some artifices used to illude that purpose had not changed her mind She had scarce liv'd to the third year of her age when she was promised in marriage to the Daulphine of France with a Portion of 333000 Crowns to be paid by her Father and as great a Joynture to be made by the French King Francis as ever had been made by any King of that Country And so far did the businesse seem to be acted in earnest that it was publickly agreed upon in the treaty for the Town of Tournay that the Espousals should be made within four months by the said two Kings in the name of their children in pursuance whereof as the French King sent many rich gifts to some leading men of the Court of England to gain their good liking to this League so he sent many costly Presents to the Princesse Mary the designed wife if Princes could be bound by such designations of the heir of France But war beginning to break out between the French and the Spaniards it was thought fit by Charles the fifth being then Emperour of Germany and King of Spain to court the favour of the English for the obtaining whereof his neernesse to Queen Katherine being sister to the Queen his Mother gave him no small hopes Upon this ground he makes a voyage into England is royally feasted by the King installed solemnly Knight of the Order of the Garter in the Castle of Windsor and there capitulates with the King amongst other things to take to wife his daughter Mary as soon as she should come to the years of marriage it was also then and there agreed that as soon as she was twelve years old the Emperour should send a proxie to make good the contract espouse her per verba de praesenti in the usual form that in the mean time the King of England should not give her in marriage unto any other that a dispensation should be procured from the Pope at the charge of both Princes in regard that the parties were within the second degree of consanguinity that within four months after the contract the Princesse should be sent to the Emperour's Court whether it were in Spain or Flanders at the sole charge of the King of England and married within four dayes after her comming thither in the face of the Church her portion limited to 400000 crowns if the King should have no issue male but to be inlarged to 600000 crowns more if the King should have any such issue male to succeed in the Kingdom A jointure of 50000 crowns per annum to be made by the Emperour the one part thereof to be laid in Flanders and the other in Spain and finally that if either of the said two Princes should break off this marriage he should forfeit 400000 crowns to the party injured And now who could have thought but that the Princesse Mary must have been this Emperour's wife or the wife rather of any Prince then one that was to be begotten by this Emperour on another woman though in conclusion so it hapned As long as Charles had any need of the assistance and friendship of England so long he seemed to go on really in the promised marriage and by all means must have the Princesse sent over presently to be declared Empresse and made Regent of Flanders But when he had taken the French King at the battel of Pavia sackt Rome and made the Pope his prisoner he then conceived himselfe in a condition of seeking for a wife elsewhere which might be presently ripe for marriage without such a tedious expectation as his tarrying for the Princesse Mary must needs have brought him And thereupon he shuts up a marriage with the Lady Issabell Infanta of Pâ—lugull and daughter to another of his Mother's â—isters For which being questioned by the King he layes the blame upon the importunity of his Council who could not patiently permit him to remain unmarried till the Princesse Mary came to age and who besides had caused a scruple to be started touching her illegitimation as being born by one that had been wife to his elder brother King Henry thereupon proceeds to a new treaty with the French to whom his friendship at the time of their King's captivity had been very useful which is by them as cheerfully excepted as by him it had been franckly offered She had before been promised to the Daulphin of Francâ— but now she is design'd for the second son then Duke of Orleance who afterwards by the death of his elder brother succeeded his father in the Crown But whilst they were upon this treaty the former question touching her legitimation was again revived by the Bishop of Tarbâ—e one of the Commissioners for the French which though it seem'd not strong enough to dissolve the treaty which the French were willing to conclude as their affairs then stood upon any conditions yet it occasioned many troubles in the Court of Engâ—and and almost all Christendome besides For now the doubt being started a second time and started now by such who could not well subsist without his friendship began to make a deep impression in the mind of the King and to call baâ—k such passages to his remembrance as otherwise would have been forgotten He now bethinks himselfe of the Protestation which he had made in the presence of Bishop Fox before remembred never to take the Lady Katherine for his wife looks on the death of his two sons as a punishment on him for proceeding in the marriage and casts a fear of many inconveniences or mischiefs rather which must inevitably befall this Kingdome if he should dye and leave no lawful issue to enjoy the Crown Hope of more children there was none and little pleasure to be taken in a conversation which the disproportion of their years and a greater inequality in their dispositions must render lesse agreeable every day then other In this perplexity of mind he consults his Confessor by whom he was advised to make known his griefs to Cardinal Wolsie on whose judgement he relied in most other matters which hapned so directly to the Cardinal's mind as if he had contrived the project The Emperour had lately cross'd him in his suit for the Popedome and since denied him the Archbish prick of Tâ—ledo with the promise whereof he had before bound him to his side And now the Cardinal resolves to take the opportunity of the King's distractions for perfecting his revenge against him In order whereunto as he had drawn the King to make peace with France and to conclude a marriage for his daughter with the Duke of Orleance so now he hopes to separate him from the bed of Katherine the Emperour's Aunt and marry him to Madam Rhinee the French Queens sister who afterwards was wife to the Duke of Ferrara About which time the picture of Madam Margaret the sister of King Francis first married to the Duke of Alanzon was brought amongst others into
symitry which showed it selfe in all her features and what she carried on that side by that advantage was over-ballanced on the other by a pleasing sprightfulnesse which gained as much upon the hearts of all beholders It was conceived by those Great Critticks in the schooles of Beauty that love which seemed to threaten in the eyes of Queen Jane did only seem to sport it selfe in the eyes of Queen Ann that there was more Majesty in the Gaâ—b of Queen Jane Seimour and more lovelinesse in that of Queen Ann Bollen yet so that the Majesty of the one did excell in Lovelyness and that the Lovelinesse of the other did exceed In majesty Sir John Russell afterwards Earle of Bedford who had beheld both Queens in their greatest Glories did use to say that the richer Queen Jane was in clothes the fairer she appeared but that the other the richer she was apparrelled the worse she looked which showes that Queen Ann only trusted to the Beauties of Nature and that Queen Jane did sometimes help her selfe by externall Ornaments In a word she had in her all the Graces of Queen Ann but Governed if my conjecture doth not faile me with an evener and more constant temper or if you will she may be said to be equally made up of the two last Queens as having in her all the Attractions of Queen Ann but Regulated by the reservednesse of Queen Katharine also It is not to be thought that so many rare perâ—ections should be long concealed from the eye of the King or that love should not worke in him it's accustomed effects of desire and hope In the prosecution whereof he lay so open to discovery that the Queen couâ—d not chuse but take notice of it and intimated her suspitioâ—s to him as appeares by a letter of hers in the Scrinia Sacra Iâ— which she signifies unto him that by hastning her intended death he would be left at liberty both before God and man to follow his affection already setled on the Party for whose sake she was reduced unto that condition and whose name she could some while since have pointed to his Grace not being ignorant of her suspicions And it appeared by the event that she was not much mistaken in the Mark she aimed at For scarce had her lementable death which happened on the nineteenth of May prepared the way for the Legitimating of this new affection but on the morrow after the King was secretly married to Mistress Seimour and openly showed her as his Queen in the Whitsontide following A Marriage which made some alteration in the face of the Court in the advancing of her kindred and discountenancing the Dependants of the former Queen but otherwise produced no change in Affaires of State The King proceeded as before in suppressing Monasteries extinguishing the Popes Authority and â—ltering divers things in the face of the Câ—uâ—ch which tended to that Reformation which after followed For on the eighth of June began the Parliament in which here past an Act for tâ—e finall extinguishing of the Power of the Popes of Rome Cap. 10. And the next day a Convocation of the Bishops and Clergy managed by Sir Thomas Cromwell advanced about that time unto the Title of Lord Cromwell of Wimbledon and made his Majesties Viccar Generall of all Ecclesiast â—all Matâ—ers in the Realme of England By whose Authority a book was published after Mature debate and Deliberation under the name of Articles Devised by the Kings Highness in which mentioned â—ut three Sacraments that is to â—ay Baptisme Penâ—ance and the Lords Supper Besides which book there were some Acts agreed upon in the Convocation for diminishing the superflâ—ous number of Holy dayes especially of such as happened in the time of Harvest Sâ—gnified afterwards to the people in certain Injunctions published in the Kings name by the new Viccar Generall as the first fruits of his Authority In which it was ordained amongst other things that the Curates in every Parish Church should teach the People to say the Lords Prayer the Creed the Ave-Mary and the Ten Commandments in the English Tongue But that which seemed to make most for the Advantage of the new Queen and her Posterity if it please God to give her any was the unexpected death of the Duke of Richmond the Kings naturall Son begotten on the body of the Lady Talboiâ— So dearly cherished by his Father having then no lawful Issuâ—-male that in the sixth yeare of his Age An. 1525. he created him Earl of Nottingham and not long after Duke of Richmond and Sommerset preferred him to the Honourable office of Earle Marshall elected him into the Order of the Garter made him Lord Admirall of the Royall Navy in an expedition against France and finally Affianced him to Mary the daughter of Thomas Howard Duke of Norâ—olk the most â—owerfull Subject in the Kingdom Now were these all the favours intended to him The Crown it selfe being designed him by the King in default of Lawfull Issue to be procreated and begotten of his Royall Body For in the Act of the Succession which past in the Parliament of this year the Crown being first setled upon the Issue of this Queen with the remainder to the Kings issue lawfully begotten on any following wife whatsoever there past this clause in favour of the Duke of Richmond as it was then generally conceived that is to say That for lack of lawfull heires of the Kings body to be procreated or begotten as is afore limitted by this Act it should and might be lawfull for him to confer the same on any such Person or Persons in Possession and Remainder as should please his Highnesse and according to such Estate and after such manner â—orme fashion order and condition as should be expressed declared named and lâ—mitted in his said Letters Patents or by his last Will the Crown to be enjoyed by such person or persons so to be nominated and appointed in as large and ample manner as if such Person or Persons had been his Highnesse Lawfull Heires to the Imperiall Crown of this Realm And though it might please God as it after did to give the King some Lawfull Issue by this Queen yet took he so much care for this naturall son as to enable himselfe by another Clause in the said Act to advance any person or persons of his most Royall Blood by Letters Patents under the Great Seale to any Title Stile or Name of any Estate Dignity or Honour whatsoever it be and to give to them or any of them any Castles Honours Mannours Lands Tenements Liberties Franchiefes or other Hereditaments in â—ee simple or Fee â—tail or for terme of their lives or the life of any of them But all these expectations and Provisions were to no effect the Duke departing this life at the age of 17 yeares or thereabouts within few dayes after the ending of this Session that is to say on the 22th day of July Anno 1536. to the
made 〈◊〉 Purple silke and Gold garnished with the like girdle he is girt withall thereby showing him to be Duke of Cornwall by birth and not by Creation A cap of the same velvet thaâ—â—is 〈◊〉 is of furred with â—â—mines with Laces and a button and Tassells on the Crown thereof made of Venice Gold A Garland or a little Coronet of Gold to be put on his head together with his Cap. A long golden verge or Rod beâ—okening his Government A ring of Gold also to be put on the third finger of his left hand whereby he was â—o declare his Marriage made with equity and Justice But scarce were these provâ—sions ready but the Kings sicknesse brought a stop and his death shortly afâ—er put an end to those preparations the expectation of a Principality being therâ—by changed to the posâ—ession oâ— a Crown For the King having long lived a voluptuous life and indulgent too much unto his Pallate was gâ—owne so corpulent or rather so overâ—grownâ— with in unweildly burâ—hen of flesh that he was not able to go up staires from one roome to another but as hâ— was hoised up by an Engine Whâ—ch filling his body with â—oule and foggy humours and those humours falling into his leg in which 〈…〉 ancient and uncured â—ore they there began to settle to an inflamation 〈…〉 both waste his Spirits and increase his passions In thâ— mâ—ddest of 〈…〉 it was not his least care to provide for the safetâ— of his Sâ—n and preserve the succession of the Crown to his own Posterity At such time as he had married Queen Ann Bollen he procured hâ—s daughter Mary to be declared 〈◊〉 by Act of Parliament the like he also did by his daughter Elizabeth when he haâ— married Queen Jane Sâ—imour setling the Crown upon his issue by the said Queen Jane But having no other issue by her but Prince Edward only and none at all by any of his following wives he thought it a high point of Prâ—dence as indeed it was to establish the Succession with more stayes then one and not to let it rest on so weak a staffe as a childe of little more then nine yeares of age For which cause he procured an Act of Parliament in the 35th yeare of his Reign in which it is declared that in default of issue of the said Prince Edward the Crowne should be entailed to the Kings daughter the Lady Mary and the Heires of her body and for default thereof to the Kings daughter the Lady Elizabeth and the heires of her body and for lack of such issue to such as the King by his Letters Patents or his Last Will in Writing should Limit So that he had three children by three severall wives two of them borne of questionable Marriages yet all made capable by this Act of having their severall turnes in the succession as it after proved And though a threefold cord be not easily broken yet he obtained further power for disposing the Crown if their issue failed whereof being now sick and fearing his approaching end he resolved to make such use in laying down the State of the succession to the Crown Imperiall as was more agreeable to his private passions then the Rules of Justice which appeared plainly by his excluding of the whole Scottish Line descended from the Lady Margaret his eldest sister from all hopes thereof unlesse perhaps it may be said that the Scottish Line might be sufficiently provided for by the Marriage of the young Queen with the Prince his Son and that it was the Scotâ— own fault if the match should faile This care being over and the Succession setled by his Last Will and Testament bearing date the 28th of December being a full moneth before his death he began to entertaine some feares and Jealousies touching the safety of the Prince whom he should leave unto a factious and divided Court who were more like to serve their own turns by him then advance his interest His brother-in-Law the Duke of Suffolk in whom he most confided died not long before the kindred of Queen Jane were but new in Court of no Authority in themselves and such as had subsisted chiefly by the countenance which she had from him As they could contribute little to the defence of the Princes person and the preservation of his Rightâ— So there were some who had the Power and who could tell but that they also had the will to change the whole frame of his design and take the Government to themselves Amongst which there was none more feared then the Noble Lord Henry Earle of Surrey the eldest son of Thoâ—as Howard Duke of Norfolk strong in Alliance and Dependance of a Revenue not inferiour to some forreign Kings and that did derive his Pedigree from King Edward the first The Earle himselfe beheld in generall by the English as the chiefe Ornament of the Nation Highly esteemed for his Chivalry his Affability his learning and whatsoever other Graces might either make him amiable in the eyes of the people or formidable in the sight of a jealous impotent and way-ward Prince Against him therefore and his Father there were Crimes devised their persons put under an Arrest their Arraignment prosecuted at the Guild Hall in London where they both received the sentence of death which the Earle suffered on the Tower Hill on the 19. of January the old Duke being reserved by the Kings death which followed within nine dayes after for more happy times Which brings into my minde a sharp but shrewd Character of this King occurring in the writings of some but more common in the mouthes of many that is to say that be never spared woman in his lust nor man in his anger For proofe of which last it is observed that he brought unto the block two Queens two Noble Ladies one Cardinall declared of Dukes Marquisses Earles and the sons of Earles no fewer then twelve Lords and Knights eighteen of Abbots and Priors thirteen Monks and Religious Persons about seventy seven and many more of both Religions to a very great number So as it cannot be denied that he had too much as all great Monarchs must have somewhat of the Tyrant in him And yet I dare not say with Sir Walter Rawleigh That if all the patterns of a mercilesse Prince had been lost in the World they might have been found in this one King some of his Executions being justifiable by the very nature of their Crimes others to be imputed to the infelicity of the times in which he lived and may be ascribed unto Reasons of State the Exigences whereof are seldom squared by the Rule of Justice His Infirmity and the weaknesse which it brought upon him having confined him to his bed he had a great desire to receive the Sacrament and being perswaded to receive it in the easiest posture sitting or raised up in his bed he would by no meanes yield unto it but caused himselfe to be taken up placed in his chaire
