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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

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expedient yet so that they take care for giving good and substantial Order to stay the inordinate and greedy Covetousness of such disordered People as should go about to alienate any of the Premises or otherwise to let them know that according to Reason and Order such as have or should contemptuously offend in that behalf should receive such punishment as to the quality of their doing should be thought most requisite Such were the Faculties and Instructions wherewith the Kings Commissioners were impowered and furnished And doubt we not but that they were as punctual and exact in the execution which cannot better be discerned then by that which is reported of their doings generally in all parts of the Realm and more particularly in the Church of St. Peter in Westminster more richly furnished by reason of the Pomps of Coronations Funerals and such like Solemnities then any other in the Kingdome Concerning which I find in an old Chapter-Book belonging to it that on May the 9. 1553. Sir Roger Cholmley Knight Lord Chief Justice and Sir Robert Bowes Knight Master of the Rolls the King's Commissioners for gathering Ecclesiastical Goods held their Session at Westminster and called before them the Dean of that Cathedral and certain others of the same House and commanded them by virtue of their Commission to bring to them a true Inventory of all the Plate Cups Vestiments and other Ecclesiastical Good● which belonged to their Church Which done the Twelfth Day of the same Moneth they sent John Hodges Robert Smalwood and Edmund Best of the City of Westminster whom the said Commissioners had made their Collectours with a Commandment to the Dean and Chapter for the delivery of the said Goods which were by Robert Crome Clerk Sexton of the said Church delivered to the said Collectors who left no more unto the Church then two Cups with the Covers all gilt One white Silver Pot Three Herse-Cloths Twelve Cushions One Carpet for the Table Eight Stall-Cloths for the Quite Three Pulpit-Cloths Nine little Carpets for the Dean's Stall Two Table-Cloths the rest of all the rich Furniture massie Plate and whatsoever else was of any value which questionless must needs amount to a very great Sum was seized on by the said Collect●urs and clearly carryed away by Order from the said Commissioners The l●ke done generally in all the other parts of the Realm into which the Commissioners began their Circuits in the Moneth of April as soon as the ways were open and fit for Travail Their business was to seize upon all the Goods remaining in any Cathedral or Parish-Churches all Jewels of Gold and Silver Crosses Candlesticks Censers Chalices and such like with their ready Money As also all Copes and Vestments of Cloth of Gold Tyssue and Silver together with all other Copes Vestments and Ornaments to the same belonging Which general seizure being made they were to leave one Chalice with certain Table-Cloths for the use of the Communion-Board as the said Commissioners should think fi● the Jewels Piate and ready Money to be delivered to the Master of the King's Jewels in the Tower of London the Cope of Cloth of Gold and Tyssue to be brought into the King's Wardrobe the rest to be turned into ready Money and tha● Money to be paid to Sir Edmond Peckam the King's Cofferer for the defraying of the Charges of H●s Majestie 's Houshold But notwithstanding this great Care of the King on the one side and the double-diligence of his Commissioners on the other the Booty did not prove so great as the Expectation In all great Fairs and Markets there are some Forestallers who get the b●st Peny-worths to themselves and suffer not the Richest and most gainful Commodities to be openly sold. And so it fared also in the present Business there being some who were as much before-hand with the King's Commissioners in embezelling the said Plate Jewels and other Furnitures as the Commissioners did intend to be with the King in keeping always most part unto themselves For when the Commissioners came to execute their Powers in their several Circuits they neither could discover all or recover much of that which had been pur●oined some things being utterly embezelled by Persons not responsible in which Case the King as well as the Commiss●oners was to lose his Right but more concealed by Persons not detectable who had so cunningly carryed the stealth that there was no tracing of their ●oot-step● And some there were who being known to have such Goods in the●r possession conceived themselves too Great to be called in question connived at will●ngly by these who were but their Equals and either were or meant to b● Offend●urs in the very same kind So that although some Profit was hereby raised to the King's Exchequer yet the far greatest part of the Prey came to other hands Insomuch that many private men's Parlours were hung with Altar-Cloths their Tables and Beds covered with Copes instead of Carpets and Cove●lids and many made Carousing Cups of the Sacred Chalices as once ●elsh●zzar celebrated his Drunken Feast in the Sanctified Vessels of the Temple It was a sorry House and not worth the naming which had not somewhat of this Furniture in it though it were onely a fair large Cushion made of a Cope or Altar-Cloth to adorn their Windows or make their Chairs appear to have somewhat in them of a Chair of State Yet how contemptible