much at once upon the People it was thought sit to smooth the way to the intended Reformation by setting out some Preparatory Injunctions such as the King might publish by his own Authority according to the example of His Royal Father in the year 1536. and at some times after This to be done by sending out Commissioners into all parts of the Kingdom armed with Instructions to enquire into all Ecclesiastical Concernments in the manner of a Visitation directed by the King as Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England Which Commissioners being distributed into several Circuits were accompanied with certain Learned and Godly Preachers appointed to instruct the People and to facilitate the work of the Commissioners in all Towns and Places where they fate And that the People might not cool or fall off again in and from that which had been taught them by the Learned Preachers they were to leave some Homilies to the same effect with the Parish-Priest which the Arch-Bishop had composed not onely for the help of unpreaching Ministers but for the regulating and instructing even of Learned Preachers Which Injunctions being agreed upon by such of the Great Council as favoured the Design of the Reformation and the Commissions drawn in due form of Law by the Counsel learned they were all tendered to the Lord Chancellour Wriothsley that the Authority of the Great Seal might be added to them Which he who was not to be told what these matters aimed at refused to give consent unto and so lost the Seal committed as before is said to the Custody of the Lord Great Master by whom the said Commissions were dispatched and the Visitours thereby Authorised in due form of Law And here it is to be observed that besides the Points contained in the said Injunctions the Preachers above-mentioned were more particularly instructed to perswade the People from Praying to the Saints from making Prayers for the dead from Adoring of Images from the use of Beads Ashes and Processions from Mass Diriges Praying in unknown Languages and from some other such like things whereunto long Custome had brought a Religious Observation All which was done to this intent That the People in all places being prepared by little and little might with more ease and less opposition admit the total Alteration in the face of the Church which was intended in due time to be introduced Now as for the Injuctions above-mentioned although I might exemplifie them as they stand at large in the First Edition of the Acts and Monuments fol. 684. yet I shall choose rather to present them in a smoother Abstract as it is done unto my hand by the Church-Historian the Method of them onely altered in this manner following That all Ecclesiastical Persons observe and cause to be observed the Laws for the abolishing the pretended and usurped Power of the Bishop of Rome and Confirmation of the King's Authority and Supremacy and four times in the year at the least that they teach the People That the one was now justly taken away according to the word of God and that the other was of most Legal Duty onely to be obeyed by all the Subjects That once a Quarter at the least they sincerely declare the Word of God disswading the People from Superstitious Fancies of Pilgrimages Praying to Images c. exhorting them to the Works of Faith Mercy and Charity 3. And that Images abused with Pilgrimages and Offerings thereunto be forthwith taken down and destroyed and that no more Wax-Candles or Tapers be burnt before any Image but onely two lights upon the High Altar before the Sacrament shall remain still to signifie That Christ is the very Light of the World That every Holy-Day when they have no Sermon the Pater-Noster Credo and Ten Commandments shall be plainly recited in the Pulpit to the Parishioners 5. And that Parents and Masters bestow their Children and Servants either to Learning or some honest Occupation That within three Moneths after this Visitation the Bible of the Larger Volume in English and within twelve Moneths Erasmus his Paraphrases on the Gospels be provided and conveniently placed in the Church for the People to read therein 20. And that every Ecclesiastical Person under the Degree of a Batchelour of Divinity shall within three Moneths after this Visitation provide of his own The New Testament in Latine and English with Erasmus his Paraphrases thereon And that Bishops by themselves and their Officers shall Examine them how much they have profited in the study of Holy Scripture That such who in Cases express'd in the Statute are absent from their Benefices leave Learned and expert Curates to supply their places 14. That all such Ecclesiastical Persons not resident upon their Benefices and able to dispend yearly xx pounds and above shall in the presence of the Church-Wardens or some other honest men distribute the fourtieth part of their Revenues amongst the poor of the Parish 15. And that every Ecclesiastical Person shal give competent Exhibition to so many Scholars in one of the Universities as they have hundred pounds a year in Church-Promotions That a fifth part of their Benefices be bestowed on their Mansion-Houses or Chancels till they be fully repaired 8. And that no Ecclesiastical Persons haunt Ale-houses or Taverns or any place of unlawfull Gaming That they Examine such as come to Confession in Lent whether they can recite their Credo Pater-Noster and Ten Commandments in English before they receive the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar or else they ought not to presume to come to God's Board That none be admitted to Preach except sufficiently Licenced 11. That if they have heretofore extolled Pilgrimages Reliques Worshipping of Images c. they now openly recant and reprove the same as a Common Errour groundless in Scripture 12. That they detect and present such who are Lettours of the Word of God in English and Fautours of the Bishop of Rome his pretended Power That no Person from henceforth shal alter any Fasting-day or manner of Common-Prayer or Divine Service otherwise then is specified in these Injuâ—ctions untill otherwise Ordered by the King's Authority 21. And that in time of High Mass he that sayeth or singeth a Psalm shall read the Epistle and Gospel in English and one Chapter in the New Testament at Mattens another at Even-song And that when nine Lessons are to be read in the Church three of them shal be omitted with Responds And at the Even-song the Responds with all the Memories By which last word I understand the Anniversary Commemoration of deceased Persons on the day of their deaths which frequently were expressed by the name Obits That every Dean Arch-Deacon c. being a Priest Preach by himself personally every year at least 27. That they Instruct their People not obstinately to violate the Ceremonies of the Church by the King Commanded to be observed and not as yet abrogated And on the other side that whosoever doth Superstitiously abuse them doth
Englanâ— by Thomas Bolâ—n Viscount Rochford at his return from the Frenâ—h Court where he had been Ambassador for the King of England which firâ—t occasioned areport in the common people and afterwaâ—ds a mistake in our common Chronicles touching this Ladie 's being designed by Wolsie for a wife to his Master whereas she was at that time actually married to the Count of Aâ—bret King of Navarre in title and in title only But Rochford brought with him out of France another Piece which more excelled the picture of the Dutchesse of Alanzâ—n then that Dutchesse did the ordinary beauties in the Court of France that is to say his daughter Anne whom he had bred up for a time in the house of the Dutchesse which render'd her an exact mistresse of the gaities and garb of the great French Ladies Appearing in the Court of England she shewed her selfe with so many advantages above all other Ladies about the Queen that the King easily took notice of her Whether more captivated by the Allurements of her beauty or the facetiousnesse of her behaviour it is hard to say certain it is that he suffered himselfe to be so far transpoâ—ted in affection towards her that he could think of nothing else but what might tend to the accomplishment of his desires so that the separation from the bed of Katherine which was but coldly followed upon case of Conscience is now more hotly prosecuted in the heat of Concupiscâ—nce In the mean time the King adviseth with the Cardinal and the Cardinal with the most learned men in the Realm of England By whom it was modestly resolved that the King had a very just ground to consult the Pope and to 〈…〉 lawful means for extricating himselfe out of those perplexities in which this marriage had involved him The Pope had been beholden to the King for procuring his liberty when the Imperialists held him prisoner in the Fort of St Angelâ— and was in reason bound to gratifie him for so great a benefit But then withall he neither was to provoke the Emperour nor hazard the Authority and Reputation of the See Apostolick by running on the King's errand with more haâ—te then speed He therefore goes to work like a Pope of Rome and entertains the King with hopes without giving the Emperour and his adherents any cause of despair A Commission is therefore granted to two Cardinals that is to say Cardinal Thomas Wolsiâ— Archbishop of York and Laurene Campâ—gius whom Henry some few years before had made Bishop of Saâ—isbury both beneficiaries to the King and therefore like enough to consult more his interest then the Queen's contentment Of the erecting of a Court Lâ—gantâ—ne in the Convent of the Black Friers in London the citing of the King and Queen to appear before them the Kings patheticall Oration in the bemoaning of his own misfortunes and the Queen's Appeal from the two Cardinals to the Pope I shall now say nothing leaving the Reader for those passages to our common Annals Suffice in this place to note that while the businesse went on favourable in the King's behalfe Wolsie was given to understand of his desperate loves to Mistrisse Bollen which represented to him two ensuing mischiefs not to be otherwise avoided then by slackning the course of these proceedings For first he saw that if the King should be divorc'd definitively from his present wife he should not be able to draw him to accept of Madam Rhenee the French Queens sister which was the mark he chiefly aimed at And secondly he feared that Mistrisse Anne had brought so much of the Lutheran with her as might in time become destructive to the Church of Rome Of this he certifies the Pope the Pope recals Campegius and revokes his Commission leaving the King to cast about to some new wayes to effect his purpose And at this time it hapned that Dr Thomas Cramâ—er who afterwards obtained to the See of Canterbury discoursing with some of the Kings Ministers about the intricaâ—enesse and perplexity of this great affair declared for his opinion in it that it were better for the King to govern himselfe therein by the judgement and determination of the Universities beyond the seas then to depend upon the shifts and Artifices of the Court of Rome Which being told unto the King he dispatcheth Cramner unto Rome in the company of Rochford now made Earl of Wilâ—shire to maintain the King's cause by disputation and at the same time employs his agents to the Universities of France and Italy who being under the command of the French King or the power of the Pope gave sentence in behalfe of Henry condemning his marriage with the Lady Katherine the Relict of his brother to be simply unlawful in it selfe and therefore not to be made valid by a dispensation from the Popes of Rome The putting the King upon this course proved the fall of Wolsiâ— who growing every day lesse then other in the King's esteem was brought within 〈◊〉 compasse of a Pramunire and thereby stript of all his goods to an infinite value removed not long after unto York and there arrested of High Treason by the Earl of Northumberland and committed to the custody of Sir William Kingston being then Lievtenant of the Tower By whom conducted towards London he departed this life in the Abby of Leicester his great heart not being able to endure so many indignities as had been lately put upon him and having cause to fear much worse then his former sufferings But the removing of this Rub did not much smooth the way to the King's desires The Queen's appeal unto the Pope was the greatest difficulty from which since she could not be removed it must be made unprofitable and ineffectual for the time to come And thereupon a Proclamation is set forth on the 19 of September 1530. in these following words viz. The King's Highnesse streightly chargeth and commandeth That no manner of person of what estate degree or condition he or they be of do purchase or attempt to purchase from the Court of Rome or elsewhere nor use nor put in execution divulge or publish any thing heretofore within this year passed purchased or to be purchased hereafter containing matter prejudicial to the High Authority Jurisdiction and prerogative Royal of this his said Reâ—lm or to the lett hinderance or impeachment of his Grace's Noble and Vertuous intended purposes in the premises upon pain of incurring his Highnesse's indignation and imprisonment and farther punishment of their bodies for their so doing at his Graceâ—s pleasure to the dreadful example of all others This was the Prologue to the downfall of the Pope in England seconded by the Kings taking to himselfe the Title â—upream Head of the Churches of England and Ireland acknowledged in the Convocation and confirmed in Parliament and ending finally in an Act intituled An Act for extinguishing the authority of the Bishops of Rome And in all this the King did nothing but what
unto the Church of Saint Peter in Westminster was placed in the Chair of Saint Edward the Confessour in the middest of a Throne seven steps high This Throne was erected near unto the Altar upon a Stage arising with steps on both sides covered with Carpets and Hangings of Arras Where after the King had rested a little being by certain noble Courtiers carried in another Chair unto the four sides of the Stage He was by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury declared unto the People standing round about both by God's and Man's Laws to be the Right and Lawfull King of England France and Ireland and Proclaimed that day to be Crowned Consecrated and Anointed Unto whom He demanded whether they would obey and serve or Not By whom it was again with a loud cry answered God save the King and Ever live his Majesty Which Passage I the rather note because it is observed that at the Coronation of some former Kings The Arch-Bishop went to the four squares of the Scaffold and with a loud voice asked the Consent of the People But this was at such Times and in such Cases only when the Kings came unto the Crown by Disputed Titles for maintainance whereof the Favour and Consent of the people seemed a matter necessary as at the Coronations of King Henry the Fourth or King Richard the Third and not when it devolved upon them as it did upon this King by a Right unquestioned The Coronation was accompanied as the Custome is with a general Pardon But as there never was a Feast so great from which some men departed not with empty bellies so either out of Envy or some former Grudge or for some other cause unknown six Persons were excluded from the taste of this gracious Banquet that is to say the Lord Thomas Howard Duke of Nâ—rfolk a condemned Prisoner in the Tower Edward Lord Courtney eldest Son to the late Marquess of Exeter beheaded in the last times of King Henry the Eight Cardinal Pâ—le one of the Sons of Margaret Countess of Salisbury proscribed by the same King also Doctour Richard Pate declared Bishop of Worcester in the place of Hierome de Nugaticis in the year 1534. and by that Name subscribing to some of the first Acts of the Councel of Trent who being sent to Rome on some Publick Imployment chose rather to remain there in perpetual Exile then to take the Oath of Supremacy at his coming home as by the Laws he must have done or otherwise have fared no better then the Bishop of Rochester who lost his head on the refusal Of the two others Fortescue and Throgmorton I have found nothing but the Names and therefore can but name them onely But they all lived to better times the Duke of Norfolk being restored by Queen Mary to his Lands Liberty and Honours as the Lord Courtney was to the Earldom of Devonshire enjoyed by many of his Noble Progenitours Cardinal Pole admitted first into the Kingdom in the capacity of a Legate from the Pope of Rome and after Cranmer's death advanced to the See of Canterbury and Doctour Pate preferred unto the actual Possession of the See of Worcester of which he formerly had enjoyed no more but the empty Title These Great Solemnities being thus passed over the Grandees of the Court began to entertain some thoughts of a Reformation In which they found Arch-Bishop Cranmer and some other Bishops to be as foreward as themselves but on different ends endeavoured by the Bishops in a pious Zeal for rectifying such thing as were amiss in God's publick Worship but by the Courtiers on an Hope to enrich themselves by the spoil of the Bishopricks To the Advancement of which work the Conjuncture seemed as proper as they could desire For First the King being of such tender age and wholly Governed by the Will of the Lord Protectour who had declared himself a friend to the Lutheran Party in the time of King Henry was easie to be moulded into any form which the authority of Power and Reason could imprint upon Him The Lord Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk and Doctour Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester who formerly had been the greatest Sticklers at the Coâ—ncil-Table in Maintainance of the Religion of the Church of Rome were not long able to support it the one of them being a condemned Prisoner in the Tower as before was said and the other upon some just displeasure not named by King Henry amongst the Councellours of State who were to have the managing of Affairs in His Son's Minoâ—â—ty Bonner then Bishop of London was absent at that time in the Court of the Emperour to whom he had been sent Embassadour by the former King And no professed Champion for the Papacy remained amongst them of whom they had cause to stand in doubt but the new Earl of South-hampton Whom when they were not able to remove from his old Opinions it was resolved to make him less both in Power and Credit so that he should not be able to hinder the pursuit of those Counsels which he was not willing to promote And therefore on the sixth of March the Great Seal was taken from him by the King's Command and for a while committed to the custody of Sir William Pawlet Created Lord St John of Basing and made Great Master of the Houshold by King Henry the Eighth And on the other side it was thought expedient for the better carrying on of the Design not onely to release all such as had been committed unto Prison but also to recall all such as had been forced to abandon the Kingdom for not submitting to the Superstitions and Corruptions of the Church of Rome Great were the Numbers of the first who had their Fetters strucken off by this mercifull Prince and were permitted to enjoy that Liberty of Conscience for which they had suffered all Extremities in His Father's time Onely it is observed of one Thomas Dobbs once Fellow of Saint John's-College in Cambridg condemned for speaking against the Mass and thereupon committed to the Counter in Bread-street that he alone did take a view of this Land of Canaan into which he was not suffered to enter It being so ordered by the Divine Providence that he died in Prison before his Pardon could be signed by the Lord Protectour Amongst the rest which were in number very many those of chief note were Doctour Miles Coverdale after Bishop of Exeter Mr. John Hooper after Bishop of Glocester Mr. John Philpot after Arch-Deacon of Winchester Mr. John Rogers after one of the Prebends of Saint Paul's and many others eminent for their Zeal and Pâ—ety which they declared by preferring a good Conscience before their Lives in the time of Queen Mary But the busâ—nâ—ss was of greater Moment then to expect the coming back of the Learned men who though they came not time enough to begin the work yet did they prove exceeding serviceable in the furtherance of it And therefore neither to lose time nor to press too
French when they were in England the onely two great Charges which we finde Him at in the whole course of His Reign must be inconsiderable It was to no purpose for Him to look too much backward or to trouble Himself with enquiring after the ways and means by which He came to be involved in so great a Debt It must be now his own care and the endeavours of those who plunged Him in it to finde the speediest way for His getting out And first they fall upon a course to lâ—ssen the Expenses of His Court aâ—d Family by suppressing the Tables formerly appointed for young Lords the Masters of the Requests Serjeant at Arms c. which thought it saved some money yet it brought in none In the next place it was resolved to call such Officers to a present and publick Reckoning who either had embezelled any of the Crown Lands or inverted any of the King's Money to their private use On which course they were the more intent because they did both serve the King and content the People but might be used by them as a Scourge for the whipping of those against whom they had any cause of quarrel Amongst which I finde the new Lord Paget to have been fined six thousand pound as before was said for divers Offences of that nature which were charged upon him Bâ—aumont then Master of the Rolls had purchased Lands with the King's Money made longer Leases of some other Crown Lands then he was authorized to do by his Commission and was otherwise guâ—lty of much corrupt and fraudulent dealing For expiating of which Crimes he surrendred all his Lands and Goods to the King and seems to have been well befriended that he sped no worse The like Offences proved against one Whaley one of the King's Receivers for the County of York for which he was punished with the loss of his Offices and adjudged to â—tand to any such Fine as by his Majesty and the Lords of hâ—s Council shouâ—d be set upon him Which manner of proceeding though it be for the most part pleasing to the Common People and profitable to the Common-Wealth yet were it more unto the honour of a Pâ—ince to make choice of such Officers whom He thinks not likely to offend then to sacrifice them to the People and His own Displeasures having thus offended But the main Engine at this time for advancing Money was the speeding of a Commission into all parts of the Realm under pretence of selling such of the Lands Goods of Chanterys c as remained unsold but in plain truth to seize upon all Hangings Altar-Cloths Fronts Parafronts Copes of all sorts with all manner of Plate which was to be found in any Cathedral or Parochial Church To which Rapacity the demolishing of the foâ—mer Altars and placing the Communion Table in the middle of the Quires or Chancels of every Church as was then most used gave a very good hâ—â—t by rendring all such Furnitures rich Plate and other costly Utensils in a manner useless And that the business might be carryed with as much advantage to the King as might be He gave out certain Instâ—uctâ—ons under his Hand by which the Commissioners were to regulate themselves in their Proceedings to the advancement of the service Amongst which pretermitting those which seem to be Preparatoriâ—s onely unto all the rest I shall put down as many as I think material And that being done it shall be left to the Reader 's Judgment whether the King being now in the sixteenth year of his Age were either better studied in his own Concernments or seemed to be worse principled in Maâ—ters which concerned the Church Now the most Material of the said Instructions were these that follow 1. The said Commissioners shall upon their view and survey taken cause due Inventories to be made by Bills or Bookâ— indented of all manner of Goods Plates Jewels Bells and Ornaments as yet remaining or any wise forthcoming and belonging to any Churches Chapels Fraternities or Gilds and one part of the said Inventories to send and return to 〈◊〉 Privy Council and the other to deliver to them in whose hands the said Goods Plate Jewels Bells and Ornaments shall remain to be kept and preserved And thâ—y shall also give good Charge and Order that the same Goods and every part thereof be at all times forthcoming to be answered leaving nevertheless in every Parish-Church or Chapel of common resort one two or more Chalices or Cups according to the multitude of People in every such Church or Chapel and also such other Ornameâ—ts as by their discretion shall seem requisite for the Divine Service in every such place for the time 2. That because Information hath been made that in many Places great quantities of the said Plate Bells Jewels Ornaments hath been embezelled by certain private men contrary to his Majestie 's express Commandment in that behalf the said Commissioners shall substantially and justly enquire and attain the knowledge thereof by whose default the same is or hath been or in whose hands any part of the same is come And in that point the said Commissioners shall have good regard that they attain to certain Names and dwelling Places of every person or persons that hath sold alienated embezelled taken or carryed away or of such also as have counselled advised and commanded any part of the said Goods Plate Jewels Bells Vestments and Ornaments to be taken or carryed away or otherwise embezelled And these things they shall as certainly and duly as they can cause to be searched and understood 3. That upâ—n full search and enquiry thereof the said Commissioners four or three of them shall cause to be called before them all such persons by whom any of the said Goods Plate Jewels Bells Ornaments or any other the Premises have been alienated embezelled and taken away or by whose means and procurement the same or any part thereof hath been attempted or to whose hands or use any of the same or any profit for the same hath grown And by such means as to their discretions shall seem best cause them to bring into these the said Commissioners hands to Our use the said Plate Jewels Bells and other the Premises so alienated for the true and full value thereof certifying unto Our Privy Council the Names of all such as refuse to stand to or obey their Order touching their delivery or restitution of the same or the just value thereof To the intent that as cause and reason shall require every man may answer to his doings in this behalf 4. To these another Clause was added touching the moderation which they were to use in their Proceedings to the end that the effect of their Commission might go forward with as much quiet and as little occasion of trouble or disquiet to the Multitude as might be using therein such wise perswasions as in respect of the place and disposition of the People may seem to their Wisdoms most
