with the Lutherans he did not think it was then seasonable to call one That as for sending a Proxy to Rome if he were a private Person he could do it but it was a part of the Prerogative of his Crown and of the Priviledges of his Subjects That all Matrimonial Causes should be originally judged within his Kingdom by the English Church which was consonant to the general Councils and Customs of the ancient Church whereunto he hoped the Pope would have regard And that for keeping up his Royal Authority to which he was bound by Oath he could not without the consent of the Realm submit himself to a Forreign Jurisdiction hoping the Pope would not desire any violation of the Immunities of the Realm or to bring these into publick Contention which had been hitherto enjoyed without intrusion or molestation The Pope had confessed that without an urgent cause the Dispensation could not be granted This the King laid hold on and ordered his Ambassador to show him that there was no War nor appearance of any between England and Spain when it was granted To verifie that he sent an attested Copy of the Treaty between his Father and the Crown of Spain at that time By the words of which it appeared that it was then taken for granted that Prince Arthur had Consummated the Marriage which was also proved by good witnesses In fine since the thing did so much concern the Peace of the Realm it was fitter to judg it within the Kingdom than any where else therefore he desired the Pope would remit the discussing of it to the Church of England and then confirm the Sentence they should give To the obtaining of this the Ambassador was to use all possible diligence yet if he found real intentions in the Pope to satisfie the King he was not to insist on that as the Kings final Resolution And to let the Cardinal of Ravenna see that the King intended to make good what was promised in his name the Bishoprick of Coventry and Litchfield falling vacant he sent him the offer of it with a promise of the Bishoprick of Ely when it should be void Soon after this he Married Anne Boleyn on the 14th of November upon his landing in England but Stow says without any ground that it was on the 25th of Ianuary Rowland Lee who afterward got the Bishoprick of Coventry and Liechfield officiate in the Marriage It was done secretly in the presence of the Duke of Norfolk and her Father her Mother and Brother and Dr. Cranmer The grounds on which the King did this were That his former Marriage being of it self null there was no need of a Declarative Sentence after so many Universities and Doctors had given their judgments against it Soon after the Marriage she was with-Child which was looked on as a signalEvidence of her Chastity and that she had till then kept the King at a due distance But when the Pope and the Emperor met at Bononia the Pope expressed great Inclinations to favour the French King from which the Emperor could not remove him nor engage him to accept of a Match for his Neece Katherine de Medici with Francis Sforza Duke of Milan But the Pope promised him all that he desired as to the King of England and so that matter was still carried on Dr. Bennet made several propositions to end the matter either that it should be judged in England according to the Decree of the Council of Nice and that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury with the whole Clergy of his Province should determine it or that the King should name one either Sir Thomas More or the Bishop of London the Queen should name another the French King should name a third and the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to be the fourth or that the cause should be heard in England and if the Queen did Appeal it should be referred to three Delegates one of England another of France and a third to be sent from Rome who should sit and judge the Appeal in some indifferent place But the Pope would hearken to none of these Overtures since they were all directly contrary to that height of Authority which he resolved to maintain Therefore he ordered Capisucci the Dean of the Rota to cite the King to answer to the Queens Appeal Karne at Rome protested against the Citation since the Emperor's Power was so great about Rome that the King could not expect justice there and therefore desired they would desist otherwise the King would Appeal to the Learned men in Universities and said there was a nullity in all their proceedings since the King was a Soveraign Prince and the Church of England a free Church over which the Pope had no just Authority But while this depended at Rome another Session of Parliameot was held in England which began to sit on the 4th of February In this the Breach with Rome was much forwarded by the Act they passed against all Appeals to Rome The Preamble bears that the Crown of England was Imperial and that the Nation was a compleat Body within it self with a full Power to give justice in all cases Spiritual as well as Temporal and that in the Spiritualty as there had beed at all times so there were them men of that sufficiency and integrity that they might declare and determine all doubts within the Kingdom and that several Kings as Edward the 1st Edward the 3d Richard the 2d and Henry the 4th had by several Laws preserved the Liberties of the Realm both Spiritual and Temporal from the annoyance of the See of Rome and other forreign Potentates yet many inconveniences had arisen by Appeals to the See of Rome in Causes of Matrimony Divorces and other cases which were not sufficiently provided against by these Laws by which not only the King and his Subjects were put to great charges but justice was much delayed by Appeals and Rome being at such a distance Evidences could not be brought thither nor Witnesses so easily as within the Kingdom Therefore it was Enacted that all such Causes whether relating to the King or any of his Subjects were to be determined within the Kingdom in the several Courts to which they belonged notwithstanding any Appeals to Rome or Inhibitions and Bulls from Rome whose Sentences should take effect and be fully Executed by all Inferior Ministers and if any Spiritual Persons refused to Execute them because of Censures from Rome they were to suffer a years Imprisonment and fine and ransom at the Kings will and if any Persons in the Kings Dominions procured or executed any Process or Censures from Rome they were declared liable to the pains in the Statute of Provisors in the 16th of Rich. the 2d But that Appeals should only be from the Arch-Deacon or his Official to the Bishop of the Diocess or his Commissary and from him to the Arch-Bishop of the Province or the Dean of the Arches where the
to which it related which was also shewed him having considered of them he said he would neither blame these that made the Act nor those that Swore the Oath but for his part though he was willing to Swear to the Succession if he might be suffered to draw an Oath concerning it yet for the Oath that was offered him his Conscience so moved him that he could not without hazarding his Soul take it Upon this the Lord Chancellour told him that he was the first who had refused to Swear it and that the King would be highly offended with him for denying it and so he was desired to withdraw and consider better of it Several others were called upon and did all take the Oath except the Bishop of Rochester who answered upon the matter as More had done When the Lords had dispatched all the rest More was again brought before them they shewed him how many had taken it he answered he judged no man for doing it only he could not do it himself Then they asked the reasons why he refused it He answered he feared it might provoke the King more against him if he should offer reasons which would be called a disputing against Law but when he was further pressed to give his reasons he said if the King would command him to do it he would put them in Writing The Arch-Bishop of Canterbury urged him with this Argument that since he said he blamed no other person for taking it it seemed he was not perswaded it was a Sin but was doubtful in the matter but he did certainly know he ought to obey the King and the Law so there was a certainty on the one hand and only a doubt on the other therefore he was obliged to do that about which he was certain notwithstanding these his doubtings This did shake him a little especially as himself writes coming out of so Noble a Prelates mouth but he answered that though he had examined the matter very carefully yet his Conscience leaned positively to the other side and he offered to purge himself by his Oath that it was purely out of a Principle of Conscience and out of no light Fantasie or Obstinacy that he thus refused it The Abbot of Westminster pressed him that however the matter appeared to him he might see his Conscience was Erroneous since the great Council of the Realm was of another mind and therefore he ought to change his Conscience A Reasoning very fit for so rich an Abbot which discovers of what temper his Conscience was But to this More answered that if he were alone against the whole Parliament he had reason to suspect his own understanding but he thought he had the whole Council of Christendome on his side as well as the great Council of England was against him Secretary Cromwell who as More writes tenderly favoured him seeing his ruin was now inevitable was much affected at it and protested with an Oath he had rather his own only Son had lost his head than that he should have refused the Oath Thus both he and the Bishop of Rochester refused it but both offered to Swear another Oath for the Succession of the Crown to the issue of the Kings present Marriage because that was in the Power of the Parliament to determine it Cranmer who was a moderate and wise man and foresaw well the ill effects that would follow on contending so much with persons so highly esteemed over the World and of such a temper that severity would bend them to nothing did by an earnest Letter to Cromwell dated the 27th of April move that what they offered might be accepted for if they once Swore to the Succession it would quiet the Kingdom for they acknowledging it all other persons would acquiesce and submit to their Judgments But this sage advice was not accepted The King was much irritated against them and resolved to proceed with them according to Law and therefore they were both indicted upon the Statute and Committed Prisoners to the Tower And it being apprehended that if they had Books and Paper given them they would write against the Kings Marriage or his Supremacy these were denyed them The Old Bishop was hardly used his Bishoprick was seized on and all his goods taken from him only some old rags were left to cover him and he was neither supplyed well in diet nor other necessaries of which he made sad complaints to Cromwell But the remander of this Tragical business which left one of the greatest blots on this Kings proceedings falling within the limits of the next Book I haste on to the Conclusion of this The Separation from Rome was made in the former Session of Parliament but the Kings Supremacy was not yet fully setled This was reserved for the next Session that sate in November from the 3d of that month to the 18th of December about which we can have no light from the Journals they being lost The first Act Confirmed what had been already acknowledged by the Clergy that the King was the Supream Head in Earth of the Church of England which was to be annexed to his other Titles it was also enacted that the King and his heirs and Successors should have Power to visit and reform all Heresies Errors and other Abuses which in the Spiritual jurisdiction ought to be reform'd By the Second Act they Confirmed the Oath about the Succession concerning which some doubts had been made because there was no Oath specified in the former Act though both Houses had taken it it was now Enacted that all the Subjects were obliged to take it when offered to them under the pains contained in the Act pass'd in the former Session By the Third Act the first Fruits and Tenths of all Ecclesiastical Benefices were given to the King as the Supream Head of the Church The Clergy were easily prevailed on to consent to the putting down of the Annates pay'd to the Court of Rome for all men readily concur to take off any Imposition but at that time it had perhaps abated much of their heartiness if they had imagined that these duties should have been still payed therefore that was kept up till they had done all that was to be done against Rome And now as the Commons and the Secular Lords would no doubt easily agree to lay a taxe on the Clergy so the others having no forreign support were not in a condition to wrestle against it In the Thirteenth Act among other things that were made Treason one was the denying the King the Dignity Title or name of his Estate Royal or the calling the King Heretick Schismatick Tyrant Infidel or Usurper of the Crown This was done to restrain the Insolencies of some Friars and all such offenders were to be denyed the Priviledge of Sanctuaries By the Fourteenth Act provision was made for Suffragan Bishops which as is said had been accustomed to be had within this Realm for the
If full Forty days be necessary for a Summons then the Writs must have been issued forth the day before the late Queens disgrace so that it was designed before the Justs at Greenwich and did not flow from any thing that then appeared When the Parliament met the Lord Chancellor Audley in his speech told them That when the former Parliament was dissolved the King had no thoughts of Summoning a new one so soon But for two reasons he had now called them The one was that he finding himself subject to so many infirmities and considering that he was Mortal a rare thought in a Prince he desired to settle an apparent heir to the Crown in case he should die without Children lawfully begotten The other was to repeal an Act of the former Parliament concerning the Succession of the Crown to the issue of the King by Queen Anne Boleyn He desired them to reflect on the great troubles and vexation the King was involved in by his first unlawful Marriage and the dangers he was in by his second which might well have frighted any body from a third Marriage But Anne and her Conspirators being put to death as they well deserved the King at the humble request of the Nobility and not out of any Carnal concupiscence was pleased to Marry again a Queen by whom there were very probable hopes of his having children Therefore he recommended to them to provide an heir to the Crown by the Kings direction who if the King dyed without children lawfully begotten might Rule over them He desired they would pray God earnestly that he would grant the King issue of his own body and return thanks to Almighty God that preserved such a King to them out of so many eminent dangers who imployed all his care and endeavours that he might keep his whole people in quiet peace and perfect charity and leave them so to those that should succeed him But though this was the chief cause of calling the Parliament it seems the Ministers met with great difficulties and therefore spent much time in preparing mens minds For the Bill about the Succession to the Crown was not brought into the House of Lords before the 30th day of Iune that the Lord Chancellor offered it to the House It went through both Houses without any Opposition It contained first a repeal of the former Act of Succession and a Confirmation of the two Sentences of Divorce the issue of both the Kings former Marriages being declared illegitimate and for ever excluded from claiming the inheritance of the Crown as the Kings Lawful heirs by lineal descent The Attainder of Queen Anne and her Complices is confirmed Quen Anne is said to have been inflamed with pride and Carnal desires of her body and having confederated her self with her complices to have committed divers Treasons to the danger of the Kings Royal person with other aggravating words for which she had justly suffered death and is now attainted by Act of Parliament And all things that had been said or done against her or her Daughter being contrary to an Act of Parliament then in force are pardoned and the inheritance of the Crown is established on the issue of Queen Iane whether Male or Female or the Kings issue by any other Wife whom he might Marry afterwards But since it was not fit to declare to whom the Succession of the Crown belonged after the Kings death lest the person so designed might be thereby enabled to raise trouble and Commotions therefore they considering the Kings wise and excellent Government and confiding in the love and affection which he bore to his Subjects did give him full Power to declare the Succession to the Crown either by his Letters Patents under the great Seal or by his last will Signed with his hand and promised all faithful obedience to the persons named by him And if any so designed to succeed in default of others should endeavor to usurp upon those before them or to exclude them they are declared Traytors and were to forfeit all the Right they might thereafter claim to the Crown And if any should maintain the Lawfulness of the former Marriages or that the issue by them was legitimate or refused to swear to the Kings issue by Queen Iane they were also declared Traytors By this Act it may appear how absolutely this King Reigned in England Many question'd much the validity of it and as shall afterwards appear the Scots said that the Succession to the Crown was not within the Parliaments Power to determine aboutit but must go by inheritance to their King in default of issue by this King Yet by this the King was enabled to settle the Crown on his Children whom he had now declared Illegitimate by which he brought them more absolutely to depend upon himself He neither made them desperate nor gave them any further Right than what they were to derive purely from his own good pleasure This did also much pacifie the Emperor since his Kinswoman was though not restored in blood yet put in a capacity to succeed to the Crown At this time there came a new Proposition from Rome to try if the King would accommodate matters with the Pope Pope Clement the Seventh dyed two years before this in the year 1534. and Cardinal Farnese succeeded him called Pope Paul the Third He had before this made one unsuccessful attempt upon the King but upon the beheading of the Bishop and declared Cardinal of Rochester he had Thundered a most terrible Sentence of Deposition against the King and designed to commit the Execution of it to the Emperor Yet now when Queen Katharine and Queen Anne who were the occasions of the Rupture were both out of the way he thought it was a proper conjuncture to try if a Reconciliation could be effected This he proposed to Sir Gregory Cassali who was no more the Kings Ambassador at Rome but was still his Correspondent there The Pope desired he would move the King in it and let him know that he had ever favoured his Cause in the former Popes time and though he was forced to give out a Sentence against him yet he had never any intention to proceed upon it to further Extremities But the King was now so entirely alienated from the Court of Rome that to cut off all hopes of reconciliation he procured two Acts to be passed in this Parliament The one was for the utter extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome It was brought into the House of Lords on the 4th of Iuly And was read the first time the 5th and the second time on the 6th of Iuly and lay at the Committee till the 12th And on the 14th it was sent down to the Commons who if there be no mistake in the Journal sent it up that same day They certainly made great haste for the Parliament was dissolved within Four days The Preamble of this first Act contains severe Reflections on
