Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	bishop_n	york_n	yorkshire_n	49	3	12.1745	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43528	Ecclesia restaurata, or, The history of the reformation of the Church of England containing the beginning, progress, and successes of it, the counsels by which it was conducted, the rules of piety and prudence upon which it was founded, the several steps by which it was promoted or retarded in the change of times, from the first preparations to it by King Henry the Eight untill the legal settling and establishment of it under Queen Elizabeth : together with the intermixture of such civil actions and affairs of state, as either were co-incident with it or related to it / by Peter Heylyn.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.; Heylyn, Peter, 1599-1662. Affairs of church and state in England during the life and reign of Queen Mary.	1660-1661 (1661)	Wing H1701_ENTIRE; Wing H1683_PARTIAL_CANCELLED; ESTC R6263	514,716	473

the 9th the second brother and next heir to the King deceased Katherine de Medices the Relict of Henry the 2d and the Mother of Charls layes claim to the Regency for who could have a greater care either of the young Kings person or estate than his natural Mother But against her a● being a meer stranger to the Nation and affairs of France Anthony of Burbo● Duke of Vendosme by descent and King of Navarr at the least in Title in the Right of Joan d' Albret his wife the sole Heir of that Crown layes his claim unto it as being the first Prince of the blood and therefore fitter to be trusted with the Regency by the rules of that government The Guisian faction joyn themselves to that of the Queen of whom they better knew how to make advantage than they could of the other and to that end endeavour by all subtil artifices to invest her in it To this end they insinuate themselves into the Duke perswade him either to relinquish his demands of the Regency or to associate himself with the Queen-Mother in the publick government and to joyn counsels with the Catholick party for suppressing the H●gonots Which that they might allure him to or at least take him off from his first persute they offered to procure a Divorce from his present wife and that instead of holding the Kingdom of Navarr in Right of his wife he should hold it in his own personal capacity by a grant from the Pope his wife being first deprived of it by his Holiness as suspected of Lutheranism that being divorced from his wife he should marry Mary Queen of the Scots with whom he should not only have the Kingdom of Scotland but of England also of which Elizabeth was to be deprived on the same account that for the recovery of that Kingdom he should not only have the Popes authority and the power of France but also the forces of the King of Spain and finally that the Catholick King did so much study his contentment that if he would relinquish his pretensions to the Crown of Navarr he should be gratified by him with the soverainty and actual possession of the Isle of Sardinia of which he should receive the Crown with all due solemnities By which temptations when they had render'd him suspected to the Protestant party and thereby setled the Queen-Mother in that place and power which so industriously she aspired to they laid him by as to the Title permitting him to live by the air of hope for the short time of his life which ended on the 17th of November Anno 1562. And so much of the game was plaid in earnest that the D●ke of Guise did mainly labour with the Pope to fulminate his Excommunications against Elizabeth as one that had renounced his authority apostated from the Catholick Religion and utterly exterminated the profession of it out of her Dominions But the Duke sped no better in this negotiation than the Count of Feria did before The Pope had still retained some hope of regaining England and meant to leave no way unpractised by which he might obtain the point he aimed at When first the See was vacant by the death of Pope Paul the 4th the Cardinals assembled in the Conclave bound themselves by oath that for the better setling of the broken and distracted estate of Christendome the Council formerly held at Trent should be resumed withall convenient speed that might be Which being too fresh in memory to be forgotten and of too great importance to be laid aside the new Pope had no sooner setled his affairs in Rome which had been much disordered by the harshness and temerity of his predecessor but he resolved to put the same in execution For this cause he consults with some of the more moderate and judicious Cardinals and by his resolution and dexterity surmounts all difficulties which shewed themselves in the design and he resolved not only to call the Council but that it should be held in 〈◊〉 to which it had been formerly called by Pope Paul the 3d. 1545. that it should rather be a continuance of the former Council which had been interrupted by the prosecution