of his Dominions and caused the sentence of his Deprivation to be posted up at the Townes of Bruges Taurney and Dunkiâ—ke in Flanders at Bolloigne and Diepe in France and St. Andrewes in Scotland effâ—cting nothing by the unadviâ—edness of that desperate Counsell but that the King became more fixed in his Resolutions and more averse from all the thoughts of Reconciliation with the See of Rome The surrenderies of the former year cofirmed by Act of Parliament in the beginning of this drew after it the finall dissolution of all the rest none daring to oppose that violent Torrent which seemed to carry all before it but the Abbots of Colchester Reading and Glastenbury quarrelled for which they were severally condemned and executed under colour of denying the Kings Supremacy and their rich Abbeys seized upon as confiscations to the use of the King which brought him into such a suspition of separating from the Communion of the Church of Rome that for the better vindicating of his integrity as to the particulars he passed in the same Parliament the terrible Statute of the six Articles which drew so much good blood from his Protestant Subjects And being further doubtfull in himselfe what course to steere he marries at the same time with the Lady Ann sister unto the Duke of Cleve whom not long after he divorseth Advanceth his Great Minister Cromwell by whom he had made so much havock of Religious houâ—es in all parts of the Realm to the Earldome of Essex and sends him headlesse to his Grave within three moneths after takes to his bed the Lady Katharine Howard a Neece of Thomas Duke of Norfolk and in short time found cause enough to cut off her head not being either the richer in children by so many wives nor much improved in his Revenue by such horrible Rapines In the middest of which confusions he sets the wheele of Reformation once more going by moderating the extreme severity of the said Statute touching the six Articles abolishing the Superstitious usages accustomedly observed on St. Nicholas day and causing the English Bible of the Larger vollumne to be set up in all and every Parish Church within the Kingdome for such as were Religiously minded to Resort unto it The Prince had now but newly finished the first yeare of his age when a fit wife was thought of for him upon this occasion The Pope incensed against King Henry had not long since sententially deprived him of his Kingdom as before was said And having so done he made an offer of it to King James the fifth then King of the Scots the only Son of Margaret his eldest sister wife of James the fourth To whom he sent a Breve to this effect viz. That he would assist him against King Henry whom in his Consistory he had pronounced to be an Heretick a Scismatick a manifest Adulterer a publique Murtherer a committer of Sacriledge a Rebell and convict of Lesae Majestatis for that he had risen against his Lord and therefore that he had justly deprived him of his Kingdom and would dispose the same to him and other Princes so as they would assist him in the recovery of it This could not be so closely carried but that the King had notice of it who from thenceforth began to have a watchfull eye upon the Actions of his Nephew sometimes alluring him unto his party by offering him great hopes and favours and practising at other times to weaken and distract him by animating and maintaining his owne Subjects against him At last to set all right between them an enterview was appointed to be held at York proposed by Henry and condescended to by James But when the day appointed came the Scots King failed being deterred from making his appeareance there by some Popish Prelates who put into his head a fear of being detained a Prisoner as James the first had been by King Henry the fourth Upon this breach the King makes ready for a Warr sets out a manifest of the Reasons which induced him to it amongst which he insists especially on the neglect of performing that Homage which anciently had been done and still of Right ought to be done to the Kings of England In prosecuting of which Warr the Duke of Norfolk entred Scotland with an Army October 21. Anno 1542. waâ—ts and spoyles all the Country followed not long after by an Army of Scots consisting of 15000. men which in like manner entred England but were discomfited by the valour and good fortune of Sir Thomas Wharton and Sir William Mâ—sgrave with the help of some few Borderers only the Scots upon some discontent making little resistance In which fight besides many of the Scottish Nobility were taken eight hundred Prisoners of inferiour note twenty foure peeces of Ordinance some cart loadâ— of Armes and other booty On the 19 of December the Scottish Lords and other of the Principall Prisoners to the number of 20. or thereabouts were brought into London followed on the third day after with the newes of the death of King James and the birth of the young Queen his daughter This put King Henry on some thoughts of uniting the two Crowns in a firme and everlasting League by the Marriage of this infant Queen with his Son Prince Edward In pursuance whereof he sent for the inprisoned Lords feasted them royally at White Hall and dealt so effectually with them by himselfe and his Ministers that they all severally and joyntly engaged themselves to promote this Match Dismist into their own Country upon these promises and the leaving of Hostages they followed the Negotation with such care and diligence that on the 29th of June in the yeare ensuing notwithstanding the great opposition made against them by the Queen Dowager Cardâ—nall Beton and divers others who adhered to the Faction of France they brought the businesse at the last to this Conclusion viz. 1. That the Lords of Scotland shall have the Education of the Princess for a time yet so as it might be Lawfull for our King to send thitâ—er a Noble man and his wife with a Family under twenty Persons to waâ—te on her 2. That at ten yeares of Age she should be brought into England the contract being first finished by a Proxie in Scotland 3. That within two moneths after the date heâ—eof six Noble Scâ—ts should be given as Hostages for the performance of the Conditions on their Part And that if any of them dyed their number should be supâ—lyed 4. And furthermore it was agreed upon that the Realme of Scotland by that name should preserve it's Lawes and Rights and that Peace should be made for as long time as was desired the French being excluded But though these Capitulations thus agreed on were sent into â—ngland signed and â—ealed in the August following yet the Cardinall and his Party grew so strong that the whâ—le Treaty câ—me to nothing the Noble Men who had been Prâ—soners falsifying their Faith
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
Shrewsbury and Pembroke served as principal Mourners the Funeral Sermoâ— Preached by Doctour Day then shortly to be re-established in the See of Chichester And if the Dead â—e capable of any Felicity in this present Woald He might be said to have had a special part thereof in this particular viz. That as He had caused all Divine Offices to be Celebrated in the English Tongue according to the Reformation which was made in the time of His Life so the whole Service of the Day together with the Form of Burial and the Communion following on it were Officiated in the English Tongue according to the same Model on the Day of his Obsequies But whilest these things were Acting on the Câ—urch of Westminster Queen Mary held a more beneficial Obsequie for Him as She then imagined in the Tower of London where She caused a Solemn Dirige in the Latine Tongue to be Chanted in the Afternoon and the next Day a Mass of Requiem to be sung for the good of His Sonl At which both She and many of Her Ladies made their accustomed Offerings according to the Form and Manner of the Church of Kome Such was the Life and such the Death of this Excellent Prince whose Character I shall not borrow from any of our own English Writers who may be thought to have been byassed by their own Affections in speaking more or less of Him then He had deserved But I shall speak Him in the words of that Great Philosopher Hierome Cardanus an Italian born and who professing the Religion of the Church of Rome cannot be rationally accused of Partiality in his Character of Him There was in Him saith he a towardly Disposition and pregnancie apt to all Humane Literature as who being yet a Childe had the knowledg of divers Tongues First of the English His own Natural Tongue of the Latine also and of the French Neither was He ignorant as I hear of the Greek Italian and Spanish Tongues and of other Languages peradventure more In His own in the French and in the Latine Tongue singularly perfect and with the like facility apt to receive all other Neither was He ignorant in Logick in the Principles of Natural Philosophie or in Musick There was in Him lacking neither Humanity a Princely Gravity and Majesty for any kind of towardliness beseeming a Noble King Briefly it might seem A Miracle of Nature to behold the Excellent Wit and Forwardness that appeared in Him being yet but a Childe And this saith he I speak not Rhetorically to amplifie things or to make them more then Truth is nay the Truth is more then I do utter So He in reference to His Perâ—onal Abâ—lities and Qualifications And for the rest that is to say His Piety to Almighty God His Zeal to the Reformation of Religion His Care for the well-ordering of the Common-Wealth and other Qualities belonging to a Christian King so far as they could be found in such tender years I leave them to be gathered from the Passages of His Life as before lai'd down Remembring well that I am to play the Part of an Historian and not of a Panegyrist or Rhetorician As for the manner of His Death the same Philosopher leaves it under a suspicion of being like to fall upon Him by some dangerous Practise For whether He divined it by his ART in Astrologie having Calculated the Scheme of His Nativity or apprehended it by the Course and Carriage of Business he made a dangerous Prediction when he fore-saw that the KING should shortly dye a violent Death and as he reporteth fled out of the Kingdom for fear of further danger which might follow on it Of any Publick Works of Piety in the Reign of this KING more then the Founding and Endowing of the Hospitals before-remembred I finde no mention in our Authours which cannot be affirmed of the Reign of any of His Predecessours since their first receiving of the Gospel But their Times were for building up and His unfortunate Reign was for pulling down Howsoever I finde His Name remembred amongst the Benefactours to the University of Oxford and by that Name required to be commemorated in all the Prayers before such Sermons as were Preached ordinarily by any of that Body in Saint Marie's Church or at Saint Paul's Cross or finally in the Spittle without Bishops-Gate on some solemn Festivals But possibly it is that his Beneficence did extend no further then either to the Confirmation of such Endowments as had been made unto that University by King Henry the Eight or to the excepting of all Colleges in that and the other University out of the Statute or Act of Parliament by which all Chantries Colleges and Free-Chapels were conferred upon Him The want of which Redemption in the Grant of the said Chantries Colleges Free-Chapels to King Henry the Eight strook such a Terrour unto the Students of both Universities that they could never think themselves secure till the Expiring of that Statute by the Death of the King notwithstanding a very Pious and Judicious Letter which had been written to the King in that behalf by Doctour Richard Cox then Dean of Christ-Church and Tâ—â—our to His Son Prince Edward But not to leave this Reign without the Testimony of some Work of Piety I cannot but remember the Foundation of the Hospital of Christ in Abindon as a Work not onely of this Time but the King 's own Act. A Guild or Brother-hood had been there founded in the Parish-Church of Saint Hellens during the Reign of King Henry the Sixth by the procurement of one Sir John Gollafrie a near Neighbouring Gentleman for Building and Repairing certain Bridges and High-waies about the Town as also for the Sustenance and Relief of thirteen poor People with two or more Priests for performing all Divine Offices unto those of the Brother-hood Which being brought within the Compass of the Act of Parliament by which all Chantries Colleges and Free-Chappels were conferred on the Crown the Lands hereof were seized on to the use of the King the Repairing of the Waies and Bridges turned upon the Town and the Poor left Destitute in a manner of all Relief In which Condition it remained till the last Year of the King when it was moved by Sir John Mason one of the Masters of Requests a Town-born Childe and one of the poorest mens Children in it to erect an Hospital in the same and to Endow it with such of the Lands belonging to the former Brother-hood as remained in the Crown and to charge it with the Services and Pious Uses which were before incumbent on the old Fraternity The Suitour was too powerfull to be denyed and the Work too Charitable in it self to be long demurr'd on so that he was easily made Master also of this Request Having obtained the King's Consent he caused a handsome Pile of Building to be Erected near the Church distributed into several Lodgings for the Use of the Poor and one convenient Common-Hall