following they were dismist with many rich Presents and an annual pension from the Queen conducted honourably by the Lord Aburgavenny to the Port of Dover and there shipped for Calais filling all places in the way betwixt that and Baden with the report of the magnificence of their entertainment in the Court of England And that the Glories of their entertainment might appear the greater it hapned that Rambouillet a French Ambassador came hither at that time upon two solemnities that is to say to be installed Knight of the Garter in the place and person of that King and to present the Order of St Michael the principal Order of that Kingdom to Thomas Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Leicester The one performed with the accustomed Pomps and Ceremonies in the Chapel of St George at Windsor the other with like State and splendour in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall Such a well tempered piety did at that time appear in the Devotions of the Church of England that generally the English Papists and the Ambassadors of forein Princes still resorted to them But true it is that at that time some zealots of the Church of Rome had begun to slacken their attendance not out of any new dislike which they took at the service but in regard of a Decree set forth in the Council of â—rent prohibiting all resort to the Churches of Hereticks Which notwithstanding the far greater part continued in their first obedience till the coming over of that Roaring Bull from Pope Pius the 5th by which the Queen was excommunicated the subjects discharged from their obedience to the Laws and the going or not going to the Church made a sign distinctive to difference a Roman Catholick from an English Protestant And it is possible enough that they might have stood much longer to their first conformity if the discords brought into the Church by the Zuinglian faction together with their many innovations both in Doctrine and Discipline had not afforded them some further ground for the desertion For in this year it was that the Zuinglian or Calvinian faction began to be first known by the name of Puritans if Genebrard Gualier and Spondanus being all of them right good Chronologers be not mistaken in the time Which name hath ever since been appropriate to them because of their pretending to a greater Purity in the service of God than was held forth unto them as they gave it out in the Common Prayer Book and to a greater opposition to the Rites and Usages of the Church of Rome than was agreeable to the constitution of the Church of England But this Purity was accompanied with such irreverence this opposition drew along with it so much licenciousnesse as gave great scandal and offence to all sober men so that it was high time for those which had the care of the Church to look narrowly unto them to give a check to those disorders and confusions which by their practices and their preachings they had brought into it and thereby laid the ground of that woful schism which soon after followed And for a check to those disorders they published the Advertisement before remembred subscribed by the Archbishop of Canâ—erbury the Bishops of London Winchester Ely Lincoln Rochester and other of her Majesties Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical according to the Statute made in that behalf This was the only present remedy which could then be thought of And to prevent the like confusions for the time to come a Protestation was devised to be taken by all Parsons Vicars and Curates in their several stations by which they were required to declare and promise That they would not preach not publickly interpret but only read that which is appointed by publick authority without special Licence of the Bishop under his Seal that they would read the Service plainly distinctly and audibly that all the people might hear and understand that they would keep the Register book according to the Queens Majesties Injunctions that they would use sobriety in apparel and especially in the Church at Common Prayers according to Order appointed that they would move the Parishioners to quiet and concord and not give them cause of offence and help to reconcile them that be at variance to their utmost power that they would read dayly at the least one Chapter of the Old Testament and another of the New with good advisement to the increase of their knowledge that they would in their own persons use and exercise their Office and Place to the honour of God and the quiet of the Queens subjects within their charge in truth concord and unity as also observe keep and maintain such Order and Uniformity in all external Policy Rites and Ceremonies of the Church as by the Lawes good usages and Orders are already well provided and established and finally that they would not openly meddle with any Artificers occupations as covetously to seek a gain thereby having in Ecclesiastical Livings twenty Nobles or above by the year Which protestation if it either had been generally pressed upon all the Clergy as perhaps it was not or better kept by them that took it the Church might questionlesse have been saved from those distractions which by the Puritan Innovators were occasioned in it Anno Reg. Eliz. 8. A. D. 1565 1566. THus have we seen the publick Liturgy confirmed in Parliament with divers penalties on all those who either did reproach it or neglect to use it or wilfully withdrew their attendance from it the Doctrine of the Church declared in the Book of Articles agreed upon in Convocation and ratified in due form of Law by the Queens authority external matters in officiating Gods publick service and the apparel of the Clergy regulated and reduced to their first condition by the Books of Orders and Advertisements Nothing remaineth but that we settle the Episcopal Government and then it will be time to conclude this History And for the setling of this Government by as good authority as could be given unto it by the Lawes of the Land we aâ—e beholden to the obstinacy of Dr Edmond Bonner the late great slaughter-man of London By a Statute made in the last Parliament for keeping her Majesties Subjects in their due obedience a power was given unto the Bishops to tender and receive the oath of Supremacy of all manner of persons dwelling and residing in their several Diocesses Bonner was then prisoner in the Clink or Marshalsea which being in the Burrough of Southwark brought him within the Jurisdiction of Horn Bishop of Winchester by whose Chancellor the Oath was tender'd to him On the refusal of which Oath he is endicted at the Kings Bench upon the Statute to which he appeared in some Term of the year foregoing and desires that counsel be assigned to plead his cause according to the course of the Court The Court assigns him no worse men than Christopher Wâ—ay afterwards chief Justice of the Common Pleas that famous Lawyer Edmond
he had example and Authority for at that very time for in the year 1520 being but ten years before the setting forth of this Proclamation Monseiur a' Lautreth Governour for the French King in the Dukedome of Millain taking a displeasure against Pope Leo the tenth deprived him of all his jurisdiction within the Dukedom And that being donâ— he so disposed of all Ecclesiasticall affairs that the Church there was supremely governed by the Bishop of Bigorre a Bishop of the Church of France without the intermedling of the Pope at all The like we find to have been done by the Emperour Charles the fifth who being no lesse displeased with Pope Clement the eighth abolished the Papal power and jurisdiction out of all the Churches of his Kingdome in Spain which though it held but for a while till the breach was closed yet left he an example by it as my Author noteth that there was no necessity of any Pope or supreme Pastor in the Church of Christ. And before either of these Acts or Edicts came in point of practice the learned Gerson Chancellor of the University of Paris when the Popes power was greater far then it was at the present had writ and published a discourse entituled De auferibilitaâ—e Papae touching the totall abrogating of the Papall Office Which certainly he had never done had the Papall Office been found essentiall and of intrinsecall concernment to the Church of Christ. According unto which position of that learned man the greatest Princes of those times did look upon the Pope and the Papall power as an Excrescence at the least in the body mysticall subject and fit to be pared off as occasion served And if they did or do permit him to retain any part of his former greatnesse it is permitted rather upon selfe-ends or Reasons of state or otherwise to serve their turn by him as their 〈◊〉 requireth then out of any opinion of his being so necessary that the Church cannot be well governed or subsist without him But leaving these disputes to some other place we must return unto the Queen To whom some Lords are sent in the end of May an 1531. declaring to her the determinations of the Universities concerning the pretended â—â—rriage betwixt her and the King And therewith they demanded of her whether for quieting the King's conscience and putting an end to that debate she would be content to refer the matter to four Bishops and four temporall Lords But this she absolutely refused saying She was his lawful Wife that she would stand to her Appeal and condescend to nothing in that particular but by the counsel of the Emperour and the rest of her friends This answer makes the King more resolute more open in the demonstration of his affections to the Lady Anne Bollen whom he makes Marchionesse of Pembrook by his Letters Patents bearing date the first of September 1532. takes her along with him to Callis in October following there to behold the glorious enterview betwixt him and the French King and finally privately marrieth her within few dayes after his return the divorce being yet unsentenced betwixt him and the Queen Not long after which it was thought necessary to the King to call a Parliament wherein he caused an Act to passe that no person should appeal for any cause out of this Realm to the Pope of Rome but that all Appeals should be made by the party grieved from the Commissary to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and from the Archbishop to the King as had been anciently observed amongst the first Kings of the House of Normandy It was also enacted in the same that all causes Ecclesâ—aticall Cognisances in which the King himself was a Party should be determined finally in the Upper-House of Convocation without being bound to make recourse to the Court of Rome During the sitting of which Parliament it is declared by Proclamation that Queen Katherine should no longer be called Queen but Princesse Dowager as being the Widow of Prince Arthur not the Wife of King Henry Warham Archbishop of Canterbury in the mean time dying Cranmer is designed for his Successor in that eminent dignity which he unwillingly accepts of partly in regard that he was married at that time and partly in reference to an Oath which he was to take unto the Pope at his Consecration But the King was willing for his own ends to wink at the one and the Pope was not in a condition as the case then stood to be too peremptory in the other So that a Protestation being admitted of not being otherwise bound to the Pope than should be found agreeable to the Word of God and the Laws and Statuâ—es of the Realm he takes his Oath and receives the Episcopall Consecration the 30th of March 1533. the Parliament still sitting which before we spake of At his first entrance into the House of Convocation he propounds two Questions to be considered and disputed by the Bishops and Clergy the first was Whether the marrying of a Brother's wife carnally known though without any issue by him be so prohibited by the Will and Word of God as not to be dispenc'd withall by the Pope of Rome The second was Whether it did appear upon the Evidence given in before the Cardinalls that Katherine had been carnally known by Prince Arthur or not Both Questions being carried in the Affirmative though not without some Opposition in either House in the first especially it was concluded thereupon in the Convocation and not long after in the Parliament also That the King might lawfully proceed to another Marriage These preparations being made the Marriage precondemned by Convocation and all Appeals to Rome made ineffectuall by Act of Parliament the new Archbishop upon his own desire motion contain'd in his Letters of the 11th of April is authorised by the King under his Signe Manuall to proceed definitively in the Cause Who thereupon accompanied with the Bishops of London Winchester Wells and Lincoln and diveâ—s other persons to serve as Officers in that Court repaired to Dunstable in the begining of May and having a convenient place prepared in the form of a Consistory they sent a Citation to the Princesse Dowager who was then at Amptill a Mannor-house of the King 's about six miles off requiring her to appear before them at the day appointed which day being come and no appearance by her made either in Person or by Proxie as they knew there would not she is called peremptorily every day fifteen days together and every day there was great poasting betwixt them and the Court to certifie the King and Cromwell a principall stickler in this businesse how all matters went In one of which from the new Archbishop extant in the Cottonian Library a Resolution is signified to Cromwelâ— for comming to a finall Sentence on Friday the 18 th of that Month but with a vehement conjuration both to him and the King
not to divâ—lge so great a secret for fear the Princesse Dowager on the hearing of it either before or on the day of passing Sentence should make her appearance in the Court For saith he if the noble Lady Katherine should upon the bruit of this matter either in the mouthes of the Inhabitants of the Country or by her Friends or Counsell hearing of this bruite be moved stirred counselled or perswaded to appear before me in the time or afore the time of Sentence I should be thereby greatly staid and let in the Processe and the King's Grace's Councell here present shall be much uncertain what shall be then further done therein For a great bruite and voice of the people in this behalf might perchance move her to do the thing which peradventure she would not if she hear little of it And therefore I pray you to speak as little of this matter as you may and to move the King's Highnesse so to do for consideration above recited But so it hapned to their wish that the Queen persisting constant in her Resolution of standing to the Judgment of no other Court than the Court of Rome vouchsafed not to take any notice of their proceeding in the Cause And thereupon at the day and time before designed she was pronounced to be Contâ—max for defect of Appearance and by the generall consent of all the Learned men then present the Sentence of the Divorce was passed and her Marriage with the King declared void and of none effect Of all these doings as the Divorced Queen would take no notice so by her Officers and Attendants she was served as in her former capacity Which comming to the King's knowledge he sends the Duke of Suffolk and some others in the month of July with certain Instructions given in Writing to perswade her to submit to the Determinations of the King and State to lay aside the Title of Queen to content her self with that of the Princesse Dowager and to remove her from the Bishop of Lincoln's house at Bayden where she then remained to a place called Someâ—sham belonging to the Bishop and Church of Eli. To none of which when she would hearken an Oath is tendred to her Officers and the rest of her Houshold to serve her onely in the capacity of Princesse Dowager and not as formerly in the noâ—ion of a Queen of England Which at the first was generally refused amongst them upon a Resolution which had been made in the Case by Abel and Berker her two Chaplains that is to say That having already took an Oath to serve her as Queen they could not with a good conscience take any other But in the end a fear of losing their said places but more of falling into the King's displeasure so prevailed upon them that the Oath was taken by most of them not suffered from thenceforth to come into the Queen's presence who looked upon them as the betrayers of her Cause or to perform any service about her Person Some Motives to induce her to a better conformity were ordered to be laid before her none like to be more prevalent than that which might concern the Interest of her daughter Mary And therefore it was offered to her consideration That chiefly and above all things she should have regard to the Honourable and her most dear Daughter the Lady Princesse from whom in case the King's Highnesse being thus enforced exagitated and moved by the unkindnesse of the Dowager might also withdraw his Princely estimation goodnesse zeal and affection it would be to her no little regret sorrow and extream calamity But the wise Queen knew well enough that if she stood her Daughter could not do amisse whereas there could be nothing gained by such submissions but the dishonour of the one the Bastardising of the other and the exâ—luding of them both from all possibility of being restored in time to come to their first condition Finding small hopes of any justice to be done her in the Realm of England and not well able to endure so many indignities as had been daily put upon her she makes her complaint unto the Pope whom she found willing to show his teeth though he could not bite For presently hereupon a Bull is issued for accursing both the King and the Realm the Beaâ—er hereof not daring to proclaim the same in England caused it to be set up in some publick places in the Town of Dunkirk one of the Haven Towns of Flanders that so the roaring of it might be heard on this side of the Sea to which it was not safe to bring it But neither the Pope nor the Queen Dowager got any thing by this rash adventure which onely served to exasperate the King against them as also against all which adheared unto them For in the following Parliament which began on the 25 th of January and ended on the 30 th of March an Act was pass'd inhibiting the payment of First-fruits to the Bishop of Rome and for the Electing Consecrating and Confirming of the Archbishops and Bishops in the Realm of England without recourse unto the Pope cap. 20. Another Act for the Attaindure of Elizabeth Barton commonly called the holy Maid of Kâ—nt with many other her adhearents for stickling in the cause of the Princesse Dowager cap. 12. and finally of Establishing the Succession in the Crown Imperiall of this Realm cap. 22. In which last Act the Sentence of the Divorce was confirmed and ratified the Princesse Mary deâ—lared to be illegitimate the Succession of the Crown entailed on the King's Issue by Queen Anne Bollen an Oath prescribed for all the Subjects in maintenance of the said Statute of Succession and taken by the Lords and Commons at the end of that Parliament as generally by all the Subjects of the Kingdom within few months after For the refusall whereof as also for denying the King's Supremacy and some suspition of confederacy with Elizabeth Barton Doctor John Fisher Bishop of Rochester not many days before created Cardinall by Pope Paul the 3 d. was on the 22 of June beheaded publickly on the Tower-hill and his head most disgracefully fixed upon a Pole and set on the top of the Gate on London-Bridge And on the 6 th of July then next following Sir Thomas Moor who had succeeded Wolsie in the place of Lord Chancellor was beheaded for the same cause also But I find him not accused as I do the other for having any hand in the Conspiracy of Elâ—zabeth Barton The Execution of which great persons and of so many others who wish'd well unto her added so much affliction to the desolate and disconsolate Queen that not being able longer to bear the burden of so many miseries she fell into a languishing sicknesse which more and more encreasing on her and finding the near approach of death the onely remedy now left for all her sorrows she dictated this ensuing Letter which she caused to be delivered to the King by one of her
