client 's best Interest and remedy if the same
do any thing offend the said Juges affection By reason that the said Proctors be removeable from their Proctors offices at the said Juges plesure and the same made so beneficial unto theym by reason of the said Statute Than whan the said Proctors shal be in such fear of the said Juges to speak in matier of Instance where the Juge doth bear but a light affection to another man moch more wil they be so in cases of office where the Juge is party himself and hath his own matier in hand And no mervail if they dare not speak in such For it hath not been seldome seen and heard there that it hath been spoken unto such Proctors as hath spoken any thing constantly or freely in their Clients causes by the Juges aforesaid Non es amicus Curiae and that they were threatned of expulsion from their Offices and put to silence Yet no law forbiddeth the contrary but that every man shuld have his lawful defence yea against the Juge himself But if there were many Proctors in the said Courts the Juges could not so lightly keep them al in such subjection and fear of theym Nor than the said Proctors shuld not have so great cause to fear theym so moche seeing their offices shuld not be so beneficial unto theym than And less shuld they yet fear to purpose their Clients right duely if it were ordeined that the same Proctors shuld not be removeable from their Offices at the said Juges plesure as heretofore they were and now are but only for certain great offences proved afore indifferent Juges to be committed by theym after their admission And by reason that the said Proctors be so abandonned unto the said Juges where men had most need of trusty Councillors there they be most destitute of the same as when the Juge is not indifferent For the partiality of a Juge is more to be feared than the manifest malice of an Adversary For the tone hurteth privily and is able to execute his malice and the tother doth apertly al that he goeth about And a man may provide for the avoiding of the intent And he is not so able to execute his purpose as the tother is And though partiality of any Juge is to be greatly feared yet most of al in the Courts spiritual where al depends upon the Juges hands and that one man's commonly For which partiality the remedy of appeal was first invented Which remedy like as it was at the first most wholesomely provided for the avoyding of the iniquity of partial Juges so it is now most wickedly abused for the maintenance of evil doers in their wrongful causes and avoyding of due execution of justice by reason that they be infinite especially after the Canon law For by Civil there is but appellation permitted and that not without penalty on him that shal than appeal without cause and that is more reasonable For like as it is dangerous to abide one mans jugement so it is unreasonable that a man should abide the jugements of never so many And therfore it were very expedient that the same Appeals were restrained somewhat For of theym it is chiefly long that matiers be in maner infinite in the said Courts And that may be the better done by reason that there be two Legates within this Royalm Which were so appoynted because that they might determine al matiers spiritual within this Royalm without moche recourse to Rome being so far from this Country To the foresaid inconveniences may come also through the same statute this abuse following that is to wit if there be a mightier or a richer man that do sue a poorer man in the said Courts the richer man may the sooner by reason that there be so few Proctors retain the most part and the best learned of theym And the other Proctors by reason that they shal be than so wealthy through their great occupying which they shal have whan they be so few wil rather set more by the same great mens favor than the poor mans fee. And therfore wil ether refuse to be retained of the poor mans party or whan they be retained they wil be slack in doing their duty for fear of displeasing the same great men Where if there were many Proctors their Offices would not be excessive gainful but that they set as moche by their fees as by any mans plesure lightly Also the said Statute is a great discourage to young men to leave their Studies in the Law For by the same the reward of Study is taken away and possest by a few And the fewer that be promoted for their Learning the fewer wil study to attain the same And to this it may be occasion that the said Proctors be not so wel learned nor so diligent whan they are so few as they would be if they were many For whan there is choise enough of theym they that are best learned and most diligent shal be alwayes most resorted And than shal they study every man to excel other in learning and diligence whan they se such chiefly resorted unto And so no man wil labour than to be a Proctor unles he be wel learned seeing that learned men shuld only have al the most resort And they that be unlearned wil away and provide theym Livings elsewhere whan they see theymself nothing frequented with causes Furthermore the said Statute is plain contrary to their own law of Civil and Canon For by the same it is permitted for every man to be Proctor for other but only a few which are especially and justly excepted by the same as a Woman a child a madd man and such other And by the said statute it is prohibited that no man shal procure in the said Court for other but only a few that are especially admitted therto and that within a precise and incompetent nombre The said Law doth except and repel very few and that of theym that are not meet to procure and the said statute doth yet admit fewer and that of theym that are sufficiently qualified to procure So that White and Black can be no more contrary together than the said Law and Statute be each to other And though any man would rather prefer the said Law before the said Statute if he did but only consider how that the Law is made so long ago by the concord and discrete opinion of so many great and wise Clerks and holy men and afterward approved by continual usage of divers countries and long succession of time and experiently known to be wholsomely ordeined for the common wele And of the tother side how that the said Statute is but lately made by the procurement of a few private persons for their singular advantage approved by no tract of time to be profitable for the Common wele but experiently known to be contrary Yet beside that if al that were set apart the Law is grounded upon better reason then the said Statute is For seeing