Monks of his House and the Abbot of Gervanx with a monk of his House and the Abbot of Sawley in Lancashire with the Prior of that House and the Prior of Burlington who were all attainted of High Treason and Executed The Abbots of Glastenbury and Reading were men of great power and Wealth The one was rated at 3508. lib. and the the other at 2116. lib. They seeing the storm like to break out on themselves sent a great deal of the Plate and Money that they had in their House to the Rebels in the North. Which being afterwards discovered they were attainted of High Treason a year after this but I mention it here for the affinity of the matter Further particulars about the Abbot of Reading I have not yet discovered But there is an account given to Cromwel of the proceedings against the Abbot of Glastenbury in two Letters which I have seen the one was writ by the Sheriff of the County the other by Sir Iohn Russell who was present at his Trial and was reputed a man of as great Integrity and Virtue as any in that time which he seems to have left as an inheritance to that Noble Family that has descended from him These inform that he was indicted of Burglary as well as Treason for having broken the House in his Monastery where the Plate was kept and taken it out which as Sir William Thomas says was sent to the Rebels The evidence being brought to the Jury who as Sir Iohn Russel writes were as good and worthy men as had ever been on any Jury in that County they found him guilty He was carried to the place of Execution near his own Monastery where as the Sheriff writes he acknowledged his guilt and begged God and the King pardon for it The Abbot of Colchester was also attainted of High Treason What the particulars were I cannot tell For the Record of their Attainders was lost But some of our own Writers deservs a severe censure who Write it was for denying the King Supremacy whereas if they had not undertaken to write the History without any information at all they must have seen that the whole Clergy but most particularly the Abbots had over and over again acknowledged the Kings Supremacy For clearing which and discovering the Impudence of Sanders Relation of this matter I shall lay before the Reader the Evidences that I find of the Submission of these and all the other Abbots to the Kings Supremacy First in the Convocation in the 22d year of this Reign they all acknowledged the King Supream Head of the Church of England They did all also swear to maintain the Act of the Succession of the Crown made in the 25th year of his Reign in which the Popes Power was plainly condemned For in the proceedings against More and Fisher it was frequently repeated to them that all the Clergy had sworn it It is also entred in the Journal of the House of Lords that all the members of both Houses swore it at their breaking up And the same Journals inform us that the Abbots of Colchester and Reading sate in that Parliament and as there was no Protestation made against any of the Acts passed in that Session so it is often entred that the Acts were agreed to by the Unanimous consent of the Lords It appears also by several Original Letters that the heads of all the Religious Houses in England had Signed that Position that the Pope had no more Iurisdiction in this Kingdom than any forreign Bishop whatsoever And it was rejected by none but some Carthusians and Franciscans of the Observance who were proceeded against for refusing to acknowledg it When they were so pressed in it none can imagine that a Parliamentary Abbot would have been dispenced with And in the last Parliament in which the second Oath about the Succession to the Crown was enacted it was added that they should also swear the King to be the Supream head of the Church The Abbots of Glassenbury and Reading were then present as appears by the Journals and consented to it So little reason there is for Imagining that they refused that or any other Complyance that might secure them in their Abbies In particular the Abbot of Reading had so got into Cromwels good opinion that in some differences between him and Shaxton Bishop of Salisbury that was Cromwels creature he had the better of the Bishop Upon which Shaxton who was a proud ill-natured man wrote an high expostulating Letter to Cromwell Complaining of an Injunction he had granted against him at the Abbots desire He also shewed that in some contests between him and his Residentiaries and between him and the Major of Salisbury Cromwel was always against him he likewise challenged him for not answering his Letters He tells him God will judge him for abusing his Power as he did he prays God to have pity on him and to turn his heart with a great deal more provoking Language He also adds many insolent praises of himself and his whole Letter is as extravagant a piece of vanity and insolence as ever I saw To this Cromwel wrote an answer that shews him to have been indeed a great man The Reader will find it in the Collection and see from it how modestly and discreetly he carryed his Greatness But how justly soever these Abbots were attainted the seizing on their Abbey-Lands pursuant to those Attainders was thought a great stretch of Law since the Offence of an Ecclesiastical Incumbent is a Personal thing and cannot prejudice the Church no more than a secular man who is in an Office does by being Attainted bring any diminution of the Rights of his Office on his successors It is true there were some words cast into the thirteenth Act of the Parliament in the 26th year of this Reign by which divers Offences were made Treason that seemed to have been designed for such a purpose The words are that whatsoever Lands any Traytor had of any Estate of Inheritance in use or possession by any Right Title or Means should be forfeited to the King By which as it is certain Estates in Tayl were comprehended so the Lands that any Traytor had in Possession or use seem to be included and that the rather because by some following words their heirs and Successors are for ever excluded This either was not thought on when the Bishop of Rochester was Attainted or perhaps was not claimed since the King intended not to lessen the number of Bishopricks but rather to increase them Besides the words of the Statute seem only to belong to an Estate of Inheritance within which Church-Benefices could not be included without a great force put on them 'T is true the word Successor favoured these seisures except that be thought an expletory word put in out of form but still to be limited to an Estate of Inheritance That word does also import that such Criminals might have successors But if the whole Abbey
the King would submit to him p. 122 A new Session of Parliament ibid. A Subsidy is voted p. 123 The Oaths the Clergy swore to the Pope and to the King ibid. Chancellor More delivers up his Office p. 124 The King meets with the French King ibid. Eliot sent to Rome p. 125 The King Marries Anne Boleyn p. 126 New Overtures for the Divorce ibid. Anno 1533. A Session of Parliament ibid. An Act against Appeals to Rome ibid. Arch-Bishop Warham dies p. 127 Cranmer succeeds him ibid. His Bulls from Rome p. 128 His Consecration ibid. The Iudgment of the Convocation concerning the Divorce p. 129 Endeavours to make the Queen Submit p. 130 But in vain ibid. Cranmer gives Iudgment p. 131 Censures that pass upon it ibid. The Pope united to the French King p. 133 A Sentence against the Kings proceedings ibid. Queen Elizabeth is born p. 134 An Enterview between the Pope and the French King ibid. The King submits to the Pope ibid. The Imperialists oppose the agreement p. 135 And procure a definitive Sentence p. 136 The King resolves to abolish the Popes Power in England ibid. It was long disputed ibid. Arguments against it from Scripture p. 137 And the Primitive Church p. 138 Arguments for the Kings Supremacy p. 140 From Scripture and the Laws of England p. 141 The Supremacy explained p. 142 Pains taken to satisfie Fisher p. 143 Anno 1534. A Session of Parliament ibid. An Act for taking away the Popes Power p. 144 About the Succession to the Crown p. 145 For punishing Hereticks p. 147 The Submission of the Clergy ibid. About the Election of Bishops p. 148 And the Maid of Kent p. 149 The Insolence of some Friers p. 151 The Nuns speech at her death p. 152 Fisher is dealt with Gently p. 153 The Oath for the Succession taken by many p. 154 More and Fisher refuse it p. 155 And are proceeded against p. 156 Another Session of Parliament p. 157 The Kings Supremacy is Enacted ibid. An Act for Suffragan Bishops ibid. A Subsidy is granted p. 158 More and Fisher are Attainted ibid. The Progress of the Reformation p. 159 Tindal and others at Antwerp send over Books and the New Testament ibid. The Supplication of the Beggars p. 160 More answers and Frith replyes p. 161 Cruel proceeding against Reformers p. 162 Bilney's Sufferings p. 163 The Sufferings of Byfield p. 164 And Bainham p. 165 Articles abjured by some ibid. Tracy's Testament p. 166 Frith's Sufferings p. 167 His Arguments against the Corporal presence in the Sacrament ibid. His Opinion of the Sacrament and Purgatory for which he was condemned p. 169 His Constancy at his death p. 170 A stop put to Cruel proceedings p. 171 The Queen favoured the Reformers ibid. Cranmer Promoted it ibid. And was Assisted by Cromwell p. 172. A strong party against it ibid. Reasons used against it ibid. And for it p. 173. The Iudgment of some Bishops concerning a General Council p. 174 A speech of Cranmers of it ibid. BOOK III. Of the other Transactions about Religion and Reformation during the rest of the Reign of King Henry the 8th Anno 1535. THe rest of the Kings Reign was troublesome p. 179 By the practises of the Clergy p. 180 Which provoked the King much ibid. The Bishops swear the Kings Supremacy p. 181. The Franciscans only refuse it p. 182 A Visitation of Monasteries ibid. The Instructions of the Visitors p. 184 Injunctions sent by them p. 185 The State of the Monasteries in England and their Exemptions p. 186 They were deserted but again set up by King Edgar p. 187 Arts used by the Monks ibid. They were generally corrupt p. 188 And so grew the Friers p. 189 The Kings other reasons for suppressing Monasteries ibid. Cranmers design in it p. 190 The Proceedings of the Visitors ibid. Some Houses resigned to the King p. 191 Anno 1536. QVeen Katherine dies ibid. A Session of Parliament in which the lesser Monasteries were suppressed p. 193 The reasons for doing it ibid. The Translation of the Bible in English designed p. 194 The reasons for it ibid. The opposition made to it p. 195 Queen Anns fall driven on by the Popish party p. 196 The King became jealous p. 197 She is put in the Tower p. 198 She confessed some Indiscreet words p. 199 Cranmers Letters concerning her p. 200 She is brought to a Tryal p. 201 And Condemned p. 202 And also Divorced p. 203 She prepares for Death p. 204 The Lieutenant of the Tower's Letters about her ibid. Her Execution p. 205 The Censures made on this ibid. Lady Mary is reconciled to her Father and makes a full Submission p. 207 Lady Elizabeth is well used by the King p. 208 A Letter of hers to the Queen p. 209 A New Parliament is called ibid. An Act of the Succession p. 210 The Pope endeavours a reconciliation p. 211 But in vain ibid. The Proceedings of the Convocation p. 213 Articles agreed on about Religion p. 215 Published by the Kings Authority p. 217 But variously censured p. 218 The Convocation declared against the Council Summoned by the Pope p. 219 The King publishes his reasons against it p. 220 Cardinal Pool writes against the King ibid. Many Books are written for the King p. 221 Instructions for the dissolution of Monasteries p. 222 Great discontents among all sorts p. 223 Endeavours to qualifie these ibid. The people were disposed to Rebel p. 224 The Kings Injunctions about Religion p. 225 They were much censured p. 226 A Rising in Lincoln-shire p. 227 Their Demands and the Kings Answer ibid. It was quieted by the Duke of Suffolk p. 228 A great Rebellion in the North ibid. The Duke of Norfolk was sent against them p. 230 They advance to Doncaster ibid. Their Demands p. 231 The Kings Answer to them p. 232 Anno 1537. THe Rebellion is quieted p. 233 New risings soon dispersed p. 234 The chief Rebels Executed ibid. A New Visitation of Monasteries p. 235 Some great Abbots resign ibid. Confessions of horrid crimes are made p. 237 Some are Attainted p. 238 And their Abbies Suppressed p. 240 The Superstition and Cheats of these Houses discovered p. 242 Anno 1538. SOme Images publickly broken ibid. Thomas Beckets shrine broken p. 243 New Injunctions about Religion p. 245 Inâ—ectives against the King at Rome ibid. The Popes Bulls against the King ibid. The Clergy in England declared against these p. 248 The Bible is Printed in English p. 249 New Injunctions ibid. Prince Edward is born p. 250 The Complyance of the Popish party p. 251 Lambert appealed to the King p. 252 And is publickly tryed ibid. Many Arguments brought against him p. 253 He is condemned and burnt p. 254 The Popish party gain ground ibid. A Treaty with the German Princes p. 255 Bonners dissimulation ibid. Anno 1539. A Parliament is called p. 256 The six Articles are proposed ibid. Arguments against them p. 257 An Act passed for them p. 258 Which is variously