the face of Religion which might give her any cause of publick or personall dislike But when the great alterations hapned in the time of King Edward she then declared her selfe more openly as she might more safely in opposition to the same concerning which she thus declared her selfe in a Letter to the Lord Protector and the rest of the Council dated at Kenninghall June 22. An. 1549. My Lord I Perceive by the Letters which I late receiv'd from you and other of the Kings Majesties Councel that you be all sorry to find so little conformity in me touching the observation of his Majestie 's Laws who am well assured I have offended no law unlesse it be a late law of your own making which in my conscience is not worthy the name of Law both for the King's honors sake and the wealth of the Realm and giving the occasion of an evil bruit throughout all Christendome besides the partiality used in the same and as my conscience is very well perswaded the offending God which passeth all the rest But I am well assured that the King his Fathers Lawes were all allowed and consented to without compulsion by the whole Realm both spiritual and temporal and all the Executors sworn upon a book to fulfil the same so that it was an authorized Law And that I have obeyed and will do with the grace of God till the King's Majesty my brother shall have sufficient years to be a judge in this matter himself Whereto my Lord I was plain with you at my last being in the Court declaring unto you at that time whereunto I would stand and now do assure you all that the only occasion of my stay from a tering of mine opinion is for two causes One principally for my conscience the other that the King my brother shall nor hereafter charge me to be one of those that were agreeable to such alterations in his tender years And what fruits dayly grow by such changes since the death of the King my Father to every indifferent person it well appeareth both to the displeasure of God and unquietnesse of the Realm Notwithstanding I assure you all I would be as loath to see his Highnesse take hurt or that any evil should come to this his Realm as the besâ— of you all and none of you have the like cause considering how I am compelled by nature being his Majesties poor and humble sister most tenderly to love and pray for him and unto this his Realm being born within the same with all wealth and prosperity to God's honour And if any judge of me the contrary for mine opinions sake as I trust none doth I doubt not in the end with Gods help to prove my selfe as true a natural and humble Sister as they of the contrary opinion with all their divices and altering of lawes shall prove themselves true Subjects I pray you my Lords and the rest of the Councel no more to unquiet and trouble me with matters touching my conscience wherein I am at a full point with Gods help whatsoever shall happen to me intending with his grace to trouble you little with any worldly suits but to bestow the short time I think to live in quietnesse and I pray for the King's Majesty and all you heartily wishing that your proceedings may be to God's honour the safeguard of the King's person and quietnesse of the whole Realm And thus my Lords I wish unto you and all the rest as well to do as my selfe Upon such passages of this Letter which seemed most to pinch upon them the Lords returned their Glosse or Comment but such as had more in it of an Animadversion then an Explication They signified withall how well they understood their own Authority how sensible they were of those inconveniences which the example of her inconformity to the lawes established was likely to produce amongst the rest of the subjects No favour being otherwise to be hoped for from them the Emperour is moved to intercede in her behalfe by his Ambassador then residing about the Court Upon whose earnest solicitation it was declared by the King with the consent of his Councel as appeareth by their letters to her of the 25th of December That for his sake and her own also it should be suffered and winked at if she had the private Masse used in her own closet for a season untill she might be better informed but so that none but some few of her own chamber should be present with her and that to all the rest of her houshold the Service of the Church should be only used For the abuse of which indulgence in saying Masse promiscuously in her absence to her houshold servants Mallet and Barkley two of her Chaplains are seized on and committed prisoners which first occasioned an exchange of Letters betwixt her and the King and afterwards more frequently between her and the Councel for which consult the Acts and Mon. fol. 1213. 1214. A proposition had been made about the surrendry of Bâ—lâ—oigne for a marriage betwixt her and the Prince of Portugall and the like motion made in favour of the Duke of Brunswick whilst the other treaty was depending But neither of the two succeeding to the wish of the party a plot was laid to passe her over into Flanders shipping provided to transport her some of her servants sent before and a commotion practised in the County of Essex that in the busle she might be conveyed away without any discovery But this plot being happily prevented by the care and diligence of Sir John Gates one of the Captaâ—ns of the Gents a'armes then lately ranged under the command of the Marquess of Nâ—rthampton she was by him conducted much against her will to the Lord Chancellors house at Leezdi from thence to Hunsdon and at last to Westminster Much troubled at her comming thither upon the apprehension of Sir Robert Ruchestâ—r Sir Walgrave and Sir Francis Inglâ—field servants of special trust about her and all suspected to be privy to the design for conveying her over into Flanders Much care was taken and many endeavor used by the King and Councel to win her to good conceit of the Reformation But her interest was 〈◊〉 bound up with that of the Pope that no perswasions could prevaile with her to desert that cause on which her own legiâ—imation and the validity of her mothers marriage did so much depend As much unprofitable pains was taken by the Emperours Agents in labouring to procure for her the exercise of her own Religion mingling some threats with their intreaties in case so great a Prince should be refused in so small a suit Which when it could not be obtained from the King by the Lords of the Councel nor by the mediation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London whom the Lords imployed to move him in it the Emperour laid aside the prosecution of a cause which he perceived he could not carry And the King
from his Bâ—shopâ—ick also Which being observed by Bishop Barlow of Wells and Scory of Chiâ—hâ—ster they withdrew themselves beyond the Seas followed not long after by Bishop Point of Winchester But Barlow made not so muâ—h haste as not to be committed to the Fleâ—t by the Lords of the Council from whence upon some satisfaction given to the Lord Chancellor Gardiner by his discreet and moderate Answers he was not long after set at liberty and so crossed the seas resolved to trust himself no more â—o a second hazard having with so much difficulty escaped the first How it succeeded with the rest we shall see hereafter Upon which smiting of the Shepherds it is not to be wondred at iâ— their floâ—ks 〈◊〉 sâ—attered Now as concerning the Archbishop the substance of his story is briefly â—his He had been a chief instrument in King Henry's time of setting forward the divorce and in King Edward's of advancing the Reformation The Queen conceived hereupon such a high displeasure It had been malice in another against the man that nothing but his death could appease the same His death is therefore fully resolved upon by Gardiner Banner and the rest of the Popish Prelates Of which the first had pâ—osecuted the Divorce as far as any and the second was as forward as the best in the Reformation as long as Cromwel lived to perfer and countenance him But their standings out and sufferings for it in King Edward's time were thought sufficient explations for their former errors when the good Offices which Cranmer had done for her in her Fathers tiâ—e were worn out of memory Die then he must but by what law he was to die proved a knot more difficult than could be speedily untied It was advised to charge him with High Treason as being privy to the plot of the Duke of Northumberland for excluding the Queen from the succession But against this it was objected that he was the last of the Council who subseribed unto it and that the Council would be wary of making that a Capital offence in him of which they were all equally guilty In the next place it was propounded to proceed against him in case of Heresie that being the most likely way to content the Pâ—pe whose favour was to be procured by all means immaginable But the worst was that the Statutes made in the time of King Richard 2d and King Henry 4th for putting Hereticks to death had been abrogated in the time of king Henry 8th as that of the six Articles more terrible than either of the other two had been repealed by the late King Edward the 6th No better course therefore than to find some occasion for laying him up in some safe prison and when they had him there to proceed against him as time and opportunity should administer some fit matter for it About this time a bruit was raised that Cranmer to ingratiate himself with the Queen had promised to celebrate the Exequies of the deceased King according to the Româ—sh manner To clear himself of which reproach he drew up a Manifest declaring in the same that he was ready to maintain the Articles of Religion set forth by his procurement in the time of King Edward to be consonant to the word of God the Doctrine of the Apostles and the practice of the best and pâ—rest times These papers lying in the window in his private chamber were seen and liked by Bishop Scory by whom they were transcribed and communicated to many others Coming at last unto the knowledge of the Council the Archbishop is commanded to appear before them Interrogated about the papers and prompted by Bishop Heath who was then amongst them to let them know whether he were not sorry for it To which the Archbishop made reply that as he did not deny himself to be the author of those papers so he must needs confesse himself to be sorry that they went from him in such sort as they did For I had purposed saith he to set out the Manifest in a more large and ample manner and to have it set upon St Paul's door and the doors of all the Churches in London with my own Seal affixed unto it Upon which stout and honest answer they thought fit to dismiss him for the present it being conceived by some of the more moderate spirits that it would be punishment enough to deprive him only of his Bishoprick and to assign him sufficient maintenance upon the exhibiting of a true Inventory of his whole estate with a commandment to keep his house without medling in matters of Religion But those who better understood the mind of the Queen so ordered it that on the 14th of September he was sent to the Tower where he remained prisoner till the 3d. of November At what time he was arraigned in the Guild Hall of London together with the Lord Guilford Dadley the late Queen Jane his wife and others all of them being attainted and condemned of Treason as before was said And he lay under this attainture till the year next following when the old Statutes for putting Hereticks to death were revived in Parliament Which having furnished his adversaries with a better ground to proceed upon to the contentment of the Pope and the Queen together they waved the prosecuting of the Attaindure to an Execution and wholly fixed themselves on the point of Heresie At the hearing whereof he was right well pleased because the case was not now his own but Christs not the Queens but the Churches The severity of this beginning against the Natives gave a sufficient warning to all such strangers who had tool sanctuary here in the time of King Edward to provide betimes for their departure Amongst whom none more openly aimed at than Peter Marâ—yr because none of them had given wider wounds than he to the Catholick Cause Tresham a senior Canon of Christ Church had held some points against him at his first coming thither and now he took the benefit of the times in causing both that house and many others in the University to put some publick scorn upon him Not finding any safety there he retires to Lambeth where he was sure of as much safety as that place could give him A consultation had been held by some of the more fiery spirits for his commitment unto prison But he came hither as it was well known on the publick Faith which was not to be violated for the satisfaction of some private persons It was thought fit therefore to discharge him all further imployment and to licence him to depart in peace none being more forward to furnish him with all things necessary for his going hence than the new Lord Chancellor whether in honour to his Learning or out of a desire to send him packing shall not now be questioned But less humanity was shewed unto him in his wife whose body having been buried in the Church of St Frideswide was afterwards by publick order taken out of the
vain about it In these distractions some of the Franckfort Schismaticks desire that all divine Offices might be executed according to the order of the Church of Geneva which Knox would by no means yield unto thinking himself as able to make a Rule for his own Congregation as any Calvin of them all But that the mouths of those of Stralsburge and Zuriâ—k might be stopped for ever he is content to make so much use of him as by the authority of his judgment to disgrace that Liturgy which those of Zurick did contend for He knew well how he had bestirred himself in quarrelling the first Liturgy of King Edward the 6th and nothing doubteth but that the second though reviewed on his importunity would give him as little satisfaction as the other did To this intent the Order of the English Liturgy is drawn up in Latine transmitted to him by Knox and Whittingham by this infallible judgment to stand or fall The Oracle returns this answer on the 31 of January In Liturgia Anglâ—cana qualem mihi describitis multas vidâ—o tolerabiles ineptias That in the Book of England as by them described he had observed many tolerable fooleries Whiâ—h last words being somewhat ambiguous as all Oracles are he explicates himself by telling them That there wanted much of that purity which was to be desired in it that it contained many relicks of the dregs of Popery that being there was no manifest impiety in it it had been tolerated for a season because at first it could not otherwise be admitted But howsoever though it was lawful to begin with such beggarly rudiments yet it behoved the learned grave and godly Ministers of Christ to endeavour farther and set forth something more refined from filth and rustinesse This being sent for his determinate sentence unto Knox and Whittingham was of such prevalency with all the rest of that party that such who â—ormerly did approve did afterwards as much dislike the English Liturgy and those who at the first had conceived onely a dislike grew afterwards into an open detestation of it Those who before had been desirous that the Order of Geneva should be entertained had now drawn Knox and Whittingham unto them Mr. John Fox the Author of the Acts and Monuments contributing his approbation amongst the rest But in the end to give content to such as remained affected to the former Liturgy it was agreed upon That a mixt Form consisting partly of the Order of Geneva and partly of the Book of England should be digested and received till the first of April consideration in the mean time to be had of some other course which should be permanent and obliging for the time to come In this condition of affairs Doctor Richard Cox the late Dean of Christ-Church and Westminster first Schoolmaster and after Almoner to King Edward the sixth putteth himself into Franckfort March 13. accompanied with many English Exiles whom the cause of Religion had necessitated to forsake their Country Being a man of great learning of great authority in the Church and one that had a principal hand in drawing up the Liturgy by Law established he could with no patience endure those innovations in it or rather that rejection of it which he found amongst them He thereupon first begins to answer the Minister contrary to the Order there agreed on and the next Sunday after causeth one of his company to go into the Pulpit and read the Letany Against which doings of his Knox in a Sermon the same day inveigheth most bitterly affirming many things in the Book of England not onely to be imperfect but superstitious For the which he is not onely rebuked by Cox but forbidden to preach Wherewith Whittingham being much offended deals with some of the Magistrates from whom he procureth an Order of the 22 of March requiring That the English should conform themselves to the Rules of the French Knox had not long before published a seditious Pamphlet entituled An Admonition to Christians containing the substance of some Sermons by him preached in Engâ—and in one of which he affirmed the Emperor to be no lesse an enemy to Christ that the â—yrant Nero. For this and several other passages of the like dangerous nature he is accused by Cox for Treason against the Emperor the Senate made acquainted with it and Knox commanded thereupon to depart the City who makes hâ—s Farewel-Sermon on the 25th of March and retires himself unto Geneva Following his blow Cox gets an order of the Senate by the means of another of the Glaâ—berges by which Whittingham and the rest of his faction were commanded to receive the Book of England Against which order Whiâ—tingham for a time opposeth encouraged therein by Goodman who for the love of Knox with whom afterwards he associated in all his practices had left the grave soâ—iety of those of Stralsbâ—rge to joyn himself unto the Sectaries of 〈…〉 But finding Cox to be too strong for them in the Senate both they and all the rest who refused conformity resolved to betake themselves to some other place as they shortly did Cox thus made Master of the field begins to put the Congregation into such order as might preserve the face and reputation of an English Church He procures Whitehead to be chosen for the principal Paâ—â—or appoints two Ministers for Elders and four Deacons for aâ—â—istants to him recommends Mr. Robert Horn whom he had drawn from Zurick thither to be Hebrew-Reader Mullings to read the Greek Lecture Trahern the Lecture in Divinity and Chambers to be Treasurer for the Contributions which were sent in from time to time by many godly and wellâ—affected persons both Dutch and English for the use of that Church Having thus setled all things answerable to his own desires he gives an account thereof to Calvin subscribed by fourteen of the chief men in that Congregation partly excusing themselves that they had proceeded so far without his consent and partly rejoycing that they had drawn the greatest part of that Church to their own opinions Calvin returns his Answer on the last of May which puts his party there on another project that is to say to have the whole business referred to some Arbitrators equally chosen on both sides But Cox was already in possession great in esteem with the chief Magistrates of the City and would by no means yield to refer that point which had already been determined to his advantage With these debates the time is taken up till the end of August at what time Whiâ—tingham and the rest of the faction take their leave of Franckfort Fox with some few others go to Basil but the main body to Geneva as their Mâ—ther-City where they make choice of Knox and Goodman for their constant Preachers under which Ministry they reject the whole frame and fabrick of the Reformation made in England conformed themselves wholly to the fashions of the Church of Geneva and therewith entertain
the same to the great Perill of his Souls health 25. And that no Curate admit to the Communion such who are in Ranchor and Malice with their Neighbours till such controversies be reconciled That to avoid Contentions and strife which heretofore have risen amongst the King's Subjects by challenging of places in Procession no Procession hereafter be used about the Church or Church-yard but immediately before High-Mass the Letany shall be distinctly said or sung in English none departing the Church without just cause and all ringing of Bells save one utterly forborn That they take away and destroy all Shrines Covering of Shrines Tables Candlesticks Trindils and Rolls of Wax Pictures Paintings and other Monuments of feigned Miracles so that no Memory of them remain in Walls or Windows exhotting their Parishioners to do the like in their several houses That the Holy-day at the first beginning Godly-Instituted and ordained be wholly given to God in hearing the Word of God read and taught in private and publique Prayers in acknowledging their Offences to God and amendment in reconciling themselves to their Neighbours receiving the Communion Visiting the sick c. Onely it shall be lawfull for them in time of Harvest to labour upon Holy and Festival days and save that thing which God hath sent and that scrupulosity to abstain from working upon those days doth grievously offend God That a Register Book be carefully kept in every Parish for Weddings Christenings and Burials 29. That a strong Chest with an hole in the upper part thereof with three keys thereunto belonging be provided to receive the Charity of the People to the Poor and the same at convenient times be distributed unto them in the presence of the Parish And that a comely Palpit be provided in a convenient place That because of the lack of Preachers Curates shall read Homilies which are or shall be set forth by the King's Authority 36. That when any such Sermon or Homily shall be had the Primes and Hours shall be omitted That none bound to pay Tithes detain them by colour of Duty omitted by their Curates and so redoub one wrong with another 33. And whereas many indiscrete persons do incharitably condemn and abuse Priests having small Learning His Majesty chargeth His Subjects That from henceforth they be reverently used for their Office and Ministration sake 31. And that to avoid the detestable sin of Simonie the Seller shall lose his right of Patronage for that time and the Buyer to be deprived and made unable to receive Spiritual Promotion That to prevent sick persons in the damnable vice of Despair They shall learn and have always in readiness such comfortable places and Sentences of Scripture as do set forth the Mercies Benefits and Goodness of God Almighty towards all penitent and believing persons 30. But that Priests be not bound to go visit women in Child-bed except in times of dangerous sickness and not to fetch any Coars except it be brought to the Church yard 34. That all persons not understanding Latine shall pray on no other Primer but what lately was set forth in English by King Henry the Eighth and that such who have knowledge in the Latine use no other also that all Graces before and after Meat be said in English and no Grammar taught in Scholes but that which is set forth by Authority 39. That Chantry-Priests teach Youth to read and write And finally That these Injunctions be read once a Quarter Besides these general Injunctions for the whole Estate of the Realm there were also certain others particularly appointed for the Bishops onely which being delivered unto the Commissioners were likewise by them in their Visitations committed unto the said Bishops with charge to be inviolably observed and kept upon pain of the King's Majesties displeasure the effect whereof is as in manner followeth 1. That they should to the utmost of their power wit and understanding sâ—e and cause all and singular the King's Injunctions heretofore given or after to be given from time to time in and through their Diocess duly faithfully and truly to be kept observed and accomplished And that they should Personally Preach within their Diocess every Quarter of a year once at the least that is to say once in their Cathedral Churches and thrice in other several places of their Diocesses whereas they should see it most convenient and necessary except they had a reasonable excuse to the contrary Likewise that they should not retain into their Service or Houshold any Chaplain but such as were Learned and able to Preach the Word of God and those they should also cause to Exercise the same 2. And Secondly That they should not give Orders to any Person but such as were Learned in Holy Scripture neither should deny them to such as were Learned in the same being of honest conversation or living And Lastly That they should not at any time or place Preach or set forth unto the People any Doctrine contrary or repugnant to the effâ—ct and intent contained or set forth in the King's Highnesse's Homilies neither yet should admit or give Licence to Preach to any within their Diocess but to such as they should know or at least assuredly trust would do the same And if at any time by hearing or by report proved they should perceive the contrary they should then incontinent not only inhibit that Person so offending but also punish him and revoke their Licence There was also a Form of Bidding Prayer prescribed by the Visitours to be used by all Preachers in the Realm eiâ—her before or in their Sermons as to them seemed best Which Form of Bidding Prayer or Bidding of the Beads as it was then commonly called was this that followeth You shall Pray for the whole Congregation of Christ's Church and specially for this Church of England and Ireland wherein first I commend to your devout Prayers the King 's most Excellent Majesty Supreme Head immediately under God of the Spirituality and Temporality of the same Church And for Queen Katharine Dowager and also for my Lady Mary and my Lady Elizabeth the King's Sisters Secondly You shall Pray for my Lord Protectour's Grace with all the rest of the King's Majesty His Council for all the Lords of His Realm and for the Clergy and the Commons of the same beseeching God Almighty to give â—very of them in his degree grace to use themselves in such wise as may be to God's Glory the King's Honour and the VVeal of this Realm Thirdly You shall Pray for all them that be departed out of this VVorld in the Faith of Christ that they with us and we with them at the day of Judgement may rest both body and soul with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven Such were the Orders and Injunctions wherewith the King's Commissioners were furnished for their Visitation Most of them such as had been formerly given out by Cromwell or otherwise published and pursued but not