cease from keeping of theym For the Kings own House shal be an example unto al the realm to break his own ordinances Over this whereas your Lp. hath twice written for this poor man William Gronnow the bearer hereof to my L. Deputy of Callis for him to be restored to his room as far as I understand it prevayled nothing at al. For so he can get none answer of my L. Deputy So tha◠the poor man dispaireth that your request shal do him any good If your Lp. would be so good to him as to obtain a bil signed by the Kings Grace to the Treasurers and Controlers of Callis for the time being commanding theym to pay to the said W. Gronnow his accustomed Wages yearly and to none other your Lp. should not only not further trouble my L. Deputy any more but also do a right meritorious deed For if the poor man be put thus from his Living he were but utterly undone Thus my Lord right hartily fare you wel At Ford the xxviij day of August Your Lordships own ever T. Cantuariens NUM XX. Richard Grafton the Printer of the Bible to the Lord Crumwel complaining of some that intended to print the Bible and thereby to spoyl his Impression ✚ 1537. MOST humbly beseeching your Lp. to understand that according as your Commission was by my servant to send you certain Bibles so have I now done desiring your Lp. to accept them as though they were wel done And whereas I writ unto your Lp. for a privy Seal to be a defence unto the enemies of this Bible I understand that your Lps. mind is that I shal not need it But now most gracious Lord forasmuch as this work hath been brought forth to our most great and costly labors and charges Which charges amount above the sum of five hundred pounds and I have caused of these same to be printed to the sum of fifteen hundred books complete Which now by reason that of many this work is highly commended there are that wil and doth go about the printing of the same work again in a lesser letter to the intente that they may sel their little books better cheap then I can sel these great and so to make that I shal sel none at al or else very few to the utter undoing of me your Orator and of all those my Creditors that hath been my Comforters and helpers therin And now this work thus set forth with great study and labors shal such persons moved with a little covetousnes to the undoing of others for their own private wealth take as a thing done to their hands In which half the charges shal not come to them that hath done to your poor Orator And yet shall not they do it as they find it but falsify the text that I dare say look how many sentences are in the Bible even so many faults and errors shal be made therin For their seeking is not to set it out to Gods glory and to the edifying of Christs Congregation but for covetousnes And that may appear by the former Bibles that they have set forth which hath neither good paper letters ink nor correction And even so shal they corrupt this work and wrap it up after their fashions and then may they sel it for nought at their pleasures Yea and to make it more truer then it is therfore Dutch men living within this realm go about the printing of it Which can neither speak good English nor yet write none And they wil be both the Printers and Correctors therof Because of a little covetousnes they wil not bestow twenty or forty pounds to a Learned man to take pains in it to have it wel done It were therfore as your Lp. doth evidently perceive a thing unreasonable to permit or suffer them which now hath no such busines to enter into the labors of them that hath made both sore trouble and unreasonable charges And the truth is this that if it be printed by any other before these be sold which I think shal not be these three years at the least that then am I your poor Orator undone Therfore by your most godly favor if I may obtain the Kings most gracious privilege that none shal print them till these be sold which at the least shall not be this three years your Lordship shal not find me unthankful but that to the uttermost of my power I wil consider it And I dare say that so wil my L of Canterbury with other my most special friends And at the last God wil look upon your merciful heart that considereth the undoing of a poor young man For truly my whole Living lyeth hereupon Which if I may have sale of them not being hindred by any other men it shal be my making and wealth and the contrary is my undoing Therfore most humbly I beseech your Lp. to be my helper here that I may obtain this my request Or else if by no means this privilege may be had as I have no doubt through your help it shal and seeing men are so desirous to be printing of it again to my utter undoing as aforesaid that yet forasmuch as it hath pleased the Kings Highnes to Licence this work to go abroad and that it is the most pure religion that teacheth al true obedience and reproveth al schisms and contentions and the lack of this word of Almighty God is the cause of al blindnes and superstition It may therfore be commanded by your Lp. in the name of our most gracious Prince that every Curate have one of them that they may learn to know God and to instruct their Parishens Yea and that every Abby should have six to be layd in six several places and that the whole Covent and the resorters therunto may have occasion to look on the Lords Law Yea I would have none other but they of the Papistical sort should be compelled to have them And then I know there should be ynow found in my L. of Londons Diocess to spend away a great part of them And so should this be a godly act worthy to be had in remembrance while the world doth stand And I know that a smal Commission wil cause my Lords of Cant. Salisbury and Worseter to cause it to be done through their Diocesses Yea and this should cease the whole schism and contention that is in the realm Which is some calling them of the Old and some of the New Now should we al follow one God one Book and one Learning And this is hurtful to no man but profitable to all men I wil trouble your Lp. no lenger for I am sorry I have troubled you so much But to make an end I desire your most gracious answer by my servant For the sickness is bryme about us or would I wait upon your Lp. And because of coming to your Lp. I have not suffered my servant with me since he came over Thus for your continual preservation I with