were these Trappings in comparison of those vast su●s of Money which were made of Jewels P●ate and Cloth of Tyssue either conveyed beyond the Seas or sold at home and good Lands purchased with the Money nothing the more blessed to the Poster●ty o● them that b●ught them for being purchased with the Consecrated Treasures of so many Temples But as the King was plunged in Debt without being put to any extraordinary Charges in it so was He decayed in his Revenue without selling any part of His Crown Lands towards the payment of His Debts By the suppressing of some and the surrendring of other Religious Houses the Royal Intrado was so much increased in the late King's time that for the better managing of it the King erected first the Court of Augmentation and afterwards the Court of Surveyours But in short time by His own Profuseness and the Avaritiousness of this King's Ministers it was so retrenched that it was scarce able to finde Work enough for the Court of Exchequer Hereupon followed the dissolving of the said two Courts in the last Parliament of this King beginning on the first and ending on the last day of March Which as it made a loud noise in the Ears of the People so did it put this Jealousie into their Minds That if the King's Lands should be thus daily wasted without any recruit He must at last prove burthensom to the common Subject Some course is therefore to be thought on which might pretend to an increase of the King's Revenue and none more easie to be compassed then to begin
Ricot in reference perhaps to his fathe●s suffering in the cause of her mother from whom descended Francis Lord Norris advanced by King James to the Honors of Viscount Tame and Earl of Berkshire by Letters Patens bearing date in January Anno 1620. After him on the 7th of April comes Sir Edward North created Baron of Char●eleg in the Country of Cambridge who having been Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations in the time of King Henry and raised himself a fair Estate by the fall of Abbyes was by the King made one of his Executors and nominated to be one of the great Councill of Estate in his Son's Minority Sir John B●ugis brings up the rear who being descended from Sir John Chandois a right noble Banneret and from the Bottelers Lords of Sudley was made Lord Chandois of Sudley on the 8th of April whi●h goodly Mannor he had lately purchased of the Crown to which it was Escheated on the death of Sir Thomas Seymour Anno. 1549. the Title still enjoyed though but little else by the seventh Lord of this Name and Family most of the Lands being dismembred from the House by the unparallel'd Impudence to give it no worse name of his elder brother Some Bishops I find consecrated about this time also to make the stronger party for the Queen in the House of Peers no more Sees actually voided at that time to make Rome for others though many in a fair way to it of which more hereafter Hooper of Glocester commanded to attend the Lords of the Council on the 22 of August and committed prisoner not long after was outed of his Bishoprick immediately on the ending of the Parliament in which all Consecrations were declared to be void and null which had been made according to the Ordinall of King Edward the 6 th Into whose place succeeded James Brooks Doctor in Divinity sometimes Fellow of Corpus Christi and Master of B●liol Colledge in Oxon employed not long after as a Delegat from the Pope of Rome in the proceedings against the Archbishop of Canterbury whom he condemned to the stake To Jaylor of whose death we have spoken before succeeded Doctor John White in the See of Lincoln first School-master and after Warden of the Colledge near Winchester to the Episcopall See whereof we shall find him translated Anno 1556. The Church of Rochester had been void ever since the removall of Doctor Story to the See of Chichester not suffered to return to his former Bishoprick though dispoiled of the later But it was now thought good to fill it and Maurice Griffin who for some years had been the Archdeacon is consecrated Bishop of it on the first of April One suffrage more was gained by the repealing of an Act of Parliament made in the last Session of King Edward for dissolving the Bishoprick of Durham till which time Doctor Cuthbert Tunstall though restored to his Liberty and possibly to a good part also of his Churches Partimony had neither Suffrage as a Peer in the House of Parliament not could act any thing as a Bishop in his own Jurisdiction And with these Consecrations and Creations I conclude this year An. Reg. Mar. 2º An. Dom. 1554 1555. THe next begins with the Arrivall of the Prince of Spain wafted to England with a Fleet of one hundred and sixty sail of Ships twenty of which were English purposely sent to be his Convoy in regard of the warrs not then expired betwixt the French and the Spaniards Landing at Southampton on the 19 th of July on which day of the month in the year foregoing the Queen had been solemnly proclaimed in London he went to Winchester with his whole Retinue on the 24 th where he was received by the Queen with a gallant Train of Lords and Ladies solemnly married the next day being the Festival of St. James the supposed Tutelary Saint of the Spanish Nation by the Bishop of Winchester at what time the Queen had passed the eight and thirtieth year of her age and the Prince was but newly entred on his twenty seventh As soon as the Marriage-Rites were celebrated Higueroa the Emperors Embassador presented to the King