the Father Son Uncle and other such Relations there is no ground to disjoynt this so much from the rest as to make it only extend to a Marriage before the Husbands death And for any Presidents that were brought they were all in the latter Ages and were never Confirmed by any publick Authority Nor must the Practices of later Popes be laid in the Ballance against the Decisions of former Popes and the Doctrine of the whole Church and as to the Power that was ascribed to the Pope that began now to be enquired into with great Freedom as shall appear afterwards These Reasons on both sides being thus opened the Censures of them it is like will be as different now as they were then for they prevailed very little on the Queen who still persisted to justifie her Marriage and to stand to her Appeal And though the King carryed it very kindly to her in all outward appearance and employed every body that had credit with her to bring her to submit to him and to pass from her Appeal remitting the Decision of the matter to any Four Prelates and Four Secular men in England she was still unmovable and would hearken to no Proposition In the judgments that people passed the Sexes were divided the Men generally approved the Kings cause and the Women favoured the Queen But now the Session of Parliament came on the Sixteenth of Ianuary and there the King first brought in to the House of Lords the Determination of the Universities and the Books that were written for his cause by Forreigners After they were read and Considered there the Lord Chancellor did on the 20th of March with Twelve Lords both of the Spiritualty and Temporalty goe down to the House of Commons and shewed them what the Universities and Learned men beyond Sea had written for the Divorce and produced Twelve Original Papers with the Seals of the Universities to them which Sr. Brian Tuke took out of his hand and read openly in the House Translating the Latine into English Then about an Hundred Books written by Forreign Divines for the Divorce were also showed them none of which were read but put off to another time it being late When that was done the Lord Chancellor desired they would report in their Countries what they had heard and seen and then all men should clearly perceive that the King hath not attempted this matter of Will and Pleasure as strangers say but only for the Discharge of his Conscience and the Security of the Succession to the Crown Having said that he left the House The matter was also brought before the Convocation and they having weighed all that was said on both sides seemed satisfied that the Marriage was unlawful and that the Bull was of no force more not being required at that time But it is not strange that this matter went so easily in the Convocation when another of far greater consequence passed there which will require a â—ull and distinct account Cardinal Wolsey by exercising his Legantine Authority had fallen into a Premunire as hath been already shewn and now those who had appeared in his Courts and had sutes there were found to be likewise in the same guilt by the Law and this matter being excepted out of the Pardon that was granted in the former Parliament was at this time set on foot Therefore an Indictment was brought into the Kings Bench against all the Clergy of England for breaking the Statutes against Provisions or Provisors But to open this more clearly It is to be Considered that the Kings of England having claimed in all Ages a Power in Ecclesiastical Matters equal to what the Roman Emperors had in that Empire they exercised this Authority both over the Clergy and Laity and did at first erect Bishopricks grant Investitures in them call Synods make Laws about Sacred as well as Civil Concerns and in a word they Governed their whole Kingdom Yet when the Bishops of Rome did stretch their Power beyond either the limits of it in the Primitive Church or what was afterward granted them by the Roman Emperors and came to assume an Authority in all the Churches of Europe as they found some Resistance every where so they met with a great deal in this Kingdom and it was with much Difficulty that they gained the Power of giving Investitures Receiving Appeals to Rome and of sending Legates to England with several other things which were long contested but were delivered up at length either by feeble Princes or when Kings were so engaged at home or abroad that it was not safe for them to offend the Clergy For in the first Contest between the Kings and the Popes the Clergy were generally on the Popes side because of the Immunity and Protection they enjoyed from that See but when Popes became ambitious and warlike Princes then new Projects and Taxes were every where set on foot to raise a great Treasure The Pall with many Bulls and high Compositions for them Annates or first Fruits and Tenths were the standing Taxes of the Clergy besides many new ones upon emergent occasions So that they finding themselves thus oppressed by the Popes fled again back to the Crown for Protection which their Predecessors had abandoned From the days of Edward the 1st many Statutes were made to restrain the Exactions of Rome For then the Popes not satisfied with their other oppressions which a Monk of that time lays open fully and from a deep sense of them did by Provisions Bulls and other Arts of that See dispose of Bishopricks Abbeys and lesser Benefices to Forreigners Cardinals and others that did not live in England Upon which the Commonalty of the Realm did represent to the King in Parliament That the Bishopricks Abbeys and other Benefices were founded by the Kings and people of England To inform the people of the Law of God and to make Hospitality Alms and other works of Charity for which end they were endowed by the King and people of England and that the King and his other Subjects who endowed them had upon Voidances the Presentment and Collations of them which now the Pope had Usurped and given to Aliens by which the Crown would be disinherited and the ends of their endowments destroyed with other great Inconveniences Therefore it was ordained that these Oppressions should not be suffered in any manner But notwithstanding this the abuse went on and there was no effectual way laid down in the Act to punish these Transgressions The Court of Rome was not so easily driven out of any thing that either encreased their Power or their Profits Therefore by another Act in his Grand-Child Edward the 3ds time the Commons complained that these abuses did abound and that the Pope did daily reserve to his Collation Church-Preferments in England and raised the first-Fruits with other great Profits by which the Treasure of the Realm was carried out of it
sometimes made by the Emperors and sometimes confirmed by them Pope Hadrian in a Synod decreed that the Emperor should choose the Pope And it was a late and unheard of thing before the dayes of Gregory the 7th for Popes to pretend to depose Princes and give away their Dominions This they compared to the pride of Anti-Christ and Lucifer They also argued from Reason that there must be but one Supream and that the King being Supream over all his Subjects Clergy-men must be included for they are still Subjects Nor can their being in Orders change that former relation founded upon the Law of Nature and Nations no more than Wives or Servants by becoming Christians were not according to the Doctrine of the Apostles discharged from the Duties of their former Relations For the great Objection from those Offices that are peculiar to their Functions It was answered that these notwithstanding the King might well be Supream Head for in the Natural body there were many vital motions that proceeded not from the Head but from the Heart and the other inward parts and vessels and yet the Head was still the chief seat and root of Life So though there be peculiar functions appropriated to Church-men yet the King is still Head having Authority over them and a Power to direct and coerce them in these From that they proceeded to show that in England the Kings have allwayes assumed a Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters They began with the most Ancient Writing that relates to the Christian Religion in England then extant Pope Elentherius Letter to King Lucius in which he is twice called by him Gods Vicar in his Kingdom and he writ in it that it belong'd to his Office to bring his Subjects to the Holy Church and to maintain protect and govern them in it Many Laws were cited which Canutus Ethelred Edgar Edmond Athelstan and Ina had Enacted concerning Church-men many more Laws since the Conquest were also made both against appeals to Rome and Bishops going out of the Kingdom without the Kings leave The whole business of the Articles of Clarendon and the Contests that followed between King Henry the 2d and Thomas Becket were also opened And though a Bishops Pastoral care be of Divine Institution yet as the Kings of England had divided Bishopricks as they pleased so they also converted Benefices from the Institution of the Founders and gave them to Cloisters and Monasteries as King Edgar did all which was done by the Consent of their Clergy and Nobility without dependance on Rome They had also granted these Houses Exemption from Episcopal Jurisdiction so Ina exempted Glastenbury and Offa St. Albans from their Bishops visitation and this continued even till the dayes of William the Conqueror for he to perpetuate the Memory of the Victory he obtained over Harald and to endear himself to the Clergy founded an Abbey in the Field where the Battel was fought and called it Battel-Abbey and in the Charter he granted them these words are to be found It shall be also free and quiet for ever from all subjection to Bishops or the Dominion of any other persons as Christs Church in Canterbury is Many other things were brought out of King Alfreds Laws and a speech of King Edgars with several Letters written to the Popes from the Kings the Parliaments and the Clergy of England to show that their Kings did always make Laws about Sacred matters and that their Power reach't to that and to the persons of Church-men as well as to their other Subjects But at the same time that they pleaded so much for the Kings Supremacy and Power of making Laws for restraining and Coercing his Subjects it appeared that they were far from vesting him with such an absolute Power as the Popes had pretended to for they thus defined the extent of the Kings Power To them specially and principally it pertaineth to defend the Faith of Christ and his Religion to conserve and maintain the true Doctrine of Christ and all such as be true Preachers and setters forth thereof and to abolish Abuses Heresies and Idolatries and to punish with corporal pains such as of malice be the occasion of the same And finally to oversee and cause that the said Bishops and Priests do execute their pastoral office truly and faithfully and specially in these points which by Christ and his Apostles was given and Committed to them and in case they shall be negligent in any part thereof or would not diligently execute the same to cause them to redouble and supply their lack and if they obstinately withstand their Princes kind monition and will not amend their faults then and in such case to put others in their rooms and places And God hath also commanded the said Bishops and Priests to obey with all humbleness and Reverence both Kings and Princes and Governors and all their Laws not being contrary to the Laws of God whatsoever they be and that not only propter Iram but also propter Conscientiam that is to say not only for fear of punishment but also for Discharge of Conscience Thus it appears that they both limited obedience to the Kings Laws with the due Caution of their not being contrary to the Law of God and acknowledged the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the discharge of the Pastoral Office committed to the Pastors of the Church by Christ and his Apostles and that the Supremacy then pretended to was no such Extravagant Power as some imagine Upon the whole matter it was Concluded that the Popes Power in England had no good Foundation and had been managed with as much Tyranny as it had begun with Usurpation the Exactions of their Courts were every-where heavy but in no place so intolerable as in England and though many complaints were made of them in these last 300 years yet they got no ease and all the Laws about Provisors were still defeated and made ineffectual Therefore they saw it was impossible to moderate their proceedings so that there was no other Remedy but to extirpate their pretended Authority and thenceforth to acknowledge the Pope only Bishop of Rome with the jurisdiction about it defined by the Ancient Canons and for the King to re-assume his own Authority and the Prerogatives of his Crown from which the Kings of England had never formally departed though they had for this last Hundred years connived at an Invasion and Usurpation upon them which was no longer to be endured These were the Grounds of casting off the Pope's Power that had been for two or three years studied and enquired into by all the Learned men in England and had been debated both in Convocation and Parliament and except Fisher Bishop of Rochester I do not find that any Bishop appeared for the Popes Power and for the Abbots and Priors as they were generally very ignorant so what the Cardinal had done in suppressing some Monasteries and what they now heard that the
Order to another By whom And for what Cause What Mortmains they had And whether their Founders were sufficiently Authorized to make such Donations Upon what suggestions and for what Causes they were exempted from their Diocesans Their Local Statutes were also to be seen and examined The Election of their Head was to be enquired into The Rule of every House was to be considered How many professed And how many Novices were in it And at what time the Novices Professed Whether they knew their Rule and observed it Chiefly the three Vows of Poverty Chastity and Obedience Whether any of them kept any money without the Masters knowledge Whether they kept company with women within or without the Monastery Or if there were any back-doors by which women came within the precinct Whether they had any boys lying by them Whether they observed the Rules of Silence Fasting Abstinence and Hair-shirts Or by what warrant they were dispenced with in any of these Whether they did Eat Sleep wear their Habit and stay within the Monastery according to their Rules Whether the Master was too cruel or too remiss And whether he used the Brethren without partiality or malice Whether any of the Brethren were incorrigible Whether the Master made his accompts faithfully once a year Whether all the other Officers made their accompts truely And whether the whole Revenues of the House were imployed according to the intention of the Founders Whether the Fabrick was kept up and the Plate and Furniture were carefully preserved Whether the Covent-Seal and the Writings of the House were well kept And whether Leases were made by the Master to his Kindred and Friends to the damage of the House Whether Hospitality was kept and whether at the receiving of Novices any money or reward was demanded or promised What care was taken to instruct the Novices Whether any had entred into the House in hope to be once the Master of it Whether in giving Presentations to Livings the Master had reserved a Pension out of them Or what sort of Bargains he made concerning them An account was to be taken of all the Parsonages and Vicarages belonging to every House and how these Benefices were disposed of and how the Cure was served All these things were to be inquired after in the Houses of Monks or Friars And in the Visitation of Nunneries they were to Search Whether the House had a good Enclosure and if the Doors and Windows were kept shut so that no man could enter at inconvenient hours Whether any men conversed with the Sisters alone without the Abbesses leave Whether any Sister was forced to profess either by her Kindred or by the Abbess Whether they went out of their precinct without leave And whether they wore their Habit then What employment they had out of the times of Divine Service What familiarity they had with Religious men Whether they wrote Love-Letters Or sent and received Tokens or Presents Whether the Confessor was a discreet and learned man and of good reputation And how oft a year the Sisters did Confess and Communicate They were also to visit all Collegiate Churches Hospitals and Cathedrals and the Order of the Knights of Ierusalem But if this Copy be compleat they were only to view their Writings and Papers to see what could be gathered out of them about the Reformation of Monastical Orders And as they were to visit according to these Instructions so they were to give some Injunctions in the Kings Name That they should endeavour all that in them lay that the Act of the Kings Succession should be observed where it is said that they had under their Hands and Seals confirmed it This showes that all the Religious Houses of England had acknowledged it and they should teach the people that the Kings Power was Supreme on Earth under God and that the Bishop of Rome's Power was Usurped by Craft and Policy and by his ill Canons and Decretals which had been long tolerated by the Prince but was now justly taken away The Abbot and Brethren were declared to be absolved from any Oath they had Sworn to the Pope or to any Forreign Potentate and the Satutes of any Order that did bind them to a Forreign Subjection were abrogated and ordered to be razed out of their Books That no Monk should go out of the precinct nor any woman enter within it without leave from the King or the Visitor and that there should be no entry to it but one Some Rules were given about their Meals and a Chapter of the Old or New Testament was ordered to be read at every one The Abbots Table was to be served with common Meats and not with delicate and strange Dishes and either he or one of the Seniors were to be always there to entertain strangers Some other Rules follow about the distribution of their Alms their accommodation in Health and Sickness One or two of every House was to be kept at the University that when they were well Instructed they might come and teach others And every day there was to be a Lecture of Divinity for a whole hour The Brethren must all be well employed The Abbot or Head was every day to explain some part of the Rule and apply it according to Christ's Law and to shew them that their Ceremonies were but Elements introductory to true Christianity and that Religion consisted not in Habits or in such like Rites but in cleanness of Heart pureness of Living unfeigned Faith Brotherly Charity and true honouring of God in Spirit and Truth That therefore they must not rest in their Ceremonies but ascend by them to true Religion Other Rules are added about the Revenues of the House and against Wastes and that none be entred into their House nor admitted under twenty four years of Age. Every Priest in the House was to say Mass daily and in it to pray for the King and Queen If any brake any of these Injunctions he was to be denounced to the King or his Visitor-general The Visitor had also Authority to punish any whom he should find guilty of any Crime and to bring the Visitor-general such of their Books and Writings as he thought fit But before I give an account of this Visitation I presume it will not be ingrateful to the Reader to offer him some short view of the Rise and Progress of Monastick Orders in England and of the state they were in at this time What the Ancient British Monks were or by what Rule they were Governed whether it was from the Eastern Churches that this Constitution was brought into Britain and was either suited to the Rule of St. Anthony St. Pachon or St. Basil or whether they had it from France where Sulpitius tells us St. Martin set up Monasteries must be left to conjecture But from the little that remains of them we find they were very numerous and were obedient to the Bishop of Caerleon as all the Monks of the