with force of armes to their natural King and Prince and say This we wil have But now leaving your rude and unhansome maner of speech to your most Soveraign Lord I wil come to the point and joyn with you in the effect of your first Article You say you wil have al the holy Decrees observed and kept But do you know what they bee The holy Decrees as I told you before be called the Bp. of Romes ordinances and lawes Which how holy and godly soever they be called they be indeed so wicked so ungodly so â—ul of tyranny and so partial that since the beginning of the world were never devised or invented the like I shal reherse a certain of them that your selves may see how holy they be and may say your minds whether you would have them kept or no. And at the hearing of them if you shal not think them meet to be kept here in this realm then you may see how they deceived you that moved you to ask this Article And if you like them and would have them kept after you know what they be then I say assuredly that you be not only wicked Papists but also Heretics and most hainous Traitors to the King and this his realm And yet how an absolute Papist varieth from an Heretick or Traitor I know not but that a Papist is also both a Heretic and a Traitor withal One Decree saith That whosoever doth not acknowledg himself to be under the obedience of the Bp. of Rome is an Heretic Now answer me to this Question Whether be you under the obedience of the Bp. of Rome or not If you say that you be under his obedience then be you Traytors by the laws of this realm And if you deny it then be you Heretics by this Decree And shift is there none to save you from treason but to renounce this Decree that commandeth you to be under the Bp. of Rome and so to confes contrary to your own first Article That al Decrees are not to be kept Yet a great many other Decrees be as evil and worse than this One saith That al Princes lawes which be against a Decree of the Bp. of Rome be void and of no strength Another Decree saith That al the Decrees of the Bp. of Rome ought for ever to be kept of al men as Gods word Another Decree there is That whosoever receiveth not the law of the Bp. of Rome availeth neither him the Catholick faith nor the four Evangelists For his sin shal never be forgiven Yet is there a worse and more detestable decree That al Kings and Princes that suffer the Bp. of Romes Decrees to be broken in any point are to be taken as Infidels Another is there also That the Bp. of Rome is bound to no maner of Decrees but he may constrain al other persons both Spiritual and Temporal to receive al his Decrees and Canons Another is yet more devilish then any before rehersed That altho the Bp. of Rome neither regard his own Salvation nor no mans else but put down with himself headlong innumerable people by heaps unto hell yet may no mortal man presume to reprove him therfore But what should I tarry and make you weary in rehersing a number For a thousand other like Canons and Decrees there be to the Advancement of the Bp. of Rome his usurped power and authority I cannot think of you that you be so far from al godliness from al wit and Discretion that you would have these Decrees observed within this Realm which be so blasphemous to God so injurious to al Princes and Realms and so far from al equity and reason But here you may easily perceive what wily foxes you met withal which persuaded you to arme your selves to make sedition in your own Country to stand against your Princes and the laws of your Realm for such Articles as you understand not and to ask you wist not what For I dare say for you that the subtil Papists when they moved you to stand in this Article that al the holy Decrees should be observed they shewed you nothing of these Decrees that they would have taken for holy Decrees For if they had they knew right wel that you would never have consented unto this Article but would have taken them for Traitors that first moved you thereto For now shal I shew you what miserable case you should bring your selves unto if the Kings Majesty should assent unto this first Article that al the Decrees should be kept and observed For among other partial Decrees made in favor of the Clergy this is one That none of the Clergy shal be called or sued before any Temporal Iudge for any maner of cause either for debt suit of lands fellony murther or for any other cause or crime Nor shal have any other Iudge but his Bp. only Another is That a Spiritual man may sue a Temporal man before a Temporal or Spiritual Iudge at his plesure but a Temporal man cannot sue a Spiritual but only before his Ordinary I cannot deny but these been good and beneficial laws for the liberty of the Clergy But for your own part I suppose you do not think it any indifferent Law that a Priest shal sue you where he list with the licence of his Ordinary and you shal sue him for no maner of cause but only before his own Ordinary Or if a Priest had slain one of your sons or brether that you should have no remedy against him but only before the Bp. What mean those Papistical priests that stirred you to ask and wil such decrees and lawes to be observed in this realm but covertly and craftily to bring you under their subjection And that you your selves ignorantly asking you wist not what should put your own heads under their girdles For surely if you had known these Decrees when you consented to this Article you would have torn the Article in pieces and they that moved you therto also For these Decrees â—e not only partial and against al equity and reason made only for the favor of the Clergy and the suppression of the Laity but also they be and ever have â—e clearly contrary to the Lawes and customes of this Realm And yet by this Article you wil have the old antient Laws and customes of this realm which have ever been used in al Kings times hitherto to be void and to cease and these Decrees to come in their place and be observed of al men and againsaid of no man For whosoever speaketh against them you wil hold them for Heretics And in so saying look what sentence you give of your selves altho your Article say it yet I am sure you be not so much enemies to your own Realm that you would have the old antient Laws and Customs of this Realm for the defence whereof al the Noble Kings of this Realm have so valiantly and so justly stand against the Bishops of Rome now to be taken