look upon themselves and upon their enemies themselves dreadful their enemies gorgeous and brave on their side men on the other spoyle in case either through flowness or cowardise they did not permit them to escape who â—o now already had began their flight And to say truth the English having changed their Ground to gain the Hill which â—â—y near their Shipping and which also gave them the advantage both of Sun and Wind wrought an opinion in the Scots that they dislodged to no â—ther end then to recover their Ships that they might save themselves though they lost their Carriages In confidence whereof they quitted a place of great strength where they were incamped and from which the whole Army of England was not able to force them But the old English Proverb telleth us that They that reckon without their Host are to reckon twice and so it fared with this infatuated People For on the tenth of September the Battails being ready to joyn a Peece of Ordnance discharged from the Galley of England took off five and twenty of their men amongst whom the eldest Son of the Lord Graham was one Whereupon four thousand Archers terrified with so unexpected a slaughter made a stand and could never after be brought on so that they stood like men amazâ—d as neither having Hearts to Fight nor Opportunity to Fly Which consternation notwithstanding the Lord Gray being sent with a strong Party of Horse to give the Onset found the Main Body so well Embattailed and such a Valiant Opposition made by a stand of Pikes that they were almost as impenetrable as a Rock of Adamants till being terrified by the English Ordnance which came thundering on them from the top of the Hill and galled by the Great-Shot from the Ships they began to brangle Which being perceived by the English they gave a loud Shout crying They Fly They Fly and thereby so astonished the affrighted Enemy that they began to fly indeed and presently throwing down their Arms betook themselves unto their Heels Many were slain upon the Place more executed in the Chase and not a few in the Esk which so improvidently they had passed the day before so that the number of the slain was thought to have amounted to fourteen thousand About fifteen hundred of both sorts were taken Prisoners amongst which the daring Earl of Huntly was one of the Chief who being after asked How he liked the Marriage is said to have returned this Answer That He could well enough brook the Wedding but that he did not like that kind of Woing Amongst the number of the slain were found good store of Monks and Friers some thousands of which had put themselves into the Army which had been raised especially by their Power and Practices The Greatness of the Booty in Arms and Baggage was not the least cause that the English reaped no better Fruit from so great a Victory and did not prosecute the War to an absolute Conquest For being intent in pillaging the dead and gathering up the Spoils of the field and solacing themselves in Leith for five dayes together they gave the Scots time to make Head again to fortifie some Strong places on the other side of the Fryth and to remove the Queen to Dun-britton-Castle from whence they conveyed her into France in the year next following And though the loss rather then neglect of this opportunity is to be attributed in the first place to God's secret pleasure who had reserved the Union of the Kingdoms till an happier time yet were there many Second Causes and subordinate Motives which might prevail upon the Lord Protectour to return for England without advancing any further For either he might be taken off by the Earl of Warwick who then began to cast an Envious eye on his Power and Greatness Or might be otherwise unwilling of his own accord to tempt his Fortune any further by hazarding that Honour in a second Battail which he had acquired in the first Or he might think it more conducible to his Affairs to be present at the following Parliament in which he had some work to do which seemed more needfull to him then the War with Scotland The good Success whereof would be ascribed to his Officers and Commanders but the Misfortunes wholly reckoned upon His account Or finally which I rather think he might conceive it necessary to preserve his Army and Quarter it in the most convenient places near the English Borders that it might be ready at Command upon all occasions if his Designs should meet with any opposition as before was said And this may be believed the rather because that having fortified some Islands in the Mouth of the Fryth he Garisoned the greatest part of his Army in Hume-Castle and other Peeces of importance most of them lying near together and the furthest not above a days March from Berwick Now as concerning the Day in which this Victory was obtained I finde two notable Mistakes The one committed by the Right Reverend Bishop Godwin and the other by the no less Learned Sir John Hayward By Bishop Godwin it is placed exceeding rightly on the tenth of September but then he doth observe it as a thing remarkable That this memorable Victory was obtained on the very same day in which the Images which had been taken out of the several Churches were burned in London Whereas we are informed by John Stow a diligent Observer of Days and Times That the Images in the Churches of London were not taken down before the seventeenth of November And we are told by Sir John Hayward that the day of this Fight was the tenth of December which must be either a mistake of the Press or a slip of the Pen it being noted in the words next following That on the same day thirty four years afore the Scots had been defeated by the English at Flodden-field Which though it pointeth us back to the Moneth of September yet the mistake remaineth as unto the Day that Battail being fought not on the tenth but the ninth of September as all our Writers do agree But leaving these Mistakes behind us let us attend the Lord Protectour to the Court of England Towards which he hastened with such speed that he stayed but twenty five days upon Scotish Ground from his first Entrance to his Exit And being come unto the Court he was not onely welcomed by the King for so great a Service with a Present of 500l per Ann. to him and to his Heirs for ever but highly Honoured by all sorts of people the rather in regard that he had bought so great a Victory at so cheap a Rate as the loss of sixty Horse onely and but one of his Foot And now 't is high time to attend the Parliament which took beginning on the fourth of November and was Prorogued on the twenty fourth of December following In which the Cards were so well packed by Sir Ralph Sadlier that there was no need of
great a Servitude Such were the Effects of Calvin's Interposings in behalf of Hooper and such the Effects of his Exceptions against some Antient Usages in the Publick Liturgie and such the Consequents of the Indulgence granted to John a Lasco and his Church of Strangers opposite both in Practice and point of Judgment to the established Rules and Orders of the Church of England For what did follow hereupon but a continual multiplying of Disorders in all Parts of this Church What from the Sitting at the Sacrament used and maintained by John a Lasco but first Irreverence in receiving and afterwards a Contempt and depâ—aving of it What from the crying down of the Sacred Vestments and the Grave Habit of the Clergy but first a Disesteem of the men themselves and by Degrees a Vilifying and Contempt of their Holy Ministery Nay such a pâ—ccancy of Humour began then manifestly to break out that it was Preached at Paul's Cross by one Sir Steven for so they commonly called such of the Clergy as were under the Degree of Doctour the Curate of Saint Katharine-Christ Church That it was fit the Names of Churches should be altered and the Names of the Days in the Week changed That Fâ—sh-days should be kept on any other days then on Fridays and Saturdays and the Lent at any other time except onely between Shroveâ—tide and Easter We are told also by John Stow that he had seen the said Sir Steven to leave the Pulpit and Preach to the People out of an high Elm which stood in the middest of the Church-Yard and that being done to return into the Church again and leaving the High Altar to sing the Câ—mmunion-Service upon a Tomb of the Dead with â—is Face toward the North. Which is to be Observed the rather because Sir Stephâ—n hath found so many Followers in these later Times For as some of the 〈◊〉 sort have left the Church to Preach in Woods and Barns c. and instead of the Names of the Old Days and Moneths can finde no other sâ—itle for them then the First Second or Third Moneth of the Year and the First Second or Third Day of the Week c. so was it propounded not long since by some State-Reformâ—rs That the Lentenâ—Fast should be kept no longer between Shrovetide and Ealster but rather by some Act or Ordinance to be made for that purpose bâ—â—wixt Easter and Whitsuntide To such wild Fancies do men grow when once they break those Bonds and neglect those Rules which wise Antiquity ordainâ—d for the preservation of Peace and Order If it be asked What in the mean time was become of the Bishops and Why no Care wâ—s tâ—ken for the purging of these Peccant Humours It may be Answered That the Wings of their Authority had bâ—en so clipped that it was scarce able to fly abâ—oad the Seâ—tâ—nce of Excommunication wherewith they formerly kept in Aw both Priest and People noâ— having been in Use and Practice since the first of this King Whether it were that any Command was lay'd upon the Bishops by which they were restrained from the Exercise of it Or that some other Course was in Agitation for drawing the Cognizance of all Ecclesiastical Causes to the Courts at Westminster Or that it was thought inconsistent with that Dreadful Sâ—ntence to be issued in the King's Name as it had lately been appointed by Act of Parliament it is not easie to determine Certain it is that at this Time it was in an Abeyaâ—ce as our Lawyers Phrase it either Abolishâ—d for the present or of none Effect not onely to the cherishing of these Disorders amongst the Ministers of the Church but to the great encrease of Vicâ—ousness in all sorts of Men. So that it was not without cause that it was called for so earnestly by Bishop Latimer in a Sermon Preached before the King where he thus presseth for the Restitution of the Antient Discipline Lechery saith he is used in England and such Lechery as is used in no other Part of the World And yet it is made a matter of Sport a matter of Nothing a Laughing matter a Trifle not to be Passed-on nor Reformed Well I trust it will be amended one day and I hope to see it mended as old as I am Ana here I will make a Suit to your Highness to restore unto the Church the Dâ—scipline of Christ in Excommunicating such as be notable Offenders Nor never devise any other Way for no man is able to devise any better then that God hath done with Excommunication to put them from the Congregation till they be conâ—ounded Therefore Restore Christ's Discipline for Excommunication and that shall be a mean both to pacifie Goâ—'s Wrath and Indignation and also that less Abomination shall be used then in Times past hath been or is at this day I speak this of a Conscience and I mean to move it of a Will to Your Grace and Your Realm Bring into the Church of England the Open Discipline of Excommunication that open Sinners may be striken with all Noâ— were these all the Mischiefs which the Church suffered at this Time Many of 〈◊〉 Nobility and Gentry whâ—ch held Abbey-Lands and were charged with Pensions to the Monks out of a covetous Design to be freed of those Pensions oâ— to discharge their Lands from those Incumbrances which by that means were laâ—'d upon them had placed them in such Benefices as were in their Gifts This fiâ—led the Church with ignorant and illiterate Priestâ— few of the Monks being Learned beyond their Mass-Book utterly unacquainted with the Art of Preaching and otherwise not well-affected to the Reformation Of which Abuse Complaint is made by Calvin to Arch-Bishop Cranmer and Pâ—ter Martyr much bemoaneth the miserable Condition of the Church for want of Preachers though he touch not at the Reasons and Causes of it For the remâ—dy whereof as Time and Leasure would permit it was Ordained by the Advice of the Loâ—ds of the Council That of the King's 〈◊〉 Chaâ—lains which attended in Ordinary two of them shâ—uld be always aboâ—t the Court and the other four should Travail in Preaching abroad The first year two in Wales and two in Lincolnshire the second year two in the Marches of Scotland and two in Yorkshire the third year two in Devonshire and two in Hampshire the fourth year two in Norfolk and two in Essex the fiâ—th year two in Kent and two in Sussex and so throughout all the Shires in England By which means it was hoped that the People might in time be well instructed in their Duty to God and their Obedience to the Laws in which they had not shewed themselves so forward as of right they ought But this Course being like to be long in running and subject to more Heats and Coâ—ds then the nature of the Business could well comport with the next caâ—e was to fiâ—l the Church with Abler and more Orthodox Clarks as the Cures fell void And for an Example to
then Ordinary Diligence so was he encourâ—ged thereunto by a very Liberal Exhibition which he received annually from the late King Henry But the King being dead his Exhibition and encouragments dyed also with him So that the Lamp of his life being destitute of the Oyl which fed it after it had been in a langâ—ishing condition all the rest of hâ—s King's Reign was this year unfortunately Extinguâ—shed unfortunately in regard that he dyed distrâ—cted to the great Greif of all that knew him and the no small sorrow of maâ—y who never saw him but onely in his painful and laboâ—ious Writings Wâ—ich Writâ—ngs being by him Presented to the hands of King Henry came aâ—terwards into â—he power of Sr. John Cheâ—k Schole-master and Secretary for the Lâ—tine tongue to the King now Reigning And though collâ—cted Principally for the uâ—e of the Crown yet on the death of the young King his Tuâ—our kept thâ—m to himself as long as he lived and left them at his death to Henry his Eldest Son Secretary to the Councel Established at Yoâ—k for the Nâ—râ—hern parts From Cheâ—k but not without some intermediate conveyances four of them came into the possession of William 〈◊〉 of Leicâ—sâ—e shiâ—e who having served his turn of them as well as he could in his dâ—scription of that County bestowed them as a most choise Rarity upon Oxford Library where the Oâ—â—ginals â—tâ—ll â—emain Out of this Treasury whilest it remained entire in the hands of Cheek the learned Campden was supplyed with much Excellent matter toward the making up of his description of the â—sles of Britain but not without all due acknowledgment to his Benefactour whom he both frequent citeâ—h and very highly commendeth for his pains and industry In the last place comes in Cardanus an eminent Philosopher born in Italy and one not easily over matched by the then supposed Matchless Scâ—liger having composed a Book Entituled â— De varietate Rerum with an Epistlâ— Dedicatory to King Edward the Sixth he came over this year into England to present it to him which gave him the Occasion of much conference with â—â—m In which he found â—uch dexterity in Him for Encountring many of his Paradoxes in natural Philosophy that he seemed to be astonished between Admiration and Delight and divulged his Abilities to be miraculâ—uâ— Some Passages of which discourse Cardanus hath left upon Record in these words ensuâ—ng Decimâ—â—m quintum adhuc agâ—bat Annum cum interrogobat Latine c. Being yet saith he but of the age of fifteen years he asked me in Latine in which tongue he utterred his mind no less eloquently and readily then I could do my self what my Bookâ— which I had dedicated unto him De varietate Rerum did contain I answered that in the first Chapter was shewed the cause of Comâ—ts or blazing-stars which hath been long sought for and hitherto scarce fully found What cause sayd he is that The concourâ—e or meeting of the light of the wandring Planets or stars To this thâ— King thus replyed again For as much said he as the motion of the stars keepeth not one course but is diverse and variable by continual Alteration how is it then that the cause of these Comets doth not quickly vâ—de or vanish or that the Comet doth not keep one certain and uniform course and motion with the said stars and Planets Whereunto I anâ—wered that it â—oved indeed but with a far swifter motion then the Planets by reaâ—on of the diversity of Aspects as we see in Christal and the Sun when a Rainbow rebounds on a Wall for a little change makes a great difference of the place The King rejoyned How can that be done without a subject as the Wall is the Subject to the Rainbow To which I answered That as in the Galaxia or Via lactea and in the Reflection of Lights when many are set near one another they do produce a certain Lucid and bright Mean Which Conference is thus shut up by that Learned Men That he began to favour Learning before he could know it and knew it before he could tell what use he had of it And then bemoans his short life in these words of the Poet Immodicâ—s brevis est Aetas rara Senectus Anno Reg. Edw. Sexti 7º Anno Dom. 1552 1553. SUch being the excellent Abilities of this hopeful Prince in Matters of Abstruser Learning there is no question to be made but that he was the Master of so much Perspicacity in his own Affairs as indeed he was which might produce both Love and Admiration in the Neighbouring Princes Yet such was the Rapacity of the Times and the Unfortunateness of his Condition that his Minority was abused to many Acts of Spoil and Rapine even to an high degree of Sacrilege to the raising of some and the enriching of others without any manner of improvement to his own Estate For notwithstanding the great and most inestimable Treasures which must needs come in by the spoil of so many Shrines and Images the sale of all the Lands belonging to Chanteries Colleges Free Chapels c. And the Dilapidating of the Patrimony of so many Bishopricks and Cathedral Churches he was not onely plunged in Debt but the Crown-Lands were much diminished and impaired since his coming to it Besides which spoils there were many other helps and some great ones too of keeping him both beforeâ—hand and full of Money had they been used to his Advantage The Lands of divers of the Halls and Companies in London were charged with Annual Pensions for the finding of such Lights Obits and Chantry-Priests as were founded by the Donours of them For the redeeming whereof they were constrained to pay the sum of Twenty Thousand Pounds to the use of the King by an Order from the Council-Table not long before the payment of the first Money for the sale of Boloign Anno 1550. And somewhat was also paid by the City to the King for the Purchase of the Borough of Southwark which they bought of him the next year But the main glut of Treasure was that of the four hundred thousand Crowns amounting in our Money to 133333 l. 13 s. 4 d. paid by the French King on the sâ—rrendry of the Town and Territory of 〈◊〉 before remembred Of which vast sum but small in reference to the loss of so great a strength no less then fourscore thousand pounds was laid up in the Tower the rest assigned to publick uses for the peace and safety of the Kingdom Not to say any thing of that great Yearly Profit which came in from the Mint after the entercourse settled betwixt Him and the King of Sweden and the decrying so much Base Money had begun to set the same on work Which great Advantages notwithstanding He is now found to be in Debt to the Bankers of Anâ—weâ—p elsewhere no less then 251000 l of English money Towards which the sending of his own Ambassadours into France and the entertainment of the