of the wars in Germany than the beginning of a new and that he would invite unto it all Christian Princes his dear daughter Queen Elizabeth of England amongst the rest And on these terms he stood when he was importuned by the Ministers of the Duke of Gvise to proceed against her to a sentence of Excommunication and thereby to expose her Kingdoms to the next Invader But the Pope was constantly resolved on his first intention of treating with her after a fair and amicable manner professing a readiness to comply with her in all reciprocal offices of respect and friendship and consequently inviting her amongst other Princes to the following Council to which if she should please to send her Bishops or be present in the same by her Ambassadors he doubted not of giving them such satisfaction as might set him in a fair way to obtain his ends Leaving the Pope in this good humour we shall go for England where we shall find the Prelates at the same imployment in which we left them the last year that is to say with setting forth the Consecrations of such new Bishops as served to fill up all the rest of the vacant Sees The first of which was Robert Horn Dr. in Divinity once Dean of Durham but better known by holding up the English Liturgy and such a form of Discipline as the times would bear against the schismaticks of Franckfort preferred unto the See of Winchester and consecrated Bishop in due form of Law on the 16th of February Of which we shall speak more hereafter on another occasion On which day also Mr. Edmond Scambler Batchelor of Divinity and one of the Prebendaries of the new Collegiat Church of St. Peter in Westminster was consecrated Bishop of the Church of Peterborough During the vacancy whereof and in the time of his incumbency Sir William Caecil principal Secretary of Estate possess'd himself of the best Mannors in the Soake which belonged unto it and for his readiness to confirm the same Mannors to him preferred him to the See of Norwich Anno 1584. Next followes the translation of Dr. Thomas Young Bishop of St. Davids to the See of York which was done upon the 25th of February in an unlucky hour to that City as it also proved For scarce was he setled in that See when he pulled down the goodly Hall and the greatest part of the Episcopal Palace in the City of York which had been built with so much care and cost by Thomas the elder one of his predecessors there in the year of our Lord 1090. Whether it were for covetousness to make money of the materials of it or out of fordidness to avoid the charge of Hospitality in that populous City let them guess that will Succeeded in the See of St. David's by Davis

Lord Mayor of that City And that from thenceforth all such censures as concerned Tithes might be heard and determined by the Ordinary as in other places To all which Propositions the Bishops cheerfully consented and so adjurned the Convocation from St. Pauls to Westminster that they might have the better opportunity of consulting the Lord-Cardinal in the businesse of whom it was no hard matter to obtain the second and by his power to secure the Clergy in the first but as for the removall of the Cognisance of the London Tithes from the Lord Mayor unto the Bishops there was nothing done that Statute still remaining as before it did to the continual impoverishing and vexation of the City Clergy Nothing else memorable in this Convocation but the comming in of the two new Bishops which had never voted there before Purefew the Bishop of St. Asaph being translated unto Hereford in the former year had made such havock of the Patrimony of the Church of St. Asaph that it lay void above a twelve month before any became Suter for it But being a Bishoprick though impoverished and consequently a step to some richer preferment it was desired and accepted by Mr. Thomas Goldnel a right zealous Romanist consecrated Bishop hereof in the beginning of October Anno 1555. not many days before the opening of the Parliament and Convocation And being Bishop here he procured many Indulgences and other Graces from the Pope then being for all such persons of each sex as went on Pilgrimage or for health to St. Winifrids Well The like havock had been made of the Lands and Patrimony of the Church of Bangor by Buckley the present Bishop of it preferred unto this See Anno 1541. and continuing on it till this year who not content to alienate the Lands and weaken the Estate thereof resolved to rob it of its Bells for fear perhaps of having any Knell rung out at the Churches Funetal And not content to sell the Bells which were five in number he would needs satisfie himself with seeing them conveyed on shipboard and had searce given himself that satisfaction but he was p●esently struck blind and so continued from that time to the day of his death To whom succeeded Doctor William Glyn a Cambridge man but one of the Disputants at Oxford who received his Episcopal Consecration if I guesse aright on the same day with Bishop