the Vilains to rule the Gentlemen and the Servants their Masters If men would suffer this God wil not but wil take vengeance on al them that wil break his order as he did of Dathan and Abiram altho for a time he be a God of much sufferance and hideth his indignation under his mercy That the evil of themselves may repent and se their own folly XIV Your fourteenth Article is this WEE wil that the half part of the Abby lands and Chantry lands in every mans possession howsoever he came by them be given again to two places where two of the chief Abbies were within every County Where such half part shal bee taken out and there to be established a place for devout persons which shal pray for the King and the Common wealth And to the same we wil have al the Almes of the Church box given for these seven years At the beginning you pâ—etended that you meant nothing against the Kings Majesty but now you open your selves plainly to the world that you go about to pluck the Crown from his head and against al justice and equity not only to take from him such lands as be annexed unto his Crown and be parcel of the same but also against al right and reason to take from al other men such lands as they came to by most just title by gift by sale by exchange or otherwise There is no respect nor difference had among you whether they come to them by right or by wrong Be you so blind that you cannot see how justly you proceed to take the sword in your hand against your prince and to dispossesse just Inheritors without any cause Christ would not take upon him to judg the right and title of lands betwixt two brethren and you arrogantly presume not only to judg but unjustly to take away al mens right titles yea even from the King himself And do you not tremble for fear that the Vengeance of God shal fal upon you before you have grace to repent And yet you not contented with this your Rebellion would have your shameful act celebrated with a perpetual memory as it were to boast and glory of your iniquity For in memory of your fact you would have established in every country two places to pray for the King and the Common-wealth Wherby your abominable behaviour at this present may never be forgotten but be remembred unto the worlds end That when the Kings Majesty was in Wars with Scotland and France you under pretence of the Common wealth rebelled and made so great sedition against him within his own realm as never before was heard of And therfore you must be prayed for for ever in every County of this realm It were more fit for you to make humble Supplication upon your knees to the Kings Majesty desiring him not only to forgive you this fault but also that the same may never be put in Chronicle nor writing and that neither shew nor mention may remain to your posterity that ever subjects were so unkind to their Prince and so ungracious toward God that contrary to Gods word they should so use themselves against their Soveraign Lord and King And this I assure you of that if al the whole world should pray for you until Doomsday their prayers should no more avail you then they should avail the Devils in hel if they prayed for them unles you be so penitent and sory for your disobedience that you wil ever hereafter so long as you live study to redubbe and recompence the same with al true and faithful obedience and not only your selves but also procuring al other so much as lyeth in you And so much detesting such uproars and seditions that if you se any man towards any such things you wil to your power resist him and open him unto such Governors and Rulers as may straitway repres the same As for your last Article thanks be to God it needs not to be answered which is this Your last Article is this FOR the particular griefes of our Country we wil have them so ordered as Humfrey Arundel and Henry Bray the Kings Maior of Bodman shal inform the Kings Majesty if they may have salve Conduct in the Kings great Seal to pas und repas with an Herald of Armes Who ever heard such arrogancy in Subjects to require and wil of their Princes that their own particular causes may be ordered neither according to reason nor the lawes of the Realm but according to the Information of two most hainous Traitors Was it ever heard before this time that information should be a judgment altho the Informers were of never so great credit And wil you have suffice the information of two villanous Papistical Traitors You wil deprive the King of his lands pertaining to his Crown and other men of their just possessions and inheritances and judg your own causes as you list your selves And what can you be called then but most wicked judges and most errant Traitors Except only Ignorance or Force may excuse youâ— that either you were constrained by your Capitains against your wills or deceived by blind Priests and other crafty persuaders to ask you wist not what How much then ought you to detest and abhor such men hereafter and to beware of al such like as long as you live and to give most humble and hearty thanks unto God who hath made an end of this Article and brought Arundel and Bray to that they have deserved that is perpetual shame confusion and death Yet I beâ—seech God so to extend his grace unto them that they may dy wel which have lived il Amen NUM XLI The Archbishops notes for an Homily against the Rebellion Sentences of the Scripture against Sedition 1 Cor. 3. CUM sit inter vos zelus contentio nonne carnales estis sicut homines ambulatis Et 1 Cor. 6. Quare non magis injuriam accipitis Quare non magis fraudem patimini Iac. 3. Si zelum amarum habetis contentiones sint in cordibus vestris c. non est ista Sapientia desursum descendens a Patre Luminum sed terrena animalis Diabolica Ubi enim zelus contentio ibi inconstantia omne opus malum c. Et Cap. 4. Unde bella lites inter vos Nonne ex concupiscentijs vestris quae m ilitant in membris vestris How God hath plagued Sedition in time past Num. 18. Dathan and Abiram for ther sedition against Moses and Aaron did miserably perish by Gods just judgment the earth opening and swallowing them down quick 2 Reg. 15. 18. Absalom moving Sedition against David did miserably perish likewise 2 Reg. 20. Seba for his Sedition against David lost his head 3 Reg. 1. 2. Adonias also for his Sedition against Solomon was slain Acts 8. Iudas and Theudas for their Sedition were justly slain Acts 21. An Egyptian likewise which moved the people of Israel to Sedition received that he