of ordinary attendance about his Person which was on the same Day when his Father was created Duke For whereas most men gave themselves no improbable hopes that betwixt the Spring time of his life the Growing season of the year and such Medicinal applications as were made unto him the disease would wear it self away by little and little yet they found the contrary It rather grew so fast upon him that when the Parliament was to begin on the first of March the Lords Spiritual and Temporal were Commanded to attend him at White-Hall instead of waiting on him from thence to Westminster in the usual manner Where being come they found a Sermon ready for them the Preacher being the Bishop of London which otherwise was to have been Preached in the Abby-Church and the Great Chamber of the Court accomodated for an House of Peers to begin the Session For the opening whereof the King then sitting under the Cloth of State and all the Lords according to their Ranks and Orders he declared by the Lord Chancellor Goodrick the causes of his calling them to the present Parliament and so dismist them for that time A Parliament which began and ended in the Month of March that the Commissions might the sooner be dispatched to their several Circuits for the speedier gathering up of such of the Plate Copes Vestments and other Furnitures of which the Church was to be spoyled in the time of his sickness Yet in the midst of these disorders there was some care taken for advancing both the honour and the interest of the English-Nation by furnishing Sebastian Cabol for some new discoveries Which Sebastian the Son of John Cabol a Venetian born attended on his first imployment under Henry the seventh Anno 1497. At what time they discovered the Barralaos and the Coasts of Caenada now called New-France even to the 67½ degree of Northern Latitude Bending his Course more toward the South and discovering a great part of the shoars of Florida he returned for England bringing with him three of the Natives of that Country to which the name of New-Found-Land hath been since appropriated But finding the KING unhappily Embroyled in a War with Scotland and no present Encouragements to be given for a further Voiage he betook himself into the service of the KING of SPAIN and after fourty years and more upon some distast abandoned SPAIN and offered his service to this KING By whom being made Grand Pilot of England in the year 1549. he animated the English-Merchants to the finding out of a passage by the North-East Seas to Cathay and China first enterprised under the Conduct of Sr. Hugh Willoughby who unfortunately Perished in the Action himself and all his Company being Frozen to Death all the particulars of his Voiage being since committed to Writing as was certified by the Adventures in the year next following It was upon the twentith of May in this present year that this Voiage was first undertaken three great Ships being well manned and fitted for the Expedition which afterwards was followed by Chancelour Burrought Jackman Jenkinson and other noble Adventurers in the times Succeding Who though they failed of their Attempt in finding out a shorter way to Cathay and China yet did they open a fair Passage to the Bay of S. Nicholas and thereby layd the first foundation of a Wealthy Trade betwixt us and the Muscovites But the KING'S Sickness still encreasing who was to live no longer then might well stand with the designs of the DVKE of Northumber-land some Marriages are resolved on for the Daughters of the DVKE of Suffolk in which the KING appeared as forward as if he had been one of the Principalls in the Plot against him And so the matter was Contrived that the Lady IANE the eldest Daughter to that DVKE should be Married to the Lord Guilford Dudly the fourth Son then living of Northumberland all the three Elder Sons having Wives before that Katherine the second Daughter of Suffolk should be Married to the Lord Henry Herbert the Eldest Son of the Earl of Pembrock whom Dudly had made privy to all his Counsels and the third Daughter named Mary being Crook-Backed and otherwise not very taking affianced to Martin Keys the KING'S Gentleman-Porter Which Marriages together with that of the Lady Katherine one of the Daughters of Duke Dudly to Henry Lord Hastings Eldest Son of the Earl of Huntington were celebrated in the end of May or the beginning of June for I finde our Writers differing in the time thereof with as much Splendour and solemnity as the KING' 's weak Estate and the sad Condition of the Court could be thought to bear These Marriages all solemnized at Dâ—rham House in the Strand of which Northumberland had then took possession in the name of the Rest upon a Confidence of being Master very shortly of the whole Estate The noise of these Marriages bred such Amazement in the Hearts of the common People apt enough in themselves to speak the worst of Northumberland's Actions That there was nothing left unsaid which might serve to shew their hatred against him or express their Pity toward the KING But the DVKE was so little troubled at it that on the contrary he resolved to Dissemble no longer but openly to play his Game according to the Plot and Project which he had been Hammering ever â—ince the Fall of the DVKE of Somerset whose Death he had Contrived on no other Ground but for laying the way more plain and open to these vast ambitions The KING was now grown weak in Body and his Spirits much decaied by a languishing Sickness which Rendred him more apprehensive of such fears and Dangers as were to be presented to him then otherwise he could have been in a time of strength In which Estate Duke Dudly so prevailed upon him that he conâ—ented at the last to a transposition of the Crown from his natural sisters to the Children of the Dutchess of Suffolk Confirming it by Letters Patents to the Heirs Males of the Body of the said Dutchess And for want of such Heirs Males to be Born in the lifetime of the KING the Crown immediately to descend on the Lady IANE the eldest Daughter of that House and the Heirs of her Body and so with several Remainders to the rest of that Family The carriage of which Business and the Rubs it met with in the way shall be reserved to the particular story of the Lady IANE when she is brought unwilling upon the Stage there on to Act the part of a Queen of England It sufficeth in this place to note that the KING had no sooner caused these Leters Patents to passe the Seal but his Weakeness more visibly encreased then it did before And as the KING'S Weakeness did encrease so did the Northumberland's Diligence about him for he was little absent from him and had alwaies some well-assured to Epy how the State of his Health changed every Hour And the more joyful he
was at the Heart the more Sorrowful appearance did he outwardly Make. Whither any tokens of Poyson did Appear reports are various Certainly his Physicians discerned an invincible Malignity in his disease and the Suspicion did the more encrease for that the Complaint proceded chiefly from the Lights a part as of no quickness so no seat for any sharp Disease The Bruit whereof being got amongst the People they break out into immoderate Passions Complaining that for this cause his two Uncles had been taken away that for this cause the most Faithful of his Nobility and of his Council were disgraced and removed from Court that this was the reason why such were placed next his Person who were most assuredly disposed either to commit or permit any Mischeif that now it did appear that it was not vainly conjectured some years before by Men of Judgment and Foresight that after Sommerset's Death the King should not long Enjoy his Life But the DVKE regarded not much the muttering Multitude knowing full well that Rumours grow Stale and Vanish with Time and yet somewhat to abate or Delay them for the present He caused speeches â—o be spread abroad that the KING began to be in a Recovery of his Health which was the more readily Beleived because most desired it to be true To which Report the General Jugdment of his Physicians gave no little Countenance by whom it was affirmed that they saw some hopes of his Recovery if he might be removed to a Better and more Healthful Air. But this DVKE Dudly did not like of and therefore he so dealt with the LORDS of the Council that they would by no means yield unto it upon pretense of his Inability to endure any such Remove And now the time being near at hand for the last Act of this Tragedy a certain Gentlewoman accounted a fit Instrument for the purpose offered her Service for the Cure giving no small assurance of it if He might be committed wholy to her disposing But from this Proposition the KING'S Physicians shewed themselves to be very averse in regard that as she could give no reason either of the nature of the Disease or of the part afflicted so she would not declare the means whereby she intended to work the Cure Whose Opposition notwithstanding it was in time resolved by the Lords of the Council that the Physicians should be discharged and the Ordering of the King's Person committed unto her alone But she had not kept Him long in hand when He was found to have fallen into such Desperate Extremity as manifestly might Declare that His Death was hastened under pretense of finding out a more quick way for restoring of His Health For now it visibly appeared that His Vital Parts were mortally stuffed Which brought Him to a difficulty of speech and breathing that His Legs swelled his Pulse failed and his Skin changed colour with many other horrid Symptoms of approching Death Which being observed the Physicians were again sent for when it was too late and sent for as they gave it out but for Fashion onely because it was not thought fit in Reason of State that a King should by without having some Physicians in attendance of him by some of which it was secretly whispered That neither their Advice nor Applications had been at all regarded in the course of his Sickness That the King had been ill dealt with more then once or twice and that when by the Benefit both of his Youth and of careful Means there were some fair hopes of his Recovery He was again more strongly Over-laied then ever And for a farther proof that some undue Practises had been used upon him it is Affirmed by a Writer of the Popish Party who could have no great cause to pity such a Calamitous End not onely that the Apothecary who poysoned him as well for the Horrour of the Offence as the Disquietness of his Conscience did not long after drown himself but that the Landress who washed his Shirts loâ—t the Skin of her fingers Againâ—t which general apprehensions of some ill Dealing toward this unfortunate Prince it can be no sufficient Argument if any Argument at all that Queen Mary caused no Enquiry to be made about it as some supposed She would have done if the suspicion had been raised upon any good Grounds For it may easily be Believed that She who afterwards admitted of a Consultation for Burning the Body of Her Father and cutting off the Head of Her Siâ—ter would not be over-Careful in the search and punâ—shment of those who had precipitated the Death of her Brother The differences which were between them in the point of Religion and the King's forwardness in the Cause of the Lady Jane His rendring Her uncapaable as much as in Him was to succeed in the Crown and leaving Her in the Estate of Illegitimation were thought to have enough in them of a Supersedeas unto all Good Nature So that the King might dye by such sinister Practises without putting Queen MARY to the trouble of enquiring after them who thought Her Self to have no Reason of being too sollicitous in searching out the secret Causes of His Death who had been so injurious to Her in the time of His Life A Life which lasted little and was full of trouble so that Death could not be unwelcome to Him when the hopes of His Recovery began to fail Him Of which if He desired a Restitution it was rather for the Church's sake then for His own His dying Prayers not so much aiming at the prolonging of His Life as the Continuance of Religion Not so much at the freeing of Himself from His Disease as the preserving of the Church from the danger of Popery Which dying Prayer as it was taken from His Mouth was in these words following Lord God deliver me out of this miserable and wretched life and take me among thy Chosen Howbeit not my Will but Thine be done Lord I commit my Spirit to Thee O Lord Thou knowest how happy it were for Me to be with Thee Yet for thy Chosen's sake send me Life and Health that I may truly se ve Thee Oh my Lord God! bless my People and save Thine Inheritance O Lord God save thy Chosen People of England Oh Lord God! defend this Realm from Papistry and maintain thy true Religion that I and my People may praise thy Holy Name for Jesus Christ his sake With this Prayer and other Holy Meditations He prepared that Pious Soul for God which He surrendred into the Hands of His Creatout on the sixth of July toward Night when He had lived fifteen Years eight Moneths and four and twenty Days Of which He had Reigned six Years five Moneths and eight Days over His Body kept a while at Greenwich was on the eight of August removed to Westminster and on the morrow after solemnly Interred amoâ—gst His Ancestours in the Abbey Church In the performance whereof the Lord Treasure Paulet with the Earls of
Her Reign but of nine Days and no more Her Life not twice so many years as She Reigned days Such was the end of all the Projects of the two great Dukes for Her Advancement to the Crown and their own in Hers. To which as She was raised without any Blows so She might have been deposed without any Blows if the Ax had not been more cruel on the Scaffold then the Sword in the Field The Sword had never been unsheathed but when the Scaffold was once Erected and the Ax once sharpened there followed so many Executions after one another till the Death of that Queen that as Her Reign began in the Blood of those who took upon them the Puâ—suit of this Lady's Title so was it stained more fouly in the Blood of 〈◊〉 as were Maâ—tyred in all parts for Her Religion To the Relation of which 〈◊〉 Deaths and Martyrdoms and other the Calamities of that Tragical and unpâ—â—â—perous Reign we must next proceed The Parentage Birth and first Fortunes of the Princesse ELIZABETH The second Daughter of King Henry the Eighth before her coming to the CROWN With a true Narrative of the first Loves of King Henry the Eighth to Queen Anne Bollen The Reasons of his alienating of his first affections and the true causes of her woful and calamitous death ELIZABETH the youngest daughter of King Henry the 8th was born at Greenwich on the 7th of September being the Eve of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary 1533. begotten on the body of Queen Anne Bollen the eldest daughter of Thomas Bollen Earl of Wiltshire and of Elâ—zabeth his wife one of the daughters of Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk and Earl Marshal of England The Family of the Bollens before this time neither great nor antient but highly raised in reputation by the marriage of the Lady Anne and the subsequent birth of Queen Elizabeth the first rise thereof comming out of the City in the person of Sir Geofrey Bollen Lord Mayor of London Anno 1457. which Geofrey being son of one Geofrey Bollen of Sulle in Norfolk was father of Sir William Bollen of Blickling in the said County who took to wife the Lady Margaret daughter and one of the heirs of Thomas Butler Earl of Ormond brother and heir of James Butler Earl of Wiltshire Of this marriage came Sir Thomas Bollen above mentioned imployed in several Embassies by King Henry the Eighth to whom he was Treasurer of the Houshold and by that name enrolled amongst the Knights of the Garter Anno 1523. advanced about two years after being the seventeenth of that King to the style and title of Viscount Rochfort and finally in reference to his mothers extraction created Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond 1529. But dying without issue male surviving the title of Ormond was restored to the next heir male of the Butlers in Ireland and that of Wiltshire given by King Edward the 6th to Sir William Paules being then great Master of the Houshold And as for that of Viscount Rochfort it lay dormant after his decease till the 6th of July Anno 1621. when conferred by King James on Henry Cary Lord Hunsâ—on the son of John and Grandchild of Henry Cary whom Queen Elizabeth in the first year of her Reign made Lord Cary of Hunsdon he being the son and heir of Sir William Cary one of the Esquires of the body to King Henry the 8th by the Lady Mary Bâ—llen his wife the youngest daughter and one of the Coheirs of the said Thomas Bollen Viscount Rochfort and Earl of Wiltshire Such being the estate of that Family which became afterwards so fortunate in the production of this Princess to the Realm of England we must in the next place enquire more particularly into the life and story of Queen Anne her Mother Who in her tender years attending on Mary the French Queen to the Court of France was by her Father after the return of the said Queen placed in the retinue of the Dutchess of Alanzone the beloved sister of King Francis where she not only learnt the language but made her self an exact Mistriss both of the Gaities and Garb of the great French Ladies She carried such a stock of natural graces as render'd her superlatively the most admired beauty in the Court of France and returned thence with all those advantages which the civilities of France could add to an English beauty For so it hapned that her Father being sent with Sir Anthony Brown Anno 1527. to take the oath of the French King to a solemn league not long before concluded betwixt the Crowns resolved to bring back his daughter with him to see what fortunes God would send her in the Court of England Where being Treasurer of the houshold it was no hard matter for him to prefer her to Queen Katherines service on whom she waited in the nature of a Maid of Honour which gave the King the opportunity of taking more than ordinary notice of her parts and person Nor was it long before the excellency of her beauty adorned with such a gracefulness of behaviour appeared before his eyes with so many charms that not able to resist the assaults of Love he gave himself over to be governed by those affections which he found himself unable to Master But he found no such easie task of it as he had done before in bringing Mrs Elizabeth Blunt and others to be the subjects of his lusts all his temptations being repelled by this vertuous Lady like arrows shot in vain at a rock of Adamants She was not to be told of the Kings loose love to several Ladies and knew that nothing could be gained by yielding unto such desires but contempt and infamy though for a while disguised and palliated by the plausible name and Courtly Title of a Princes Mistriss The humble and modest opposition of the Lady Gray to the inordinate affections of King Edward the 4th advanced her to his bed as a lawful wife which otherwise she had been possessed of by no better title than that of Jane Shore and his other Concubines By whose example Mistriss Bollâ—n is resolved to steer her courses and not to yield him any further favours than what the honour of a Lady and the modesty of a virgin might inoffensively permit to so great a King But so it chanced that before her coming back from the Court of France the King began to be touched in conscience about his marriage with the Queen upon occasion of some doubts which had been cast in the way both by the Ministers of the Emperour and the French King as touching the legitimation of his daughter Mary Which doubts being started at a time when he stood on no good terms with the Emperour and was upon the point of breaking with him was secretly fomented by such of the Court as had advanced the party of Francis and sought alwaies to alienate him from the friendship of Charles Amongst which none more forward than Cardinal Wolsie who
for almost twenty years together had governed his affairs with such power and prudence The Emperor had disgusted the ambitious Prelate not only by crossing him in his sute for the Popedome but by denying him the Archbishoprick of Toledo of which he had once given him no small hopes And now the Cardinal is resolved to cry quits for both thinking himself as much affronted in the sailer of his expectations as if he had been disgracefully deprived of some present possession No way more open to his ends than by working on that scruple of Conscience which had been raised unto his hand to the advance whereof the reservedness of the Queens behaviour and the inequality of her years which render'd her the less agreeable to his conversation gave no small advantage In which conjuncture it was no hard matter to perswade him unto any way which might give satisfaction to his conscience or content to his fancy especially iâ— it came accompanied with such a change as promised him the hopes of a son and heir or at the least of a more lawful and unquestioned issue And then what fitter wife could be found out for him than Madam Rheene one of the daughters of King Lewis the 12th and sister to the wife of the King then Reigning By which alliance he might be able to justifie his separation from the bed of Katherine not only against Charls her Nephew but against all Kings and Emperors in the Christian world taking the Pope into the reckoning A proposition so agreeable to the Kings own thoughts who began to grow weary of his Queen that he resolved to buy the amity of Francis at any rate to which end he not only made a league with him against the Emperour when the condition of the French was almost desperate but remitted unto Francis a very vast debt to the value of 500000 Crowns partly accruing unto him by some former contracts and parâ—ly for the payment of forfeiture incurred by Charles with which the French had charged himself by the capitulations And so far matters went on smoothly to the Cardinals wish and possibly might have succeeded in all particulars had not the plot miscaried by the return of Viscount Rochfort and the planting of Anne Bollen in the Court The admirable attractions of which young Lady had drawn the King so fast unto her that in short time he gave her an absolute soverainty over all his thoughts But so long he concealed his affections from her that a great league and entercourse was contracted betwixt her and the young Lord Percy the eldest son of Henry Lord Percy the 5th Earl of Northumberland of that Name and Family who being brought up in the Cardinals service had many opportunities of confirming an acquaintance with her when either his own pleasure or his Lords affairs occasioned his waiting at the Court But these compliances on both sides neither were nor probably could be so closely caried as not to come unto the knowledge of the jealous King impatient of a Rival in his new affections and yet resolved to carry the business in such a manner as to give no distaste to her whom he so much loved The Cardinal is therefore dealt with to remove that obstacle to which he readily condescended not looking further at the present into the design but that the King intended to appropriate the young Lady to his private pleasures as he had done many others in the times foregoing A messenger is thereupon dispatched to the Earl of Northumberland who at his coming to the Court is informed by the Cardinal how unadvisedly the Lord Percy had entred himself into the affections of Mrs Bollen one of the daughters of Viscount Rochfort not only without his fathers privity but against the express will of the King who was resolved to dispose otherwise of her And this he urged upon the strength of an old prerogative both then and after exercised by the Kings of England in not permitting any of the Nobility to contract mariages and make alliances with one another but by their consents The old Earl startled at the newes and fearing nothing more than the Kings displeasure calls for his son and presenâ—ly schools him in this manner Son quoth he even as thou art and ever haste been a proud disdainful and very unthtifty Master so haste thou now declared thy self Wherefore what joy what pleasure what comfort or what solace can I conceive in thee that thus without discretion hast abused thy self having neither regard to me thy natural father nor to thy natural Soverain Lord the King to whom all honest and loyal subjects bear faithful obedience nor yet to the prosperity of thy own estate but hast so unadvisedly ensâ—ared thy self to her for whom thou hast purchased the Kings high displeasure intolerable for any subject to sustain And but that the King doth consider the lightness of thy head and wilful quality of thy person his displeasure and indignation were sufficient to cast me and all my posterity into utter ruine and destruction But he being my singular good Lord and favourable Prince and my Lord Cardinal my very good friend hath and doth clearly excuse me in thy lewdness and doth rather lament thy folly than malign thee and hath advised an order to be taken for thee to whom both I and you are more bound than we conceive of I pray to God that this may be sufficient admonition to thee to use thy self more wisely hereafter For assure thy self if thou dost not amend thy prodigality thou wilt be the last Earl of our house For thy natural inclination thou art masterful and prodigal to consume all that thy progenitors have with so great travail gathered and kept together with honour But having the Kings Majesty my singular good Lord I trust I assure thee so to order my succession that thou shalt consume thereof but a little For I do not intend I tell thee truly to make thee heir for thanks be to God I have more boys that I trust will use themselves much better and prove more like to be wise and honest men of whom I will chuse the most likely to succeed me So said the much offended father and yet not thinking he had done enough for his own security a marriage is presently concluded for him to the Kings good liking with the Lady Mary one of the daughters of George Lord 〈◊〉 Earl of Shrewsbury Mrs Anne Bollen in the mean time is removed by her father from the Court to her no small trouble who knowing nothing of the Kings had willingly admitted the Lord Percy into her affections And understanding by him what had past betwixt him and his father she conceived such a mortal grudge against the Cardinal whom she looked on as the only cause of this separation that she contributed her best assistance to his final ruine It was about the time when the Kings cause was to be agitated in the Leganâ—ine Court that he caused her to be sent