of them than to direct their belief by them The King leaned neither to the right nor to the left hand neither to the one nor the other Party but set the pure and sincere Doctrine of the Christian Faith only before his eyes And therefore was now resolved to have this set forth to his Subjects without any corrupt mixtures and to have such decent Ceremonies continued and the true use of them taught by which all abuses might be cut off and Disputes about the Exposition of the Scriptures cease that so all his Subjects might be well instructed in their Faith and directed in the reverent worship of God and resolved to punish severely all transgressors of what sort or side soever they were The King was resolved That Christ That the Gospel of Christ and the truth should have the victory And therefore had appointed some Bishops and Divines to draw up an Exposition of those things that were necessary for the Institution of a Christian-man Who were the two Arch-Bishops the Bishop of London Duresm Winchester Rochester Hereford and St. Davids and Doctors Thirleby Robertson Cox Day Oglethorp Redmayn Edgeworth Crayford Symonds Robins and Tresham He had also appointed others to examine what Ceremonies should be retained and what was the true use of them who were the Bishops of Bath and Wells Ely Sarum Chichester Worcester and Landaff The King had also commanded the Judges and other Justices of the Peace and persons commissioned for the Execution of the Act formerly passed to proceed against all transgressors and punish them according to Law And he Concluded with an high Commendation of the King whose due praises he said a man of far greater Eloquence than himself was could not fully set forth The Lords approved of this Nomination and ordered that these Committees should sit constantly on Mundays Wedensdays and Fridays and no other days they were to sit in the afternoon But their Proceedings will require so full a Relation that I shall first open the other Affairs that passed in this Session and leave these to the last On the 14th of April the King created Cromwel Earl of Essex the Male line of the Bourchiers that had carryed that Title being extinguished This shews that the true Causes of Cromwels fall must be found in some other thing than his making up the Kings Marriage who had never thus raised his Title if he had intended so soon to pull him down On the 22d of April a Bill was brought in for Suppressing the Knights of St. Iohn of Ierusalem Their first Foundation was to be a Guard to the Pilgrims that went to the Holy Land For some Ages that was extolled as the highest expression of devotion and reverence to our Saviour to go and view the places of his abode and chiefly the places where he was Crucified Buried and ascended to Heaven Upon which many entred into a Religious Knighthood who were to defend the Holy Land and conduct the Pilgrims Those were of two sorts The Knights-Templars and Hospitallers The former were the greater and richer but the other were also very considerable The Popes and their Clergy did every-where animate all Princes and great persons to undertake expeditions into these parts Which were very costly and dangerous and proved fatal to almost all the Princes that made them Yet the belief of the pains of Purgatory from which all were delivered by the Popes Power who went on this Expedition such as dyed in it being also reckoned Martyrs wrought wonderfully on a blind and Superstitious Age. But such as could not go were perswaded That if on their death-beds they vowed to go upon their recovery and left some Lands to maintain a Knight that should go thither and fight against the Infidels it would do as well Upon this great and vast Endowments were made But there were many Complaints made of the Templars for betraying and robbing the Pilgrims and other horrid abuses which may reasonably be believed to have been true though other Writers of that Age lay the blame rather on the Covetousness of the King of France and the Popes malice to them Yet in a General Council the whole Order was Condemned and Suppressed and such of them as could be taken were cruelly put to death The Order of the Hospitallers stood yet did not grow much after that They were beaten out of the Holy-Land by the Sultans and lately out of the Isle of Rhodes and were at this time in Malta Their great Master depended on the Pope and the Emperor so it was not thought fit to let a House that was subject to a Forreign Power stand longer And it seems they would not willingly Surrender up their House as others had done Therefore it was necessary to force them out of it by an Act of Parliament which on the 22d of April was read the first time and on the 26th the 2d time and on the 29th the third time by which both their House in England and another they had in Kilmainam in Ireland were suppressed great pensions being reserved by the Act to the Priors a 1000 lib. to him of St. Iohns near London and 500 Marks to the other with very considerable allowances for the Knights which in all amounted near to 3000 lib. yearly But on the 14th of May the Parliament was Prorogued to the 25th and a vote passed that their Bills should remain in the State they were in Upon their next mâ—eting as they were going on in their business a great Change of Court broke out For on the 13th of Iune at the Council Table the Duke of Norfolk in the Kings name challenged the Lord Cromwel of high Treason and Arresting him sent him Prisoner to the Tower He had many Enemies among all sorts of persons The Nobility despised him and thought it lessened the greatness of their Titles to see the Son of a Black-Smith raised so many degrees above them His aspiring to the Order of the Garter was thought inexcusable vanity and his having so many places heaped on him as Lord Privy Seal Lord Chamberlain of England and Lord Vice-gerent with the Mastership of the Rolls with which he had but lately parted drew much envy on him All the Popish party hated him out of measure The Suppression of the Abbies was laid wholly at his door The Attaindors and all other severe proceedings were imputed to his Counsels He was also thought to be the person that had kept the King and the Emperor at such distance And therefore the Duke of Norfolk and Gardiner beside private Animosities hated him on that account And they did not think it impossible if he were out of the way to bring on a Treaty with the Emperor which they hoped would open the way for one with the Pope But other more secret reasons wrought his ruin with the King The fear he was in of a Conjunction between the Emperor and France did now abate For he understood that it went no further
often reproved him boldly for it he grew weary of him The Clergy perceiving this were resolved to fall upon him So he withdrew to Berwick but wrote to the King that if he would hear him make his defence he would return and justifie all that he had taught He taxed the cruelty of the Clergy and desired the King would restrain their Tyranny and consider that he was obliged to protect his Subjects from their severity and malice But receiving no satisfactory answer he lived in England where he was entertain'd by the Duke of Suffolk as his Chaplain Not long after this one Forrest a simple Benedictin Monk was accused for having said that Patrick Hamilton had died a Martyr yet since there was no sufficient proof to convict him a Frier one Walter Lainge was sent to confess him to whom in Confession he acknowledged he thought Hamilton was a good man and that the Articles for which he was condemned might be defended This being revealed by the Frier was taken for good evidence So the poor man was condemned to be burnt as an Heretick As he was led out to his Execution he said Fie on falshood fie on Friers revealers of Confession Let never man trust them after me they are despisers of God and deceivers of men When they were considering in what place to burn him a simple man that attended the Arch-bishop advised to burn him in some low Cellar for said he the smoak of Mr. Patrick Hamilton has infected all those on whom it blew Soon after this Abbot Hamiltons Brother and Sister were brought into the Bishops Courts but the King who favoured this Brother perswaded him to absent himself His Sister and six others being brought before the Bishop of Ross who was deputed by the Arch-Bishop to proceed against them the King himself dealt with the Woman to abjure which she and the other six did Two others were more resolute The one was Normand Gowrlay who was charged with denying the Popes Authority in Scotland and saying there was no Purgatory The other was David Straiton He was charged with the same Opinions They also alledged that he had denied that Tithes were due to Church-men and that when the Vicar came to take the Tith out of some Fish-boats that belonged to him he alledged the Tith was to be taken where the stock grew and therefore ordered the tenth fish to be cast into the Sea and bade the Vicar to seek them there They were both judged obstinate Hereticks and burnt at one Stake the 27th of August 1534. Upon this persecution some others who were cited to appear fled into England Those were Alexander Alesse Iohn Fife Iohn Mackbee and one Mackdowgall The first of these was received by Cromwel into his Family and grew into great favour with King Henry and was commonly called his Scholar of whom see what was said Page 214. But after Cromwels death he took Fife with him and they went into Saxony and were both Professors in Leipsick Mackbee was at first entertained by Shaxton Bishop of Salisbury but he went afterwards into Denmark where he was known by the name of Doctor Maccabeus and was Chaplain to King Christian the second But all these violent proceedings were not effectual enough to quench that light which was then shining there Many by searching the Scriptures came to the knowledg of the Truth and the noise of what was then doing in England awakned others to make further enquiries into matters of Religion Pope Clement the 7th apprehending that King Henry might prevail on his Nephew to follow his example wrote Letters full of earnest exhortations to him to continue in the Catholick Faith Upon which King Iames called a Parliament and there in the presence of the Popes Nuncio declared his zeal for that Faith and the Apostolick See The Parliament also concurred with him in it and made acts against Hereticks and for maintaining the Popes authority That same Pope did afterwards send to desire him to assist him in making war against the King of England for he was resolved to divide that Kingdom among those who would assist him in driving out King Henry But the firm peace at that time between the King of England and the French King kept him quiet from any trouble which otherwise the King of Scotland might have given him Yet King Henry sent the Bishop of St. Davids with the Duke of Norfolks Brother Lord William Howard to him so unexpectedly that they came to him at Sterlin before he had heard of their being sent The Bishop brought with him some of the Books that had been writ for the justifying King Henry's proceeding and desired that King would impartially examine them But he put them into the hands of some about him that were addicted to the interests of Rome who without ever reading them told him they were full of pestilent Doctrine and Heresie The secret business they came for was to perswade that King to concur with his Uncle and to agree an Interview between them and they offered him in their Masters name the Lady Mary in Marriage and that he should be made Duke of York and Lord Lieutenant of all England But the Clergy diverted him from it and perswaded him rather to go on in his design of a match with France And their Counsels did so prevail that he resolved to go in person and fetch a Queen from thence On the first of Ianuary 1537. he was married to Magdalen daughter to Francis the First But she being then gone far in a Consumption died soon after he had brought her home on the 28th of May. She was much lamented by all persons the Clergy only excepted for she had been bred in the Queen of Navarres Court and so they apprehended she might incline the King to a Reformation But he had seen another Lady in France Mary of Guise whom he then liked so well that after his Queens death he sent Cardinal Beaton into France to treat for a match with her This gave the Clergy as much joy as the former marriage had raised fear for no Family in Christendome was more devoted to the interests of the Papacy than that was And now the King though he had freer thoughts himself yet was so engaged to the pretended old Religion that he became a violent persecutor of all who differed from it The King grew very expensive he indulged himself much in his pleasures he built four noble Palaces which considering that Kingdom and that Age were very extraordinary Buildings he had also many natural Children All which things concurred to make him very desirous of Money There were two different parties in the Court The Nobility on the one hand represented to him the great wealth that the Abbots had gathered and that if he would do as his Uncle had done he would thereby raise his Revenue to the triple of what it was and provide plentifully for his Children The Clergy on
Punishments and Fines and Imprisonment upon such as sold or kept such Books But Bibles that were not of Tindals Translation were still to be kept only the Annotations or Preambles that were in any of them were to be cut out or dashed and the Kings Proclamations and Injunctions with the Primmers and other Books Printed in English for the instruction of the people before the year 1540 were still to be in force and among these Chancers Books are by name mentioned No Books were to be Printed about Religion without the Kings Allowance In no Playes nor Enterludes they might make any Expositions of Scripture but only reproach Vice and set forth virtue in them None might read the Scripture in any open Assembly or expound it but he who was Licensed by the King or his Ordinary with a Proviso that the Chancellors in Parliament Judges Recorders or any others who were wont in publick occasions to make Speeches and commonly took a place of Scripture for their Text might still do as they had done formerly Every Noble-man or Gentle-man might cause the Bible to be read to him in or about his House quietly and without disturbance Every Merchant that was a Housholder might also read it But no Woman nor Artificers Apprentices Journeymen Serving-men under the degree of Yeomen nor no Husbandmen or Labourers might read it Yet every Noble Woman or Gentlewoman might read it for her self and so might all other persons but those who were excepted Every person might read and teach in their Houses the Book set out in the year 1540. with the Psalter Primmer Paternoster the Ave and the Creed in English All Spiritual persons who preached or taught contrary to the Doctrine set forth in that Book were to be admitted for the first conviction to renounce their errors for the second to abjure and carry a Faggot which if they refused to do or fell into a third offence they were to be burnt But the Laity for the third offence were only to forfeit their Goods and Chattels and be liable to perpetual Imprisonment But these offences were to be objected to them within a year after they were committed And whereas before the Party accused was not allowed to bring Witnesses for his own Purgation this was now granted him But to this a severe Proviso was added which seemed to overthrow all the former favour that the Act of the six Articles was still in the same force in which it was before the making of this Act. Yet that was moderated by the next Proviso That the King might at any time hereafter at his pleasure change this Act or any Provision in it This last Proviso was made stronger by another Act made for the due execution of Proclamations in pursuance of a former Act to the same effect of which mention was made in the 31st year of the Kings Reign By that former Act there was so great a number of Officers of State and of the Kings Houshold of Judges and other persons to sit on these Trials that those not being easily brought together the Act had never taken any effect Therefore it was now appointed that nine Counsellors should be a sufficient number for these Trials At the passing of that Act the Lord Montjoy protested against it which is the single Instance of a Protestation against any publick Bill through this Kings whole Reign The Act about Religion freed the Subjects from the fears under which they were before For now the Laity were delivered from the hazard