Proficiency in all parts of Learning she became very dear to the young King Edward to whom Fox not onely makes Her equal but doth acknowledge her also to be His Superiour in those Noble Studies And for an Ornament superadded to Her other Perfections she was most zealously affected to the true Protestant Religion then by Law established which She embraced not out of any outward compliance with the present current of the Times but because Her own most Excellent Judgment had been fully satisfied in the Truth and Purity thereof All which together did so endear her to the King that he took great Delight in Her Conversation and made it the first step to that Royal Throne to which He afterwards designed Her in the Time of His Sickness Thus lived she in these sweet Contentments till she came unto the years of Marriage when she that never found in Her self the least Spark of Ambition was made the most unhappy Instrument of another man's Dudly of Warwick a Person of a proud deceitfull and aspiring Nature began to entertain some Ambitious thoughts when Edward first began to Reign but kept them down as long as his two Uncles lived together in Peace and Concord But having found a means to dissolve that knot occasioned by the Pride and Insolency of the Duchess of Sommerset one as ill-Natured as himself he first made use of the Protectour to destroy the Admiral and after served himself by some Lords of the Court for humbling the Lord Protectour to an equal Level with the rest of the Council Finding by this Experiment how easie a thing it was to serve his Turn by them on all other Occasions he drew unto himself the managing of all Affairs none being so hardy as to question any of his Actions and much less to cross them But not content with being looked on as the Chief in Power he is resolved to make himself the first in Place thinking no private Greatness to be answerable to so great a Merit as he had fancied in himself Thus busying his unquiet thoughts upon new Designs and passing from one imagination to another he fixed at last upon a purpose of Husbanding the Opportunities to his best Advantage in transferring the Crown into his own Family which he thought Capable enough of the highest Honours For why said he within himself should not the Son of a Dudly being the more Noble House of the two be thought as Capable of the Imperial Crown of this Realm as the Son or Grand-Childe of a Seimour Though I pretend not to be born of the Race of Kings yet I may give a King to England of my Race and Progeny on as good ground as any which derive themselves from Owen Tudor the Ancestour of the Boy now reigning That Family pretended onely from a Daughter to the House of Sommerset and there are now some Daughters of the House of Suffolk which may pretend as much as she If by a Match into that House I can finde a way to bring the Crown into mine own I shall want no Presidents at home and finde many abroad Some Dangers may present themselves in the Pursuit of this Enterprise but Dangers are to be despised as in all great Actions so chiefly when a Crown is aimed at It is resolved that I will try my Fortune in it which if it prosper to my wish I shall live Triumphantly if I sink under the Attempt I shall perish Nobly Which being concluded and resolved on he first insinuates himself into the good affections of the Marquess of Dorset whom he assisteth in his Suit for the Title of Suffâ—lk which without him was not to be gained exalts himself to the like Glorious Title of Duke of Northumberland that he might stand on equal â—round with the proudest of them and in a word so cunningly prepareth his Toils for the Duke of Sommerset that at the last he fell into them never to be set free again untill Death released him all which Particulars have been at large laid down in the former History And this being done he suffered the young King to wear out all the following year the better to avoid all Popular suspition that His Uncle's Death was onely hastened to make way for His. And possible it is that he might have tired it out a little longer but for a smart Jest which He put upon this Ambiâ—ious Minister The King took great delight in his Bow and Arrows and shooting one day at the Butt as He used to do hit the very White Well aimed my Liege said Merrily the Mighty Duke But you aimed better said the King when you shot off the head of My Vncle Sommerset which words so stang the Conscience of the guilty man that he could not think himself secure but by accelerating his Design for settling the Crown upon the Head of one of his Children according to the Plot which he had hammered in the Forge of his Wretched Brain For now the King beginning sensibly to decay he takes his time to enter into Communication with the Duke of Suffolk about a Marriage to be made betwixt the Lord Guilford Dudly his fourth Son and the Lady Jane Gray the Duke's eldest Daughter which with the rest of the Marriages before-mentioned being propounded and concluded for he was grown too great and known to be too dangerous to be denied in any reasonable Suit a day was set in which this Excellent Lady was to be transplanted into the Family of the Dudlies A day which she expected with a Virgin Modesty and after the Solemnity of the Nuptial Rites delivers Her pure Body to the chast Embraces of a Vertuous Conâ—ort who of all Dudlie's Brood had nothing of the Father in him All which succeeding to his wish he sets himself to the accomplishing of that Project which he had long before designed The King was now grown weak in Body and decayed in Spirits and in that weak Estate he takes his Opportunities to inculcate to Him what infinite Blessings had been derived from Him on this Church and Nation by the Blessed Reformation of Religion so happily began and brought to such Perfection by Him That it must therefore be His Care so to provide for the Continuance of those infinite Blessings that Posterity might enjoy the Benefit and Comfort of it which would gain Him a more pretious Memory amongst His Subjects then all His other Princely Virtues That nothing was more feared by all Sorts of People then that the Crown Imperial if it should please Almighty God to call Him to a Crown of Glâ—ry would fall upon the Head of the Lady Mary a Princess passionately affected to the Interess of the Church of Rome and one who by Her Marriage with some Potent Prince of that Religion might Captivate the Free-Born English Nation to a Foreign Servitude That both His Sisters being born of disputed Marriages and howsoever being but his half Sisters onely and by several Ventures could neither be Heirs to Him nor to
and so Subscribed it with the rest Onely Sir James Hales one of the Justices of the Common-Pleas carried the Honour of a Resolute and Constant Man not onely from those of his own Rank but even from all the Lords of the Council and almost all the Peers of the Realm to boot who being a man observed to be both Religious and upright did very worthily refuse to Subscribe and was afterwards as unworthily requited by Queen Mary for it Yet notwithstanding all these Rubs the Project was driven on so fâ—st by the haâ—ty Duke that by the one and twentieth of June the Letters Patents were made ready to pass the Seal which was about a fortnight before the Death of the King During which Interval he had another Game to Pay which was the getting into his Power the Princess Mary whom of all others he most feared as the most likely Person to destroy his whole Contrivance For well he knew that if She stood upon Her Right as no doubt She would She was not onely sure of a strong Party in the Realm who still remained in good Affections to the Church of Rome but that Her Party heâ—e would be Backed and Countenanced by Her Alliances abâ—â—ad wâ—o câ—â—ld â—ot but Prefer and Support Her Interess against all Pretenders 〈◊〉 â—ust make sure of Her or else account all Void and Frâ—stiate which was done already Aâ—d that he might make sure of Her he so prevailed that Letters were directed to â—er in the King's Name from the Lords of the Couâ—cil Willing Her foâ—l wâ—â—h to resort to the Kâ—ng as well to be a comfort to Him in His 〈◊〉 as to see all Matters well Ordered about Him The Lady suspecting to 〈◊〉 Mischief addressed Her Self with all speâ—d to the 〈…〉 gâ—eaâ— Joy that either Her Company or Her Service shâ—uld be esteem'd Needfull to the King But as She was upon the way and 〈…〉 half a Daâ—'s Journey of the Court She received Advice both of the King 's desperate Estate and of the Duke's Designs against Her whereupon She 〈◊〉 in haâ—t to Her House at Hoveden where in a very short time She hâ—ard the Sad Nâ—ws of Her Brother's Death who dyed upon the sixth of July as before was saâ—d Which being the same day of the Moneth on which King Henryâ—ad â—ad taken off the Head of Sir Thomas More for his Adhesion to the Pope the Interess of Queen Katharine Dowager and the Princess Mary gave an occasion unto â—hose of the Râ—mish Party to look upon it as a Piece of Divine Retrâ—bution in taking away the 〈◊〉 of His onely Son on the same day also Two days the Death of the King was by Special Order kept so secret that it was known to very fâ—w about the Court. And it concerned them so to do partly in expectation of the coming of the Princess Mary whâ—m thâ—y knâ—w to be upon the way and partly to make sure of the City of London the Favour and Fidelity whereof was of great Importance for the carrying on of the Design But understanding by their Espiâ—ls that the Princess Mary was retired a Message was sent on Saturday the eighth of July to Sir George Barns the Lord Mayour of London requiring him in the Name of the Lords of the Council to give his Attendance at the Court and bring with him six of the Principal Aldermen six Merchants of the Staple and as many of the Company of Merchant-Adventurers No haste was wanting on their parts And coming at the time appointed they were privily informed by some of the Council but in the Name of all the rest that the King was dead and that He had Declared by His Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England subscribed by all the Lords of the Council and almost all the Peers of the Realm that His Cousin the Lady Jane Gray was to Succeed Him in the Crowns of England and Ireland as the most True Certain and Undoubted Heir of all His Dominions Which being signified unto them it was no hard matter to obtain their Consent to that which they were not able to deny And so upon a Promise of their best Assistance to Promote the Cause and to keep secret the King's Death untill further Order they were dismissed unto their Houses It is an Antient Custom of the Kings of England immediately on the Death of their Predecessours to provide their Lodgings in the Tower Taking possession as it were by that Royal Fortress of the rest of the Kingdom and from thence passing in a Solemn and Magnificent manner through the Principal Streets of London to their Coronation According to which Antient Custom the Lodgings in the Tower being fitted and prepared for the Queen's Reception the Lords of the Council passed over from Greenwich on Munday the tenth of the same Moneth A Letter had been brought the night before from the Princess Mary who had received Advertisement of Her Brother's Death notwithstanding all their Care and Diligence in labouring to conceal it from His nearest Servants which made them meet the earlier and in greater numbers to return an Answer thereunto The Princess knew Her own Right and the Wrong which was intended to Her both which She signified unto Them in these following words My LORDS WE Greet You well and have received sure Advertisement that Our Dearest Brother the King Our late Sovereign Lord is departed to God's Mercy Which News how wofull they be unto Our Heart He onely knoweth to whose Will and Pleasure We must and do humbly submit Vs and Our Wills But in this so lamentable a Case that is to wit after His Majestie 's Departure and Death concerning the Crown and Governance of this Realm of England with the Title of France and all things thereto belonging what hath been provided by Act of Parliament and the Testament and Last Will of Our Dearest Father besides other Circumstances Advancing Our Right You know the Realm and the whole World knoweth the Rolls and Records appear by the Authority of the King Our said Father and the King Our said Brother and the Subjects of this Realm So that We verily trust that there is no good true Subject that is can or would pretend to be ignorant thereof And of Our part We have of Our Selves caused and as God shall aid and strengthen Vs shall cause Our Right and Title in this behalf to be Published and Proclaimed accordingly And albeit this so Weighty a Matter seemeth strange that the Dying of Our said Brother upon Thursday at night last past We hitherto had no knowledge from You thereof yet We consider Your Wisdom and Prudence to be such that having eftsoons amongst You Debated Pondred and well Weighed this present Case with Our Estate Your Own Estate the Common-Wealth and all Our Honours We shall and may conceive Great Hope and Trust with much assurance in Your Loyalty and Service and therefore for the time interpret and take things not to the worst that Ye yet will like
and chusing rather the Lord Kenneth Earle of Cassiles excepted to leave their Hostages to King Henries mercy then to put themselves into his Power Provoked therewith the King denounceth Warr against them and knowing that they depended chiefly upon the strength of France he peeceth with the Emperour Charles the fifth and Proclaimeth Warr against the French Following the Warr against both Kingdomes he causeth many in-roades to be made into Scotland wasting and harrasing that poor Country and with a Royall Army passeth over into France where he made himselfe Master of the strong Town of Bolloigne with the Forts about it into which he made his Royall entry Sep. 25. 1544. The rest of the Kings life spent in continuall Action against both Nations in which the Enemies had the worst though not without some losse to the English also the poore Scots paying so dearely for their breach of Faith that no yeare passed in which their Countrey was not wasted and their ships destroyed Toward the charges of which VVarres the King obtained a Grant in Parliament of all Chanteries Colledges Hospitalls and free Chappell 's with the Lands thereunto belonging to be united to the Crown But dying before he had took the benefit of it he lefâ— that part of the spoyle to such of his Ministers who had the Managing of Affaires in his Sons Minority In the mean tâ—me the Prince having attaiâ—ed unto the Age of six yeares was taken out of the hands oâ— his women and committed to the tuition of Mr. John Cheeke whom he afterwards Knighted and advanced him to the Provoâ—â—ship of Kings Colledge in Cambridge and Doctor Richard Cox whom afterwards he preferred to the Deanry of Westminster and made châ—efe Almoner These two being equall in Authority employed themselves to his advantage in their severall kindes Doctor Cox for knowledge of Divinity Philosophy and Gravity of Manners Mr. Cheeke for eloquence in the Greek and Latine Tongues Besides which two he had some others to instruct him in the Modern Languages and thrived so well amongst them all that in short time he perfectly spake the French tongue and was able to express himselfe significantly enough in the Italian Greek and Spanish And as for Latine he was such an early proficient in it that before he was eight yeares old he is said to have written the ensuing Letter to the King his Father seconding the same with another to the Earle of Hartford as he did that also with a third to the Queen Katharine Parre whom his Father had taken to wife July the 12th 1543. And though these Letters may be used as good evidences of his great proficiency with reference to the times in which he lived yet in our dayes in which either the wits of men are sooner ripe or the method of teaching more exact and facile they would be found to contain nothing which is more then ordinary Now his Letter to the King referring the Reader for the other two unto Fox and Fuller it beares date on the 27th day of September when he wanted just a fortnight of eight yeares old and is this that followeth PRINCE Edwards Epistle to the King September 27. 1545. LIterae Meae semper habeâ—t unum Argumentum Rex Nobilissime atque pater â—â—â—â—strissime id est in omnibus Epistolis ago tibi Gratias pro beneficentia tua Erga me Maxima si enim sâ—pius multo ad te literas Exararem nullo tamen quidem modo potui pervenire officio Literarum ad magnitudinem benignitatis tuae erga me Quis enim potuit compensare beneficia tua erga me Nimirum nullus qui non est tam magnus Rex ac Nobilis Princeps ac tu es cujusmodi ego non sum Quamobrem Pietas tua in me multo gratior est mihi quod facis mihi quae nullo modo compensare Possum sed tamen Adnitar Faciam quod in me est ut placeam Majestati atque Precabor Deum ut diu te servet in columem Vale Rex Nobilissime Majestati tuâ— Observantissimus Filius Halfeldiae Vicesimo Septimo Septemb. EDVARDUS PRINCEPS For a companion at his book or rather for a Proxie to bear the punishment of such errours as either through negligence or inadvertency were committed by him he had one Barnaby Fits Patrick the son if I conjecture aright of that Patrick whom I finde amongst the witnesses to King Henries last Will and Testâ—ment as also amongst those Legatees which are therein mentioned the King bequeathing him the Legacy of one hundred markes But whether I hit right or not most probable it is that he had a very easie substitution of it the harmlessenesse of the Princes nature the ingenuity of his disposition and his assiduity at his book freeing him for the most part from such corrections to which other children at the schoole are most commonly subject Yet if it sometimes happened as it seldome did that the servant suffered punishment for his Masters errors It is not easie to affirm whether Fits Patrick smarted more for the fault of the Prince or the Prince conceived more griefe for the smart of Fits Patrick Once I am certain that the Prince entertained such a reall Estimation of him that when he came unto the Crown he acquainted him by letter with the sufferings of the Duke of Sommerset instructed and maintained him for his travels in France endowed him with faire lands in Ireland his native Country and finally made him Baron of upper Ossery which Honourable Title he enjoyed till the time of his death in the latter end of Queen Elizabeths Reign at what time he dyed a zealous and Religious Protestant One thing I must not pretermit to shew the extraordinary piety of this hopefull Prince in the dayes of his childhood when being about to take down something which seemed to be above his Reach one of his fellowes proffeâ—ed him a Bossed-Plated Bible to stand upon and heighten him for taking that which he desired Which when he perceived to be a Bible with Holy indignation he reâ—uâ—ed it and sharply reprehended hâ—m that made the offer A stâ—ong assurance of that deare esteem and veneration in which he held that Sacred Book in his riper yeares Having attained the age of nine there were great prepaâ—atiâ—ns made for his sollemne investiture in the Principality of Wales together with the Earledomes of Chester and Flint as dependants on it Toward which Pomp I find a provision to be made of these Ornaments and Habiliments following thaâ— is to say first an Honourable Habit viz. A Robe of Purple Velvet having in it about eighâ—een ells more or lesse Garâ—iâ—â—ed about with a â—ringe of Gold and lined with Ermins A Sâ—rcot or inner Gown having in it about fourteen ells of Velvet of like colour Fringe and Furr Laces Buttons and Tassells as they call them Oâ—naments made of Purple Silk and Gold A Gâ—rdle of siâ—k to gâ—rd his inne Gowne A sword with a scabbard