Goldne● And now it will be time to look back on Cranmer whom we left under a Citation to the Court of Rome without which nothing could be done for by an antient privilege no Judgment could be past upon the person of a Metropolitan before the Pope have taken cognisance of the cause and eighty days had seemingly been given to Cr●nmer for making his appearance in the Court of Rome And though the Pope knew well enough as well the Archbishops readiness to appear before him if he were at liberty as the impossibility of making any such appearance as the case then stood yet at the end of the said eighty days he is pronounced by the Pope to be contumacious and for his contu●acy to be Degraded Excommunicated and finally delivered over to the Secular Magistrate According unto which Decree a second Commission is directed to Edmond Bonner Bishop of London and Th●mas Thoriby Bishop of Ely to proceed to the Degradation of the said Archbishop In which Commission it was said with most horrible falshood That all things had been so indifferently examined in the Court of Rome that is to say as well the Articles laid unto his charge as the Answers which he made unto them together with the Allegations Witnesses and Defences made or produced by the Counsel on either side so that nothing had been wanting which was necessary to his just defence According to which supposition the said two Bishops being commanded to proceed against him caused him to be Degraded on the 14 th of February notwithstanding that he appealed from the Pope and them to a General Council and caused the said Appeal to be drawn and offered in due form of Law During the interval between his degradation and the time of his death great pains was taken by some learned men in the University to perswade him to a Retractation of his former Opinions in which unhappy undertaking no man prevailed so far as a Spanish Ftier by whom it was suggested to him How acceptable it would be to the King and Queen how pleasing to the Lords who most dearly loved him and how gainfull to himself in regard both of his soul and his temporal being assuring him or at least putting him in good hope that he should not onely have his life but be restored again to his antient dignity and that there should be nothing in the Realm which the Queen would not easily grant him whether it pleased him to make choice of Riches and Honors or otherwise should desire the sweet retirements of a private life without the charge and trouble of a publick Ministery and all this to be compassed without putting himself to any more pains than the subscribing of his name to a piece of paper which was made ready for his hand By these temptations and many others of the like alluring and deceitfull nature he suffered himself to be prevailed upon so far as to sign the Writing in which were briefly comprehended the chief points of Doctrine defended in the Church of Rome and by him formerly condemned both in publick and private The obtaining whereof occasioned great joy amongst the Papists and no lesse sorrow and astonishment in the hearts of those who cordially were affected to the Reformation But all this could not save him from being made a sacrifice to revenge and avarice The Queen had still a vindicative spirit against him for the injury which she conceived had been done to her mother and the Cardinal who hitherto had enjoyed the profits of the See of Canterbury as an usu-fructuary was altogether as solicitous for getting a right and title to them as the sole Proprietary No way to pacifie the one and satisfie the desires of the other but by bringing him when he least looked for it to the fatall Stake And to the fatall Stake they brought him on the 21 of March when he had for some time flattered himself in a conceit like the King of Amaleck that the bitternesse of dea●h was past Finding the contrary he first retracts his Retractarion and after punisheth that hand which had subscribed it by holding it forth into the flame and suffering it to be consumed before the rest of his body had felt the fire The residue of his body being burnt to ashes his heart was found entire untouched in the midst of the sinders Which possibly may serve as a witnesse for him that his heart stood fast unto the Truth though with his hand he had subscribed some Popish Errors Which whether it were done out of human frailty on the hope of life or out of a