I restored to name and bloud And herein her G. doth know what extreme injustice hath been done to me and al our house And touching my person what ever was done that could be layd against me why I should be ashamed which never thought nor did in that cause I was banished for but that wherby I deserved rather great reward then any pain being so given with heart and mind to the Kings honor and wealth both of him and his realm that with no reward that was offered me great the King himself could not persuade me to do or sentence any thing against his honor and the wealth of the realm and to his damnation Here is al the cause why I suffered banishment with so great loss of those kinsfolks that were dearer to me then my life And this being done by consent of the Parlament though I doubt not against their mind the Parlament is bound afore God and man to revoke me again and especially now coming with extraordinary Commission that bringeth the establishment of your Graces Crown to the comfort of the whole realm both temporally and spiritually And this her G. may boldly say of al the time of my exile wherin God hath given me honor more then I did require or would have had if it had layn in my own choise and goods sufficient to maintain my state if ever it should be found that for any respect of persons for ambition pleasure or lucre I swarved from that I judged the honor of God and in matters of my Country from the wealth therof I am content not only to be excepted at this time but perpetually to be banished But if they prove al the contrary and that with the King your Father not only as a faithful subject but with that love also that no servant could shew to his master more nor son to his father I shewed ever to exteame more his honor and wealth then mine own goods or Country and never procured other then the wealth of the same then let them believe now that I never would come unto them after so many years absence your G. bearing the crown with other Commission than that I know surely should be to the honor comfort and wealth of your G. and the whole Country And so touching this point of my counsil that her G. requireth of me here ye have explicated how the whole matter wherin my counsil is required may be concluded For otherwise at this time I se not what might be taken nor can imagine no other so good as this way Which me seemeth God hath ordered should be taken and preferred above al other After this ye shal shew her G. if this way be not followed or deferred what I most fear And this is first that the Popes Holines being already persuaded to graunt to the stay of my journey contrary to his first Commission when her G. shewed more fervency to receive the obedience of the Church that the next Commission I shal have shal be to return back into Italy again And the cause why I fear this is that the Pope shal think by offering to her G. and the Realm al those graces that do pertain to the reconciliation of both to the church when he seeth it is not accepted with that promptnes it is offered he shal think that both afore God and man he hath satisfied al that could be required of him touching the demonstration of his paternal affection to her G. and the realm In the which the College of Cardinals peradventure wil judge that his Sanctity hath been over much bountiful especially when they hear of this my staying being made without their consent Which they wil ever take for a great indignity hearing no greater nor more urgent cause therof then hitherto hath been shewed and knowing how her G. cannot maintain her Right nether afore God nor man without having recourse to his Holines and to the See Apostolic and of whose Authority and Dispensation the whole right of her cause doth depend as some of them then would have had his Holines at the beginning not to have sent his Legate until he had been required and much more now after he hath sent and he not accepted they wil al be of opinion that he shal be revoked And then what peril both her G. and the whole realm standeth in by the reason of the Schism yet remaining it is manifest of it self And yet this is not al my fear of my revocation but that which may follow that I fear more Which is this that wheras now if I had been accepted with that promptnes and sincere affect as I was sent of the Popes Holines and that I brought with me my Person I trust should have brought more comfort to her Highnes and the rest of the Country then any stranger as the Popes Holines thought when he made me Legate so now on the contrary for the self same circumstances and causes that pertain to my Person not being accepted it shal more aggravate the cause at all times that the Realm hereafter should require to be absolved of the Schism and al other that would seek to prevail against her Graces title by the reason of the Schism for the self cause that I was not accepted returning again to Rome would take this for a great proof of the obstinate enduring in the same which al divine lawes doth most condemn So that my Person I desiring nothing more then to bring comfort to her and the realm not accepted shal be cause of more discomfort which as I say God of his mercy forbid Expounded under this maner my fear which stondeth in my revocation not for my self but for the domage that may come to her Majesty and the realm therby the same being very likely if my stay be deferred ony longer space knowing that his Holines and the College wil not suffer such indignity then you may declare withal the remedies that I thought best to be used at this time to avoyd this inconveniency And herein you may shew how the first Remedy is that the Pope and the College of Cardinals be wel persuaded that my stay here is but for a smal time and for to bring a more sure conclusion and to make the way more plain as I have caused the Popes Holines to be informed by a servant of mine sent by post shewing the tenor of the bil her G. wrote Herrye my servant Wherin was conteined that her Highnes shortly trusted that the matters of the Parlament should have that conclusion that I most desired And upon this hope that messenger had to shew his Holines that I had sent my stuf afore towards Flaunders and now also for confirmation of that hope I have sent a part of my company afore to tarry me there So that this you may say is the first remedy I can find to keep the Pope and the College in hope of a brave and good resolution One other chief Remedy is because I