in which he heard the greatest part of the Office till the Consecration and then Received the Blessed Sacrament on his knees as at other times saying withall as Sanders doth Relate the story That if he did not only cast himselfe upon the ground but even under it also he could not give unto the Sacrament the Honour which was due unto it The instant of his death approaching none of his Servants though thereunto desired by his Physitians durst acquaint him with it Till at last Sir Anthony Denny undertook that ungratefull office which the King entertaining with lesse impatience then was looked for from him gave order that Arch-Bishop Cramner should be presently sent for But the Arch-Bishop being then at his house in Croyden seven miles from Lambeth it was so long before he came that he found him speechlesse Howsoever applying himselfe to the Kings present condition and discoursing to him on this Point that Salvation was to be obtained only by Faith in Christ he desired the King that if he understood the effect of his words and believed the same he would signifie as much by some signe or other which the King did by ringing him gently by the hand and within short time after he gave up the Ghost when he had lived fifty five yeares seven moneths and six dayes over of which he had Reigned thirty seven yeares nine moneths and six dayes also Having brought King Henry to his death we must next see in what estate he left the Kingdome to his Son with reference to the condition of Affaâ—res both at home and abroad Abroad he left the Pope his most bitter enemy intent on all advantages for the recovery of the Power and Jurisdiction which had been exercised in England by his Predecessors and all the Princes of his Party in Germany Italy and elsewhere either in Action or Design concurring with him The Protestant Kings and Princes he had disobliged by repudiating the Lady Ann of Cleve and the precipitated death of Cromwell upon whose Power and favour with him they did most rely But nothing did moâ—e alienate their affections from him then the persecution raised at home upon the terrible Statute of the six Articles before remembered by which they saw themselves condemned and executed in the persons of those who suffered for the same Religion which themselves professed And as for the two great Kings of France and Spaine he had so carried himselfe between them that he was rather feared of both then beloved by either of them The Realms and Signeuries of Spaine excâ—pt Portugall only together with the Kingdomes of Naples Scicilie and Sardâ—nia and the Estates belonging to the House of Burgundy in the Belgick Provinces were all united in the Person of Chaâ—les the fifth to which he aâ—ded by his own proper Power and Valour the Dukedomes of Millain and Gulldress the Earldome of Zâ—tphen with the Estates of Grâ—iniâ—gen Vtrecht and Over-yssâ—ll And on the other side the French Kings were not only in the quiet possession of those goodly Territories Normandy Guienne and the rest which anciâ—ntly belonged to the Kings of England but lately had inpaâ—ronised themselves of the Dukedomes of Burgoine and Bretagne and the Earledome of Provence all meeting in the Person of King Francis the first Of which two great and puissant Princes the first being resolved to admit no equall and the second to acknowledge no superiour they endeavoured by all wayes and meanes immaginable to subdue each other whereby the Conqueror might attaine in time to the Empire of Europe It was therefore Kâ—ng Henries chiefest care as it was his interess to keep the scales to even between them that neither of them should preponderate or weigh down the other to the endangering of the rest of the Princes of Christendome Which he performed with so great constancy and courage as made him in effect the Arbitrer at all times between them So as it may be truely affirmed of him that he sate at the Helmne and Steered the great Affaires of Christendome to what point he pleased But then withall as his constant and continuall standing to thâ—s Maxime of State made him friend to neither so he was suspected of them both both having also their particular Animosities against his person and proceedings The Emperour irreconciliably incenst against him for the injury done unto his Aunt from whom he had caused himselfe to be divorced the French King no less highly enraged by the taking of Bâ—iloigne for which though the King had shuffled up a peace with France Prince Edward shall be called to a sober Reckoning when he least lookes for it To look to matters near at home we finde the Scots exasperated by his Annuall inrodes but more by his demanding the long neglected duty of Homage to be performed from that Kingdom to the Crown of England The Irish on the other side of the sea being kept under by strong hand but standing upon no good termes of affection with him the executing of the young Earle of Kildare and five of his Unckles at one time being fresh in memory and neither forgotten nor forgiven by the rest of the Clanns And as for England it self the People were generally divided into Schismes and Factions some being two stiff in their old Mumpsimus as others no lesse busie in their new Sumpsimus as he used to phrase it The Treasures of the Crown exhausted by prodigall gifts and his late chargeable Expedition against the French the Lands thereof charged with Rents and Pensions granted to Abbots Priors and all sorts of Religious Persons some of which remained payable and were paid accordingly till the time of King James and which was worst of all the Mony of the Realm so imposed and mixed that it could not pass for currant amongst Forreign Nations to the great dishonour of the Kingdome and the losse of the Merchant For though an infinite Masse of Jewels treasure in Plate and ready Mony and an incredible improvement of Revenue had acrued unto him by such an universell spoyle and dissolution of Religious Houses yet was he little or nothing the richer for it In so much that in the yeare 1543. being within lesse then seven yeares after the Generall suppression of Religious Houses he was faign to have recourse for moneyes to his Houses of Parliament by which he was supplied after an extraordinary manner the Clergy at the same time giving him a subsidy of 6. s. in the pound to be paid out of all their Spirituall Promotions poore stipendary Priests paying each 6. s. 8. d. to encrease the summe Which also was so soon consumed that the next yeare he prest his Subjects to a Benevolence for carrying on his Warr with France and Scotland and in the next obtained the Grant for all Chanteries Hospitalls Colledges and Free-Chappells within the Realm though he lived not to enjoy the benefit of it as before was said Most true it is that it was somewhat of the latest before he
with the present as to receive the same in a Sollemn Assembly of the Cardinalls and Court of Rome expressing the contentment which he took therein by a fluent Oration the Copy whereof we have in Speed Fol. 991. And whereas in former times the French were Honoured with the Title of Most Christian and the Spaniard lately with the Title of The Catholick King This Pope in due acknowledgement of so great a Merit bestowes on Henry the more Glorious Attribute of The Defender of the Faith Which Bull being dated on the tenth of Octob. Anno 1521. is to be found exemplified in The Titles of Honour and thither I referr the Reader for his satisfaction Twenty three yeares the King enjoyed this Title by no other Grant then the Donation of Pope Leo. But then considering with himselfe that it was first Granted by that Pope as a Personall favour and not intended to descend upon his Posterity as also that the Popes by the reason of such differences as were between them might possibly take a time to deprive him of it he resolved to stand no longer on a ground of no greater certainty And therefore having summoned his High Court of Parliament to Assemble on the 29th of March Anno 1544. he procured this Title to be assured unto his Person and to be made perpetuall to his Heires and Successors for all times succeeding For which Consult the Statute 35. Hen. 8. Cap. 3. And by the Act it was ordained that whosoever should malitiously diminish any of his Majesties Royall Titles or seek to deprive him of the same should suffer death as in case of Treason and that from thenceforth the Stile Imperiall should no otherwise be exprest then in this forme following that is to say N. N. by the Grace of God King of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and on Earth of the Churches of England and Ireland the Supreme Head By vertue of which Act Queen Mary still retained this Title though she disclaimed the other of Supreme Head by Act of Parliament in the first yeare of her Reign as being incompetible with her submission and Relations to the See of Rome As for the Title of King of Ireland it was first given unto this King by a Parliament there holden in the Month of June 1541. under Sir Anthony Saint-Leiger being then Lord Deputy The Acts whereof being transmitted to the King and by him confirmed he caused himselfe to be first Proclaimed King of Ireland on the 23th of January then next following Which though it added somewhat to him in point of Title yet it afforded him no advantage in point of Power but that the name of King was thought to carry more respect and awe with it amongst the Irish then the Title of Lord which only till that time had been assumed by the Kings of England For otherwise the Kings of England from the first Conqâ—est of the Country by King Henry the second enjoyed and exercised all manner of Royalties and Preheminences which do or can belong to the greatest Kings Governing the same by their Vice-Gerâ—nts to whom sometimes they gave the Title of Lord Lieutenants sometimes Lord Deputies of Ireland then whom no Vice-Roy in the VVorld comes nearer to the Pomp and splendor of a Soveraign Prince And though they took no other Title to themselves then Lords of Ireland yet they gave higher Titles to their Subjects there many of which they advanced to the Honour and Degree of Earles And at the same time when King Richard the second contented himselfe with no Higher Stile then Lord of Ireland he exalted his great Favourite Robert d' Vere the tenth Earle of Oxon of that Family first to the Dignity and Stile of Marquesse of Dublin and after to the invidious Appellation of Duke of Ireland which he enjoyed unto his death The Countrey at the same time changed it's Title also being formerly no otherwise called in our Records then Terra Hiberniea or the Land of Ireland but from henceforth to be called upon all occasions in Acts of Parliament Proclamations and Letters Patents by the name of Regnum Hiberniae or the Realm of Ireland At the assuming of which new Title by this King the Scots were somewhat troubled but the Pope much more The Scots had then some footing in the North parts of that Iland and thought the taking of that Title by the Kings of England to tend to the endangering of their possession or at least to bring them under a Subjection of a Foreign Prince And on the other side it was complained of in the Court of Rome as a great and visible encroachment on the Pâ—pall Power to which it only appertained to erect new Kingdomes and that the injury was the greater in the present case because the King holding that Iland by no other Title as it was then and there pretended then by the Donation of Pope Adrian to King Henry the second was not withâ—ut the Popes consent to assume that Title But the King cared as little for the Pope as he did for the Scots knowing how able he was to make good all his Actings against them both and not only for enjoying this Title for the rest of his life but for the leaving of it to his Heires and Successors though afterward Queen Mary accepted a new Grant of it from the Pope then being Having thus setled and confirmed the Regall Style his next care was for setling and preventing all disputes and quarrells which might be raised about the Succession of the Crown if the Prince his son should chance to dye without lawfull issue as he after did In which as he discharged the trust reposed in him so he waved nothing of the Power which he had took unto himself by Act of Parliament made in that behalfe in the 35 year of his Reign as before wasnoted In pursuance whereof finding himself sensibly to decay but having his wits and understanding still about him he framed his last Wil and Testament which he caused to be signed and attested on the 30 of December Anno 1546 being a full Month before his death First published by Mr. Fuller in his Church History of Brittain Lib. 5. Fol. 243 244. And out of him I shall crave leave to transcribe so much thereof as may suffice to show unto posterity the sence he had of his own condition the vile esteem he had of his sinfull body what pious but unprofitable care he took for the Decent Interment of the same in what it was wherein he placed the hopes of Eternall life and finally what course he was pleased to take in the intailing of the Crown after his decease by passing over the line of Scotland and setling the Reversion in the House of Suffolk if his own children should depart without lawfull Issue as in fine they did In which and in some other points not here summed up the Reader may best satisfie himselfe by the words and tenour of the VVill which are
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
Edward Wotton Doctour Wotton and Sir Richard Southwell Of which some shewed themselves against him upon former Grudges as the Earl of South-hampton some out of hope to share those Offices amongst them which he had ingrossed unto himself many because they loved to follow the strongest side few in regard of any Benefit which was like to Redound by it to the Common-Wealth the greatest part complaining that they had not their equal Dividend when the Lands of Chanteries Free-Chapels c. were given up for a Prey to the greater Courtiers but all of them disguising their private Ends under pretense of doing service to the Publick The Combination being thus made and the Lords of the Defection convented together at Ely-House in Holborn where the Earl then dwelt they sent for the Lord Mayour and Aldermen to come before them To whom it is declared by the Lord Chancellour Rich a man of Sommerset's own preferring in a long Oration in what dangers the Kingdom was involved by the mis-Government and Practices of the Lord Protectour against whom he objected also many Misdemeanours some frivolous some false and many of them of such a Nature as either were to be condemned in themselves or forgiven in him For in that Speech he charged him amongst other things with the loss of the King's Peeces in France and Scotland the sowing of Dissension betwixt the Nobility and the Commons Embezelling the Treasures of the King and inverting the Publick stock of the Kingdom to his private use It was Objected also That he was wholly acted by the Will of his Wife and therefore no fit man to command a Kingdom That he had interrupted the ordinary Course of Justice by keeping a Court of Requests in his own House in which he many times determined of mens Free-holds That he had demolished many Consecrated Places and Episcopal Houses to Erect a Palace for himself spending one hundred pounds per diem in superflous Buildings That by taking to himself the Title of Duke of Sommerset he declared plainly his aspiring to the Crown of this Realm and finally having so unnaturally laboured the Death of his Brother he was no longer to be trusted with the Life of the King And thereupon he desires or conjures them rather to joyn themselves unto the Lords who aimed at nothing in their Counsels but the Safety of the King the Honour of the Kingdom and the Preservation of the People in Peace and Happiness But these Designs could not so closely be contrived as not to come unto the Knowledg of the Lord Protectour who then remained at Hampton-Court with the rest of the Lords who seemed to continue firm unto him And on the same day on which this meeting was at London being the sixth day of October he causeth Proclamation to be made at the Court-Gates and afterwards in other places near adjoyning requiring all sorts of persons to come in for the defence of the King's Person whom he conveyed the same night unto Windsore-Castle with a strength of five hundred men or thereabouts too many for a Guard and too few for an Army From thence he writes his Letters to the Earl of Warwick to the rest of the Lords as also to the Lord Mayour and City of London of whom he demanded a supply of a thousand men for the present service of the King But that Proud City seldom true to the Royal Interess and secretly obsequious to every popular Pretender seemed more inclinable to gratifie the Lords in the like Demands then to comply with his Desires The News hereof being brought unto him and finding that Master Secretary Peter whom he had sent with a secret Message to the Lords in London