a Donation of the Kingdoms of Naples and Cicily which the Emperor his father had resigned unto him Which presently was signified and the Titles of the King and Queen Proclaimed by sound of Trumpet in this following Style PHILIP and MARY by the grace of the God King and Queen of England France Naples Jerusalem Ireland Defenders of the Faith Princes of Spain and Cicily Arch-Dukes of Austria Dukes of Millain Burgundy and Brabant Counts of Ausperge Flanders and Tirroll c. At the proclaiming of which Style which was performed in French Latine and English the King and Queen showed themselves hand in hand with two Swords born before them for the greater state or in regard of their distinct Capacity in the publick Government From VVinchester they removed to Basing and so to VVindsor where Philip on the 5 th of August was Installed Knight of the Garter into the fellowship whereof he had been chosen the year before From thence the Court removed to Richmond by land and so by water to Suffolk-place in the Burrough of Southwark and on the 12 th of the same month made a magnificent passage thorow the principal streets of the City of London with all the Pomps accustomed at a Coronation The Triumphs of which Entertainment had continued longer if the Court had not put on mourning for the death of the old Duke of Norfolk who left this life at Framingham Castle in the month of September to the great sorrow of the Queen who entirely loved him Philip thus gloriously received endeavoureth to sow his Grandure to make the English sensible of the benefits which they were to partake of by this Marriage and to engratiate himself with the Nobility and People in all generous ways To which end he caused great quantity of Bullion to be brought into England loaded in twenty Carts carrying amongst them twenty seven Chests each Chest containing a Yard and some inches in length conducted to the Tower on the second of October by certain Spaniards and English-men of his Majesties Guard And on the 29 th of January then next following ninety nine Horses and two Carts laden with Treasures of Gold and Silver brought out of Spain was conveyed through the City of the Tower of London under the conduct of Sir Thomas Grosham the Queens Merchant and others He prevailed also with the Queen for discharge of such Prisoners as stood committed in the Tower either for matter of Religion or on the account of Wya●'s Rebellion or for engaging in the practice of the Duke of Northumberland And being gratified therein according unto his desire the Lord Chancellor the Bishop of Ely and certain others of the Councill were sent unto the Tower on the 18 th of January to see the same put in execution which was accordingly performed to the great joy
English Chruch in each of their several congregations Their principal retiring places amongst the last were Arrow Zurick and Geneva and in the first the Cities of Embden Stralsburge and Franckfort In Franckfort they enjoyed the greatest privileges and therefore resorted thither in the greatest numbers which made them the more apt unto Schisms and factions At their first coming to that place which was on the 27th of June Anno 1554. by the power and favour of John Glauberge one of the Senators of that City they were permitted to have the use of one of their Churches which had before been granted to such French exiles as had repaired thither on the like occasion yet so that the French were still to hold their right the English to have the use of it one day and the French another and on the Lords day so to divide the hours between them that the one might be no hinderance unto the other It hath been said also that there was another condition imposed upon them of being conform unto the French in Doctrine and Ceremonies Which condition if it were imposed by the Magistrates not sought by themselves must needs be very agreeable to the temper and complexion of their principal Leaders who being for the most part of the Zuinglian-Gospellers at their going hence became the great promoters of the Puritan faction at their comming home The names of Whittingham Williams Goodman Wood and Sutton who appeared in the head of this congregation declare sufficiently of what Principles and strain they were how willing they would be to lay aside the face of an English Church and frame themselves to any Liturgie but their own On July the 14th they first obtained a grant of their Church and on the 29th took possession of it The interval they spent in altering and disfiguring the English Lyturgie of which they left nothing but the reading of the Psalms and Chapters Those comfortable interlocutories between the Minister and the People were no longer used as savouring in their opinion of some disorder in the course of the ministration the Letany and the Surplice they cast aside as having too much in them of the Church of Rome the Confession they had altered so as they conceived most agreeable to their present condition and for the Hymns which intervened between the Chapters and the Creed they changed them for such Psalms in the English Meerer as had been made by Sternhold and Hopkins in the time of King Edward The Psalm being done the Preacher goes into the Pulpit in which the Minister prayed for the assistance of God's Spirit and so proceeded to the Sermon Which done an other Prayer was made for all orders and estates of men but more particularly for the welfare of the Church of England composed in imitation of the Prayer for the Church Militant here on