Istorum Authorum Maxime Memorabile sit quonam in pretio apud Eruditos seniper Habiti Fuerunt Opera Thomae Pope-Blunt Baronâ—iti Fol. V. Cl. Gulielmi Camdeni Illustrium Vâ—rorum ad G. Camdenum Epistolâ—e cum Appendice Varii Argumenti Accesserunt Annalitita Regni Regis Jacobi I. Apparatus Commentarius de Antiquitate Dignitate Officio Comitis Marescali Angliae Praemittitur G Camdeni Vita Scriptore Thoma â—mitho S.T.D. Ecclesiae Anglicanae Presbytero 4to Some Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont By Peter Allix D D Treasurer of Sarum 4to his Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical â—istory of the Ancient Churches of the Albigenses 4to A Vindication of Their Majesties Authority to fill the Sees of the Deprived Bishops in a Letter occasioned by Dr. B 's Refusal of the Bishoprick of Bath and Wells 4to A Discourse concerning the Unreasonableness of a New Separation on Account of the Oâ—ths to the Present Government With an Answer to the History of Passive Obedience so far as relates to them 4to A Vindication of the said Discourse concerning the Unreâ—â—â—nablenâ—ss of a New Separation from the Exceptions made against it in a Tract called A Brief Answer to the said Discourse c 4to Geologia Or â— Discourse concerning the Earth before the Deluge wherein the Form and Properties ascribed to it in a Book entituled The Theory of the Earth are expected against and it is made appear That the Dissolution of that Earth was not the Cause of the Universal Flood Also a new Explication of that Flood is attempted By Erasmus Warren Rector of Worlington in Suffolk 4to The Present State of Germany By a Person of Quality 8vo Memoirs relating to the Royal Navy of England for Ten Years determined December 1688. By Samuel Pâ—pys Esq 8 vo Memoirs of what past in Christendom from the War begun 1672. to the Peace concluded 1679. 8vo Disquisitiones Criticâ— de Variis per Diversa Loâ—a tempora Bibliorum Editionibus Quibus Accedâ—â—t Castigatiâ—nes Theologi Cujusdam Parificusis ad Opasculum Is. Vossii de Sybillinis Oraculis Ejusdâ—m Responsiâ—â—em ad Objectiones nâ—perâ—e Critica Sacra 4to Aâ—glâ—a Sacra sive Collectio Historiarum Auâ—â—quitâ—s Scriptarum de Archicpiscopis Episcopis Angliae a prima Fidâ—i Christianae susceptione ad Annum 1540. in Duobus Volaminâ—bus per Henricum Whartonum Fol. Jacobi Usserii Armachani Archipiscopi Historia Dogmatica Controversiae inter Orthodoxos Pontificios de scripturis Socris Vernaculis nunc Primâ—â—n Edita Accâ—sserunt â—jâ—sdem Dissertationes duâ—e de Pseudo-Dionysii scriptis de Epistola ad Lacdicâ—os antâ—â—ac mediâ—ae Discripsis Digâ—ssit noris atqâ—e Aâ—â—lavio Loâ—â—pleâ—avit Henricus Wharton A. M. Rev in Christo Pat. ac Dom. Archiepisc. Can 〈◊〉 a sacris Domesticâ—s 4to 1690. Sâ—â—iptorum Eâ—clesiasticorum Historia Literaria a Christo nato uâ—que ad sâ—â—ndran xiv facili methodo 〈…〉 de Vito Illorâ—â—â—â— as Reâ—us G. siis de 〈◊〉 Dogmatibus Elogio Stylo de Scriptis Geâ—â—â—â—is 〈◊〉 Suppositâ—tiis meditis Deperduis Fragmentis Deque Varsis Opâ—rion Editimubus perspâ—eue Agitur Accâ—dunt Scriptores Gentiles Christâ—â—ae Religionis Oppugnatores Cujusvis Sâ—eculi Brevâ—arian Inserusitâ—r sais Lo is Vâ—tâ—vâ—m aliquot Opuscula Fragmenta tum Graecâ—â—an Lativa 〈…〉 Praenussa demque Prolegomena qâ—â—buâ— plurima ad Antiqâ—â—tatis Ecclesiasticae Studium 〈…〉 Opuâ— indicibus necesâ—arus Iâ—structum Authore Gulielmo Cave SS Theol Proj â— Canoniâ—o Windesoâ—ensi Accedit ab Alia manu Appâ—ndix ab meunte Secula xiv ad Annum usque MDXVII Fol. Rusâ—worth 's Historical Collections The Third Part in Two Volumes Containing the Principal Mâ—tters which happened from the Meeting of the Parliament Nov. 3. 1640. to the end of the Year 1644. Wherein is a particular Account of the Rise and Progress of the Civil War to that Period Fol. A Discourse of the Pastoral Câ—re By Gilbert Burnâ—t Lord Bishop of Sarum 1692. Dr. 〈◊〉 Conant 's Sermons 1693. A Discourse of the Government of the Thoughâ—â— By Geo. Tully Sub-Dean of York 8vo 1694. Origo 〈◊〉 Or a Treatise of the Origine of Laws and their Obliging Power as also oâ— their great Variety and why some Laws are immutable and some not but may suffer change or cease to be or be suspended or abrogated In Seven Books By George Dawson Fol. 1694. In his Three Conversions E Foxij MSS. In his Protestation to the whole Church of England Pag. 418. Edit 1672. Life of Iohn Fox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Mac. III. 7. Parsons Three Conversions Part 3. p. 84. Acts and Mon. Vol. I. p. 532. Edit 1610. In his Antiq. of Canterb. Anno 1489 1503 1511 1516 1523 1529 1530 Anno 1530. Anno 1530 1531 1532. Anno 1532 1533. Anno 1533. Anno. 1534. Anno 1534. Anno 1535. Anno 1535. Anno 1536. Anno 1536. Anno 1536. Anno 1537. Anno 1537. Anno 1537. Anno 1537. Anno 1538. Anno 1538. Anno 1538 1539. Anno 1540. Anno 1540. Anno 1540. Anno 1541. Anno 1542. Anno 1543. Anno 1543. Anno 1543. Anno 1543 1544 Anno 1544. Anno 1545 1546. Anno 1546. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1548. Anno 1548. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1551. Anno 1551. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Annâ— 1552. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1553. Anno 1553. Anno 1553. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1553. Annâ— 1553. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1553. Anno 1553. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1554. Anno 1554. Annâ— 1554. Anno 1554. Anâ—â— 1554. Anno 1554. Annâ— 1554. Anno 1555. Anno 1555. Anno 1555. Annâ— 1555. Anno 1555. Hist. Reform Vol. I. p. 274. †Acts and Mon. first Edit p. 815 A worthy Work to revive his Memory His Family Anno 1489. Account of his younger Years Life of Cranm. in the MSS. C.C.C.C. Sent to Cambridg An. 1503. Life of Cranm. inter Foxii MSS. Anno 1511. Anno 1516. Sets himself to study the Scripture Anno 1519. Is made Doctor of Divinity An. 1523. Marries Refuses to go to Wolsey's College Oxon. He is made one of the University Examiners The King 's great Cause first proposed to the Universities The Occasion of his Rise His Opinion of the King's Cause Life of Cranmer in theMSS C.C.C.C. The King sends for him Anno 1529. Sutably placed with the Earl of Ormond Epist. 19. li. 27. Impensius gratulor tuae soelicitati quod homini potenti Lalco Aulico perspiciam etiam sacraâ— Literas â—sse cordi teque nobiliâ— illius Margaretae desiderio tenâ—ri Epist. 34. lib. 29. Friendshipand Correspondence between the Earl and Cranmer Anno 1530. A Providence in his being placed here Cranmer Disputes at Cambridg