for out of the Country to give her attendance on the Queen as in former times impatient of a longer absence and fearful of a second Rival if he should any longer conceal his purpose Which having taken some fit time to disclose unto her he found in her a vertue of such strength against all temptations that he resolves upon the sentencing of the divorce which he little doubted to take her to him as the last sole object of his wandring loves A matter not to be concealed from so many espials as Wolsie had about the King Who thereupon slackneth his former pace in the Kings affairs and secretly practiseth with the Pope to recall the Commission whereby he was impowred together with Campegius to determine in it Anne Bollen formerly offended at his two great haste in breaking the compliance betwixt her and Percy is now as much displeased with him for his being too slow in sentencing the Kings Divorse On which as she had built the hopes of her future greatness so she wanted neither will nor opportunity to do him ill offices with the King whom she exasperates against him upon all occasions The King growes every day more open in his cariage towards her takes her along with him in his progress diâ—es with her privately in her chamber and causeth almost all adresses to be made by her in matters of the greatest moment Resolved to break through all impediments which stood betwixt him and the accomplishment of his desires he first sends back Campegius an alien born presently caused Wolsie to be indicted and attainted in a premunire and not long after by the counsel of Thomas Cromwel who formerly had been the Cardinals Solicitor in his Legantine Court involves the whole body of the Clergy in the same crime with him By the perswasions of this man he requires the Clergy to acknowledge him for supreme head on earth of the Church of England to make no new Canons and Constitutions nor to execute any such when made but by his consent And having thus brought his own Clergy under his command he was the less solicitous how his matters went in the Court of Rome to which the Pope recalled his cause which he either quickned or retarded as rather stood with his own interess than the Kings concernments The King being grown more confident in the equity and justice of his cause by the determinations of many of the Universities in France and Italy better assured than formerly of his own Clergy at home and wanting no encouragement from the French King to speed the business advanced the Lady Anne Bollen for by this time her father for her sake was made Earl of Wâ—ltshire to the Title Stile and Dignity of Marchâ—oness of Pâ—mbrook on the first of September 1532. assigning her a pension of a thousand pounds per annum out of the Bishopâ—ick of Durham And now the time of the intended interview betwixt him and the French King drawing on a pace he takes her along with him unto Calais where she entertained both Kings at a curious Mask At what time having some communication about the Kings intended mariage the French encouraged him to proceed assuring him that if the matter should be questioned by the Pope or Emperour against whom this must make him sure to the party of France to assist him with his utmost power what fortune soever should beâ—ide him in it On which assurance from the French the mariage is privately made up on the 14th of November then next following the sacred Rites performed by Dr Rowland Lee whom afterwards he preferred to the See of Lichfield and made Lord President of Wales None present at the Nuptials but Archbishop Cranmer the Duke of Norfolk the Father Mother and Brother of the new Queen and possibly some other of the Confidents of either side whom it concerned to keep it secret at their utmost peril But long it could not be concealed For finding her self to be with child she acquaints the King with it who presently dispatcheth George Lord Rochfort her only brother to the Court of France as well to give the King advertisement of his secret mariage as to desire him not to fail of performing his promises if occasion were and therewithall to crave his counsel and advice how it was to be published since it could not long be kept unknown It is not to be doubted but that the French King was well pleased with the news of a mariage which must needs fasten England to the party of France and that he would be forward enough to perform those promises which seemed so visible to conduce to his own preservation And as for matter of advice it appeared unnecessary because the mariage would discover it self by the Queens being with child which could no longer be concealed And being to be concealed no longer on Easter Eve the twelfth of April she shewed her self openly as Queen all necessary officers and attendants are appointed for her an Order issueth from the Parliament at that time sitting that Katherine should no longer be called Queen but Princesse Dowager Cranmer the new Archbishop repairs to Dunstable erects his Consistory in the Priory there cites Katherine fifteen dayes together to appear before him and in default of her appearance proceedeth judicially to the sentence which he reduceth into writing in due form of Law and caused it to be openly publish'd with the consent of his Colleagues on Friday the 23d of May. And on the Sunday sevennight being then Whitsunday the new Queen was solemnly crowned by the said Archbishop conducted by water from Greenwich to the Tower of London May 29. from thence through the chief streets of the City unto Westminster Hall May 31. and the next day from Westminster Hall to the Abby Church to receive the Crown a solemn tilting before the Court gate on the morrow after All which was done with more magnificence and pomp than ever had been seen before on the like occasion the particulars whereof he that lists to see may find them punctually set down in the Annals of John Stow fol. 563 564 c. And he may find there also the solemnities used at the Christning of the Princess Elizabeth born upon Sunday the 7th day of September and Christned on the Wednesday following with a pomp not much inferiour to the Coronation her Godfather being the Archbishop of Canterbury her Godmothers the old Dutchess of Norfolk and the old Marchioness of Dorset by whom shâ— was named Elizabeth acâ—ording to the name of the Grandmothers on eitheâ— side Not long after Christmass then next following began the Parliament in which the Kings mariage with the Lady Katherine was declared unlawful her daughter the Lady Mâ—ry to be illegitimate the Crown to be entailed on the Kings heirs males to be begotten on the body of the present Queen and for default of such issue on the Princess Elizabeth an oath devised in maintenance of the said succession and not long after
Moor and Fisher executed as before was said for the refusal of that oath The Kings cause all this while depended in the Court of Rome not like to be determined for him and yet the Pope not willing to declare against him till by the solicitation of the Emperour and for the vindication of the honour of the See Apostolick he seemed to be necessitated to some acts of rigour which at last proved the total ruine of his power and party in the Realm of England For the new Queen considering that the Pope and she had such different interesses that they could not both subsist together resolved upon that course which Nature and self-preservation seem'd to dictate to her But finding that the Popes was too well intrenched to be dislodged upon a sudden it was advised by Cromwel made Mr of the Rols on her commendation to begin with taking in the out-works first which being gained it would be no hard matter to beat him out of his trenches In order whereunto a visitation is begun in the month of October 1535. in which a diligent enquiry was to be made into all Abbies Priories and Nunneries within the Kingdome Cromwel himself Dr Lee and others being named for Visitors Who governing themselves according to certain instructions of their own devising dismist all such religious persons as were under the age of â—4 or otherwise were willing to relinquish their several houses shutting up such from going out as were not willing to accept the benefit of that permission all such religious persons as departed thence to be gratified by the Abbot or Prior with a Priests Gown and forty shillings in mony and all Nuns to be put into a secular habit and suffered to go where they would They took order also that no men should go into the houses of women nor women into the houses of men but only for the hearing of Divine Service making thereby that course of life less pleasing unto either Sex than it had been formerly They also inventaried or else directly â—ook away the Relicts and chief Jewels out of most of the said Monasteries or Religious houses pretending that they took them for the Kings use but possibly keeping them for their own And having made a strict and odious inquisition into the lives of all the Votaries of both Sexes they return'd many of them guilty of exorbitant luâ—ts and much carnal uncleanness representing their offences in such multiplying glasses as made them seem both greater in number and more horrid in nature than indeed they were And in the February following was held a Parliament in which all Monasteries Priories and other Religious houses under the yearly value of 200l were granted unto the King and his heirs for ever The number of the Houses then suppressed were said to be 376 their yearly Rents then valued at the sum of thirty two thousand pounds and upwards their movable goods as they were sold at Hood's penny-worths amounting to one hundred thousand pounds and more The Religious persons thus despoiled of their Estates either betook themselves to some of the greater Houses of their several Orders or went again into the world and followed such secular businesses as were offered to them towards the getting of their livings Much lamentation made in all parts of the Country for want of that relief and sustenance which the poor of all sorts received daily from their hospitality and for the want of that employment which they found continually in and about those Houses in their several Trades insomuch that it was commonly thought that more than ten thousand persons as well Masters as Servants had lost their livelyhoods by that act of suppression To the passing whereof the Bishops and the Mitred Abots which made the prevalent part of the House of Peers contributed their Votes and Suffrages as the other did whether it were out of pusillanimity as not daring to appear in behalf of their brethren or out of a weak hope that the Rapacity of the Queen and her Ministers would proceed no farther it is hard to say Certain it is that by their improvident assenting to the present Grant they made a rod for their own backs as the saying is with which they were sufficiently scourged within few years after till they were all finally whipt out of the Kingdom though the new Queen for whose sake Cromwel had contrived the plot did not live to see it For such is the uncertainty of human affairs that when she thought her self most safe and free from danger she became most obnoxious to the ruine prepared for her It had pleased God on the eighth of January to put an end unto the calamities of the vertuous but unfortunate Queen into whose Bed she had succeeded the news whereof she entertained with such contentment that she caused her self to be apparalled in lighter colours than was agreeable to the season or the sad occasion Whereas if she had rightly understood her own condition she could not but have known that the long life of Katherine was to be her best preservative against all changes which the Kings loose affections or any other alterations in affairs of State were otherwise like to draw upon her But this contentment held not long for within three weeks after she fell in travail in which she miscarried of a Son to the extream grief of the Mother and discontent of the Father who looked upon it as an argument of Gods displeasure as being as much offended at this second Marriage as he was at the first He then began to think of his ill forâ—une with both his Wives both Mariages subject to dispute and the Legitimation of his daughter Elizabeth as likely to be called in question in the time succeeding as that of Mary in the former He much therefore cast about for another wife of whose marriage and his issue by her there could arise no conâ—roversie or else must die without an heir of his own body or leave the Crown to be contended for by those who though they were of his own body could not be his heirs His eye had carried him to a Gentlewoman in the Queens attendance of extraordinary beauty and superlative modesty on the enjoying of whom he so fixed his thoughts that he had quite obliterated all remembrance of his former loves As resolute but more private in this pursute than he was in the former yet not so private but that the Queen so piercing are the eyes of Love and Jealousie had took notice of it and signified her suspitions to him of which more anon In the mean time she was not wanting in all those honest arts of Love Obsequiousness and Entertainment which might endear her to the King who now began to be as weary of her gaities and jocular humor as formerly of the gravity and reservedness of Katherine And causing many eyes to observe her actions they brought him a return of some particulars which he conceived might give him a sufficient ground to
proceed upon The Lord Rochfort her own brother having some sute to obtain by her of the King was found whispering to her on her bed when she was in it which was interpreted for an act of some great dishonor done or intended to the King as if she had permitted him some farther liberties than were consistent with the innocent familiarity between brothers and sisters In the aggravating whereof with all odious circumstances none was more forward than the Lady Rochfort her self whether out of any jealousie which she had of her husband or whether out of some inveterate hatred which she had to the Queen according to the peccant humor of most sisters in law is not clearly known It was observed also that Sir Henry Norris Groom of the Stool unto the King had entertained a very dear affection for her not without giving himself some hopes of succeeding in the King's bed as Sir Thomas Seimer after did if she chanced to survive him And it appears that she had given him opportunity to make known his affection and to acquaint her with his hopes which she expressed by twitting him in a frolick humor with â—ooking after dead mens shoos Weston and Bâ—eerton both Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber were observed also to be very diligent in their services and addresses to her which were construed rather to proceed from love than duty though no reciprocation could be found to proceed from her but what was agreeable to that affability and general debonairness which she shewed to all men Out of these premises weak and imperfect though they were the King resolves to come to a conclusion of his aims and wishes A solemn Tilting was maintained at Greenwich on the first of May at which the King and Queen were present the Lord Rochfort and Sir Henry Norris being principal Challengers The Queen by chance let fall her handkerchief which was taken up by one of her supposed favourits who stood under the window whom the King perceived to wipe his face with it This taken by the King to be done of purpose and thereupon he leaves the Queen and all the rest to behold the Sports and goeâ—h immediately in great haste to Westmâ—â—ster to the no small amazement of all the company but the Queen especially Rochfort and Norris are committed to the Tower on the morrow after to which unfortunate place the Queen her self on the same day was conducted by Sir Thomas Audeley Lord Chancellor the Duke of Norfolk Cromwel then Master of the Rolls and principal Secretary and Kingston Lieutenant of the Tower Informed by them upon the way of the Kings suspitions she is said to have fallen upon her knees and with dire imprecations to have disavowed the crime whatsoever it were wherewith she was charged beseeching God so to regard her as the justness of her cause required After which William Breerton Esquire and Sir Francis Westâ—n of the King 's Privy Chamber together with Mark Smeton one of the King's Musicians were committed on the same occasion These persons being thus committed and the cause made known the next care was to find sufficient Evidence for their condemnation It was objected that thâ— Queen growing out of hope of having any issue male by the King had used the company of the Lord Râ—chfort Norris Bâ—eerton and Weston and possibly of Smeton also involving her at onâ—e in no smaller crimes than those of Adultery and Incest For proof whereof there was no waâ—t of any artifices in sifting canvasing and intangling not onely the Prisoners themselves but all such Wiâ—nesses of either sex as were thought fit to be examined by the Kingâ— Commissioners from none of which they were able to get any thing by all their Arts which might give any ground for her conviction but that Maâ—k Smeton had been wrought on to make some confession of himself to her dishonor out of a vain hope to save his own life by the loss of hers Concerning which Cromwel thus writes unto the King after the Prisoners had been throughly examined in the Tower by the Lords of the Council Many things saith hâ— have been objected but nothing confessed onely some circumstances have been a knowledged by Mark. To which effect and other the particulars before remembred take here a Letter written by Sir Eâ—ward Baynâ—on to Sir William Fitswilâ—iams being then Treasurer of the Household and not long after raised unto the style and Title of Earl of Southampâ—on Mr. Treasurer THis shall be to advertise you that here is much communication that no man will confess any thing against her at all but onely Mark of any actual thing Wherefore in my foolish conceit it should much touch the Kings honor if it should no further appear And I cannot believe but that the other two be as far culpable as ever was he and I think assuredly the one keepeth the others counsel as many conâ—ectures in my mind causeth me to think and especially of the communication that was last between the Queen Mr. Norres Mr. Amner and me as I would if I might speak with Mr. Secretary and you together more plainly expresse my mind If the case be that they have confessed like witnesses aâ—l things as they â—â—ould do then the matter is at a point I have mused much at the manner of Mistresse Margery which hath used her self so strangely towards me of late being her friend so much as I have been But no doubt it cannot be chosen but she must be of counsell therewith for there hath been great friendship between the Queen and her of â—aâ—e I hear further that the Queen standeth stifly in her opinion that she will die in it which I think is in the trust that she hath of the other two But if your businesse be such as you cannot come I would gladly come and wait on you if you think it requisite In appears also by a Letter of Sir William Kingstons that he had much communication with her when she was his prisoner in which her language seemed to be broken and distressed betwixt tears and laughter out of which nothing could be gathered but that she exclaimed against Norris as if he had accused her It was further signified in that Letter that she named some others who had obsequiously applied themselves to her love and service acknowledging such passages though not sufficient to condemn her as shewed she had made use of the utmost liberty which could be honestly allowed her Most true it is as far as any truth can be collected from common and credible reports that Norris being much favoured by the King was offered pardon for his life if he would confess the crimes which he was accused of To which he made this generous answer That in his conscience he thought her guiltlesse of the crimes objected but whether she were or no he could not accuse her of any thing and that he had rather undergo a thousand deaths than betray the innocent So that upon the point
Injunctions Anno 1559. Not giving such a general satisfaction to that groundless cavil as was expected and intended the Bishops and Clergy in their Convocation of the year 1562. by the Queens authority and consent declared more plainly that is to say That they gave not to their Princess by vertue of the said Act or otherwise either the ministring of Gods word or Sacraments but that only Prerogâ—tive which they saw to have been given alwaies to all godly Princes in holy Scripture by God himself that is to say that they should 〈◊〉 all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborne and evil doers By all which if the cavils of the Adversary be not fully answered it would be known upon what reason they should question that in a soverain Queen which they allow in many cases to a Lady Abbess For that an Abbess may be capable of all and all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction even to the dâ—nouncing of that dreadful sentence of Excommunication and that thâ—y may lawfully exercise the same upon all such as live within the verge of their authority is commonly acknowledged by their greatest Canonists First for suspension it is affirmed by their Glosse that an Abbess may suspend such Clerks as are subject to her both from their Benefice and Office And questionless either to suspend a Clerk or to bring his Church under the sentence of an Interdict is one of the chief parts of Ecclesiastical or spiritual Censures Nor have they this authority only by way of delegation from the Pope in some certain cases as is affirmed by Aquinas Durandus ' Sylvâ—ster Dominicus Soto and many other of their Schoolmen but in an ordinary way as properly and personally invested them which is the general opinion of their greatest Canonists Next for the Sacraments it is sufficiently known that the ministration of Baptism is performed by Midwives and many other women as of common course not only as a thing connived at in extreme necessity but as a necessary duty in which they are to be instructed against all emergencies by their Parish Priests for which we have the testimony of the late Lord Legate in the Articles published by him for his visitation And finally for excommunication it is affirmed by Palladanus and Navarre none of the meanest in the Pack that the Pope may grant that power to a woman also higher than which there can be none exercised in the Church by the sons of men And if a Pope may grant these powers unto a woman as to a Prioress or Abbess or to any other there can be then no incapacity in the Sex for exersing any part of that jurisdiction which was restored unto the Crown by this Act of Parliament And if perhaps it be objected that a Lady Abbess is an Ecclesiastical or spiritual person in regard of her office which cannot be affirmed of Queens Pope Gregory himself will come in to help us by whom it was not thought unfit to commit the cognisance of a cause concerning the purgation of a Bishop who stood charged with some grievous crime to Brunichildis or Brunholi Queen of France of which although the Gloss upon the Decretals be pleased to say That the Pope stretched his power too far in this particular yet Gregory did no more therein but what the Popes may do and have done of late times by their own confession so little ground there is for so great a clamour as hath been made by Bellarmine and other of the Popish Jesuites upon this occasion Now for the better exercising and enjoying of the jurisdiction thus recognised unto the Crown there are two Clauses in the Act of great importance the first whereof contains an Oath for the acknowledgment and defence of this Supremacy not onely in the Queen but her heirs and successors the said Oath to be taken by all Archbishops Bishops and all other Ecclesiastical persons and also by all temporal Judges Justiciaries Mayors or any other temporal Officers c. For the refusal whereof when lawfully tendred to them by such as were thereto commissionated under the great Seal of England every such person so refusing was actually to stand deprived of his or their Eâ—clesiastical Preferments or other temporal office of what sort soever onely it was provided that the Oath should not be imposed on any of the temporal Peers of whose fidelity the Queen seemed willing to assure her self without any such tye though this exemption was esteemed by others but a piece of cunning the better to facilitate the passing of that Act amongst them which otherwise they might have hindred But this provision was not made till the following Parliament though for the reason before mentioned it was promised now By the last Clause it was enacted That it should and might be lawful to the Queen her heirs and Successors by Letters Patents under the great Seal of England to assigne name and authorise when and as often as her Highness her Heirs or Successors should think convenient such persons being natural born Subjects to them to exercise use and occupie under her Highness her Heirs and Successors all manner of Jurisdictions Privileges and Preheminences in any wise touching or concerning any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction within the Realms of England and Ireland or any other her Highness Dominions or Countries and to visit reform repress order correct and amend all such errors heresies schisms abuses offences contempts and enormities whatsoever which by any manner of Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power Authority or Jurisdiction or can or may lawfully be reformed ordered redressed corrected restrained or amended to the pleasure of Almighty God the increase of vertue and conservation of the peace and unity of this Realm With a Proviso notwithstanding that nothing should from thenceforth be accounted for Heresie but what was so adjudged in the holy Scripture or in one of the four first General Councils or in any other National or Provincial Council determining according to the word of God or finally which should be so adjudged in the time to come by the Court of Parliament first having the assent of the Bishops and Clergy in their Convocation This was the first foundation of that famous Court of High Commission the principal Bulwark and Preservative of the Church of England against the practices and assaults of all her Adversaries whether Popish or Puritan And from hence issued that Commission by which the Queens Ministers proceeded in their Visitation in the first year of her Reign for rectifying all such things as they found amiss and could not be redressed by any ordinary Episcopal power without the spending of more time than the exigencies of the Church could then admit of There also past another Act for recommending and imposing the Book of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments according to such alterations and corrections as were made therein by those