returned not back unto the Court be presently flung up the Cards either for want of Courage to play out the Game or rather choosing willingly to lose the Set then venture the whole Stock of the Kingdom on it So that upon the first coming of some of the opposite Lords to Windsore he puts himself into their hands by whom on the fourteenth day of the same Moneth he is brought to London and committed Prisoner to the Tower pitied the less even by those that loved him because he had so tamely betrayed himself The Duke of Sommerset no longer to be called Protectour being thus laid up a Parliament beginneth as the other two had done before on the fourth of November In which there passed two Acts of especial consequence besides the Act for removing all Images out of the Church and calling in all Books of false and superstitious Worship before-remembred to the concernments of Religion The first declared to this Effect That Such form and manner of making and Consecrating Arch-Bishops and Bishopt Priests Deacons and other Ministers of the Church as by six Prelates and six other Learned Men of this Realm learned in God's Law by the King to be appointed and assigned or by the most number of thâ—m shall be devised for that purpose and set forth under the Great Seal before the First of April next coming shall be lawfully exercised and used and no other The number of the Bishops and the Learned Men which are appointed by this Act assure me that the King made choice of the very same whom he had formerly imployed in composing the Liturgie the Bishop of Chichester being left out by reason of his Refractoriness in not subscribing to the same And they accordingly applyed themselves unto the Work following therein the Rules of the Primitive Church as they are rather recapitulated then ordained in the fourth Councel of Carthage Anno 401. Which though but National in it self was generally both approved and received as to the Form of Consecrating Bishops and inferiour Ministers in all the Churches of the West Which Book being finished was made use of without further Authority till the year 1552. At what time being added to the second Liturgie it was approved of and confirmed as a part thereof by Act of Parliament An. 5. Edw. 6. cap. 1. And of this Book it is we finde mention in the 36th Article of Queen Elizabeth's Time In which it is Declared That Whosoever wâ—re Consecrated and Ordered according to the Rites thereof should be reputed and adjudged to be lawfully Consecrated and rightly Ordered Which Declaration of the Church was afterwards made good by Act of Parliament in the eighth year of that Queen in which the said Ordinal of the third of King EDVVARD the Sixth is confirmed and ratified The other of the said two Acts was For enabling the King to nominate Eight Bishops as many Temporal Lords and sixteen Members of the Lower House of Parliament for reviewing all such Canons and Constitutions as remained in force by Virtue of the Statute made in the 25th year of the late King HENRY and fitting them for the Vse of the Church in all Times succeeding According to which Act the King directed a Commission to Arch-Bishop Cranmer and the rest of the Persons whom he
the Mass which was not to be Celebrated but upon an Altar The Fourth That the Altars were Erected for the Sacrifices of the Law which being now ceased the Form of the Altar was to cease together with them The Fifth That as Christ did Institute the Sacrament of his Body and Blood at a Table and not at an Altar as appeareth by the three Evangelists so it is not to be found that any of the Apostles did ever use an Altar in the Ministration And finally That it is declared in the Preface to the Book of Common-Prayer That If any Doubt arise in the Use and Practising of the said Book that then to appease all such Diversity the Matter shall be referred unto the Bishop of the Diocess who by his Discretion shall take Order for the quieting of it The Letter with these Reasons being brought to Ridley there was no time for him to dispute the Commands of the one or to examine the Validity and Strength of the other And thereupon proceeding shortly after to his first Visitation he gave out one Injunction amongst others to this Effect That Those Churches in his Diocess where the Altars do remain should conform themselves unto those other Churches which had taken them down and that instead of the multitude of their Altars they should set up one decent Table in every Church But this being done a question afterwards did arise about the Form of the Lords Board some using it in the Form of a Table and others in the Form of an Altar Which being referred unto the Determination of the Bishop he declared himself in favour of that Posture or Position of it which he conceived most likely to procure an Vniformity in all his Diocess and to be more agreeable to the King 's Godly Proceedings in abolishing divers vain and superstitious Opinions about the Mass out of the Hearts of the People Upon which Declaration or Determination he appointed the Form of a Right Table to be used in his Diocess and caused the Wall standing on the back side of the Altar in the Church of Saint Paul's to be broken down for an Example to the rest And being thus a leading Case to all the rest of the Kingdom it was followed either with a swifter or a slower Pase according as the Bishops in their several Diocesses or the Clergie in their several Parishes stood affected to it No Universal Change of Altars into Tables in all parts of the Realm till the Repealing of the First Liturgie in which the Priest is appointed To stand before the middest of the Altar in the Celebration and the establishing of the Second in which it is required That The Priest shall stand on the North side of the Table had put an end to the Dispute Nor indeed can it be supposed that all which is before affirmed of Bishop Ridley could be done at once or acted in so short a Space as the rest of this year which could not give him time enough to Warn Commence and carry on a Visitation admitting that the Inconveniency of the Season might have been dispensed with And therefore I should rather think that the Bishop having received His Majestie 's Order in the end of November might cause it to be put in Execution in the Churches of London and Issue out his Mandates to the rest of the Bishops and the Arch-Deacons of his own Diocess for doing the like iâ— other Places within the compass of their several and Respective Jurisdictions Which being done as in the way of Preparation his Visitation might proceed in the Spring next following and the whole Business be transacted in Form and Mâ—nner as before laid down And this may be beleived the rather because the changing of Altars into Tables is made by Holinshead a Diligent and Painfull Writer to be the Work of the next year as questionless it needs must be in all Parts of the Realm except London and Westminster and some of the Towns and Villages adjoyning to them But much less can I think that the Altar-wall in Saint Paul's Church was taken down by the Command of Bishop Ridley in the Evening of Saint Barnaby's Day this present year as is affirmed by John Stow. For then it must be done five Moneths before the coming out of the Order from the Lords of the Council Assuredly Bishop Ridley was the Master of too great a Judgment to run before Authority in a Business of such Weight and Moment And he had also a more high Esteem of the Blessed Sacrament then by any such unadvised and precipitate Action to render it less Venerable in the Eyes of the Common People Besides whereas the taking down of the said Altar Wall is said to have been done â—n the first Saint Barnâ—â—y's Day which was kept Holy with the Church that Circumstance is alone sufficient to give some Light to the Mistake The Liturgie whâ—ch appointed Saint Barnaby's Day to be kept for an Holy-Day was to be put in Execution in all parts of the Realm at the Feast of Whitsun-tide 1549 and had actually been Officiated in some Churches for some Weeks before So that the first Saint Barnaby's Day which was to be kept Holy by the Rules of that Liturgie must have been kept in that year also and consequently the taking down oâ— the said Altar-Wall being done â—n the Evening of that day must be supposed to have been done above ten Moneths before Bishop Ridley was Translâ—ted to the See of London Let therefore the keeping Holy of the first Saint Barnaby's Day be placed in the year 1549 the Issuing of the Order from the Lords of the Council in the year 1550 and the taking down of the Altar-Wall on the Evening of Saint Barnaby's Day in the year 1551. And then all Inconveniences and Contradictions will be taken away which otherwise cannot be avoided No change this year amongst the Peers of the Realm or Principal Officers of the Court but in the Death of Thomas Lord Wriothesly the first Earl of South-hampton of that Name aâ—d Family who died at Lincoln-Place in Holâ—born on the thirtieth day of July leaving his Son Henry to succeed him in his Lands and Honours A Man Unfortunate in his Relations to the two Great Persons of that Time deprived of the Great Seal by the Duke of Sommerset and removâ—d from his Place at the Council-Table by the Earl of Warwick having first served the Turns of the one in lifting him into the Saddle and of the other in dismounting him from that High Estate Nor finde I any great Change thiâ— year amongst the Bishops but that Doctour Nicholas Ridley Bishop of Rechester was Transloted to the See of London on the twelfth of April and Doctoâ—r John Pâ—ynet Consâ—crated Bishop of Rochester on the twenty sixth of June By which Account he must needs be the first Bishop which received Episcopal Consecration according to the Foâ—m of the English Ordinal as Farrars was the fiâ—st who was advanced
to the great Troubles in the Court began in the Destruction of the Duke of Sommerset but ending in the untimely death of this Hopeful King so signified as it was thought upon the Post-Fact by two strange Presages within the compass of this year and one which followed in the next The first of this year was a great and terrible Earthquake which happened on the twenty fifth of May at Croydon and some other Villages thereabouts in the County of Surrey This was conceived to have Prognosticated those Concussions which afterwards happened â—n the Court to the fall of the Great Duke of Sommerset and divers Gentlemen of Note and Quality who perished in the same ruin with him The last was of six Dolphins taken up in the Thames three of them at Queen Borough and three near Grenwich the least as big as any Horse The Rarity whereof occasioned some Grave men to dispence with their Prudence and some Great Persons also to put off their State that they might behold a Spectacle so unusual to them Their coming up so far beheld by Mariners as a Presage of foul weather at Sea but afterwards by States-Men of those Storms and Tempests which afterwards befell this Nation in the Death of King Edward and the Tempestuous Times of Queen Marie's Reign But the most sad Presage of all was the Breaking out of a Disease called the Sweating Sickness appearing first at Shrewsbury on the fifteenth of April and after spreading by degrees over all the Kingdom ending its Progress in the North about the beginning of October Described by a very Learned Man to be a new strange and violent Disease wherewith if any man were attached he dyed or escaped within nine hours of ten at most if he slept as most men desired to do he dyed within six hours if he took cold he dyed in three It was observed to Rage chiefly amongst men of strongest Constitution and years few aged Men or Women or young Children being either subject to it or dying of it Of which last sort those of most Eminent Rank were two of the Sons of Chaâ—ls Brandon both dying at Cambridg both Dukes of Suffolk as their Father had been before but the youngest following his dead Brother so close at the Heels that he onely out-lived him long enough to enjoy that Title And that which was yet most strange of all no Foreigner which was then in England four hundred French attending here in the Hottest of it on that King's Ambassadours did perish by it The English being singled out tainted and dying of it in all other Countries without any danger to the Natives called therefore in most Latine Writers by the name of Sudor Anglicus or The English Sweat First known amongst us in the beginning of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh and then beheld as a Presage of that troublesom and Laborious Reign which after followed the King being for the most part in continual Action and the Subjects either sweating out their Blood or Treasure Not then so violent and extreme as it was at the present such infinite Multitudes being at this time swept away by it that there died eight hundred in one week in London onely These being looked on as Presages we will next take a view of those sad Events which were supposed to be prognosticated by them beginning first with the Concussions of the Court by open Factions and ending in a Sweating Sickness which drew out some of the best Blood and most Vital Spirits of the Kingdom The Factions Headed by the Duke of Sommerset and the Earl of Warwick whose reconciliation on the Earl's part was but feigned and counterfeit though he had both given and taken Pledges for a faster Friendship The good success he found in his first attempt against the Duke when he degraded him from the Office of Lord Protectour emboldened him to make some further trial of his Fortune to which there could not be a stronger Temptation then the Servility of some Great Men about the Court in prostituting their affection to his Pride and Tyranny Grown absolute in the Court but more by the weakness of others then any virtue of his own he thought it no impossible matter to make that Weakness an improvement of his strength and Power And passing from one Imagination to another he fixed at last upon a Fancy of transferring the Imperial Crown of this Realm from the Royal Family of the Tudors unto that of the Dudlies This to be done by Marrying one of his Sons to the Lady Jane the eldest Daughter of Henry Lord Marquess Dorset and of the Lady Francis his Wife one of the Daughters and co-Heirs of Charls Brandon the late Duke of Suffolk by Mary Dowager of France and the beâ—t-beloved Sister of King Henry the Eighth In order whereunto he must first oblige the Marquess by some signal favour advance himself to such a Greatness as might render any of his Sons an agreeable match for either of the Marquess's Daughters and finally devise some means by which the Duke of Sommerset might be took out of the way whose life he looked on as the principal Obstacle to his great Aspirings By this Design he should not onely satisfie his Ambition but also sacrifice to Revenge The Execution of his Father in the first year of the Reign of the late King Henry would not out of his mind and by this means he might have opportunity to execute his just vengeance on the King's Posterity for the unjust Murther as he esteem'd it of his innocent Father Confirmed in these Resolves by Sir John Gates Lieutenant of the Band of Pensioners who was reported afterwards to have put this Plot into his Head at the first as he stood to him in the prosecution of it to the very last The Privy Council of his own thoughts having thus advised the Privy Council of the King was in the next place to be made sure to him either obliged by Favours or gained by Flatteries those of most Power to be most Courted through a smooth Countenance fair Language and other thriving Acts of insinuation to be made to all Of the Lord Treasurer Paulet he was sure enough whom he had found to have so much of the Willow in him that he could bend him how he pleased And being sure of him he thought himself as sure of the Publick Treasure as if it were in his own Pockets The Marquess of North-hampton was Captain of the Band of Pensioners encreased in Power though not in Place by ranging under his Command as well the Light-Horse as the Men at Arms which had served at Bulloign With him the Earl had peeced before drew him into his first Design for bringing down the Lord Protectour to a lower Level but made him faster then before by doing so many good Offices to Sir William Herbert who had Married his Sister Which Herbert being son of Richard Herbert of Ewias one of the Bastards of William Lord Herbert of Ragland the first