of burning and the Spirituality were not in danger but upon the third Conviction They might also bring their own witnesses which was a great favour to them Yet that high power which was given the King of altering the Act or any parts of it made that they were not absolutely secured from their fears of which some instances afterwards appeared But as this Act was some mitigation of former severities so it brought the Reformers to depend wholly on the Kings Mercy for their Lives since he could now chain up or let loose the Act of the six Articles upon them at his pleasure Soon after the end of this Parliament a League was sworn between the King and the Emperour on Trinity Sunday Offensive and Defensive for England Calais and the places about it and for all Flanders with many other particulars to be found in the Treaty set down at large by the Lord Herbert There is no mention made of the Legitimation of the Lady Mary but it seems it was promised that she should be declared next in the Succession of the Crown to Prince Edward if the King had no other Children which was done in the next Parliament without any reflections on her Birth and the Emperor was content to accept of that there being no other terms to be obtained The Popish party who had set up their rest on bringing the King and Emperour to a League and putting the Lady Mary into the Succession no doubt prest the Emperor much to accept of this which we may reasonably believe was vigorously driven on by Bonner who was sent to Spain an Ambassador for concluding this Peace by which also the Emperor gained much for having engaged the Crowns of England and France in a War and drawn off the King of England from his League with the Princes of Germany he was now at more leisure to prosecute his designs in Germany But the negotiation in Scotland succeeded not to the Kings mind though at first there were very good appearances The Cardinal by forging a Will for the dead King got himself and some of his party to be put into the Government But the Earl of Arran Hamilton being the nearest in blood to the young Queen and being generally beloved for his Probity was invited to assume the Government which he managed with great moderation and an universal applause He summoned a Parliament which confirmed him in his Power during the Minority of the Queen The King sent Sir Ralph Sadler to him to agree the Marriage and to desire him to send the young Queen into England And if private ends wrought much on him Sadler was empowered to offer another Marriage of the Kings second Daughter the Lady Elizabeth to his Son The Earl of Arran was himself inclinable to Reformation and very much hated the Cardinal So he was easily brought to consent to a Treaty for the Match which was concluded in August By which the young Queen was to be bred in Scotland till she was ten years of age but the King might send a Nobleman and his Wife with other persons not exceeding 20 to wait on her And for performance of this six Noblemen were to be sent from Scotland for Hostages The Earl of Arran being then Governor kept the Cardinal under restraint till this Treaty was Concluded But he corrupting his Keepers made his escape and joyning with the Queen Mother they made a strong faction against the Governor all the Clergy joyned with the
questioned for Heresie But Cranmers carriage in this matter was suitable to the other parts of his Life for he withdrew to Croydon and would not so much as be present in Parliament when so unjust an Act was passed and his absence at this time was the more considerable since the King was so dangerously ill that it must be concluded it could be no slight Cause that made him withdraw at such a time But the Duke of Norfolk had been his constant Enemy therefore he would not so much as be near the publick Councils when so strange an Act was passing But at the same time the Bishop of Winchester was officiously hanging on in the Court and though he was forbid to come to Council yet always when the Councellors went into the Kings Bed-Chamber he went with them to the door to make the World believe he was still one of the number and staying at the door till the rest came out he returned with them But he was absolutely lost in the Kings Opinion There is but one other step of Forreign business in this Reign which was an Embassy sent over by the Duke of Saxony to let the King know of the League between the Pope and the Emperor for the Extirpation of Heresie And that the Emperor was making War on him and the other Princes in pursuance of that League Therefore he desired the Kings Assistance But at the same time the Emperor did by his Agents every-where disown that the War was made upon a Religious Account And said it was only to maintain the Rights of the Empire which those Princes had affronted So the King answered that as soon as it did appear to him that Religion was the cause of the War he would Assist them But that which made this so involved was That though at Rome the Pope declared it was a Holy War and ordered Prayers and Processions to be made for Success yet the Emperor in all his Declarations took no notice of Religion He had also divided the Protestant Party so that some of them joyned with him and others were Neutrals And when in Germany it self this matter was so little understood it was easie to abuse Strangers by giving them a wrong Account of it The King was now overgrown with corpulency and fatness so that he became more and more unwieldy He could not go up or down stairs but as he was raised up or let down by an Engine And an old sore in his Leg became very uneasie to him so that all the humors in his Body sinking down into his Leg he was much pained and became exceeding froward and intractable to which his inexcusable severity to the Duke of Norfolk and his Son may be in a great measure imputed His Servants durst scarce speak to him to put him in mind of his approaching end And an Act of Parliament which was made for the security of the Kings Life had some words in it against the Foretelling of his death which made every one afraid to speak to him of it lest he in his angry and imperious humors should have Ordered them to be Endicted upon that Statute But he felt nature declining apace and so made the Will that he had left behind him at his last going into France be written over again with â—his only difference That Gardiner Bishop of Winchester whom he had appointed one of the Executors of his Will and of the Councellors to his Son till he came of Age was now left out Of which when Sir Anthony Brown put the King in mind apprehending it was only an Omission he answered That he knew Gardiners temper well enough and though he could Govern him yet none of them would be able to do it and that he would give them much trouble And when Brown at another time repeated the motion to the King he told him if he spake more of that he would strike him out of his Will too The Will was said to be Signed the 30th of December It is Printed at large by Fuller and the most Material parts of it by Heylin So I need say little of it only the most signal Clause in it was That he excluded the Line of Scotland out of the Succession and preferred the two Daughters of the French Queen by Charles Brandon to them And this leads me to discover several things concerning this Will which have been hitherto unknown I draw them from a Letter written to Sir William Cecil then Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth afterwards Lord Burleigh by William Maitland of Leithingtoun Secretary of State to the Queen of Scotland This Maitland was accounted a man of the greatest parts of any in his Nation at that time though his Treachery in turning over to the Party that was against the Queen very much blemished his other Qualities but he expiated his fault by a real Repentance which appeared in his returning to his duty and losing all afterwards in her quarrel His Letter will be found in the Collection The Substance and design of it is to clear the Right his Mistress had to the Crown of England in case the Queen should die without Heirs of her Body Therein after he had answered other Objections he comes to this of the Will To it he says That according to the Act of Parliament the Kings Will was to be Signed with his own hand but this Will was only Signed by the Stamp Then the King never Ordered the Stamp to be put to it He had been oft desired to Sign it but had always put it off but when they saw his death approaching one William Clark servant to Thomas Hennage put the Stamp to it and some Gentlemen that were waiting without were called in to Sign it as Witnesses For this he appeal'd to the deposition of the Lord Paget and desired the Marquess of Winchester and Northampton the Earl of Pembroke Sir William Petre Sir Henry Nâ—vil Sir Maurice Berkley Sir Anthony Denny Doctor Buts and some others might be examined and that their Depositions might be entred in the Chancery He also appealed to the Original Will by which it would appear That it was not Signed but only Stamped and that not being according to the Act of Parliament which in such extraordinary things must be strictly taken the Will was of no force Thus it appears what vulgar Errors pass upon the World And though for seventy five years the Scotish Race has enjoyed the Crown of England and after so long a possession it is very superfluous to clear a Title which is universally acknowledged yet the Reader will not be ill pleased to see how ill-grounded that pretence was which some managed very seditiously during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth for excluding that Line But if this Will was not signed by the King other Grantâ— was certainly made by him on his death-bed one was to the City of London of 500 Marks a year for endowing an Hospital which was called Christs
over to England But is much disliked by the King 1539. 1540. But yet Marries her And could never love her A Parliament called Where Cromwel speaks as Lord vice-gerent 1540. He is made Earl of Essex The Suppression of the Knights of St. Iohn at Ierusalem Cromwel◠〈◊〉 The King in love with Mistress Katharine Howard 1539. Cranmers friendship to Cromwel Journal Procâ—â— Parag. 58. Item Billa attincâ—â—rae Tâ—â—me Cromwel Comitis Essex de crimine Herisis Laesae Majestatis per Communes de novo concepta Allâ—nsa 〈◊〉 cum praâ—isione eidem annexa Quae quidem Billa 1º 2 do 3 â—io lecta est provisio ejusdem concernens Dâ—canatum Wellensem â—er lecta est communi omnium Procâ—rum consensu nemine discrepante expedita simul cum ea referebatur Billa Attiâ—cturae quae prius missa erat in Doâ—â—â— Communium Cromwels attaindor Collect. Numb 16. Censures past upon it The King designs a divorce from his Queen It 's referred to the convocation Collect. Numb 17. Collect. Numb 18. Reasons pretended for it 1540. Convocation agreed to it Collect. Numb 19. It is censured Collect. Numb 17. 1529. Report made to the Parl. The Queen consents to it Collect. Numb 20. An Act about the Incontinence of Priests Another about Religion 1540. Subsidies granted by thâ— Clergy And Laiety Cromweâ—s Death His Character Designs against Cranmer A Commission sits about Religion An Explanation of Faith 1539. Cranmers Opinion about it They explain the Apostles Creed 1540. The seven Sacraments With greaâ— maturity Collect. Numb 21. 1539. The ten Commandments 1540. The Lords Prayer The Ave Maria Free-will Justification Good Works All this set forth in a Book And published by the Kings Authority It is variously censured Corrections of the Mass-Book and other Offices Ex M S S. D.D. Stillingflâ—â—t A Persecution of Protestants Of Barnes and others Collect. Numb 22. Who were condemned in Parliament Their Speeches at the Stake Bonners cruelty New Bishopricks â—ounded Collect. Nâ—mb 23. Cranmer's design miscarries These Foundations censured 1541. The State of the Court at this time The Bible in English set up in all Churches Collect. Numb 24. Collect. Nuâ—b 25. 1541. Aâ—tiq Brit. in Râ—g Pâ—lo A Rule about Churchmens housekeeping * Bellaria The King goes to â—ork An account of the State of Scotland The beginings of Learning there And of the Reformation Arch-Bishop Spotswood Lesley Spotswood The Clergy were both ignorant and cruel Hamilton's sufferings The Kings Conâ—essor favâ—urs the Reâ—ormation Forrest's sufferings A further persecution in Sâ—otland The progress of the Reâ—ormation Lesley Buchanan * Regni Angliâ—i Vicarius The King wholly guided by the Clergy Two other Martyrs The Queens ill life is discovered And confessed by her self and others 1542. A new Parliament called 1542. The Act about the Queen Censures pasâ— uponit Act about Hospitals c. The Papists design to suppress the English Bible 〈◊〉 Injuâ—ctions Coll. Numâ— 26. The manner of Preaching at that time Plays and Erâ—erludes then actâ—d War between England and Scotland Duke of 〈◊〉 inroad into Scotlanâ— The Scotish Army defeated Many Prisoners taken 1543. 1543. A new Parliament Cranmer promotes a Reformation An Act â—bout it A League between the King and Emperor A Treaty for a match with the Queen of Scotland The different Interests there The French party prevails A War with France A new persecution of Protestants 〈◊〉 great ingeniousness Three burnt at Windsor Their Persecuters are perjured A Conspiracy against Cranmer 〈…〉 His Christian â—emper of wind 1544. 1544. A new Parliament Act about the Successioâ— 1542. Act against Conspiracies Collect. Numb 27. 1544. The Wars against Sâ—otlanâ— succesfulâ— Colâ—ect Numb 2â— 1545. 〈…〉 1545. The German 〈…〉 peace Church resentments given to Informers 〈◊〉 suffâ—rings in Sâ—â—â—land Spotswood A Parliament sits Chapters and Chanteries given to the King The Kings speech to the Houses The King confirms the Rights of the Universities 1546. Peace with France A new design for Reformation Shaxtons Apostacy Collect. Numb 23. The troubles of Anne Askew She endures the Râ—ck And is burnt with some others A new design against Crâ—nmâ—â— The Kâ—ngs great â—aâ—e of him Antiqu. Brit. in vita Cranmer Another design against the Queen The causes of the Duke of Norfolks disgrace 1547. The Earl of Surrey Executed The Dukes submission to the King 1547. The Parliament meets The Duke of Norfolk Attainted His death prevented by the Kings Fox The Emperors designs against the Protestants The Kings sickness Collect. Numb 30. His latter will a Forgery 1542. 1547. An account of the Kings severities against the Popish Party Some 〈◊〉 executed for denying the Kings Supremacy And Hall a Priest for conspiring against the King Three other Monks Exeâ—â—â—d 1535. Fishers Tryal and death His Character His Character A â—aindors afâ—â—â— the Rebâ—llâ—on was quâ—â—â—d 1537. Hall Censures past upon it 1538. Forrests equivocation and Heresie Hall 1538. The proceedings against Cardinal Pools friends 1539. Some Attaindors without hearing the parties 1539. 4 Instit. 37.38 1540. 1535. The Conclusion Câ—llect Aâ—denda 〈◊〉 1. Colâ—ect Addenda Nâ—mb 2. Collect. Addenda Nâ—mb 3. Collect. Addenda Numb 4. Collect. Addenda Numb 5. Collect. Addenda Numb 6. Collect. Addenda Numb 7. Collect. Addenda Numb 8. Collect. Addenda Numb 9. Collect. Addenda Numb 10. Collect. Addenda Numb 11. Collect. Addenda Numb 12. Treat Rolls Registrum Warhami Fol. 26. Tonst Regist. Fol. 33. Regist. Fitz-Williams Anno Dom. 1523. Regist. Cuthberti Tonstall Folio 40 Regist. Tonst Fol. 138. Cott. libr. Vitel. B. 12. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 12. Cotton libr. Vitellius B. 9. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 10 Cotton Libr. Vâ—â—el B. 10. Cotton libr. Vitel. â— 10. Cotton libr. Vitel. B. 10. Câ—tt libr. Vitel. B. 10. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 10. Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 12. Cott. libr. Vitel. B. 10. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 10. Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 10. Cotton libr. Vitel. B. 10. Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 12. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 10. Cotton libr. Vitel. B. 10. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 10 Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 10. Cotton libr. Vitel. B. 11. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 11. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 11. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 11. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 11. Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 11 Cotton libr. Vitel. B. 11. Cotton libr. Vitel. B. 11. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 11. Cotton Libr. Vitell. B. 13. Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 13. Cotton Libr. Vesp. B. 5. Ex M S. D. Petyt Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 13. Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 13. This is all written with his own hand and was sent over by him to the King Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 13. Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 13. Cotton Libr. Vitel. B. 13. In an Inspeximus Rot. Pat. 25. Reg. 2 d. Paâ—t Cotton Libr. Cleopat E. 4. Cott. Libr. Cleop. E. 4. Cott. Libr. Cleop. E. 4. Anno Regni 28. Regni 27. Regni 28. Regni 29. Regni 30. * In the Houses of this Order there were Cloisters for both Sexes St. Gilbert L. of Semperingham founded it