earth but ending as that did not with the Pater-noster After which most extreamly out of order followed the rehearsal of the Articles of the Christian Faith another Psalm and finally the dismission of the people with The Peace of God This was the form devised for that Congregation for the imposing whereof on all the rest of the English Churches they did then use their best endeavours and for obtruding which on the whole Church of England they raised such tumults and commotions in the following times Growing in love with this fair Babe of their own begetting they write their Letters of the second of August to such of the English as remained at Stralsburge and Zurick inviting them to repair to Franckfort and unite themselves unto that Church which had been there erected with the leave of the Magistrate But they had heard in both places of those Alterations which had been made at Franckfort in the form of Gods publick Service and thereupon refused to accept of the invitation though it seemed to promise them some advantages by the commodious situation of that City in respect of England the great resort of strangers thither at the yearly Marts plenty of Books and other helps in the way of study which were not to be found in the other two Cities From Stralsburge modestly from Zurick resolutely but from both it was plainly signified that they resolved to maintain the Order of the Church of England The like Letter had been writ to the English at Embden of which Congregation Doctor Scory the late Bishop of Chichester was the Super-intendent and we may readily believe that they received the like repulse from his Church at Embden as they had from Gryndal Sandys and Haddon or who had the constituting of the Church of Stralsburge or from Horn Chambers Parkhurst and other of the Students which remained at Zurick The noise of this new Church at Franckfort occasioned Knox who after proved the great incendiary of the Realm and Church of Scotland to leave his Sanctuary in Geneva in hope to make a better market for himself in that Congregation He had not long before published a seditious Pamphlet entituled The first blast of the Trumpet in which he bitterly inveighed against the Government of Women aiming there especially at the three Queen Maries that is to say Mary Queen of England Mary Queen of Scots and Mary of Lorrain Queen Regent of Scotland By which seditious Pamphlet he had made not onely his own Country too hot for him but could assure himself of no safety in France or England To Geneva therefore he retires and from thence removes to Franckfort as the ●itter Scene for his intendments hoping to get as great a name in this new Plantation as Calvin had gotten in the old It was about the end of September that he came to Franckfort where he took the charge of that Church upon him Whittingham and the rest submitting unto his Apostleship This gave a new dis-satisfaction to the English at Stralsburge and Zurick who knew the spirit of the man and feared the dangerous consequents and effects thereof Nor was the condition of affairs much bettered by the coming of Whitehead who afterwards refused the Archbishoprick of Canterbury though far the more moderate of the two New Letters are reciprocated between Franckfort and Zurick from Franckfort on the 15th of November in open defiance as it were to the English Liturgy from Zurick on the 28th in defence thereof and of their constancy and resolution for adhering to it The breach growing every day more wide than other Gryndal and Chambers came from Stralsburge to attone the difference by whom it was proposed unto them That the substance of the English Liturgy being retained there might be a forbearance of some ceremonies and offices in it But Knox and Whittingham were as much bent against the substance of the Book as against any of the circumstantials and extrinsicals which belonged unto it So that no good effect following on this interposition the Agents of the Church of Stralsburge return back to their brethren who by their Letters of the 13th of December expostulate in
Hoods To give a beginning hereunto Bishop Ridley then Bishop of London obediently conforming unto that which he could not hinder did the same day Officiate the Divine Service of the Morning in his Rochet onely without Cope or Vestment he Preached also at St. Paul's Cross in the afternoon the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Companies in their best Liveries being present at it the Sermon tending for the most part to the setting forth of the said Book of Common-Prayer and to acquaint them with the Reason of such Alterations as were made therein On the same day the New Liturgie was executed also in all the Churches of London And not long after I know not by what strange forwardness in them that did it the Upper Quire in St. Paul's Church where the High-Altar stood was broken down and all the Qui●e thereabout and the Communion-Table was placed in the Lower Part of the Qui●e where the Priest sang the Dayly Service What hereupon ensued of the Rich Ornaments and Plate wherewith every Church was furnished after its proportion we shall see shortly when the King's Commissioners shall be sent abroad to seise upon them in His Name for their own Commodity About this time the Psalms of David did first begin to be Composed in English Meeter by one Thomas Sternhold one of the Grooms of the Privy-Chamber who Translating no more then thirty seven left both Example and Encouragement to John Hopkins and others to