Earl of Pembroke of that House was of himself a Man of a daring Nature Boisterously bold and upon that account much favoured by King â—enry the Eighth growing into â—ore Credit with the King in regard of the Lady Ann his Wife the Sister of Queen Katâ—â—in Par and having mightily raised hâ—msâ—lf in the fall of Abbies he was made chief Gentleman of the Privy-Chamber and by that Title raâ—ked amongst the Executours of the King 's last Will and then appointed to be one of the Council to the King now Reigning Being found by Dudly a fit man to advance his ends he is by his Procurement gratâ—fiâ—d for I know not what Service unless it were for furthering the Sale of Bulloign with some of the King's Lands amounting to five hundred pounds in yearly Rents and made Lord Prâ—sident of Wales promoted afterwards to the place of Master of the Horse that he might be as considerabâ—e in the Court as he was in the Country It was to be presumed that he would not be wanting unto him who had so preferred him By these three all Affairs of Court were carried plotâ—ed by Dudley smoothed by the Courtship of the Marquess and executed by the bold hand of the new Lord President Being thus fortified he revives his former Quarrel with the Duke of Sommerset not that he had any just ground for it but that he looked upon him as the onely Block which lay in the way of his Aspirings and â—herefore was to be removed by what means soever Plots are lai'd therefore to entrap him Snares to catch him Reports raised him as a Proud and Ambitious Person of whose Aspirings there would be no other end then the Crown it self and common Rumours spread abroad that some of his Followers had Proclaimed him King in several places onely to finde how well the People stood affected to it His Doors are watched and Notice took of all that went in and out his Words observed made much worse by telling and aggravated with all odious Circumstances to his Disadvantage No way untravailed in the Arts of Treachery and Fraud whâ—ch might bring him into Suspicion with the King and Obloquie with the common People The Duke's Friends were not ignorant of all these Practises and could not but perceive but that his Ruin and their own was projected by them The Law of Nature bound them to preserve themselves but their Adversaries were too cunning for them at the Weapon of Wit and had too much Strength in their own Hands to be easily overmastered in the way of Power Some dangerous Counsels were thereupon infused into him more likely by his Wife then by any other to invite these Lords unto a Banquet and either to kill them as they sate or violently to drag them from the Table and cut of their Heads the Banquet to be made at the Lord Pageâ—'s Hoâ—se near Saint Clement's Church and one hundred stout Men to be lodged in Sommerset-Place not far off for the Execution of that Mâ—rther This Plot confessed if any Credit may be given to such Confessions by one Crane and his Wife both great in the Favour of the Duchess and with her committed And after justâ—fied by Sir Thomas Palmer who was committed with the Duke in his Examination taken by the Lords of the Council There were said to be some Consultations also for raising the Forces in the North for setting upon the Gens'd arms which served in the Nature of a Life-Guard as before was said upon some day of General-Muster two thousand Foot and one hundred Horse of the Duke's being designed unto that Service and that being done to raise the City by Proclaiming Liberty To which it was added by Hammond one of the Duke 's false Servants That his Chamber at Greenwich had been strongly guarded by Night to prevent the Surprisal of his Person How much of this is true or whether any of it be true or not it is not easie to determâ—ne though possibly enough it is that all this Smoak could not be without some Fire which whosoever kindled first there is no doubt but that Earl Dudly blew the Coals and made it seem greater then it was Of all these Practises and Designs if such they were the Earl is conâ—tantly advertised by his Espials whom he had amongâ—â— them and gave them as much Linâ— and Leisure as they could desire till he had made all things ready for the Executing of his own Projectments But first there must be a great day of bestowing Honours as well for gaining the more Credit unto him and his Followers as by the jollity of the Time to take away all Fear of Danger from the Opposite Party In Pursuit whereof Henry Lord Gray Marquess of Dorset descended from Elizabeth Wife of King Edward the Fourth by Her former Husband is made Duke of Suffolk to which he might pretend some Claim in Right of the Lady Frances his Wife the eldest Daughter of Charls Brandon Duke of Suffolk and Sister of Henry anâ— Charls the two late Dukes thereof who dyed a few Moneths since at Cambridg of the Sweating Sickness The Earl himself for some Reasons very well known to himself and not unknown to many others is made Duke of Northumberland which Title had lain Dormant ever since the Death of Henry Lord Percy the sixth Earl of that Family who dyed in the year 1537. or thereabouts of whom more anon The Lord Treasurer Pawlet being then Earl of Wiltshire is made Marquess of Winchester Sir William Herbert created at the same time Lord Herbert of Cardiff and Eâ—rl of Pembroke Some make Sir Thomas Darcie Captain of the Guard to be advanced unto the Title of Lord Darcy of Chich on the same day also which others place perhaps more rightly on the fifth of April The Solemnity of which Creations being passed over the Order of Knighthood is conferred on William Cecil Esquire one of the Secretaries of Estate John Cheek Tutour or Schole-Master to the King Henry Dudley and Henry Nevil Gentlemen of the Privy-Chamber At or about which time Sir Robert Dudley the third Son of the new Duke of Nâ—rthumberland but one which had more of the Father in hâ—m then all the rest is sworn of the Bedâ—Chamber to the King which was a place of greatest Trust and Nearness to His Majestie 's Person The Triumphs of this Day being the eleventh day of October were but a Porlogue to the Tragedy which began on the fifth day after At what time the Duke of Sommerset the Lord Gray Sir Thomas Palmer Sir Ralph Vane Sir Thomas Arundel together with Hammond Newdigate and two of the Seimours were seised on and committed to Custody all of them except Palmer Vane and Arundel being sent to the Tower And these three kept in several Chambers to attend the pleasure of the Council for their Examinations The Duchess of Sommerset Crane and his Wife above-mentioned and one of the Gentlewomen of her Chamber were sent unto the Tower on the morrow
next followed not long after by Sir Thomas Holdcroft Sir Miles Partridg Sir Michael Stanhop Wingfield Banister and Vaughan with certain others for whose Commitment there was neither cause known nor afterwards discovered Onely the greater Number raised the greater Noise increas'd the Apprehension of the present Danger and served to make the Duke more Criminal in the Eyes of the People for drawing so many of all sorts into the Conspiracy Much time was spent in the Examination of such of the Prisoners as either had before discovered the Practice if any such Practice were intended or were now fitted and instructed to betray the Duke into the Power and Malice of his Enemies The Confessions which seemed of most importance were those of Palmer Crane and Hammond though the Truth and Reality of the Depositions may be justly questioned For neither were they brought face to face before the Duke at the time of his Trial as in ordinary course they should have been nor suffered loss of Life or Goods as some others did who were no more guilty then themselves And yet the Business stai d not here the Earl of Arundel and the Lord Paget and two of the Earl of Arundel's Servants being sent Prisoners after the rest upon Crane's detection It was further added by Palmer that on the last St. George's-Day the Duke of Sommerset being upon a journey into the North would have raised the People if he had not been assured by Sir William Herbert that no Danger was intended to him Six Weeks there passed between the Commitment of the Prisoners and the Duke's Arraignment which might have given the King more then leisure enough to finde the depth of the Design if either he had not been directed by such as the new Duke of Northumberland had placed about him or taken by a Solemnity which served fiâ—ly for it For so it happened that the Queen Regent of Scotland having been in France to see Her Daughter and being unwilling to return by Sea in that cold time of the year obtained leave of the King by the mediation of the French Ambassadour to take Her journey through England Which leave being granted She put Her self into the Bay of Portsmouth where She was Honourably received and conveyed towards London From Hampton-Court She passed by Water on the second day of November to St. Paul's Wharf From whence She rode accompanied with divers Noble Men and Ladies of England besides Her own Train of Scotland to the Bishop's-Palace Presented at Her first coming thither in the name of the City with Muttons Beefs Veals Poultry Wine and all other sorts of Provisions necessary for Her Entertainment even to Bread and Fewel Having reposed Her self two days She was conveyed in a Chariot to the Court at White-Hall accompanied with the Lady Margaret Douglass Daughter of Margaret Queen of Scots by Her second Husband together with the Duchesses of Richmond Suffolk and Northumberland besides many other Ladies of both Kingdoms which followed after in the Train At the Court-Gate She was received by the Dukes of Suffolk and Northumberland and the Lord High-Treasurer the Guard standing on both sides as She went along and being brought unto the King whom She found standing at the end of the Great Hall She cast Her self upon Her knees but was presently taken up and Saluted by Him according to the Free Custom of the English Nation Leading Her by the Hand to the Queen's Chamber of Presence He Saluted in like manner all the Ladies of Scotland and so departed for a while Dinner being ready the King conducted Her to the Table prepared for them where they dined together but had their Services apart The Ladies of both Kingdomes were feaâ—ted in the Queen 's Great Chamber where they were most Sumptuously Served Dinner being done that Her Attendants might have time to partake of the Entertainment the King shewed Her His Gardens Galleries c. and about four of the clock He brought Her down by the Hand into the Hall where He Saluted Her and so She departed to the Bishop's-Paâ—ace as before Departing towards Scotland on the sixth of that Moneth She rode through all the Principal Streets of London betwixt the Bishop's House and the Church in Shore-ditch attended by divers Noble Men and Women all the way She went But more particularly the Duke of Northumberland shewed himself with one hundred Horse each having his Javelin in his hand and fourty of them apparelled in Black Velvet Guarded with White and Velvet Caps and White Feathers and Chains of Gold about their Necks Next to these stood one hundred and twenty Horsemen of the Earl of Pembroke's with black Javelins Hats and Feathers Next to them one hundred of the Treasurer's Gentlemen and Yeomen with Javelins These ranks of Horsemen reaching from the Cross in Cheap-side to the end of Birching-Lane in Cornhill Brought as far as Shoreditch-Church She was committed to the care of the Sheriffs of London by whom She was attended as far as Walâ—ham Conducted in like manner by the Sheriffs of all the Counties through which She passed till She came unto the Borders of Scotland Her Entertainment being provided by the King's appointment at the Charge of the Counties Which Passages not being otherwise Material in the Course of this History I have adventured to lay down the better to express the Gallantry and Glory of the English Nation before Puritanism and the Humour of Parity occasioned the neglect of all the laudable Solemnities which antiently had been observed both in Church and State The Discourse raised on this Magnificent Reception of the Scotish Queen so filled all Mouths and entertained so many Pens that the Danger of the Duke of Sommerset seemed for a time to be forgotten but it was onely for a time For on the first of December the Duke being brought by water to Westminster-Hall found all things there prepared for his Arraignment The Lord High-Steward for the time was the Marquess of Winchester who took his place under a Cloath of Estate raised three steps higher then the rest of the Scaffold The Peers to the number of twenty seven sitting one step lower Amongst these were the Duke of Northumberland the Marquess of North-hampton and the Earl of Pembroke who being Parties to the Charge ought in all Honesty and Honour to have excused themselves from sitting in Judgment on him at the time of his Trial. But no Challenge or Objection being made or allowed against them they took place with the rest The Court being sate and the Prisoner brought unto the Bar the Charge against him was divided into five Particulars viz. Firâ—â— His design of Raising men in the North Parts of the Realm and of assembling men at his House to kill the Duke of Northumberland 2. A resolution to assist his Attachment 3. The Plot for killing the Gens d' Arms. 4. His intent for raising London 5. His purpose of assaulting the Lords and devising their Deaths The whole Impeachment managed in the
more inclinable to the Lutheran but where his profit was concerned in the spoil of Images then thâ—â— Zuinglian Doctrines so well beloved in general by the Common People that divers dipt their Handkerchiefs in his Blood to keep them in perpetual Remembrance of him One of which being a sprightly Dame about two years after when the Duke of Northumberland was led through the City for his opposing the Title of Queen Mary ran to him in the Streets and shaking out her bloody Handkerchief before him Behold said she the Blood of that worthy man that good Vncle of that Excellent King which shed by thy malicious Practice doth now begin apparently to revenge it self on thee The like Opinion also was conceived of the business by the most understanding men in the Court and Kingdom though the King seemed for the present to be satisfied in it In which opinion they were exceedingly confirmed by the Enlargment of the Earl of Arundel and restoring of Crane and his Wife to their former Liberty but most especially by the great Endearments which afterwards appeared between the Duke of Northumberland and Sir Thomas Palmer and the great confidence which the Duke placed in him for the Advancement of his Projects in behalf of the Duke of Suffolk of which more hereafter But the Malice of his Enemies stayed not here extending also to his Friends and Children after his Decease but chiefly to the eldest Son by the second Wife in favour of whom an Act of Parliament had been passed in the thirty second year of the late King Henry for the entailing on his Person all such Lands Estates and Honours as had been or should be purchasâ—d by his Father from the twenty fifth day of May then next foregoing Which Act they caused to be repealed at the end of the next Session of Parliament which began on the morrow after the Death of the Duke whereby they strip'd the young Gentleman being then about thirteen years of Age of his Lands and Titles to which he was in part restored by Queen Elizabeth who in pity of his Father's Suffâ—rings and his own Misfortunes created him â—arl of Hertford Viscount Beauchamp c. Nor did the Duke's Fall end it self in no other ruin then that of his own house and the Death of the four Knights which suffered on the same account but drew along with it the â—emoval of the Lord Rich from the Place and Office of Lord Chancellour For so it happened that the Lord Chancellour commiserating the Condition of the Duke of Sommerset though formerly he had shewed himself against him dispatched a Letter to him concerning some Proceedings of the Lords of the Council which he thought fit for him to know Which Letter being hastily superscribed To the Duke with no other Title he gave to one of his Servants to be carried to him By whom for want of a more particular direction it was delivered to the hands of the Duke of Norfolk But the Mistake being presently found the Lord Chancellour knowing into what hands he was like to fall makes his Address unto the King the next morning betimes and humbly prays that in regard of his great Age he might be discharged of the Great Seal and Office of Chancellour Which being granted by the King though with no small difficulty the Duke of Northumberland and the Earl of Pembroke forward enough to go upon such an Errand are sent on the twenty first of December to receive the Seal committed on the morrow after to Doctour Thomas Goodwin Bishop of Ely and one of the Lords of the Privy Council Who afterwards that is to say on the two and twentieth of January was sworn Lord Chancellour the Lord Treasurer Paulet giving him the Oath in the Court of Chancery Next followed the Losses and Disgraces suffered by the Lord Paget on the Duke's account To whom he had continued faithfull in all his Troubles when Sir William Cecil who had received greater Benefits from him and most of the Dependants on him had either deserted or betrayed him His House designed to be the place in which the Duke of Northumberland and the rest of the Lords were to be murthered at a Banquet if any credit may be given to the Informations for which Committed to the Tower as before is said But having no sufficient Proof to warrant any further Proceeding to his Condemnation an Enquiry is made not long after into all his Actions In the return whereof it was suggested That he had sold the King's Lands and Woods without Commission That he had taken great Fines for the King's Lands and applyed them to his proper use and That he had made Leases in Reversion for more then one and twenty years Which Spoyl is to be understood of the Lands and Woods of the Dutchy of Lancaster of the which he was Chancellour and for committing whereof he was not onely forced to resign that Office but condemned in a fine of six thousand pounds not otherwise to be excused but by paying of four thousand pounds within the year This Punishment was accompanied with a Disgrace no less grievous to him then the loss both of his Place and Money He had been chosen into the Society of the Garter An. 1548. when the Duke of Sommerset was in Power and so continued till the fifteenth of April in the year next following Anno 1552. At what time Garter King of Aâ—ms was sent to his Lodging in the Tower to take from him the Garter and the George belonging to him as a Knight of that most Noble Order Which he suffered willingly to be done because it was His Majestie 's Pleasure that it should so be More sensible of the Affront without all question then otherwise he would have been because the said George and Garter were presently afâ—er sent by the King to John Earl of Warwick the Duke of Northumberland's eldest Son Admitted thereupon into that Society So prevalent are the Passions of some Great Persons that they can neither put a measure upon their Hatred nor an end to their Malice Which two last Passages though more properly belonging to the following year I have thought fit to place in this because of that dependance which they have on the Fall of Sommerset The like Ill-Fortune happened at the same time also to Doctour Robert Farrar Bishop of St. David's who as he had his Preferments by him so he suffered also in his Fall not because Guilty of the Practice or Conspiracy with him as the Lord Paget and the rest were given out to be but because he wanted his Support and Countenance against his Adversaries A Man he was of an unsociable disposition rigidly self-willed and one who looked for more Observance then his place required which drew him into a great dislâ—ke with most of his Clergy with none more then the Canons of his own Cathedral The Faction headed amongst others by Doctour Thomas Young then being the Chantour of that Church and afterwards advanced by Queen