other faults have been As Phocas Brunichild Irene Mathildis Edgar of England and many more But our Church is not near so much concerned in the persons of those Princes under whom the Reformation began as theirs is in the persons of their Popes who are believed to have far higher Characters of a Divine Power and Spirit in them than other Princes pretend to And yet if the lives of those Popes who have made the greatest advances in their Iurisdiction be examined particularly Gregory the Seventh and Boniface the Eighth vices more eminent than any can be charged on King Henry will be found in them And if a leud and wicked Pope may yet have the holy Ghost dwelling in him and directing him infallibly why may not an ill King do so good a Work as set a Reformation forward And if it were proper to enter into a dissection of Four of those Popes that sate at Rome during this Reign Pope Julius will be found beyond him in a vast Ambition whose bloody Reign did not only embroil Italy but a great part of Christendome Pope Leo the Tenth was as extravagant and prodigal in his expence which put him on baser Shifts than ever this King used to raise money not by embasing the Coin or raising new and heavie taxes but by embasing the Christian Religion and prostituting the pardon of sin in that foul trade of Indulgences Clement the Seventh was false to the highest degree a vice which cannot be charged on this King And Paul the 3d. was a vile and lewd Priest who not only kept his whore but gloried in it and raised one of his Bastards to an high Dignity making him Prince of Parma and Piacenza and himself is said to have lived in Incest with others of them And except the short Reign of Hadrian the Sixth there was no Pope at Rome all this while whose example might make any other Prince blush for his faults so that Guicciardine when he calls Pope Clement a good Pope adds I mean not Goodness Apostolical for in those days he was esteemed a good Pope that did not exceed the wickedness of the worst of men In sum Gods ways are a great deep who has often shewed his Power and Wisdom in raising up unlikely and unpromising instruments to do great services in the World not always employing the best men in them lest good Instruments should share too deep in the Praises of that which is only due to the Supreme Creator and Governour of the World And therefore he will stain the pride of all Glory that such as Glory may only Glory in the Lord. Jehu did an acceptable Service to God in destroying the Idolatry of Baal though neither the way of doing it be to be imitated being grosly insincere nor was the Reformation compleat since the Worshipping the two Calves was still kept up and it is very like his chief design in it was to destroy all the Party that favoured Ahab's Family yet the thing was good and was rewarded by God So whatever this Kings other faults were and how defective soever the Change he made was and upon what ill motives soever it may seem to have proceeded yet the things themselves being good we ought not to think the worse of them because of the Instrument or manner by which they were wrought but are to adore and admire the paths of the Divine Wisdom that brought about such a Change in a Church which being subjected to the See of Rome had been more than any other part of Europe most tame under its Oppressions and was most deeply drenched in Superstition And this by the means of a Prince who was the most devoted to the Interest of Rome of any in Christendome and seemed to be so upon knowledg being very learned and continued to the last much leavened with Superstition and was the only King in the World whom that See declared Defender of the Faith And that this should have been carried on so far with so little Opposition some risings though numerous and formidable being scattered and quieted without Blood And that a mighty Prince who was Victorious almost in all his undertakings Charles the 5th and was both provoked in point of Honour and Interest yet could never find one spare season to turn his Arms upon England are great Demonstrations of a particular Influence of Heaven in these Alterations and of its watchful care of them But the other prejudice touches the Reformation in a more vital and tender part and it is That Cranmer and the other Bishops who promoted the Reformation in the Succeeding Reign did in this comply too servilly with King Henry's humours both in carrying on his frequent Divorces and in retaining those Corruptions in the worship which by their throwing them off in the beginning of King Edward's Reign we may conclude were then condemned by them so that they seem to have praevaricated against their Consciences in that Complyance It were too faint a way of Answering so severe a Charge to turn it back on the Church of Rome and to shew the base Compliances of some even of the best of their Popes as Gregory the Great whose Congratulations to the Usurper Phocas are a strain of the meanest and undecentest flattery that ever was put in writing And his Complements to Brunichild who was one of the greatest Monsters both for Lust and Cruelty that ever her Sex produced show that there was no person so wicked that he was ashamed to flatter but the blemishing them will not I confess excuse our Reformers therefore other things are to be considered for their Vindication They did not at once attain the full knowledg of divine Truth so that in some particulars as in that of the Corporal Presence in the Sacrament both Cranmer and Ridley were themselves then in the dark Bertram's Book first convinced Ridley and he was the chief instrument in opening Cranmer's eyes So if themselves were not then enlightned they could not instruct others As for other things such as the giving the Cup to the Laity the Worshiping God in a known tongue and several reformations about the Mass though they judged them necessary to be done as soon as was possible yet they had not so full a perswasion of the necessity of these as to think it a sin not to do them The Prophets words to Naaman the Syrian might give them some colour for that mistake and the practice of the Apostles who continued not only to worship at the Temple but to Circumcise and to offer Sacrifices which must have been done by St. Paul when he purified himself in the Temple even after the Law was dead by the appearing of the Gospel seemed to excuse their Compliance They had also observed that as the Apostles were all things to all men that so they might gain some so the Primitive Christians had brought in many rites of Heathenism into their worship Upon which inducements they were wrought on to comply in some uneasie
the discovery of the Indies having brought great wealth into Europe Princes began to deal more in that trade than before so that both France and England had their Instruments in Scotland and gave considerable yearly Pensions to the chief heads of Parties and Families In the search I have made I have found several Warrants for Sums of Money to be sent into Scotland and divided there among the Favourers of the English Interest and 't is not to be doubted but France traded in the same manner which continued till a happier way was found out for extinguishing these Quarrels both the Crowns being set on one head Having thus shewed the State of this Kings Government as to forreign Matters I shall next give an account of the Administration of Affairs at home both as to Civil and Spiritual Matters The King upon his first coming to the Crown did choose a wise Council partly out of those whom his Father had trusted partly out of those that were recommended to him by his Grand-Mother the Countess of Richmond and Derby in whom was the Right of the House of Lancaster though she willingly devolved her pretensions on her Son claiming nothing to her self but the Satisfaction of being Mother to a King She was a wise and Religious Woman and died soon after her Grand-Son came to the Crown There was a Faction in the Council between Fox Bishop of Winchester and the Lord Treasurer which could never be well made up though they were oft reconciled Fox always complaining of the Lord Treasurer for squandring away so soon that vast Mass of Treasure left by the Kings Father in which the other justified himself that what he did was by the Kings Warrants which he could not disobey but Fox objected that he was too easie to answer if not to procure these Warrants and that he ought to have given the King better advice In the Kings first Parliament things went as he desired upon his delivering up Empson and Dudley in which his preventing the severity of the Houses and proceeding against them at the Common Law as it secured his Ministers from an unwelcome President so the whole honour of it fell on the Kings justice His next Parliament was in the Third year of his Reign and there was considered the Brief from Pope Iulius the Second to the King complaining of the Indignities and Injuries done to the Apostolick See and the Pope by the French King and entreating the Kings assistance with such cajoling words as are always to be expected from Popes on the like occasions It was first read by the Master of the Rolls in the House of Lords and then the Lord Chancellour Warham Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the Lord Treasurer with other Lords went down to the House of Commons and read it there Upon this and other reasons they gave the King subsidies towards the War with France At this time Fox to strengthen his Party against the Lord Treasurer finding Thomas Wolsey to be a likely man to get into the Kings favour used all his endeavours to raise him who was at that time neither unknown nor inconsiderable being Lord Almoner he was at first made a Privy Counsellour and frequently admitted to the Kings presence and waited on him over to France The King liked him well which he so managed that he quickly engrossed the Kings favour to himself and for 15 years together was the most absolute Favourite that had ever been seen in England all forreign Treaties and Places of Trust at home were at his Ordering he did what he pleased and his Ascendant over the King was such that there never appeared any Party against him all that while The great Artifice by which he insinuated himself so much on the King is set down very plainly by one that knew him well in these words In him the King conceived such a loving fancy especially for that he was most earnest and readiest in all the Counsel to advance the Kings only will and pleasure having no respect to the case and whereas the Ancient Counsellors would according to the Office of good Counsellors divers times perswade the King to have some time a recourse unto the Council there to hear what was done in weighty Matters the King was nothing at all pleased therewith for he loved nothing worse than to be constrained to do any thing contrary to his pleasure and that knew the Almoner very well having secret Insinuations of the Kings Intentions and so fast as the others Counselled the King to leave his pleasures and to attend to his Affairs so busily did the Almoner perswade him to the contrary which delighted him much and caused him to have the greater affection and love to the Almoner Having got into such Power he observed the Kings Inclinations exactly and followed his Interests closely for though he made other Princes retain him with great Presents and Pensions yet he never engaged the King into any Alliance but what was for his Advantage For affairs at home after he was established in his Greatness he affected to Govern without Parliaments there being from the Seventh year of his Reign after which he got the great Seal but one Parliament in the 14th and 15th year and no more till the One and Twentieth when matters were turning about But he raised great Sums of Money by Loans and Benevolences And indeed if we look on him as a Minister of State he was a very extraordinary Person but as he was a Church-man he was the disgrace of his Profession He not only served the King in all his secret pleasures but was lewd and vicious himself so that his having the French Pox which in those days was a matter of no small infamy was so publick that it was brought against him in Parliament when he fell in disgrace he was a man of most extravagant vanity as appears by the great State he lived in and to feed that his Ambition and Covetousness were proportionable He was first made Bishop of Tourney when that Town was taken from the French then he was made Bishop of Lincoln which was the first Bishoprick that fell void in this Kingdom after that upon Cardinal Bembridge his death he parted with Lincoln and was made Arch-Bishop of York then Hadrian that was a Cardinal and Bishop of Bath and Wells being deprived that See was given to him then the Abbey of St Albans was given to him in Comendam he next parted with Bath and Wells and got the Bishoprick of Duresm which he afterwards exchanged for the Bishoprick of Winchester But besides all that he had in his own hands the King granted him a full Power of disposing of all the Ecclesiastical benefices in England which brought him in as much money as all the Places he held for having so vast a Power committed to him both from the King and the Pope as to Church-preferments it may be easily gathered what
the Proceedings in the Kings Bench since there was no justice done and all thought the King seemed more careful to maintain his Prerogative than to do Justice This I have related the more fully because it seems to have had great Influence on peoples minds and to have disposed them much to the Changes that followed afterwards How these things were entred in the Books of Convocation cannot be now known For among the other sad losses sustained in the late burning of London this was one that almost all the Registers of the Spiritual Courts were burnt some few of the Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and Bishops of London's Registers being only preserved But having compared Fox his Account of this and some other matters and finding it exactly according to the Registers that are preserved I shall the more confidently build on what he published from those Records that are now lost This was the only thing in the first 18 years of the Kings Reign that seemed to lessen the Greatness of the Clergy but in all other matters he was a most faithful Son of the See of Rome Pope Iulius soon after his coming to the Crown sent him a Golden Rose with a Letter to Arch-Bishop Warham to deliver it and though such Presents might seem fitter for young Children than for men of discretion yet the King was much delighted with it and to shew his Gratitude there was a Treaty concluded the year following between the King and Ferdinand of Arragon for the Defence of the Papacy against the French King And when in opposition to the Council that the French King and some other Princes and Cardinals had called first to Pisa which was afterwards translated to Milan and then to Lions that summoned the Pope to appear before them and suspended his Authority Pope Iulius called another Council to be held in the Lateran the King sent the Bishops of Worcester and Rochester the Prior of St. Iohns and the Abbot of Winchelcomb to sit in that Council in which there was such a Representative of the Catholick Church as had been for several of the latter Ages in the Western Church in which a few Bishops packt out of several Kingdoms and many Italian Bishops with a vast number of Abbots Priors and other Inferiour Digniâ—â—ed Clergy-men were brought to Confirm together whatever the Popes had a mind to Enact which passing easily among them was sent over the world with a stamp of Sacred Authority as the Decrees and Decisions of the Holy Universal Church assembled in a General Council Nor was there a worse understanding between this King and Pope Leo the 10 th that succeeded Iulius who did also complement him with those Papal Presents of Roses and at his desire made Wolsey a Cardinal and above all other things obliged him by conferring on him the Title of Defender of the Faith upon the presenting to the Pope his Book against Luther in a pompous Letter Signed by the Pope and 27 Cardinals in which the King took great pleasure affecting it always beyond all his other Titles though several of the former Kings of England had carried the same Title as Spelman informs us So easie a thing it was for Popes to oblige Princes in those days when a Title or a Rose was thought a sufficient Recompence for the greatest Services The Cardinal Governing all Temporal Affairs as he did it is not to be doubted but his Authority was absolute in Ecclesiastical Matters which seemed naturally to lie within his Province yet Warham made some opposition to him and complained to the King of his encroaching too much in his Legantine Courts upon his Jurisdiction and the things being clearly made out the King chid the Cardinal sharply for it who ever after that hated Warham in his heart yet he proceeded more warily for the future But the Cardinal drew the hatred of the Clergy upon himself chiefly by a Bull which he obtained from Rome giving him Authority to visit all Monasteries and all the Clergy of England and to dispence with all the Laws of the Church for one whole year after the date of the Bull. The power that was lodged in him by this Bull was not more invidious than the words in which it was conceived were offensive for the Preamble of it was full of severe Reflections against the Manners and Ignorance of the Clergy who are said in it to have been delivered over to a Reprobate mind This as it was a publick Deâ—aming them so how true soever it might be all thought it did not become the Cardinal whose Vices were notorious and scandalous to tax others whose faults were neither so great nor so eminent as his were He did also affect a Magnificence and Greatness not only in his Habit being the first Clergy-man in England that wore Silks but in his Family his Train and other pieces of State equal to that of Kings And even in performing Divine Offices and saying Mass he did it with the same Ceremonies that the Popes use who judg themselves so nearly related to God that those humble acts of Adoration which are Devotions in other persons would abase them too much He had not only Bishops and Abbots to serve him but even Dukes and Earls to give him the Water and the Towel He had certainly a vast mind and he saw the corruptions of the Clergy gave so great Scandal and their Ignorance was so profound that unless some effectual ways were taken for correcting these they must needs fall into great disesteem with the People For though he took great liberties himself and perhaps according to the Maxime of the Canonists he judged Cardinals as Princes of the Church were not comprehended within ordinary Ecclesiastical Laws yet he seemed to have designed the Reformation of the Inferiour Clergy by all the means he could think of except the giving them a good Example Therefore he intended to visit all the Monasteries of England that so discovering their corruptions he might the better justifie the design he had to suppress most of them and convert them into Bishopricks Cathedrals Collegiate Churches and Colledges For which end he procured the Bull from Rome but he was diverted from making any use of it by some who advised him rather to suppress Monasteries by the Popes Authority than proceed in a Method which would raise great hatred against himself cast foul aspersions on Religious Orders and give the Enemies of the Church great advantages against it Yet he had communicated his design to the King and his Secretary Cromwell understanding it was thereby instructed how to proceed afterwards when they went about the total suppression of the Monasteries The Summoning of Convocations he assumed by vertue of his Legantine Power Of these there were two sorts the first were called by the King for with the Writs for a Parliament there went out always a Summons to the Two Arch-Bishops for calling a Convocation of