MS. Life of Cranmer Grows dear to the King and his Court. Liâ—e of Henr. 8. p. 375. An. 1530. Pole's Book against the King's Dissolving his Marriage Cranmer perâ—â—ses it His account of it Cranmer's Censure thereof Num. 1. He is employed in Ambassies To the Pope Offers him a Dispute in Favour of the King's Cause Hist. Refor P. 1. p. 89. To the Emperor Life of Cran. inter Foxii MSS. An. 1531. Hist. Luther Per Seckendorf Cornelius Agrippa gained by Cranmer to the King's Cause Becomes acquainted with Osiander Multa graviter multa sapienter â—c planâ— divinitus dâ— Christiana doctrina ac vera religione disputares In Ep. Dedicat. ante Harmon Evangel And marries his Kinswoman An. 1532. Treats with the Emperor about the Contract of Traffick And about sending Suplies against thâ— Turk Sends the King the News in those Parts And the Proclamation for a General Council Sleid. Comment And the Tax of the States of the Empire N o II. He goes in an Embassy to the Duke of Saxony and other Protestant Princes Hist. Lutheranism per Seckendors Seckendorf ubâ— supra Made Arch-Bishop of Canterbury His Dignities before he was Arch-Bishop Arch-Bishop Warham foretells a Thomas to succeed him Arch-Bishop Warham for the King's Supremacy Aâ—t Brit. Cranmer's Testimony of Warham A reflection upon a Passage relating to Cranmer in Harpsfield's History Antiq. of Cant. Cranmer tries to evade the Arch-Bishoprick Declares the reason thereof to the King The Arch-bishop's Brother is made Arch-deacon of Canterbury Somner Hist. of Cant. p. 322. ex lib. Eccles. Cant. The King linked Cranmer with him in all his proceedings about Q Katharine Anno 1532. Sept. 21. Append. N o III. Rex D. Annam Bullenam Thoma Cranmero sacra Ministrante Vxorem duxit The King and the Arch-bishop appeal from the Pope to a General Council The King writes to Dr. Bonner in that behalf No. IV. An. 1533. The Arch-Bishop is consecrated The Pope's Bulls The Arch-Bishop surrenders them to the King The Method of the Consecration De Minister p. 154. No. V. No. VI. The Arch-Bishop's Oath for the Temporalties No. VII The Arch-bishop pronounceth the Divorce The Arch-bishop's Judgment of the Marriage Vol. I. Collect. p. 95. The Arch-bishop forbids preaching Foxii MSS. Visits his Diocess August Monks Journal The Delusion of a Nun in Kent The Arch-bishop appeals from the Pope The Arch-bishop's Letter to Bonner Cleopat E. 6. Disputes in thé Parliament against the Pope's Supremacy Life of Cranm. inter Foxii MSS. Licences for Chappels Cran. Reg An. 1534. The Arch-Bishop labours the Reformation of the Church What he did this Convocation No. VIII A Book for preaching and the Beads Dispersed by the Arch-bishop to all the Bishops The Arch-bishop of York preaches at York The Clergy and Universities subscribe against the Pope Cleopat E. 6. p. 208. Page 458. Cranmer and others administer the Oath of Succession to the Clergy And to Sir Thomas More who refused it Sir Thomas More 's Letters Cranmer's Argument with him More offers to swear to the Succession it self Bishop Fisher offers the same No. IX No. X. The Arch-bishop writes to Crumwel in their behalf The Arch-bishop's endeavour to save the Lives of More Fisher. No. XI A Premunire brought agâ—â—nst Bishop Nix Cotton Libraâ— Cleop. F. 1. The Arch-bishop visitâ— this Bishop's See Cranmer's Reg. The Bishop of Norwich a Peâ—secutor An. 1535. No. XII Goodrick Lee and Salcot consecrated Bishops An. 1535. The Arch-bishop preaches up the King's Supremacy at Canterbury A Prior preaches against him Whom he convents before him The Arch-bishop acquaints the King with the matter No. XIII A Provincial Visitation Winchester herein opposeth him The ABp's vindication of his title of Primateâ— No. XIV The Bp of London refuseth his Visitation No. XV. And protests â—gainst him Cranmer sends him a part of the New Testament to translate And his Answer â—â—xii MSS. â—â—wney's Jest upon Sâ—okesly Who this Lawney was Monasteriâ—â— visited The ABp for their Dissolution Hist. Râ—â— P. â— p. 189 190. No. XVI The Visitors Informations Second Sermon Bishops Diocesan and Suffragan consecrated Suffragan Bps usual in the Realm Ex Regist. ABp Courtney Hist. Reâ— Coll. p. 148. Godwin's Catal. Ath. Oxonien Bishops without Title Sumner's Antiq. of Cant. Nic. Shaxton Edward Fox William Barlow George Brown A Memorial of the good Services of ABp Brown in Ireland Life and Death of Geo. Brown printed in Dublin Tho. Mannyng Regist. Cran. An. 1536. Iohn Salisbury An. 1536. The ABp's Audience Court struck at The Abp. defends it No. XVII The ABp promoting a Reformation in the Convocation Articles published and recommended by the King Life Hen. VIII p. 466. The Original thereof Book V. p. 213. Addenda to the Collection Num. 1. The Original sent into the North to shew to the Rebels The Contents of them Articles of Faith Articles relating to Ceremonies A Conjecture that the Pen of the ABp was here Two remarkable Books published I. The Book of Articles II. A Book against the Pope called the Bishop's Book Herbert's Life of K. Henry p. 418. Certain Cases of Matrimony put to the ABp His Solution Refuseth to grant a Dispensation for the Marriage of a Relation Cleopatra E. 5. His Letter thereupon Vid. Fox Acts p. 960. He restrain the Number of Proctors Which some complain of to the Parliament No. XVIII The ABp divorseth Queen Ann. Life of King Henry p. 446. A Licencâ—â—or a Chappel Cran. Regist. Bucer dedicates this Year a Book to the ABp Bishops Consecrated Rich. Sampson Cran. Regist. William Rugg Godwin's Catal. Rob. Warton Cran. Regist. An. 1537. The Bishops Book by the ABp's means Winchester's opposition Fox MS. Life of Cranmer The King makes Animadversionâ— upon it Cleopatra â— 5. Published How esteem'd Inter Foxii MSS. Enlarged and reprinted Ld. Herb. Hist. p. 418. Ibid. p. 408. Bale's Cent. Some Account of the foresaid Book Defence of Priests Mar. p. 226. Names of the Composers Goes down into his Diocess Gets a Licence to visit Pag. 472. The Vicar of Croydon The ABp visits his Diocess What course he took for the preventing of Superstition No. XIX His joy at the publishing the English Bible Presents one by Crumwel to the King Cleopatra E. 5. p. 329. Cransmer's Letters to Crumwel Cleopatra E. 6. p. 292. Some further Particulars concerning this Edition of the Bible The Printer's thanks and requests to Crumwel Graâ—ton to Crumwel Clâ—opatra E. 5. The Printer apprehensive of another Edition Other Requests of the Printer No. XX. The Feast of S. Thomas c. forbid August Monks Journal Rob. Holgate Consecrated Bp. Iohn Bird Lewis Thomaâ— Some account of Bird. Lord Herbert's Hist. Hen. 8. Fox's Acts. Tho. Morley Rich. Yngworth No. XXI No. XXII Vol. I. Collect. 51. Book 2. Ioh. Thornton Suffragan See Sumner's Hist. Cant. Append p. 423. Rich. Thornden· Iohn Hodgkin Henry Holbeach An. 1538. The ABp reads upon the Hebrews A Declaration for reading the Bible No. XXIII The Bible received and read with