Execution â—ft-times happily supplyeth former Defects Recâ—llect Your selves then and so make use of Your Authority that the Princess Mary the undoubtedly Lawfully Heir may publickly be Proclaimed Queen of England c. No other way but this as the Case now stands to recover our lost Honours and preserve the State The Earl of Pembroke was a man altogether unlettered but so well skilled in humouring King Henry the Eighth that he had raised Himself to a great Estate for whâ—ch he could not but express some sense of Gratitude in doing good Offices for his Children And having formerly been suspected to have had too great a part in Northumberland's Counsels he conceâ—ved himself obliged to wipe off that Stain by declaring his Zeal and Resolution in the Cause of the Princess And therefore assoon as the Earl of Arundel had concluded his Speech he very chearfully professed that he approved and would subscribe the Proposition and therewithall laying his Hand upon his Sword he signifiâ—d his Readiness and Resolution to defend the Lady Marie's Cause against all Opponents The rest of the Lords encouraged by these good Examples and seeing nothing but apparent Danger on all sides if they did the contrary came to a speedy Conclusion with them and bound themselves to stand together in Defence of the late King's Sisters against all their Enemies Which being thus so generously and unanimously agreed upon a Messenger is presently dispatched to the Lord Mayour requiring him to repair to Baynara'â—-Castle within an hour and to bring with him the Recorder and such of the Aldermen of the City as to him seemed best Who being come accordingly at the time appointed their Lordships told them in few words as well their Resolution as their Reason of it and so desired their Company to Cheap-side-Cross to Proclaim Queen Mary Which said without any further Dispute about the Title they rode all together in good order through Saint Paul's-Church-Yard till they came to the Gate which openeth into the Street where they found such Multitudes and Throngs of People whom the Noise of such a Confluence at Baynard's-Castle and the going down of the Lord Mayour and Aldermen had drawn together that they could hardly force a Way through them to come to the Cross. But being come thither at the last though with much ado Sir Christopher Barker Knight of the Bath and Principal King at Arms Proclaimed by the Sound of Trumpet the Princess Mary Daughter of King Henry the Eighth and Queen Kaharine His Wife to be the Lawfull and Undoubted Queen of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith adding thereto that Sacred Title of Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England which She retained till the beginning of the following Parliament and then rescinded all those Acts by which it had been formerly united to the Crown of this Realm The Proclamation being ended they went together in a Solemn Prâ—cession to Saint Pauâ—'s Church where they caused the Te Deum to be sung with the Rights accustomed and so dismissed the Assembly to their several dwellings Being returned to Baynard's-Castle the Earl of Arundel and the Lord Paget are presently dispatched to Framlingham with thirty Horse to give the Queen a Narrative of their whole Proceedings Some Companies are also sent to assure the Tower and to Command the Duke of Suffolk to discharge the Family and Attendants of the Lady Jane to signifie unto Her that She must lay aside the Name and Title of Queen and suffer Her Self to be reduced to the Rank of a private Person All which he readily obeyed as easily subject to Despair as before he had been swelled with Ambitious Hopes and the next day adjoyns himself to the rest of the Counâ—il subscribing amongst others to such Instructions as were to be dispatched to the Duke of Northumberland for the disbanding of his Forces and carâ—ying himself like an obedient and dutifull Subject as he ought to do But there was little need of this last Message and none at all of the other Foâ— the noise of these loud Acclamâ—â—ions which were made at the Proclaiming of the new Queen passing from one Street to another came at last to the Tower â—efore the Message had been sent to the Duke of Suffolk where they were heard by the â—ady Jane now no longer Queen with such Tranquility of Mâ—nd and Composedness of Countenance as if she had not been concerned in the Alteration She had before received the offer of the Crown with as even a Temper as if it had been nothing but a â—arland of Flowers and now She lays aside the thought thereof with as much contentedness as She could have thrown away that Garland when the sent was gone The time of her Glories was so short but a nine Days wonder that it seemâ—d nothing but a Dream out of which She was not sorry to be awakened The Tower had been to Her a Prison rather then a Court and interrupted the Delights of Her former Life by so many Terrours that no day passed without some new Alarms to disturb Her Quiet She doth now know the worst that Fortune can do unto Her And having always feared that there stood a Scaffold secretly behind the Throne She was as readily prepared to act her Part upon the one as upon the other If Sorrow and Affliction did at any time invade Her Thoughts it was rather in reference to Her Friends but most of all unto Her Husband who were to be involved in the Calamity of Her Misfortunes then upon any Apprehensions which She had for Her Self And hereunto the bringing in of so many Prisoners one day after another gave no small Encrease brought hither for no other Reason but because they had seemed forward in contributing towards Her Advancement In the middest of which Disconsolations the restoring of the Duke Her Father to his former Liberty gave some Repose unto Her Mind whose Sufferings were more grievous to Her then Her own Imprisonment And then to what a miserable Extremity must his Death have brought Her And though the Attainder and Death of the Duke of Northumberland â—hich followed very shortly after might tell Her in Effect what She was to trust to yet She was willing to distinguish betwixt his Case and Her own betwixt the Principal and the Accessaries in the Late Design In which Respect She gave Her self no improbable Hopeâ— thâ—â— possibly the like Mercies which was shewed to Her Father might possibly be extended unto others and amongst others to Her Husband as innocent as Her self from any open Practice against the Queen And who could tell but that it might descend on Her self at last whom no Ambition of Her own had tempted to the acceptation of that Dangerous Offer which She beheld as the greatest Errour of Her Life and the onely Stain of all â—er Actions But neither the Queen's Fears nor the publick Justice of the Land could so be satisfied It was held Treason to accept of a Kingdom
offered to which She could pretend no Right whilest the Queen was living And if Examples of that Nature should pass unpunished no Prince could possibly be safe nor Tiâ—les valid as long as any Popular Spirit could pretend a Colour to advance some other to the Throne Upon which Reason of State She was brought to Her Trial at the Guild-Hall in London on the third of November accompanied with Her Husband the Lord Guilford Dudly his Company never till that Hour unwelcome to Her together with Arch-Bishop Cranmer the Lord Ambrose Dudly the second Son then living to the Duke of Northumberland Sentence of Death passed upon them all though at that time not executed upon any of them The Lord Ambrose was reserved unto better Fortunes as the Arch-Bishop was to a more miserable but more Glorious Death And for Her self and Her dear Husband it was conceived that now the Law had done its part in their Condemnation the Queen in pitty of their Youth and Innocence would have gone no further But as they were first brought under this Affliction by the inordinate Ambition of the Duke of Northumberland so shall they shortly finde an end of all their Troubles by the rash and unadvised Attempts of the Duke of Suffolk For upon Wyaâ—'s breaking out in Kent and the Earl of Devon-Shire in the West the Duke had been prevailed with amongst many others to apâ—ear in the Action To which he unadvisedly yielded caused Proclamation to be made in some Towns of Leicester-Shire against the Queen's intended Marriage with the Prince of Spain and drew together many of his Friends and followers to oppose that Match And though he was discomfited within few days after yet the Queen saw that she could promise Her self neither Peace nor Safety as long as the Lady Jane was preserved alive Whose Restitution to the Throne must be the matter chieflly aimed at in these Insurrections though other Colours were devised to disguise the Business Her Death is now resolved upon but first She must be practised with to change Her Religion as the Great Duke of Northumberland had done before To which end Fecknam is employed not long before made Dean of Saint Paul's and not long after Abbot of Westminster a Man whose great Parts promised him an easie Victory over a poor Lady of a broken and dejected Spirit but it proved the contrary For so well had She studied the Concernments of Her own Religion and managed the Conference with him with such a readiness of Wit such constancy of Resolution and a Judgment so well-grounded in all helps of Learning that She was able to make Answer to his strongest Arguments as well to Her great Honour as his Admiration The Substance of which Conference he that â—â—sts to see may finde it in the Acts and Monuments fol. 1290. So that not able to prevail with Her in the Change of Religion he made offer of his Service to prepare Her for Death which though She thankfully accepted of as finding it to proceed from a good Affection yet soon he found that She was also before hand with him in those Preparations which are fit and necessary for a dying Christian. Friday the ninth of February was first designed for the Day of Her Execution but the Desire of gaining Her to the Church of Rome procured Her the short Respite of three Days more On Sundayâ—night â—night being the Eve unto the 〈◊〉 of Her Translation She wrote a Letter in the Greek Tongue at the end of the Testament which She bequeathed as a Legacy to Her Sister the Lady Katharine which being such a lively Picture of the Excellent Lady may well deserve to be continually kept in Remembrance of Her and is this that followeth I have here sent you Good Sister Katharine a Book which although it be not outwardly trimmed with Gold yet inwardly it is more worth then pretious Stones It is the Book Dear Sister of the Law of the Lord. It is his Testament and last Will which he bequeathed unto us Wretches which shall lead you to the path of eternal Joy and if you with a good mind read it and with an earnest mind do purpose to follow it it shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting Life It shall teach you to live and learn you to die It shall win you more then you should have gained by the possession of your wofull Father's Lands For as if God had prospered him you should have inherited his Lands so if you apply diligently this Book seeking to direct your Life after it you shall be an inheritour of such Riches as neither the Covetous shall withdraw frâ—m you neither Thief shall steal neither yet the Moths corrupt Desire with David Good Sister to understand the Law of the Lord God Live still to die that you by Death may purchase eternal Life and trust not that the tenderness of your Age shall lengthen your Life for as soon if God calls goeth the young as the old and labour always to learn to die Defie the World Deny the Divel and Despise the Flesh and Delight your self onely in the Lord. Be penitent for your Sins and yet Despair not Be strong in Faith and yet presume not and desire with Saint Paul to be dissolved and to be with Christ with whom â—ven in Death there is Life Be like the good Servant and even at Midnight be waking lest when Death cometh and stealeth upon you like a Thief in the night you be with the evil Servant â—ound sleeping and lest for lack of Oyl you be found like the five foolish Women and like him that had not on the Wedding-Garment and then ye be cast out from the Marriage Rejoyce in Christ as I do Follow the Steps of your Master Christ and take upon you your Cross. Lay your Sins on his Back and always embrace him And as touching my Death rejoyce as I do good Sister that I shall be delivered of this Corruption and put on Incorruption For I am assured that I shall for losing of a mortal Life win an immortal one The which I pray God to grant you and send you of his Grace to live in his Fear and to die in the true Christian Faith from the which in God's Name I exhort you that you never swerve neither for Hope of Life nor for Fear of Death For if you will deny his Truth to lengthen your Life God will deny you and yet shorten your Days and if you will â—leave unto him he will prolong your Days to your Comfort and to his Glory To the which Glory God bring me now and you hereafter when it pleaseth him to call you Fare you well Good Sister and put your onely trust in God who onely must help you The Fatal Morning being come the Lord Guilford earnestly desired the Officers that He might take His Farewell of Her Which though they willingly permitted yet upon notice of it She Advised the contrary assuring Him That such a meeting would
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 aâ— being a meer stranger to the Nation and affairs of France Anthony of Burboâ— 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 Hâ—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 Dâ—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