their Provinces the Stile of which will be found in the Collection It differs in nothing from what is now in use but that the King did not prefix the day requiring them only to be Summoned to meet with all convenient speed and the Arch-Bishops having the King's pleasure signified to them did in their Writs prefix the day Other Convocations were called by the Arch-Bishops in their several Provinces upon great Emergencies to meet and treat of things relating to the Church and were Provincial Councils Of this I find but one and that called by Warham in the first year of this King for restoring the Ecclesiastical Immunities that had been very much impaired as will appear by the Writ of Summons But the Cardinal did now as Legate issue out Writs for Convocations In the year 1522. I find by the Register there was a Writ issued from the King to Warham to call one who upon that Summoned it to meet at St. Pauls the 20 th of April But the Cardinal prevailed so far with the King that on the 2 d. of May after he by his Legantine Authority dissolved that Convocation and issued out a Writ to Tonstall Bishop of London to bring the Clergy of Canterbury to St. Peter's in Westminster there to meet and reform Abuses in the Church and consider of other important Matters that should be proposed to them What they did towards Reformation I know not the Records being lost But as to the Kings Supply it was proposed That they should give the King the half of the full value of their Livings for one year to be paid in Five years The Cardinal laid out to them how much the King had merited from the Church both by suppressing the Schism that was like to have been in the Papacy in Pope Iulius his time and by Protecting the See of Rome from the French Tyrannie but most of all for that excellent Book written by him in Defence of the Faith against the Hereticks and that therefore since the French King was making War upon him and had sent over the Duke of Albany to Scotland to make War also on that side it was fit that on so great an occasion it should appear that his Clergy were sensible of their Happiness in having such a King which they ought to express in granting somewhat that was as much beyond all former Presidents as the King had merited more from them than all former Kings had ever done But the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester opposed this For they both hated the Cardinal The one thought him ungrateful to him who had raised him The other being a man of a strict Life hated him for his Vices Both these spake against it as an unheard-of Tax which would so oppress the Clergy that it would not be possible for them to live and pay it and that this would become a Precedent for after-times which would make the condition of the Clergy most miserable But the Cardinal who intended that the Convocation by a great Subsidy should lead the way to the Parliament took much pains for carrying it thorough and got some to be absent and others were prevailed on to consent to it And for the fear of its being made a Precedent a Clause was put in the Act That it should be no Precedent for after-times Others laughed at this and said It would be a Precedent for all that if it once passed But in the end it was granted with a most glorious Preamble and by it all the Natives of England that had any Ecclesiastical Benefice were to pay the full half of the true value of their Livings in Five years and all Forreigners who were Beneficed in England were to pay a whole years Rent in the same time out of which number were excepted the Bishops of Worcester and Landaffe Polidore Virgil Peter the Carmelite Erasmus of Roterdam Silvester Darius and Peter Vannes who were to pay only as Natives did This encreased the hatred that the Clergy bore the Cardinal But he despised them and in particular was a great Enemy to the Monks and looked on them as idle mouths that did neither the Church nor State any Service but were through their scandalous Lives a reproach to the Church and a burden to the State Therefore he resolved to suppress a great number of them and to change them to another Institution From the days of King Edgar the State of Monkery had been still growing in England For most of the Secular Clergy being then Married and refusing to put away their Wives were by Dunstan Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and Ethelwald Bishop of Winchester and Oswald Bishop of Worcester who were all Monks turned out of their Livings There is in the Rolls an Inspeximus of King Edgars Erecting the Priory and Convent of Worcester which bears date Anno 964. Edgari 6 to on St. Innocents-day Signed by the King the Queen Two Arch-Bishops Five Bishops Six Abbots but neither Bishoprick nor Abbey are named Six Dukes and Five Knights but there is no Seal to it It bears that the King with the Council and Consent of his Princes and Gentry did Confirm and Establish that Priory and that he had Erected 47 Monasteries which he intended to encrease to 50. the number of Jubilee and that the former Incumbents should be for ever excluded from all pretensions to their Benefices because they had rather chosen with the danger of their Order and the prejudice of the Ecclesiastical Benefice to adhere to their Wives than to serve God Chastly and Canonically The Monks being thus setled in most Cathedrals of England gave themselves up to Idleness and Pleasure which had been long complained of but now that Learning began to be restored they being every-where possessed of the best Church-Benefices were looked upon by all Learned-men with an evil eye as having in their hands the chief encouragements of Learning and yet doing nothing towards it they on the contrary decrying and disparaging it all they could saying It would bring in Heresie and a great deal of mischief And the Restorers of Learning such as Erasmus Vives and others did not spare them but did expose their Ignorance and ill Manners to the world Now the King naturally loved Learning and therefore the Cardinal either to do a thing which he knew would be acceptable to the King or that it was also agreeable to his own Inclinations resolved to set up some Colledges in which there should be both great Encouragements for eminent Scholars to prosecute their Studies and good Schools for teaching and training up of Youth This he knew would be a great honour to him to be lookt upon as a Patron of Learning and therefore he set his heart much on it to have Two Colledges the one at Oxford the other at Ipswich the place of his Birth well constituted and nobly Endowed But towards this it was necessary to suppress some Monasteries which was thought every-whit as justifiable
perhaps consummated by the Carnalis Copula who was dead without any issue but they being desirous to Marry for preserving the Peace between the Crowns of England and Spain did Petition his Holiness for his Dispensation therefore the Pope out of his care to maintain peace among all Catholick Kings did absolve them from all Censures under which they might be and Dispensed with the Impediment of their Affinity notwithstanding any Apostolical Constitutions or Ordinances to the contrary and gave them leave to Marry or if they were already Married he Confirming it required their Confessor to enjoyn them some healthful penance for their having Married before the Dispensation was obtained It was not much to be wondred at that the Pope did readily grant this for though very many both Cardinals and Divines did then oppose it yet the Interest of the Papacy which was preferred to all other Considerations required it For as that Pope being a great Enemy to Lewis the 12th the French King would have done any thing to make an Alliance against him firmer so he was a War-like Pope who considered Religion very little and therefore might be easily perswaded to Confirm a thing that must needs oblige the succeeding Kings of England to maintain the Papal Authority since from it they derived their Title to the Crown little thinking that by a secret Direction of an over-ruling Providence that Deed of his would occasion the extirpation of the Papal Power in England So strangely doth God make the Devices of Men become of no effect and turn them to a contrary end to that which is intended Upon this Bull they were Married the Prince of Wales being yet under Age. But Warham had so possessed the King with an aversion to this Marriage that on the same day that the Prince was of Age he by his Fathers command laid on him in the presence of many of the Nobility and others made a Protestation in the hands of Fox Bishop of Winchester before a publick Notary and read it himself by which he Declared That whereas he being under Age was Married to the Princess Katharine yet now coming to be of Age he did not confirm that Marriage but retracted and Annulled it and would not proceed in it but intended in full form of Law to void it and break it off which he declared he did freely and of his own accord Thus it stood during his Fathers life who continued to the last to be against it and when he was just dying he charged his Son to break it off though it is possible that no consideration of Religion might work so much on him as the apprehension he had of the troubles that might follow on a controverted Title to the Crown of which the Wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster had given a fresh and sad Demonstration The King being dead one of the first things that came under Consultation was that the young King must either break his Marriage totally or conclude it Arguments were brought on both hands but those for it prevailed most with the King So six weeks after he came to the Crown he was Married again publickly and soon after they were both Crowned On the first day of the year she made him a very acceptable new-years gift of a Son but he dyed in the Februâ—ry thereafter She miscarried often and an other Son dyed soon after he was born only the Lady Mary lived to a perfect Age. In this state was the Kings Family when the Queen leâ—t bearing more Children and contracted some diseases that made her person unacceptable to him but was as to her other Qualities a vertuous and grave Princess much esteemed and beloved both of the King and the whole Nation The King being out of hopes of more Children declared his Daughter Princess of Wales and sent her to Ludlow to hold her Court there and projected divers Matches for her The first was with the Dolphin which was agreed to between the King of France and him the 9th of Novemb. 1518. as appears by the Treaty yet extant But this was broken afterwards upon the Kings Confederating with the Emperor against France and a new Match agreed and sworn to between the Emperor and the King at Windsor the 22 of Iune 1522. the Emperor being present in person This being afterwards neglected and broken by the Emperor by the advice of his Cortes and States as was formerly related there followed some Overtures of a Marriage with Scotland But those also vanished and there was a second Treaty begun with France the King offering his Daughter to Francis himself which he gladly accepting a Match was Treated and on the last of April it was agreed that the Lady Mary should be given in Marriage either to Francis himself or to his second Son the Duke of Orleance and that Alternative was to be determined by the two Kings at an Enterview that was to be between them soon after at Calais with forfeitures on both sides if the Match went not on But while this was in agitation the Bishop of Tarbe the French Ambassador made a a great demur about the Princess Mary's being illegitimate as begotten in a Marriage that was contracted against a Divine precept with which no humane Authority could Dispense How far this was secretly concerted between the French Court and ours or between the Cardinal and the Ambassador is not known It is surmised that the King or the Cardinal set on the French to make this exception publickly that so the King might have a better Colour to justifie his suit of Divorce since other Princes were already questioning it For if upon a Marriage proposed of such infinite advantage to France as that would be with the Heir of the Crown of England they neverâ—heless made Exceptions and proceeded but coldly in it it was very reasonable to expect that after the Kings Death other Pretenders would have disputed her Title in another manner To some it seemed strange that the King did offer his Daughter to such great Princes as the Emperor and the King of France to whom if England had fallen in her Right it must have been a Province for though in the last Treaty with France she was offered either to the King or his second Son by which either the Children which the King might have by her or the Children of the Duke of Orleance should have been Heirs to the Crown of England and thereby it would still have continued divided from France yet this was full of hazard for if the Duke of Orleance by his Brothers Death should become King of France as it afterwards fell out or if the King of France had been once possessed of England then according to the maxime of the French Government that whatever their King acquires he holds it in the Right of his Crown England was still to be a Province to France unless they freed themselves by Arms. Others judged that the