of Eviland The sixth of August since that Time is observed amongst them for an Annual Feast in perpetual Gratitude to Almighty God for their Deliverance from the Rebels with far more Reason then many such Annual Feasts have been lately Instituted in some Towns and Cities for not being gained unto their King But though the Sword of War was Sheathed there remained work enough for the Sword of Justice in Executing many of the Rebels for a Terrour to others Arundel and the rest of the Chiefs were sent to London there to receive the recompense of their Deserts most of the Raskal Rabble Executed by Martial Law and the Vicar of St. Thomas one of the Principal Incendiaries hanged on the Top of his own Tower apparailed in his Popish Weeds with his B●ads at his Girdle The Norfolk Rebels brake not out till the twentieth of June beginning first at a place called Ail-borough but not considerable either for Strength or Number till the sixth of July when mightily encreased by Ket a Tanner of Windham who took unto himself the conducting of them These men pretended onely against Enclosures and if Religion was at all regarded by them it was rather kept for a Reserve then suffered to appear in the Front of the Battail But when their Numbers were so vastly multiplyed as to amount to twenty thousand nothing would serve them but the suppression of the Gentry the placing of New Councellours about the King and somewhat also to be done in favour of the Old Religion Concerning which they thus Remonstrate to the King or the People rather viz First That the Free-born Commonalty was oppressed by a small Number of Gentry who glutted themselves with Pleasure whilest the poor Commons wasted with dayly Labour did like Pack-Horses live in extreme Slavery Secondly That Holy Rites Established by Antiquity were abolished New ones Authorised and a New Form of Religion obtruded to the subjecting of their Souls to those Horrid Pains which no Death could terminate And therefore Thirdly That it was necessary for them to go in person to the King to place New Councellours about him during his Minority removing those who ruling as they list confounded things Sacred and Profane and regarded nothing but the enriching of themselves with the Publick Treasure that they might Riot it amidst these Publick Calamities Finding no satisfactory Answer to these proud Demands they March directly towards Norwich and possess themselves of Moushold-Hill which gave them not onely a large Prospect over but a full Command upon that City which they entered and re-entered as they pleased For what could a Weak City do in Opposition to so Great a Multitude being neither strong by Art nor Nature and therefore not in a capacity to make any Resistance Under a large Oak on the top of this Hill since called The Oak of Reformation Ket keeps his Courts of Chancery King's Bench c. forcing the neighbouring Gentry to submit to his lawless Ordinances and committing many huge Enormities under pretense of rectifying some Abuses The King sends out his Gracious Pardon which the proud Rebels entertain with Contempt and Scorn Whereupon it was resolved that the Marquess of North-hampton should be sent against them accompanied with the Lords Sheffield and Wentworth and divers Gentlemen of Note assisted by a Band of Italians under the Command of Mala-testa an Experienced Souldier The Marquess was an excellent Courtier but one more skilled in Leading a Measure then a March so that being beaten out of Norwich into which he had peaceably been admitted with loss of some Persons of Principal Quality and the firing of a great part of the City he returns ingloriously to London Yet all this while the Lord Protectour was so far from putting himself upon the Action that he suffered his most dangerous Enemy the Earl of Warwick to go against them with such Forces as had been purposely provided for the War of Scotland Who finding the City open for him entertained the Rebels with divers Skirmishes in most of which he had the better which put them to a Resolution of forsaking the Hill and trying their Fortune in a Battail in a place called Dussing-dale where they maintained a bloody Fight But at the last were broken by the Earl's good Conduct and the valiant Loyalty of his Forces Two thousand of the Rebels are reported to have been slain in the Fight and Chase the residue of them scattered over all the Country the Principals of them taken and deservedly Executed Robert Ket hanged on Norwich-Castle William his Brother on the top of Windham-Steeple nine of his chief Followers on as many Boughs of the Oak where Ket held his Courts Which great Deliverance was celebrated in that City by a Publick Thanks giving on the twenty seventh of August and hath been since perpetuated Annually on that day to these present Times The like Rising happened about this time in York-shire began by Dale and Ombler two seditious persons and with them it ended for being taken in a Skirmish before their number had amounted to three thousand men they were brought to York where they were executed with some others on the twenty first of September then next following The breaking out of these Rebellions but most especially that of Devonshire quickned the Lords of the Council to a sharper course against all those whom they suspected not to favour the King's Proceedings nor to advance the Execution of the Publick Liturgie amongst whom none was more distrusted then Bonner of London concerning whom it was informed that by his negligence not onely many People within his Diocess were very forgetfull