Fox Becomes Reader of the Civil Law at Oxon. Ath. Oxoniensâ— The ABp a Patron to Learned Foreigners To Erasmus allowing him an Honorary Pension Eras. Ep. 10. lib. 27. Ep. 7. lib. 27. To Alexander Aless a Scotch-man By him Melancthon sends a Book to the ABp And to the King Aless brought by Cromwel into the Convocation Where he asserts two Sacraments only Writes a Book to clear Protestants of the Charge of Schism Atrox Schismatis crimen Ep. 36. lib. 1. Satis excusat nos istorum horribilis crudelitas quam proâ—ecto nâ—que adjuvare neque approbare debemus Ubi supra Translated a Book of Bucer's about the English Ministry Received into Crumwel's Family Hist. Res. P.I. p. 308. Aless Professor of Divinity at Leipzig Mâ—l Ep. p. 3â—9 Edit 1647 Cum in Templis in Scholis doctrinam gabernes Mel. Ep. 111. lib. 3. Four others recommended by Melancthon to the ABp Viz. Gualter Dryander Ep. 7. lib. 3. Dryander placed at Oxon. Ad Ann. 1555. Eusebius Menius Mel. Ep. 66. lib. 1. Iustus Ionas Sleid. lib. 7. Ep. 129. lib. 1. No. XCII Divers memorable Passages between Melancthon and our ABp Sends Melancthon certain publick Disputations in Oxford and Cambridg Melancthon's Reflections thereupon Ep. 41. lib. 3. Sends the ABp his Enarration upon the Nicene Creed The beginning of their Acquaintance The ABp propounds a weighty Matter to Melancthon for the Union of all Protestant Churches The Diligence of the ABp in forwarding this Design Ep. 66. lib. 1. Melancthon's Judgment and Approbation thereof His Caveat of avoiding ambiguous Expressions In Ecclesia rectius est Scapham Scaphâ—m diceâ—e Renews the same Caution in another Letter Peter Martyr of this Judgment Quod Vir bonus sibi pâ—rsuasisset posse hac ratione tolli gravem quae est de hac causa Controversiam ita Ecclâ—siae pacem diâ— desideratam restitui In Vit. P. Mart. per Iosiam Sinlerâ—m Iosiaâ— Simâ—â— What Melancthon thought of the Doctrinâ— of Fate Calv. Ep. 12â— The ABp breaks his Purpose also to Calvin Calvin's Approbation thereof and Commendation of the ABp Offers his Service Excites the ABp to proceed This excellent Purpose frustrated Thinks of drâ—wing up Articles of Religion for the English Church Which he communicates to Calvin Ep. 125. And Calvin's Reply and Exhortation Blames him for having not made more Progress in the Reformation But not justly The Clergy preach against Sacriledg The University-Men declaim against it in the School And the Redress urged upon some at Court No. XCIII Calvin sends Letters and certain of his Books to the King Ep. 123. Well taken by the King and Council What the ABp told the Messenger hereupon Ep. 120. P. Martyr and the ABp cordial Friends The use the ABp made of him Ep. 127. Martyr saw the Voluminous Writings and Marginal Notes of the Arch-bishop Two Letters of Martyr from Oxford N. XCIV.XCV An instance of his Love to the Arch-bishop P. Martyr Ep. Theolog. The ABp's favour to Iohn Sleidan Procures him a Pension from the King The Paiment neglected Sleidan labours with the ABp to get the Pension confirmed by Letters Patents Sends his Commentaries to the King Designs to write the History of the Council of Trent For the King's Use. Anno 1553. Sends the King a Specimen thereof In order to the proceeding with his Commentaries desires Cecyl to send him the whole Action between K. H. VIII and P. Clement VII Bâ—cer writes to Câ—cyl in behalf of Slâ—idan No. XCVI XCVII.XCVIII.XCIX.C.CI.CII Feb. 27. 1551. Scriptae Anglic. Iohn Leland His Wives and Children His Wife survived him Sincere and modist Defence of English Catholicks MS. Life of Cranmer in Benet College Divers Cranmers Cranm. Regist. Suâ—â—er's Ant. Philpot 's Villar Cantian The AB's Stock Aslacton Whatton The Rectories whereof the ABp purchased His Chaplains Rowland Taylor His Epitaph A Sermon preached the Day after his Burning Inter Foxii MSS. Wherein the Martyr is grosly Slandered Iohn Ponet Stow. Tho. Becon Rich. Harman Rob. Watson the ABp's Steward His Secretary Ralph Morice His Parentage Well known to divers eminent Bishops Presents Turner to Chartham And stands by him in his Troubles for his faitâ—â—ul Preaching An Instance of the ABp's Kindness to this his Secretary Morice his Suit to Q. Elizabeth for a Pension His second Suit to the Queen to confirm certain Lands descended to him from his Father No. CIII He was Register to the Commissioners in K. Edward's Visitation Suffered under Q. Mary Morice supplied Fox with many material Notices in his Book Morice a cordial Friend to Latimer Fox Morice's Declaration concerning the ABp His Temperance of Nature His Carriage towards hiâ— Enemies Severe in his Behaviour towards offending Protestants Stout in God's or the King's Cause * Viz. The Erudition of a Christen Man The King sides with Cranmer against all the Bishops His great Ability in answering the King's Doubts Cranmer studied three parts of the Day Would speak to the King when none else durst Lady Mary Q. Katharine Howard His Hospitality Falsly accused of ill House-keeping The preserving the Bishops Revenues owing to the ABp The ABp vindicated about his Leases By long Leases he saved the Revenues Justified from diminishing the Rents of the See Otford Knol Curleswood Chislet-Park Pasture and Meddow Woods Corn. The best Master towards his Servants An Infamy that he was an Hostler Observations upon the ABp His Learning very profound His Library An excellent Bishop His Care of his own Diocess In the Benet-Library At the great Towns he preached often Affected not his high Stiles His diligence in reforming Religion Before his Treatise of Fasting Puts K. Henry upon a Purpose of reforming many things As long as Q. Ann T. Crumwel Bp Cranmer Mr. Denny Dr. Butts with such-like were about him and could prevail with him What Organ of Christ's Glory did more good in the Church than he As is apparent by such Monuments Instruments and Acts set forth by him in setting up the Bible in the Church in exploding the Pope with his vile Pardons in removing divers superstitious Ceremonies in bringing into order the inordinate Orders of Friars and Sects in putting Chantrey Priâ—sts to their Pensions in permitting white Meats in Lent in â—estroying Pilgrimage-Worship in abbrogating idle and superstitious Holy-days both by Acts Publick and by private Letters to Bóner Acts Monum p. 1147. a. Edit 1610. The King again purposeth a Reformation His Influence upon K. Edward A great Scripturist Ea verae Religionis cura apud Josiam nostrum imprimis Cantuariensem universum Concilium regium excubat ut in nulla re aequè laboratum sit quam ut Religionis tum Doctrina tum Disciplina ex Sacrarum Literarum Fonte purissimè bauriatur ut sentina illa Romana qua tot humanae Sordes in Ecclâ—siam Christi redâ—ndârunt sunditus obstruâ—tur Procures the publishing the English Bible The Bishops oppose it Defence of the EnglishTranslat Ch. 1. p. 4. Edit 1583. The first