be inflamed so was the mischief more incapable of a present remedy The terror being over most men began to cast about for the first occasion of such a miserable misfortune the generality of the Zuinglian or Genevian party affirmed it for a just judgment of God upon an old idolatrous Fabrick not throughly reformed and purged from its Superstitions and would have been content that all other Cathedrals in the Kingdom had been so destroyed The Papists on the other side ascribe it to some practice of the Zuinglian faction out of their hatred unto all solemnity and decency in the service of God performed more punctually in that Church for examples sake than in any other of the Kingdom But generally it was ascribed by the common people to a flash of lightning or some such suddain fire from heaven though neither any lightning had been seen or any clap of thunder had been heard that day Which fiction notwithstanding got such credit amongst the vulgar and amongst wiser persons too that the burning of St. Paul's Steeple by lightning was reckoned amongst the ordinary Epoches or accounts of time in our common Almanacks and so it stood till within these thirty years now last past when an old Plumber at his death confessed that wofull accident to have hapned through his negligence onely in leaving carelesly a pan of coals and other fewel in the Steeple when he went to dinner which catching hold of the dry timber in the Spire before his return was grown so dangerous that it was not possible to be quenched and therefore to no purpose as he conceived to make any words of it Since which discovery that ridiculous Epoche hath no more been heard of But the Queen quickly hearing what a great misfortune had befallen the City regarded not the various reports of either party but bent her thoughts upon the speedy reparation of those fearful ruines And knowing right well without the help of an Informer that the Patrimony of that Church had been so wasted in these latter times that neither the Bishop nor the Dean and Chapter were able to contribute any thing proportionable to so vast a charge She directed her Letters to the Lord Mayor and city of London to take care therein as most concerned in the preservation of their Mother-Church and in the honor of their City In obedience to whose Royal pleasure the citizens granted a Benevolence and three Fifteens to be speedily paid besides the extraordinary bounty of particular persons or was to be issued from the chamber And that they might proceed therein with the greater zeal the Queen sent in a thousand Marks in ready money and warrants for one thousand load of timber to be served out of her Majesties woods Incouraged by which brave example the Clergy of the Province of Canterbury contributed towards the furtherance of the work the fortieth part of their Benefices which stood charged with first fruits and the thirtieth part of those which had paid the same The Clergy of the Diocess of London bestowing the thirtieth part of such of their Livings as were under the burthen of that payment and the twentieth part of those which were not To which the Bishop added at several times the sum of 900 l 1 s. 11 d. the Dean and Chapter 136 l. 13 s. 4 d. By which and some other little helps the benevolence the three fifteens and the contributions of the Bishop and Clergy with the aid aforesaid amounting to no more than 6702 l. 13 s. 4 d. the work was carried on so fast that before the end of April 1566. the timber work of the roof was not only fitted but compleatly covered The raising of a new spire was taken also into consideration but conceived unnecessary but whether because it was too chargeable or that some feared it might prove a temptation is not yet determined And now the season of the year invites the Popes Nuncio into England advanced already in his way as far as Flanders and there expecting the Queens pleasure touching his admittance For the Pope always constant to his resolutions could not be taken off from sending his Nuncio to the Queen with whom he conceived himself to stand upon tearms of amity It had been much laboured by the Guisiards and Spanish faction to divert him from it by telling him that it would be an undervaluing of his power and person to send a Nuncâ—o into England or to any other Princes of the same perswasions who openly professed a separation from the See of Rome To which he made this prudent and pious answer that he would humble himself even to Heresie it self in regard that whatsoever was done to gain souls to Christ did beseem that See And to this resolution he adher'd the rather because he had been told and assured by Karn the old English Agent that his Nuncio would be received by one half of the Kingdom with the Queens consent But as it proved they reckoned both without their Host and Hostess too who desired not to give entertainment unto any such guests For having designed the Abbot Martiningo to this imployment and the Abbot being advanced as far as Flanders as before was said he there received the Queens command not to cross the seas Upon advertisement whereof as well the King of Spain himself as Ferdinand of Toledo Duke of Alva the most powerful Minister of that King did earnestly intreat that he might be heard commending the cause of his Legation as visibly conducing to the union of all the Christian Church in a general Council But the Queen persevered in her first intent affirming she could not treat with the Bishop of Rome whose authority was excluded out of England by consent of Parliament Nor had the Popes Nuncio in France any better fortune in treating with Throgmorton the English Agent in that Court to advance the business who though he did solicit by his Letters both the Queen and the Council to give some satisfaction in that point to the French and Spaniards though not unto the Pope himself could get no other answer from them but the same denyal For so it was that on the first noise of the Nuncio's coming the business had been taken into consideration at the Council Table and strongly pleaded on both sides as mens judgements varied By some it was alleged in favour of the Nuncio's coming that Pope Pius was nothing of so rugged a nature as his Predessor that he had made a fair address unto the Queen by his last years Letters that his designs did most apparently tend to the peace of Christendome that the admitting of the Nuncio was a matter which 〈◊〉 nothing it being â—â—ill left in her Majesties power whether she would embrace or reject his Overtures but that the refusing to admit him to a publick audience was the most ready way to disoblige all Catholick Princes with whom she stood at that time in terms of amity On the other side it was alleged that King Henry
her in short time not only to protect her Merchants but command the Ocean Of which the Spaniard found good proof to his great loss and almost to his total ruine in the last 20 years of her glorious government And knowing right well that mony was the â—inew of war she fell upon a prudent and present course to fill her coffers Most of the monies in the Kingdom were of forein coynage brought hither for the most part by the Easterling and Flemish Merchants These she called in by Proclamation â—â—ted the 15th of November being but two dayes before the end of this 3d. year commanding them to be brought to her Majesties Mint there to be coyned and take the stamp of her Royal authority or otherwise not to pass for current within this Realm which counsel took such good effect that monies came flowing into the Mint insomuch that there was weekly brought into the Tower of London for the space of half a year together 8000. 10000. 12000. 16000. 20000. 22000 l. of silver plate and as much more in Pistols and other gold of Spanish coins which were great sums according to the standard of those early dayes and therefore no small profit to be growing to her by the coynage of them The Genevians slept not all this while but were as busily imployed in practising upon the Church as were the Romanists in plotting against the Queen Nothing would satisfie them but the nakedness and simplicity of the Zuinglian Churches the new fashions taken up at Franckfort and the Presbyteries of Geneva According to the pattern which they saw in those mounts the Church of England is to be modell'd nor would the Temple of Jerusalem have served their turn if a new Altar fashioned by that which they found at Damascus might not have been erected in it And they drove on so fast upon it that in some places they had taken down the steps where the Aâ—tar stood and brought the Holy Table into the midst of the Church in others they had laid aside the antient use of Godfathers and Godmothers in the administration of Baptism and left the answering for the child to the charge of the father The weekly Fasts the time of Lent and all other dayes of abstinence by the Church commanded were looked upon as superstitious observations No fast by them allowed of but occasional only and then too of their own appointing And the like course they took with the Festivals also neglecting those which had been instituted by the Church as humane inventions not fit to be retained in a Church reformed And finally that they might wind in there outlandish Doctrines with such forein usages they had procured some of the inferiour Ordinaries to impose upon their several Parishes certain new books of Sermons and Expositions of the holy Scripture which neither were required by the Queens Injunctions nor by Act of Parliament Some abuses also were discovered in the Regular Clergy who served in Churches of peculiar or exempt jurisdiction Amongst whom it began to grow too ordinary to marry all such as came unto them without Bains or Licence and many times not only without the privity but against the express pleasure and command of their Parents For which those Churches past by the name of Lawlesse Churches in the voice of the people For remedy whereof it was found necessary by the Archbishop of Canterbury to have recourse unto the power which was given unto him by the Queens Commission and by a clause or passage of the Act of Parliament for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church c. As one of the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical he was authorized with the rest of his associates according to the Statute made in that behalf To reform redresse order correct and amend all such Errours Heresies Schisms abuses offences conâ—empts and enormities whatsoever as might from time to time arise in the Church of England and did require to be redressed and reformed to the pleasure of Almighty God the increase of vertue and conservation of the peace and unity of the Kingdom And in the passage of the Act before remembred it was especially provided That all such Ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof should be retained and be in use as were in the Church of England by authority of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of King Edward the 6th until further Order should be therein taken by authority of the Queens Majesty with the advice of her Commissioners Appointed Ordered under the Great Seal of England for Causes Ecclesiastical or of the Metropolitan of this Realm And also if there shall happen any contempt or irreverence to be used in the Ceremonies or Rites of the Church by the misusing of the Orders of the said Book of Common Prayer the Queens Majesty might by the like advice of the said Commissioners or Metropolitan Ordain or publish such further Ceremonies or Rites as should be most for the advance of Gods glory the edifying of his Church and the due reverence of Christs holy Mysteries and Sacraments Fortified and assured by which double power the Archbishop by the Queens consent and the advice of some of the Bishops Commissionated and instructed to the same intent sets forth a certain book of Orders to be diligently observed and executed by all and singular persons whom it might concern In which it was provided That no Parson Vicar or Curate of any exempt Church commonly called Lawless Churches should from thenceforth attempt to conjoin by solemnization of Matrimony any not being of his or their Parish Church without sufficient testimony of the Bains being ask'd in the several Churches where they dwel or otherwise were sufficiently licenced That there should be no other dayes observed for Holy days or Fasting dayes as of duty and commandment but only such Holy dayes as be expressed for Holy dayes in the Calendar lately set forth by the Queens authority and none other Fasting dayes to be so commanded but as the Lawes and Proclamations of the Queens Majesty should appoint that it should not be lawful to any Ordinary to assign or enjoyn the Parishes to buy any Books of Sermons or Expositions in any sort than is already or shall be hereafter appointed by publick Authority that neither the Curates or Parents of the children which are brought to Baptism should answer for them at the Font but that the antient use of Godfathers and Godmothers should be still retained and finally that in all such Churches in which the steps to the Altar were not taken down the said steps should remain as before they did that the Communion Table should be set in the said place where the steps then were or had formerly stood and that the Table of Gods Precepts should be fixed upon the wall over the said Communion Board Which passage compared with that in the Advertisements published in the year 1565. of which more hereafter make up this construction that
Cardinal Chastilion and other of the principal Leaders that they should put themselves under the protection of the Queen of England whâ— had not long before so seasonably relieved the Scots in the like distress No better counsel being offered nor any hope of succour to be had elsewhere the Vidame of Chartresse Governour at that time of the Port of Newhaven together with the Bayliâ—â— of Rowen the Seneshal of Diep and others made their address unto the Queen in the name of the Prince of Conde and of all the rest of the Confederates who professed the Gospel in that Kingdom they profered to her the said Towns whereof they had charge if it would please her Majesty to further their proceedings in defence of the Gospel as they called it And seemed to justifie their offer by a publick acknowledgement that her Majesty was not only true inheritour to those Towns but also to the whole Kingdom of France But neither their coming not their message was unknown unto her who had been secretly advertised of all passages there by Sir Nicholas Throgmorton a vigilant and dexterous man who being her Majesties Resident in that Kingdom had driven the bargain before hand and made all things in readiness against their coming Nor was the Queen hard to be intreated to appear in that cause which seemed so much to her advantage She was not ignorant of the pretensions of the Queen of Scots and the practices of her Uncles of the House of Guâ—se to advance her interess Who if they should possess themselves of all the strengths in the Dukedom of Normandy might from thence find an easie passage into England when she least looked for them On these and other considerations of the like importance it was agreed upon between them that the Queen should supply the Prince of Conde and his associates with a sufficient quantity of money corn and ammunition for the service of the French King against the plots and practices of the House of Guise that she should aid them with her forces both by land and sea for the taking in of such Castles Towns and Ports as were possessed by the faction of the said Duke that the said Prince of Conde and his associates should not come to any terms of peace with the opposite party without the privity and approbation of the Queen and that as well for securing the payment of all such monies as for the safe going in and out of all such forces as her Majesty should supply them with the Town and Port of Newhaven should be put unto her Majesties hands to be garrison'd by English souldiers and commanded by any person of quality whom her Majesty should authorise to keep and defend the same Immediately on which accord a Manifest was published in the name of the Queen in which it was declared how much she had preferred the peace of Christendom before her own particular intereâ—s that in persuance of that general affection to the publick peace she had relinquished her claim to the Town of Calais for the term of eight years when as all other Princes were restored by that Treaty to their lost estates that for the same reasons she had undertaken to preserve the Scots from being made vassals to the French without retaining any part of that Kingdom in her own possession after the service was performed that with the like bowels of commiseration she had observed how much the Queen-Mother of France was awed and the young King himself inthralled by the Guisian faction who in their names and under pretence of their authority endeavoured to root out the professors of the Reformed Religion that in persuance of that purpose they had caused such terrible massacres to be made at Vassey Paris Sene Tholouse â—loys Towers Angierâ— and other places that there were thought to be butchered no fewer than one hundred thousand of the naturall French between the first of March and the 20th of August then last past that with like violence and injustice they had treated such of her Majesties subjects as traded in the Ports of Bretagne whom they caused to be apprehended spoiled and miserably imprisoned such as endeavoured to preserve themselves to be cruelly killed their goods and merchandise to be seized without charging any other crime upon them but that they were Hâ—gonoâ—s and finally that in consideration of the Premises her Majesty could do no less than use her best endeavors for rescuing the French King and his Mother out of the power of that dangerous faction for aiding such of the French subjects as preferred the service of their King and the good of their Country before all other respects whatsoever for preserving the Reformed Religion from an universal destruction and the maintaining of her own subjects and Dominions in peace and safety Nor did she only publish the afoâ—esaid Manifest the better to satisfie all those whom it might concern in the reasons of her taking arms upon this occasion but she gives a more particulâ—â— account of it to the King of Spain whom she considered as the chief Patron of the Guisian League And knowing how unsafe it was for her to appear alone in a cause of that nature and importance she deals by Knollis and other of her Agents with the Princes of Germany to give their timely assistanâ—e to the Prince of Conde in maintenance of that Religion which themselves professed But howsoever not expecting the success of those counsels she proceeds to the supplying of the said Prince and his party with all things necessary for the war and sends over a sufficient strength of ships arms and men as well to scour the seas as secure the land The men amounting to 6000 were divided into two equal parts of which the one was destined to the defence of Rowen and Diepe then being in the hands of the Confederates the other to take possession of the Town of Newhaven which by the Townsmen and Inhabitants was joyfully surrender'd into the hands of the English The Town commodiously seated at the mouth of the Seine and having the command of a spacious Bay in former times not much observed or esteemed But being more carefully considered of by King Francis the first he caâ—sed the Bay to be inlarged the passages into iâ— cleared and the entrances of it to be strongly fortified which falling into the hands of any enemy might have destroyed the trade of Rowen and Paris being both built upon the River Called for this reason Franciscopolis by our Latine Writers Newhaven by the English Merchant and Haver d' Grace by reason of the beauty of it amongst the French it hath been looked on ever since as a place of consequence For her Commander in Chief she sends over the Lord Ambrose Dudley the eldest son then living of the late Duke of Northumberland whom on the 26th of December she had created Lord Lislâ— and Earl of Warwick And he accordingly preparing for his passage over took shipping at Portsmouth on the 17th