of their Duty to God in frequenting the Divine Service then by Law established but divers others utterly despising the same did in secret places often frequent the Popish Mass. For this he is Commanded to attend the Lords of the Council on the eleventh of August by whom he was informed of such Complaints as were made against him and so dismissed with certain private Injunctions to be observed by him for the time to come And for a further Trial to be made of his Zeal and Loyalty if it were not rather for a Snare to entrap him in he was Commanded to Preach against the Rebels at Saint Paul's Cross on the first of September and there to shew the unlawfullness of taking Arms on Pretence of Religion But on the contrary he not onely touched● not upon any thing which was enjoyned him by the Council but spent the most part of his Sermon in maintenance of the Gross Carnal and Papistical presence of Christs Body and Blood in the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar Complaints whereof being made by William Latimer Parson of St. Laurence Poult●ey and John Hooper sometimes a Cister'ian Monk a Commission is issued out to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Rochester and Peterborough Sir Thomas Smith and Doctour May before whom he was convented at Lambeth on the tenth of the Moneth where after many

who do less deserve it that it is therefore necessary that the ears of Princes should be open unto all complaints and their hands ready to receive Petitions from all sorts of people to the end that knowing their grievances and distresses they may commiserate them in the one and afford them remedy in the other that a good Prince must have somewhat in him of the Priest who if he be not sensible of the infirmities of his brethren cannot be thought to intercede so powerfully in their behalf as when he hath been touched with the true sense and feeling of their extremities and finally that the School is never better governed than by one who hath past through all the forms and degrees thereof and having been perfectly trained up in the ways of obedience must know the better how to use both the Rod and Ferula when he comes to be Master of the rest The first eight years of the Reign of QUEEN ELIZABETH An. Reg. Eliz. 1. An. Dom. 1558 1559. ELizabeth the only child then living of King Henry the 8th succeeded her Sister in the Throne on the 17th of November Anno 1558. Ferdinand of Austria being then Emperour Henry the 2d King of the French Philip the second King of Spain and Paul the 4th commanding in the Church of Rome Queen Mary not long before her death had called a Parliament which was then sitting when the news thereof was brought unto the Lords in the House of Peers The newes by reason of the Queens long sickness not so strange unto them as to take them either unresolved or unprovided for the declaring of their duty to the next successor though some of them perhaps had some secret wishes that the Crown might have fallen rather upon any o●her than upon her to whom it did of right belong so that upon a short debate amongst themselves a message is sent to the Speaker of the House of Commons desiring him and all the Members of that House to come presently to them upon a business of no small importance to the good of the Kingdom Who being come the Lord Chancellor Heath with a composed and setled countenance not without sorrow enough for the death of the one or any discontent for the succession of the other declared unto them in the name of the rest of the Lords that God had taken to his mercy the late Queen Mary and that the succession to the Crown did belong of right to the Princess Elizabeth whose Title they conceived to be free from all legal questions that in such cases nothing was more necessary than expedition for the preventing of all such plots and practices of any discontented or ambitious persons as might be set on foot to the disturbance of the common quiet and therefore that there concurrence was desired in proclaiming the new Queen with all speed that might be they being then so opportunely convened together as the Representees of the whole body of the Commons of the Realm of England Which being said the Knights and Burgestes gave a ready consent to that which they had no reason to deny and they which gave themselves some thoughts of inclining otherwise conceived their opposition to the general Vote neither safe nor seasonable So that immediately the Princess Elizabeth was proclaimed by the King at Arms first before Westminster Hall door in the Palace Yard in the presence of the Lords and Commons and not long after at the Cross in Cheapside and other places in the City in the presence of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and principal Citizens to the great joy of all peaceable and well-affected people It was not long before the Princess had advertisement of the death of her sister together with the general acknowledgement of her just and lawful Title to the