dispatch the rest A Device first taken up in France by one Clement Marot one of the Grooms of the Bed-Chamber to King Francis the First who being much addicted to Poetry and having some acquaintance with those which were thought to have enclined to the Reformation was perswaded by the Learned Vatablus Professour of the Hebrew Tongue in the University of Paris to exercise his Poetical Fancies in Translating some of David's Psalms For whose satisfaction and his own he Translated the first fifty of them and after flying to Geneva grew acquainted with Beza who in some tract of time Translated the other hundred also and caused them to be fitted unto several Tunes which ● hereupon began to be Sung in private houses and by degrees to be taken up in all the Churches of the French and other Nations which followed the Genevian Plat-form Marot's Translation said by Strada to have been ignorantly and perversely done as being but the Work of a man altogether unlearned but not to be compared with that Barbarity and Botching which every where occurreth in the Translation of Sternhold and Hopkins Which notwithstanding being first allowed for private Devotion they were by little and little brought into the use of the Church Permitted rather then Allowed to be Sung before and after Sermons afterwards Printed and bound up with the Common-Prayer-Book and at last added by the Stationers at the end of the Bible For though it be expressed in the Title of those Singing Psalms that they were set forth and allowed to be Sung in all Churches before and after Morning and Evening Prayer and also before and after Sermons yet this Allowance seems rather to have been a Connivance then an Approbation No such Allowance being any where found by such as have been most Industrious and concerned in the search thereof At first it was pretended onely that the said Psalms should be Sung before and after Morning and Evening Prayer and also before and after Sermons which shews they were not to be intermingled in the Publick Liturgie But in some tract of time as the Puritan Faction grew in strength and confidence they prevailed so far in most places to thrust the Te Deum the Benedictus the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis quite out of the Church But of this more perhaps hereafter when we shall come to the Discovery of the Puritan Practices in the Times succeeding Next to the business of Religion that which took up a great part of the Publick Care was the Founding and Establishing of the new Hospital in the late dissolved House of Grey-Friers near New-gate in the City of London and that of St. Thomas in the Borough of So●thwark Concerning which we are to know that the Church belonging to the said House together with the Cloysters and almost all the Publick Building which stood within the Liberties and Precincts thereof had the good Fortune to escape that Ruin which Generally befell all other Houses of that Nature And standing undemolished till the last Times of King Henry it was given by him not many days before His Death to the City of London together with the late dissolved Priory called Little St. Bartholomew's which at the Suppression thereof was valued at 305. pounds 6. s. 7. d. In which Donation there was Reference had to a Double End The one for the Relieving of the Poor out of the Rents of such Messuages and Tenements as in the Grant thereof are contained and specified The other for Constituting a Parish-Church in the Church of the said dissolved Grey-Friers not onely for the use of such as lived within the Precincts of the said two Houses but for the Inhabitants of the Parishes of Saint Nicholas in the Shambles and of Saint Ewines scituate in Warwick-Lane-end near New-gate Market Which Churches with all the Rents and Profits belonging to them were given to the City at the same time also and for advancing the same ends together with five hundred Marks by the year for ever the Church of the Grey-Friers to be from thenceforth called Christ-Church Founded by King Henry the Eighth All which was signified to the City in a Sermon Preached at Saint Paul's Cross by the Bishop of Rochester on the thirteenth of January being no more then a Fortnight before the death of the King so that He wanted not the Prayers of the Poor at the Time of His Death to serve as a Counter-Ballance for those many Curses which the poor Monks and Friers had bestowed upon Him in the Time of His Life In pursuance of this double Design the Church of the said Friers which had before served as a Magazine or Store-house for such French-Wines as had been taken by Reprise was cleansed and made fit for Holy uses and Mass again sang in it on the thirteenth day of January before remembred resorted to by such Parishioners as were appointed to it by the King's Donation After which followed in the first years of King Edward the Sixth the taking down of the said two Churches and building several Tenements on the Ground of the Churches and Church-Yards the Rents thereof to be imployed for the further maintenance and Relief of the poor living and loytering in and about the City to the great Dishonour of the same But neither the first Grant of the King nor these new Additions being able to carry on the work to the end desired it happened that Bishop Ridley preaching before the King did much insist upon the settling of of some constant course for Relief of the Poor Which
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
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