excommunication of the Queen of England The Emperour had his aims upon her being at that time solicitous for effecting a mariage betwixt her and Charles of Inspruch his second son of which his Ministers entertained him with no doubtful hopes In contemplation of which mariage on the first notice which was given him of this secret purpose he writ Letters both to the Pope and to the Legates in which he signified unto them that if the Council would not yield that fruit which was desired that they might see an union of all Catholicks to reform the Church at least they should not give occasion to the Hereticks to unite themselves more which certainly they would do in case they proceeded so against the Queen of England by means whereof they would undoubtedly make a league against the Catholicks which must needs bring forth many great inconveniences Nor did this Admonition coming from a person of so great authority and built on such prudential reasons want its good effect Insomuch that both the Pope desisted at Rome and revoked the Commission sent before to the Legates in Trent But the Ministers of the King of Spain would not so give over the Archbishop of Otranto in the Realm of Naples keeping the game on foot when the rest had left it And because he thought the proposition would not take if it were made only in relation to the Queen of England he proposed a general anaâ—heâ—atizing of the Hereticks as well dead as living Luther and Zuinglius and the rest which he affirmed to be the practice of all Councils in the Primitive times and that otherwise it might be said that the Council had laboured all this while in vain To which it was replyed by one of the Legates that diveâ—s times required different Counsels that the differences about religion in those elder times were between the Bishops and the Priests that the people were but as an accessory that the Grandees either did not meddle or if they did adhere to any Heresie they did not make themselves Heads and Leaders But now all was quite contrary for now the Hereticks Ministers and Preachers could not be said to be heads of the Sects but the Princes rather to whose interess their Ministers and Preachers did accommodate themselves that he that would name the true Heads of Hereticks must name the Queens of England and Navarr the Prince of Conde the Elector Palatine of the Reine the Elector of Saxonie and many other Dukes and Princes of Germany that this would make them unite and shew they were sensible of it and that the condemnation of Luther and Zuinglius only would so provoke them that some great confusion would certainly arise and therefore they must not do what they would but what they could seeing that the more moderate resolution was the better After which grave and prudent Answer it was not long before the conclusion of the Council which ended on the 3d. of December had put an end to all those practices or designs which otherwise might have much distracted the peace of Christendom and more particularly the tranquillity of the Realm of England And so I take my leave of the Council of Trent without making any other character or censure of it than that which is given by the Historian that is to say That being desired and procured by godly men to reunite the Church which then began to be divided it so established the schism and made the party so obstinate that the discords are become irreconcilable that being managed by Princes for the Reformation of Ecclesiastical Discipline it caused the greatest deformation that ever was since Christianity began that being hoped for by the Bishops to regain the Episcopal authority usurped for the most part by the Pope it made them lose it altogether and brought them into a greater servitude and on the contrary that being feared and avoided by the See of Rome as a â—otent means to moderate the exorbitant power of the Pope mounted from small beginnings by divers degrees unto an unlimited excess it hath so established and confirmed the same over that part which remaineth subject to it that it never was so great nor so soundly rooted Anno Reg. Eliz. 6. A. D. 1563 1564. HAving dispatched our businesse in France and Trent we shall confine our selves for so much of our Story as is to come to the Isles of Britâ—ain In the fouth part thereof the plague brought out of France by the Garison souldiers of Newhaven had so dispersed it self and made such desolation in many parts of the Realm that it swept away above 20000 in the City of London Which though it seemed lesse than some great plagues which have hapned since yet was it the greatest at that time which any man living could remember In which regard as Michaelmas Term was not kept at all so Canâ—lemas Term then following was kept at Hartford the houses in London being not well cleansed nor the air sufficiently corrected for so great a concourse Under pretence whereof the Council of the King of Spain residing in Brussels commanded Proclamation to be made in Antwerp and other places that no English ship with cloths should come into any parts of the Low Countries Besides which they alleged some other causes as namely the raising of Impost upon goods as well inwards as outwards as well upon English men as upon strangers c. But the true reason of it was because a Statute had been passed in the first year of the Queen by which divers Wares and Commodities were forbidden to be brought into this Realm out of Flanders and other places being the Manufactures of those Countries to the end that our own people might be set on work as also that no English or stranger might ship out any white cloths undrest being of price above 4 l. without special licence But at the earnest sute of the Merchant Adventurers the Queen prohibited the transporting of Wool unwrought and the Cloth-Fleet was sent to Embden the principal City in East Fruzland about Easter following where it was joyfully received and where the English kept their Factory for some years after And though the Hanse Towns made such friends in the Court of the Emperour that the English trade was interdicted under the pretence of being a Monopoly yet by the constancy of the Queen the courage of the Merchants and the dexterity of their Agents they prevailed at last and caried on the trade themselves without any Competitours The apprehension of this dealing from the Council of Spain induced the Queen to hearken the more willingly to a peace with France Which she concluded upon terms of as good advantage as the times would bear the demand for Calais being waved till the eight years end at which it was to be restored unto her by the Treaty of Cambray Which peace was first Proclaimed before her Majesty in the Castle of Windsor the French Ambassador being present and afterwards at London on the
Ploydon whose learned Commentaries do sufficiently set forth his great abilities in that Profession and one Mr. Lovelace of whom we find nothing but the name By them and their Advice the whole pleading chiefly is reduced to these two heads to omit the nicities and punctilioes of lesser moment the first whereof was this That Bonner was not at all named in the indictment by the stile and title of Bishop of London but only by the name Dr. Edmond Bonner Clerk Dr. of the Lawes whereas at that time he was legally and actually Bishop of London and therefore the Writ to be abated as our Lawyers phrase it and the cause to be dismissed our of the Court But Ploydon found here that the Case was altered and that this Plea could neither be allowed by Catiline who was then Chief Justice nor by any other of the Bench and therefore it is noted by Chief Justice Dyer who reports the Case with a Non allocatur The second principle Plea was this That Horn at the time when the Oath was tender'd was not Bishop of Winchester and therefore not impowred by the said Statute to make tender of it by himself or his Chancellor And for the proof of this that he was no Bishop it was alleged that the form of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops which had been ratified by Parliament in the time of King Edward had been repealed in the first year of Queen Mary and so remained at Horn's pretended consecration The Cause being put off from Term to Term comes at the last to be debated amongst the Judges at Serjeants Inne By whom the cause was finally put upon the issue and the tryal of that issue Ordered to be committed to a Jury of the County of Surry But then withall it was advised that the decision of the Point should rather be referred to the following Parliament for fear that such a weighty matter might miscarry by a contrary Jury of whose either partiality insufficiency there had been some proof made before touching the grants made by King Edward's Bishops of which a great many were made under this pretence that the Granters were not actually Bishops nor legally possessed of their several Sees According to this sound advice the business comes under consideration in the following Parliament which began on the 30th of September where all particulars being fully and considerately discoursed upon it was first declared That their not restoring of that Book to the former power in terms significant and express was but Casus omissus and Secondly That by the Statute 5th and 6th Edw. 6th it had been added to the Book of Common Prayer and administration of the Sacraments as a member of it or at least an appendant to it and therefore by 1. Eliz. was restored again together with the said Book of Common Prayer intentionally at the least if not in terminis But being the words in the said Statute were not cleer enough to remove all doubts they did therefore revive it now and did accordingly Enact that all persons that had been or should be made Ordered or Consecrate Archbishops Bishops Priests Ministers of Gods Holy Word and Sacraments or Deacons after the form and order prescribed in the said Book be in very deed and also by authority hereof declared and enacted to be and shall be Archbishops Bishops Priests Ministers and Deacons rightly made Consecrate and Ordered Any Statute Law Canon or any thing to the contrary notwithstanding Nothing else done in this Parliament which concerned the Church not any thing at all in the Convocation by which it was of course accompanied more than the granting of a Subsidy of six shillings in the pound out of all their Benefices and promotions And as for Bonner who was the other party to the cause in question it was determined that neither he nor any other person or persons should be impeached or molested in regard of any refusal of the said Oath heretofore made and hereafter to be made before the end of that Parliament Which favour was indulged unto them of the Laity in hope of gaining them by fair means to a sence of their duty to Bonner and the rest of the Bishops as men that had sufficiently suffered upon that account by the loss of their Bishopricks By this last Act the Church is strongly setled on her natural pillars of Doctrine Government and Worship not otherwise to have been shaken than by the blind zeal of all such furioâ—s Sampsons as were resolved to pull it on their own heads rather than suffer it to stand in so much glory And here it will be time to conclude this History having taken a brief view of the State of the Church with all the abberrations from its first constitution as it stood at this time when the Puritan faction had began to disturb her Order and that it may be done with a greater certainty I shall speak it in the words of one who lived and writ his knowledge of it at this time I mean John Rastel in his answer to the Bishops challenge Who though he were a Papist and a fugitive Priest yet I conceive that he hath faithfully delivered to many sad truths in these particulars Three books he writ within the compass of three years now last past against Bishop Jewel in one of which he makes this address unto him viz. And though you Mr. Jewel as I have heard say do take the bread into your hands when you celebrate solemnly yet thousands there are of your inferiour Ministers whose death it is to be bound to any such external fashion and your Order of celebrating the Communion is so unadvisedly conceived that every man is left unto his private Rule or Canon whether he will take the bread into his hands or let it stand at the end of the table the Bread and Wine being laid upon the table where it pleases the Sexton or Parish-Clerk to set them p. 28. In the Primitive Church Altars were allowed amongst Christians upon which they offered the unbloody sacrifice of Christs body yet your company to declare what followers they are of antiquity do account it even among one of the kinds of Idolaâ—ry if one keep an Altar standing And indeed you follow a certain Antiquity not of the Catholicks but of desperate Hereticks Optatus writing of the Donatists that they did break raze and remove the Altars of God upon which they offered p. 34. and 165. Where singing is used what shall we say to the case of the people that kneel in the body of the Church yea let them hearken at the Chancel dore it self they shall not be much wiser Besides how will you provide for great Parishes where a thousand people are c p. 50. Then to come to the Apostles where did you ever read that in their external behaviour they did wear Frocks or Gowns or four-cornered Caps or that a company of Lay-men-servants did follow them all in one Livery or that at their Prayers
rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the Sign or Sacrament of so great a thing XXX Of Both Kinds 32 The Cup of the Lord is not to be denyed to the Lay People For both the parts of the Lords Sacrament by Christs Ordinance and Commandment ought to be ministred to all Christian People alike _____ XXX Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Crosse. The Offering of Christ once made is the perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for sin but that alone Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in which it was commonly said that the Priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt were fables and dangerous deceits XXXI Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Crosse. The offering of Christ once made is the perfect Redemption c. were blasphemous fables and 33 dangerous deceits XXXI A single Life is imposed on none by the Word of God Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by God's Law either to vow the estate of a single life or to abstain from Marriage XXXII Of the Marriage of Priests Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by Gods Law c. Therefore it is lawful also for them 34 as for all other Christian men to marry at their own discretion as they shall judge the same to serve better to godlinesse XXXII Excommunicated Persons are to be avoided That person which by open Denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church and Excommunicated ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful as an Heathen and Publican untill he be openly reconciled by Penance and received into the Church by a Judge which hath authority thereunto XXXIII Of Excommunicated Persons how they are to be avoided That person which by open Denunciation of the Church c. XXXIII Of the Traditions of the Church It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one and utterly like for at all times they have been divers and may be changed according to the diversities of Countries Times and mens Manners so that nothing be ordained against Gods Word Whosoever through his private judgment willingly and purposely doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the Word of God and be ordained and approved by common Authority ought to be rebuked openly that others may fear to do the like as he that offendeth against the common Order of the Church and hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Consciences of the weak Brethren XXXIV Of the Traditions of the Church It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies c. Every particular or National Church 35 hath Authority to ordain change or aboâ—ish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by Man's Authority so that all things be done to edifying XXXIV Of the Homilies The Homilies lately delivered 36 and commended to the Church of England by the Kings Injunctionâ— do contain a godly and wholsome Doctrine and fit to be embraced by all men and for that cause they are diligently plainly and distinctly to be read to the People XXXV Of Homilies The second Book of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joyned under this Article doth contain a godly and wholsome Doctrin and necessary for the times as doth the former Book of Homilies which were set forth in the time of Edward the sixth and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the People The names of the Homilies Of the Right use of the Church Of Repairing Churches Against the Peril of Idolatry Of Good Works c. XXXV Of the Book of Common Prayer and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England The Book lately delivered to the Church of England by the Authority of the King and Parliament 37 containing the manner and form of publick Prayer and the ministration of the Sacraments in the said Church of England as also the Book published by the same Authority for Ordering Ministers in the Church are both of them very pious as to â—uth of Doctrine in nothing contrary but agreeable to the wholsome Doctrine of the Gospel which they do very much promote and illustrate And for that cause they are by all faithful Members of the Church of England but chiefly of the Ministers of the Word with all thankfulness and readiness of mind to be received approved and commended to the People of God XXXVI Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers The Book of Consecration of 38 Archbishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons lately set forth in the time of King Edward the sixth and confirmed at the same time by Authority of Parliament doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering Neither hath it any thing that of it self is superstitious and ungodly And therfore whosoever are Consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book since the second year of the afore-named King Edward unto this time or hereafter shall be Consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites we decree all such to be rightly orderly and lawfully Consecrated and Ordered XXXVI Of the Civil Magistrates The King of England is after Christ 39 the Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England and Ireland The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Civil Magistrate is ordained and approved by God and therefore are to be obeyed not onely for fear of wrath but for conscience sake Câ—vil or temporal Laws may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous offences It is lawful for Christian men at the commandment of the Magistrate to wear Weapons and serve in the Wars XXXVII Of the Civil Magistrates The Queens Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all cases doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any Forein Jurisdiction Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government 40 by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended We give not to our Princess the Ministry either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that onely Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptutes by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Laws of this Realm may punish Christian men with death
of his love and goodnesse Which so prevailed that the Duke of Norfolk is sent to treat with her upon certain Instructions so neâ—essary to the knowledge of her affairs in this Conjuncture that they deserve a place here and are these that follow Certain Articles and Injunctions given by the King's Highness to his right Trusty and right entirely beloved Cousen and Counsellor the Duke of Norfolk whom with certain others in his company His Majesty sendeth to the Lady Mary his Daughter for the Purposes ensuing FIrst whereas the said Lady Mary hath sundry ways with long continuance shewed her self so obstinate towards the King's Majâ—sty her Soveraign Lord and Father and so disobedient to his Laws conceived and â—ade upon most just vertuâ—â—s and godly grounds that as the wilfull disobedience thereof seemeth a monster in Nature so unlesse the mercy of his Highnesse had been most abundantly extended unto hâ—r by the course of his Grace's Laws and the force of his Justice shâ— endâ—â—gâ—red her self so far that it was greatly tâ— his Highnesse's regret and hearty sorrow to see and perceive how little 〈◊〉 esteâ—meth the same extending to the losse of his favour the losse of her honour the losse of her life and undoubâ—edly to the indignation of Almighty God For that she neither obeyeth her Father and Soveraign nor his just and vertuous Laws aforesaid And that of late neverthelesse calling to remembrance her transgressions and offences in this pâ—rt towards God her Father and Soveraign Lord the King's Highnesse she hath writtâ—n to the same three suâ—dâ—y Letters containing a declaration of her repentance conceived for the Premises with such an humble and simple submission as she appeareth not onely to submit hâ—r sâ—lfwholly and without exception especially by the last Letter to the Laws but also for her state and condition to put her self onely to his Grace's mercy nothing desiring but mercy and forgivenesse for her offences with a reconciliation to his Grace's favour Albeit his Majesty hath been so ingrately handled and used by her as is aforâ— declared that the like would enforce any private person tâ— abâ—ndon for ever such an unkind and inobedient child from their grace and favour yet such is his Majesties gracious and divine nature such is his clemency and pitty such his mercifull inclination and Princely heart that as he hath been ever ready to take pitty and compâ—ssiâ—n of all offenders repentantly calling and crying for the same So in case he may throughly parceive the same to be in the said Lady Mary's heart which she hath put in pen and writing his Highnesse considering the imbecillity of her sex being the same is frail inconstant and easie to he perswaded by simple counsell can be right well contented to remit unto her part of his said displeasure And therefore hath 〈◊〉 this time for the certain knowledge of her heart and stomack sâ—â—t unto her his said Cousen with others to demand and enquire of her certain Questions Her Answeâ—s whereunto his pleasure is they shall require and note in writing which sâ—all throughly decipher whether she be indeed the person she pretendeth or for any respect hath with generall words laboured to cloak the speciall matter which is repugnant and contrary to that which his Majesty hath gathered and conceived of the same 1. And first after their Accesse and Declaration of the Premises they shall for their first Question demand of her Whether she doth recognise and knowledge the King's Highnesse for her Soveraign Lord and King in the Emperiall Crown of this Realm of England and will and doth submit her self unto his Highnesse and to all and singuâ—ar the Laws and Statutes of this Realm as becommeth every true and faithfull Subject to do 2. Also whether she will with all her power and qualities that God hath endu'd her withall not onâ—ly obey keep and observe all and singular Laws and Statutes of this Realm but also set forth advance and maintain the same to the utmost of her power according to her bounden duty 3. Also whether she will recognise accept take and repute the King's Highnesse to be supream Head in Earth under Christ of the Church of England and utterly refuse the Bishop of Rome's pretended Power and Jurisdiction heretofore usurped in this Realm according to the Laws and Statutes of the same made and ordained in the behalf of all the King 's true Subjects humbly received admitted obeyed kept and observed And also will and do renounce and utterly forsake all manner of Remedy Interesse and Advantage by the said Bishop of Rome's Laws Processe or Jurisdiction to her in any wise appertaining or that hereafter may by any Title Colour or Mean belong grow succeed or appertain or in any case may follow or ensue 4. And whether she will and doth of her Duty and Obedience towards God her Alleigance towards the King's Highnesse and the Laws of this Realm and also of the sincere love and zeal that she beareth towards the Truth freely and franckly recognize and knowledge without any other respect both by Goâ—'s Law and Man's Law the Marriage heretofore had between his Majesty and her Mother to be unlawfull 5. Also Be she enquired or examined For what cause and by whose motion and means she hath continued and remained in her obstinacy so long and who did eâ—bold or animate her thereto with other circumstances thereof appertaining 6. Also What is the cause that she at this present time rather then at any other heretofore doth submit her selfe To these six Articles she was required to give a plain and positive answer Which plainly shews the doubtfulnesse and uncertainty of her present condition in being either forced to confesse her selfe to be illegitimate or running on the last hazzard of the Kings displeasure if she should do otherwise But wisely considering in her selfe whom she had to deal with she thought it safest to strike sale and to submit her selfe to him with whom it was not lawfull for her to dispute that point if she had been able She therefore makes a cleer acknowledgement of the four first Articles by the subscribing of her name but craved leave to demur on the two last because some persons were concern'd in them whom she was not willing to discover And by this means she gain'd so far upon the King that from that time forwards he held her in the same ranck with the rest of his children gave her her turn in the succession of the Kingdome assigned her portion of ten thousand pounds to be paid at her marriage and in the interim three thousand pounds per annum for her personal maintenance And more then this he did not do for his daughter Elizabeth notwithstanding the esteem and affection which he bare to her mother for bringâ—â—g whom into his bed he had cancelled all the bonds of his former marriage Little or nothing more occurreth of her in the time of King Henry because there was little or nothing altered in