Crown Imperial The newes whereof being brought unto her by some of the Lords she prepared for her removal from Hatfield on the Saturday after being the 19th of that month and with a great and Royal train set forwards to London At Higate four miles from the City she was met by all the Bishops then living who presented themselves before her upon their knees in testimony of their loyalty and affection to her In which address as she seemed to express no small contentment so she gave to each of them particularly her hand to kiss except only unto Bonner of London whose bloody butcheries had render'd him uncapable in her opinion of so great a favour At her first coming to the City she took her lodging in the Charterhouse where she staid some days till all things in the Tower might be fitted and prepared for her reception Attended by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen with a stately strain of Lords and Ladies and their several followers She entreth by Cripple gate into the City passeth along the wall till she came to Bishops gate where all the Companies of the City in their several Liveries waited her coming in their proper and distinct rancks reaching from thence until the further end of Mark Lane where she was entertained with a peal of great Ordnance from the Tower At her entrance into which place she render'd her most humble thanks to Almighty God for the great and wondrous change of her condition in bringing her from being a prisoner in that place to be the Prince of her people and now to take possession of it as a Royal Palace in which before she had received so much discomfort Here she remained till the 5th day of December then next following and from thence removed by water unto Sommerset House In each remove she found such infinite throngs of people who flocked from all parts to behold her both by land and water and testified their publick joy by such loud acclamations as much rejoyced her heart to hear and could not but express it in her words and countenance by which she doubled their affections and made her self the absolute Mistriss at all times of their hands and purses She had been forged upon the anvil of adversity which made her of so fine a temper that none knew better than her self how to keep her State and yet descend unto the meanest of her subjects in a popular Courtship In the mean time the Lords of the Council had given Order for the stopping of all Ports and Havens that no intelligence of the Queens death might be caried out of the Realm by which any disturbance might be plotted or contrived against it till all things were setled here at home But finding such a general concurrence in all sorts of people in acknowledging her just and lawful Title testified by so many outward signs of a publick joy that there was no fear of any danger from abroad that bar was speedily removed and the Ports opened as before to all sorts of passengers And in the next place care was taken for sending new Commissions unto such Embassadors as resided in the Courts of several Princes both to acquaint them with

Bishop of St. Asaph translated thither the 21 of May 1561. as he was by another of the same name Dr. Thomas Davis within few months after The Province of York being thus fitted with a new Archbishop it was not long before the consecration of Dr. James Pilkinton to the See of Durham which was performed by the hands of his own Metropolitan on the second of March at whose first coming to tha● See he found it clogged with an annual pension of 1000. l. to be paid into her Majesties Exchequer yearly towa●d the maintenance of the Garison in the Town of Barw●ck first laid upon this Bishoprick when that Town seemed to be in danger of such French forces as had been brought into that Kingdom or otherwise might fear some practice of the popish party for the advancing of the interess of the Queen of Scots The Bishops Tenants were protected in their corn and cattel by the power of this Garison and consequently the more inabled to make just payment of their rents and it was thought to be no reason that the Queen should be at the sole charge of protecting his Tenants and he enjoy the whole benefit of it without any disbursement But this was only a pretence for raising some revenue to the Crown out of that rich patrimony the pension being still ch●rged upon it though the Garison was removed in the first of King James On the same day that is to say the second of March Dr. John Best was consecrated Bishop of Carlisle after the See had been refused by Bernard G● phin Parson of Houghton in the Spring betwixt D●rham and Newcastle The offer made him with relation to his brother George a man much used in many imployments for the State but on what ground declined by him is not well assured Whether it were that he was more in love with the retirements of a private life or that he could not have the bird without he yielded to the stripping of it of the most part of its feathers as it came to