Senior Fellow sufficiently known to be of Popish inclinations though for the saving of his place he had conformed as others did to the present time No sooner was he in this power but he retrives some old superstitious hymns which formerly had been sung on several Festivals in the times of Popery prohibiting the use of such as had been introduced by Gervase the late Warden there This gave incouragement and opportunity to the Popish party to insult over the rest especially over all those of the younger sort who had not been trained up in their Popish principles so that it seemed a penal matter to be thought a Protestant Notice whereof being given to Archbishop Parker the Ordinary Visitour of that College in the Right of his See he summoneth Hall on the 20th of May to appear before him and caused the Citation to be fastned to the Gate of the College But his authority in that case was so little regarded that the seal of the Citation was torn off by some of that party Hereupon followed a solemn visitation of the College by the said Archbishop The result whereof was briefly this that all were generally examined Man confirmed Warden Hall justly expelled his party publickly admonished the young scholars relieved the Papists curbed and suppressed and Protestants countenanced and incouraged in the whole University But this was only the Essay of those greater commotions which were to have insued upon it though withall it proved a prognostick of their ill success which constantly attended the designs of the Romish faction For presently on the neck of this a far more dangerous conspiracy declared it self in some chief Leaders of that party The present sitting of the Council the practices of some forein Ministers and the Queens countenancing the French Hugoâ—ots then being in Arms against their King might serve both as encouragements and exasperations to put that party upon dangerous and destructive projects And it is possible enough that somewhat might be aimed at by them in favour of the Title of the Queen of Scots or of some other of the Race of King Henry the 7th by Margaret his eldest daughter married to James the 4th of Scotland which may the rather be supposed because I find the Lady Margaret Countess of Lenox daughter of the said Queen Margaret by her second husband and mother of Henry Lord Dâ—rnley who was after married to Queen Mary of Scotland to have been confined unto her House with the Earl her husband upon suspition of some practice against the Queen Certain it is that many strange whispers were abroad and no small hopes conceived by those of the Popish faction for suppressing the Protestants in all parts of the Kingdom and setting up their own Religion as in former times a matter neither to be entertained without strong temptations nor compassed without stronger forces than they could raise amongst themselves but by intelligence supply from some forein Princes On which account amongst some others which were found to be of the Plot Arthur Pole granchild of Margaret Countess of Salisbury by Geofry her third son the younger brother unto Reâ—gnald Pole the late Cardinal Legat was apprehended and arraigned together with his brother Geofry Fortescue who had married his sister divers others The substance of their Chaâ—ge as it is generally in all Treasons was a design of levying war against the Queen and otherwise entertaining many dangerous counsels against the peace and safety of her Dominions with a particular intention of advancing the Queen of Scots to the Crown of England and Polâ— himself unto the Title of Duke of Clarence All which they confessed upon the Indictment and did all receive the sentence of death but were all afterwards pardoned by the Queens great clemency out of that great respect which she carried to their Royal extraction And yet it may be possible that there was something in it of State-craft as well as clemency which might induce the Queen to spare them from the stroke of the Ax which was to keep them for a ballance to the House of Suffolk of whom she now began to conceive some jealousies The Lady Katharine Gray one of the younger daughters of Henry Duke of Suffolk and sister to the late Queen Jane had been marryed to the Lord Henry Herbert son and heir to the Earl of Pembrock at such time as the said Queen Jane was married to the Lord Guilford Dudley at Durham-House But the old Earl seasonably apprehending how unsafe it was to marry into that Family which had given so much trouble to the Queen took the advantage of the time and found some means to procure a sentence of Divorce almost upon the very insâ—ant of the Consummation And knowing how well Queen Maâ—yâ—â—ood â—â—ood affected to the Earl of Shrewsbury he presently clapt up a marriage for his son with another Katherine one of the daughters of that Earl who dying about the begining of the Reign of this Queen he married him as â—peedily to Mary Sâ—dâ—ey the daughter of Sir Henry Sidney and of Mary his wife one of the daughters of John Dudley the late Duke of Northumberland in which last marriage he as much endeavoured to ingratiate himself with Sir Robert Dâ—dleâ— who at that time began to grow Lord Paramount in all Court-favours as by the first Match to insinuate into old Duke Dudley who did then predominate In the mean time the Lady Katherine Gray languisheth long under the disgrace of this rejection none daring to make any particular addresses to her for fear of being involved in the like calamities as had befallen her father and the rest of that Family But at the last the young Earl of Hertford contracts himself privately unto her and having consummated the marriage with her gets leave to travail into France But long he had not left the Kingdom when the Lady was found to be with child being imprisoned in the Tower she makes known her marriage till then kept secret by agreement the Earl is thereupon called home and standing honestly to the Marriage for which he could produce no sufficient witnesse is committed prisoner also The Queen exceeding jealous of all Competitors refers the cognisance of the cause to the Archbishop of Canterbury and some other Delegates by whom a certain time is set for the bringing in of Witnesses to prove the Marriage and on default thereof a sentence of unlawful copulation is pronounced against them during which troubles and disquiets the Lady is delivered of the Lord Edward Seâ—mer her eldest son in the Tower of London and conceived after of another by some sâ—oln meetings which she had with the Earl her husband their Keepers on both sides being corrupted to give way unto it Which practice so incensed the Queen that hurried on with jealousie and transported with passion she caused a fine of five thousand pounds to be set upon him in the Star-chamber and kept him close prisoner for the space of nine years at the
Anno 1552. as also of the Review thereof by the Bishops and Clergy assembled in their Convocation under Queen Elizabeth Anno 1562. which being compared with one another will appear most plainly neither to be altogether the same nor yet much different the later being rather an explication of the former where the former seemed to be obscure or not expressed in such full and significant tearms as they after were than differing from them in such points wherein they dissented from the Romanists and some modern Hereticks But what these differences were both for weight and number the Reader may observe by seeing the Articles laid before him in their several Columns as hereafter followeth wherein the variations are presented in a different character or otherwise marked out by their several figures in the line and margin Which was first done with reference to some Annotations intended once upon the same for shewing the reason of those Additions Substractions and other alterations which were thought necessary to be made to and in King Edward's Book by the Bishops and Clergy in their Convocation Anno 1562. But that design being laid aside as not so compatible with the nature of our present History the Articles shall be laid down plainly as they are in themselves leaving the further consideration of the differences which occur between them to the Reader 's care Articles agreed upon by the Bishops and other learned men 1 in the Convocation held at London in the year 1552. for the avoiding of Diversitities of Opinions and stablishing consent touching true Religion Published by the Kings Authority Articles agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy in the Convocation holden at London in the year 1562. for the avoiding of Diversities of Opinions and stablishing consent tonching true Religion Publish'd by the Queens Authority I. Of Faith in the holy Trinity THere is but one living and true God everlasting without body parts or passions of infinite power wisdom and goodness the Maker and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible And in Unity of this Godhead there are three Persons one Substance Power and Eternity the Father the Son and the holy Ghost I. Of Faith in the holy Trinity THere is but one living and true God Everlasting without body parts or passions of infinite power wisdom and goodness the Maker and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible And in Unity of this Godhead there be three Persons of one Substance Power and Eternity the Father the Son and the holy Ghost II. The Word of God made very Man The Son which is the Word of the Father took mans nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin of her substance So that two whole and perfect Natures that is to say the 2 Godhead Manhood were joyn'd together in one Person never to be divided whereof is one Christ very God and very Man who truly suffered was crucified dead and buried to reconcile his Father to us and to be a sacrifice not onely for original guilt but also for actual sins of men II. Of the Word or Son of God which was made very Man The Son which is the Word of the Father begotten from everlasting of the Father the very and eternal God of one Substance with the Father 2 took Man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin c. III. Of the going down of Christ into Hell As Christ dyed for us and was buried so also is it to be believed that he went down into Hell 3 For his Body lay in the Grave till his Resurrection but his Soul being separate from his Body remained with the Spirits which were detained in prison that is to say in Hell and there preached unto them as witnesseth that place of Peter III. Of the going down of Christ into Hell As Christ dyed for us and was buried so also it is to be believed that he went down into Hell IV. The Resurrection of Christ. Christ did truly rise again from death and took again his Body with flesh bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature wherewith he ascended into heaven and there fitteâ—h till he return to judg all men at the last day IV. Of the Resurrection of Christ. Christ did truly rise again from death and took again his Body with flesh bones c. 5 V. Of the holy Ghost The holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son is of one Substance Majesty and Glory with the Father and the Son very and eternal God V. The Doctrine of the holy Scripture is sufficient to salvation Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby although sometimes it may be admitted 6 by Gods faithful people as pious and conducing unto order and decency yet is not to be required of any man that it should be 7 believed as an Article of the faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation VI. Of the sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of the Faith or be thought necessary or requisite to salvation In the name of the holy Scripture 7 we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church that is to say Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Judges Ruth 1st of Samuel 2d of Samuel c. And the other Books as Hierom saith the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners but yet doth it not apply them to establish any Doctrine such are these following The 3d. of Esdras The 4th of Esdras The Book of Tobias The Book of Judeth The rest of the Book of Hester The Book of Wisdom c. All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical VI. The Old Testament is not to be rejected The Old Testament is not to be rejected as if it were contrary to the New but to be retained Forasmuch as in the Old Testament as in the New everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ who is the onely Mediatior betwixt God and Man being both God and Man Wherefore they are not to be heard who feign that the old Fathers did look onely â—or transitory Promises VII Of the Old Testament The Old Testament is not contraâ—y to the New for both in the Oâ—d and the New Testament Everlasting life is offered Mankind by Christ c. 8 Although the Law given from Gâ—d by Moses as touching Ceremonies and Rites do not bind Christian men nor the Civil Precepts theâ—eof ought of necâ—ssiâ—y to be received in any Commonwealth yet notwithstanding no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the
work of his Hands or had been agitated and debated in no Head but his So did the Emperour Justinian in the Book of Institutes and Theodosins in the Code Boâ—iface in the Decretals and John the 22th in that part of the Canon Law which they call the Extravagants the honour of which Works was severally arrogated by them because performed by their Encouragement and at their Appointment But whosoever laboured in the Preparation of these Articles certain it is that they were onely a Rude Draught and of no signification till they had passed the Vâ—te of the Convocation and there we shall hear further of them In Reference to the Polity and good Order of the Common-Wealth there were two things done of great Importance the one redounding to the Present the other to the Future Benefit of the English Nation Of which last sort was the suppressiâ—g of the Corporation of Merchant-Strangers the Merchants of the Steel-Yard as they commonly called them Concerning which we are to know that the English in the Times foregoing being neither strong in Shipping nor much accustomed to the Seas received all such Commodities as were not of the growth of their own Country from the hands of Strangers resorting hither from all Parts to upbraid our Laziness Amongst which the Merchants of the East-Land â—arts of Almain or High Germany well known in former Stories by the Name of Easterlings used to bring hither yearly great quantities of Wheat Rye and other Grain as also Cables Ropes Masts Pitch Tar Flax Hemp Linen Cloth Wainâ—coats Wax Steel and other profitable Merchandises for the use of this Kingdom For their Encouragement wherein they were amply Privileged exempt from many Impositions which Merchant-Strangers use to pay in all other Countries erected into a Corporation by King Henry the Third commonly called Guilda Aula Theutonicorum permitted first to carry out Wools unwrought and afterwards a certain number of Cloaths when the English were grown skilfull in that Manufacture Their Court kept in a fair large House built near the Thames which from an open place wherein Steel had formerly been sold took the Name of the Steel-Yard Grown Rich and driving a great Trade they drew upon themselves the Envy as all other Merchant-Strangers did of the Londoners chiefly but generally of all the Port Towns of England who began now to think the Seas as open to them as to any others It was considered also by the Lords of the Council that by suffering all Commodities of a Foreign growth and a great part of the Commodities of the growth of England to be imported and exported in Out-landish Bottoms the English Merchants were discouraged from Navigation whereby the Shipping of the Realm was kept low and despicable It was therefore thought expedient in Reason of State to make void their Privileges and put the Trade into the hands of the English Merchant For the doing whereof the Easterlings or Merchants of the Steel-Yard had given cause enough For whereas they had antiently been permitted to ship away but eighty Cloaths afterwards one hundred and at last one thousand it was found that at this time they had transported in their own Bottoms 44000 English Cloatâ—â— there being but 1100 ship'd away by all Strangers else It was also found that besides the Native Commodities of their own growth they had brought in much Strangers goods of other Countâ—ies contrary to their agreement made with King Edward the Fâ—urtâ— and that upon a further search their Corporation was found imperfect their Numbers Names and Nations not sufficiently known This gave the Council ground enough for seising all their Liberties into the hands of the King and never after to restore them notwithstanding the great Embassies and Solicitations of the Cities of Hamborough and Lubeck and many other of the Hans-Towns in Germany who had seen their Factories and Factours And hereunto the seasonable coming of Sebastian Cabot of which more anon gave no small Advantage by whose Encouragement and Example the English Nation began to fall in Love with the Seas to try their Fortunes in the Discovery of unknown Regions and consequently to encrease their Shipping till by degrees they came to drive a wealthy Trade in most parts of the World and to be more considerable for their Naval Power then all their Neighbours But because all things could not be so well settled at the first as not to need the Help and Correspondencies of some foreign Nations it was thought fit to â—earken to an Entercourse with the Crown of Sweden which was then Opportunely offered by Gustavus Ericus the first of the Family now reigning By which it was agreed First That if the King of Sweden sent Bullion into England He might carry away English Commodities without Custom Secondly That He should carry Bullion to no other Prince Thirdly That if He sent Ozimus Steel Copper c. He should pay Custom for English Commodities as an English-man Fourthly That if He sent other Merchandise He should have free Intercourse paying Custom as a Stranger Whâ—reupon the Mint was set on work which brought the King for the first year the sum of twenty four thousand Pounds of which the sum of fourteen thouâ—and pounds was designed for Ireland and the rest lay'd up in the Exchequer some other waies were devised also that the Mint might be kept going and some agreement made with the Mint-Masters in the Point of Coynage which proved more to the Advantage of the King then the present profit of the Subject For hereupon on the ninth of July the base Money Coyned in the time of the King deceased was publickly decryed by Proclamation the Shilling to go for Nine Pence onely and the Groat for Three Pence And on the seventeenth of August then next following the Nine-Peny-piece was decryed to Six Pence the Groat to Two Pence the Half-Groat to a Peny By means whereof he that was worth one thousand pound on the eighth of July without any ill-husbandry in himself or diminution of his stock was found before the eighteenth day of August to be worth no more then half that Sum and so proportionably in all other Sums both above and under Which though it caused many an heavy heart and much repining at the present amongst all those whose Wealth lay most especially in Trade and Money yet proved it by degrees a chief Expedient for reducing the Coyn of England to it's antient Valew For on the thirtieth of October the Subjects had the taft of the future benefit which was to be expected from it there being then some Coyns Proclaimed both in Gold and Silver Pieces of thirty shillings ten shillings and five shillings of the finest Gold pieces of five shillings two shillings six pence one shilling six pence c. of the pureâ—t Silver Which put the Merchant in good hope that he should drive as rich a Trade under this young King as in the happiest dayes of his Predecessours before the Mony was debased And now we come