Best may be sooner questioned than resolved And finally on the 4th of May comes in the consecration of Mr William D●wnham the Queens Chaplain when she was but Princess and afterwards made one of the Prebendaries of St Peter's in Westminster to the See of Chester by this preferment recompensed for his former services By which last care the vacant Sees were all supplyed with learned Pastors except Oxon Glocester and Bristol Of which we shall speak more in the following year But neither this diligence and care in filling all the vacant Sees with learned Pastors nor the Queens Proclamation for banishing all Anabaptists and other Sectaries which had resorted hither out of other Countries could either free the land from those dangerous inmates or preserve the Church from the con●agion of their poysonous doctrines Too many of those Fanatical spirits still remained behind scattering their tares and dispersing their blasphemous follies amongst simple people In which number they prevailed so far upon More and Geofrys that the first profess'd himself to be Christ the last believed him to be such and did so report him Continuing obstinate in this frenzy Geofrys was committed prisoner to the Marsha●sea in the Burrough of Sou●hwark and More to the house of mad men commonly called Bethlem without Bishops Gate in the City of London Where having remained above a year without shewing any sign of their repentance Geofrys was whipt on the ●0th of April from the said Marsha● sea to Bethlem with a paper bound about his head which signified that this was William Geofrys a most blasphemous Heretick who denyed Christ to be in Heaven At Bethlem he was whipt again in the presence of More till the lash had extorted a confession of his damnable error After which More was stript and whipt in the open streets till he had made the like acknowledgement confessing Christ to be in Heaven and himself to be a vile miserable and sinful man Which being done they were again remitted to their several prisons for their further cure At which the Papists made good game and charged it on the score of the Reformation as if the Principles thereof did naturally lead men to those dreams and dotages Whereas they could not chuse but know that Christ our Saviour prophesied of the following times that some should say l●e here is Christ and others would say loe there is Christ that Simon Magus even in the dayes of the Apostles assumed unto himself the glorious Title of the great power of God that Menander in the age next following did boldly a●rogate to himself the name of Christ and finally that Montanus when the Church was stored with Learned and Religious Prelates would needs be taken and accounted for the holy Ghost Or if they think the Reformation might pretend unto more perfection than the Primitive times they should have looked no farther back than to King Henry the 3d. in whose Reign the Popes authority in England was at the highest and yet neither the Pope by his authority nor by the diligence of his Preachers and other Ministers could so secure the Church from Mores and Geoffrys but that two men rose up at that very time both which affirmed themselves to be Jesus Christ and were both hanged for it And as Montanus could not go abroad without his Maximi●●a and Priscilla to disperse his dotages so these impostors also had their female followers of which the one affirmed her self to be Mary Magdalen and the other that she was the Virgin Mary So that the Reformation is to be excused from being accessary in the least degree to these mens heresies or else the Apostolical Age and the Primitive times yea and the Church of Rome it self which they prize much more must needs come under the necessity of the like condemnation Nor did the Zuinglian Gospellers or those of the Genevian party rejoyce much less at a most lamentable accident which hapned to the cathedral Church of St. Paul on the fourth of June on which day about four or five of the clock in the afternoon a fearful fire first shewed it self near the top of the Steeple and from thence burnt down the Spire to the stone-work and Bells and raged so terribly that within the space of four hours the Timber and Lead of the whole Church and whatsoever else was combustible in it was miserably consumed and burnt to the great terror and amazement of all beholders Which Church the largest in the Christian world for all dimensions contains in length 720 foot or 240 Taylors yards in breadth 130 foot and in heighth from the pavement to the top of the roof 150 foot The Steeple from the ground to the cross or Weather-cock contained in height 520 foo● of which the square Tower onely amounted to 260. the Pyramid or Spire to as many more Which Spire being raised of ma●●ie Timber and covered over with sheets of Lead as it was the more apt to

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 Nunc●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 ●●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