King intended to Marry her to France the more effectually to seclude her from the Succession considering the aversion his Subjects had to a French Government that so he might more easily settle his Bastard Son the Duke of Richmond in the Succession of the Crown While this Treaty went on the Kings scruples about his Marriage began to take vent It is said that the Cardinal did first infuse them into him and made Longland Bishop of Lincoln that was the Kings Confessor possess the Kings mind with them in Confession If it was so the King had according to the Religion of that time very just cause of Scruple when his Confessor judged his Marriage sinful and the Popes Legate was of the same mind It is also said that the Cardinal being alienated from the Emperor that he might irreparably embroil the King and him and unite the King to the French Interests designed this out of Spite and that he was also dissatisfied toward the Queen who hated him for his lewd and dissolute Life and had oft admonished and check't him for it And that he therefore designing to engage the King to Marry the French Kings Sister the Dutchess of Alenoon did to make way for that set this Matter on foot but as I see no good Authority for all this except the Queens suspitions who did afterwards charge the Cardinal as the cause of all her trouble so I am inclined to think the Kings Scruples were much ancienter for the King declared to Simon Grineus four years after this that for seven years he had abstained from the Queen upon these Scruples so that by that it seems they had been received into the Kings mind three years before this time What were the Kings secret motives and the true grounds of his Aversion to the Queen is only known to God and till the discovery of all Secrets at the day of Judgment must lye hid But the reasons which he always owned of which all Humane Judicatories must only take notice shall be now fully opened He found by the Law of Moses if a man took his Brothers Wife they should die childless This made him reflect on the death of his Children which he now looked on as a Curse from God for that unlawful Marriage Upon this he set himself to Study the case and called for the judgments of the best Divines and Canonists For his own Enquiry Thomas Aquinas being the Writer in whose works he took most pleasure and to whose judgment he submitted most did decide it clearly against him For he both Concluded that the Laws in Leviticus about the forbidden degrees of Marriage were Moral and Eternal such as obliged all Christians and that the Pope could only Dispense with the Laws of the Church but could not Dispense with the Laws of God Upon this reason that no Law can be Dispenced with by any Authority but that which is equal to the Authority that enacted it Therefore he infers that the Pope can indeed Dispence with all the Laws of the Church but not with the Laws of God to whose Authority he could not pretend to be equal But as the King found this from his own private Study so having commanded the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to require the Opinions of the Bishops of England they all in a Writing under their hands and Seals declared they judged it an unlawful Marriage Only the Bishop of Rochester refused to set his hand to it and though the Arch-Bishop pressed him most earnestly to it yet he persisted in his refusal saying that it was against his Conscience Upon which the Arch-Bishop made another write down his Name and set his Seal to the Resolution of the rest of the Bishops But this being afterwards questioned the Bishop of Rochester denied it was his hand and the Arch-Bishop pretended that he had leave given him by the Bishop to put his hand to it which the other denied Nor was it likely that Fisher who scrupled in Conscience to Subscribe it himself would have consented to such a weak Artifice But all the other Bishops did declare against the Marriage and as the King himself said afterwards in the Legantine Court neither the Cardinal nor the Bishop of Lincoln did first suggest these scruples but the King being possessed with them did in Confession propose them to that Bishop and added that the Cardinal was so far from cherishing them that he did all he could to stiffle them The King was now convinced that his Marriage was unlawful both by his own study and the resolution of his Divines And as the point of Conscience wrought on him so the Interest of the Kingdom required that there should be no doubting about the Succession to the Crown left as the long Civil-War between the Houses of York and Lancaster had been buried with his Father so a new one should rise up at his death The King of Scotland was the next Heir to the Crown after his Daughter And if he Married his Daughter to any out of France then he had reason to judge that the French upon their Ancient Alliance with Scotland and that they might divide and distract England would be ready to assist the King of Scotland in his pretensions Or if he Married her in France then all those in England to whom the French Government was hateful and the Emperour and other Princes to whom the French Power grew formidable would have been as ready to support the pretensions of Scotland Or if he should either set up his Barstard Son or the Children which his Sister bore to Charles Brandon there was still cause to fear a Bloody decision of a Title that was so doubtful And though this may seem a consideration too Politick and Forreign to a matter of that nature yet the obligation that lies on a Prince to provide for the happiness and quiet of his Subjects was so weighty a thing that it might well come in among other Motives to incline the King much to have this matter determined At this time the Cardinal went over into France under colour to conclude a League between the Two Crowns and to Treat about the means of setting the Pope at liberty who was then the Emperours Prisoner at Rome and also for a project of Peace between Francis and the Emperour But his chief business was to require Francis to declare his Resolutions concerning that alternative about the Lady Mary To which it was answered That the Duke of Orleance as a fitter Match in years was the French King's Choice but this matter fell to the ground upon the Process that followed soon aâ—ter The King did much apprehend the opposition the Emperour was like to make to his designs either out of a principle of nature and honour to protect his Aunt or out of a Maxime of State to raise his Enemy all the trouble he could at home But on the other hand he had some cause to hope well even in that
down at his feet and in most passionate expressions begged him to be more compliant to the Kings desires and at least not to deny that small favour of showing the Decretal to some few Counsellors upon the assurance of absolute secrecy But the Pope interrupted him and with great signs of an unusual grief told him these sad effects could not be charged on him he had kept his word and done what he had promised but upon no consideration would he do any thing that might wound his Conscience or blemish his Integrity Therefore let them proceed as they would in England he should be free of all blame but should confirm their Sentence And he protested he had given Campegio no commands to make any delays but only to give him notice of their proceedings If the King who had maintained the Apostolick See had written for the Faith and was the Defender of it would over-turn it it would end in his own disgrace But at last the secret came out for the Pope confessed there was a League in Treaty between the Emperor and himself but denied that he had bound himself up by it as to the Kings business The Pope consulted with the Cardinals Sanctorum Quatuor and Simonetta not mentioning the Decretal to them which he had granted without communicating it to any body or entring it in any Register and they were of opinion that the Process should be carried on in England without demanding any thing further from Rome But the Imperial Cardinals spake against it and were moving presently for an Inhibition and an Avocation of the Cause to be tried at the Court of Rome The Pope also took notice that the Intercession of England and France had not prevailed with the Venetians to restore Cervia and Ravenna which they had taken from him and that he could not think that Republick durst do so if these Kings were in earnest It had been promised that they should be restored as soon as his Legate was sent to England but it was not yet done The Proto-Notary told him it should most certainly be done Thus ended that Conversation But the more earnest the Cardinal was to have the Bull seen by some of the Privy-Council the Pope was the more confirmed in his resolutions never to consent to it For he could not imagine the desire of seeing it was a bare curiosity or only to direct the Kings Counsellors since the King and the Cardinal could inform them of all the material Clauses that were in it Therefore he judged the desire of seeing it was only that they might have so many witnesses to prove that it was once granted whereby they had the Pope in their power and this he judged too dangerous for him to submit to But the Pope finding the King and the Cardinal so ill satisfied with him resolved to send Francisco Campana one of his Bed-chamber to England to remove all mistakes and to feed the King with fresh hopes In England Campegio found still means by new delays to put off the business and amused the King with new and subtle motions for ending the matter more dextrously Upon which in the beginning of December Sir Francis Brian and Peter Vannes the Kings Secretary for the Latine Tongue were sent to Rome They had it in Commission to search all the Records there for the Breve that was now so much talked of in Spain They were to propose several overtures Whether if the Queen vowed Religion the Pope would not dispence with the Kings second Marriage or if the Queen would not vow Religion unless the King also did it Whether in that case would the Pope dispence with his vow Or whether if the Queen would hear of no such proposition would not the Pope dispence with the Kings having two Wives For which there were diverss presidents vouched from the Old Testament They were to represent to the Pope that the King had laid out much of his best Treasure in his Service and therefore he expected the highest favours out of the deepest Treasure of the Church And Peter Vannes was commanded to tell the Pope as of himself that if he did for partial respects and fears refuse the Kings desires he perceived it would not only alienate the King from him but that many other Princes his Confederates with their Realms would withdraw their Devotion and Obedience from the Apostolick See By a dispatch that followed them the Cardinal tried a new project which was an offer of 2000 men for a Guard to the Pope to be maintained at the cost of the King and his Confederates And also proposed an enterview of the Pope the Emperor the French King and the Ambassadors of other Princes to be either at Nice Avignon or in Savoy and that himself would come thither from the King of England But the Pope resolved stedfastly to keep his ground and not to engage himself too much to any Prince therefore the motion of a Guard did not at all work upon him To have Guards about him upon another Princes pay was to be their Prisoner and he was so weary of his late Imprisonment that he would not put himself in hazard of it a second time Besides such a Guard would give the Emperor just cause of jealousie and yet not secure him against his power He had been also so unsuccesful in his contests with the Emperor that he had no mind to give him any new provocation And though the Kings of England and France gave him good words yet they did nothing nor did the King make War upon the Emperor so that his Armies lying in Italy he was still under his power Therefore the Pope resolved to unite himself firmly to the Emperor and all the use he made of the Kings earnestness in his Divorce was only to bring the Emperor to better terms The Lutherans in Germany were like to make great use of any decision he might make against any of his Predecessors Bulls The Cardinal Elector of Mentz had written to him to consider well what he did in the Kings Divorce for if it went on nothing had ever fallen out since the beginning of Luthers Sect that would so much strenghen it as that Sentence He was also threatned on the other side from Rome that the Emperor would have a General Council called and whatsoever he did in this Process should be examined there and he proceeded against accordingly Nor did they forget to put him in mind of his Birth that he was a Bastard and so by the Canon incapable of that Dignity and that thereupon they would depose him He having all these things in his prospect and being naturally of a fearful temper which was at this time more prevalent in him by reason of his late Captivity resolved not to run these hazards which seemed unavoidable if he proceeded further in the Kings business But his constant Maxime being to promise and swear deepest when he intended least he sent
Campana to England with a Letter of Credence to the Cardinal the effects of which message will appear afterwards And thus ended this year in which it was believed that if the King had employed that Money which was spent in a fruitless Negotiation at Rome on a War in Flanders it had so distracted the Emperors Forces and encouraged the Pope that he had sooner granted that which in a more fruitless way was sought of him In the beginning of the next year Cassali wrote to the Cardinal that the Pope was much inclined to unite himself with the Emperor and proposed to go in Person to Spain to solicite a general Peace but intended to go privately and desired the Cardinal would go with him thither as his Friend and Counsellor and that they two should go as Legates But Cassali by Salviati's means who was in great favour with the Pope understood that the Pope was never in greater fear of the Emperor than at that time for his Ambassador had threatned the Pope severely if he would not recal the Commission that he had sent to England so that the Pope spoke oft to Salviati of the great Repentance that he had inwardly in his heart for granting the Decretal and said He was undone for ever if it came to the Emperors knowledge He also resolved that though the Legates gave Sentence in England it should never take effect for he would not confirm it Of which Gregory Cassali gave Advertisement by an express Messenger who as he passed through Paris met Secretary Knight and Doctor Bennet whom the King had dispatched to Rome to assist his other Ambassadors there and gave them an account of his message and that it was the Advice of the Kings Friends at Rome That he and his Confederates should follow the War more vigorously and press the Emperor harder without which all their applications to the Pope would signifie nothing Of this they gave the Cardinal an account and went on but faintly in their Journey judging that upon these Advertisements they would be recalled and other Counsels taken At the same time the Pope was with his usual Arts cajoling the Kings Agents in Italy For when Sir Francis Brian and Peter Vannes came to Bononia the Proto-Notary Cassali was surprized to hear that the business was not already ended in England since he said he knew there were sufficient Powers sent about it and that the Pope assured him he would confirm their Sentence but that he made a great difference between the confirming their judgment by which he had the Legates between him and the Envy or Odium of it and the granting a Bull by which the Judgment should arise immediately from himself This his best Friends dissuaded and he seemed apprehensive that in case he should do it a Council would be called and he should be deposed for it And any such distraction in the Papacy considering the footing which Heresie had alread gotten would ruin the Ecclesiastical State and the Church So dextrously did the Pope govern himself between such contrary tides But all this Dissimulation was short of what he acted by Campana in England whose true errand thither was to order Campegio to destroy the Bull but he did so perswade the King and the Cardinal of the Popes sincerity that by a dispatch to Sir Francis Brian and Peter Vannes and Sir Gregory Cassali he chid the two former for not making more haste to Rome for he believed it might have been a great advantage to the Kings Affairs if they had got thither before the General of the Observants then Cardinal Angell He ordered them to setle the business of the Guard about the Pope presently and tells them that the Secretary was recalled and Dr. Stephens again sent to Rome And in a Letter to Secretary Knight who went no further than Lions he writ to him That Campana had assured the King and him in the Popes name that the Pope was ready to do not only all that of Law Equity or Justice could be desired of him but whatever of the fulness of his Power he could do or devise for giving the King content And that although there were three things which the Pope had great reason to take care of The calling a General Council The Emperors descent into Italy and the Restitution of his Towns which were offered to be put in his hands by the Emperors means yet neither these nor any other consideration should divert him from doing all that lay within his Authority or Power for the King And that he had so deep a sense of the Kings merits and the obligations that he had laid on him that if his resignation of the Popedom might do him any Service he would readily consent to it And therefore in the Popes name he encouraged the Legates to proceed and end the business Upon these assurances the Cardinal ordered the Secretary to haste forward to Rome and to thank the Pope for that kind message to setle the Guard about him and to tell him that for a Council none could be called but by himself with the consent of the Kings of England and France And for any pretended Council or meeting of Bishops which the Emperor by the Cardinals of his Party might call he needed not fear that For his Towns they should be most certainly restored Nor was the Emperors offering to put them in his hand to be much regarded for though he restored them if the Pope had not a better Guaranty for them it would be easie for him to take them from him when he pleased He was also to propose a firmer League between the Pope England and France in order to which he was to move the Pope most earnestly to go to Nice and if the Pope proposed the Kings taking a second Wife with a Legitimation of the Issue which she might have so the Queen might be induced to enter into a state of Religion to which the Pope inclined most he was not to accept of that both because the thing would take up much time and they found the Queen resolved to do nothing but as she was advised by her Nephews Yet if the Pope offered a Decretal about it he might take it to be made use of as the Occasion might require But by a Postscript he is recalled and it is signified to him that Gardiner was sent to Rome to negotiate these aâ—fairs who had returned to England with the Legate and his being so successful in his former Message made them think him the fittest Minister they could imploy in that Court and to send him with the greater Advantage he was made a Privy Councellour But an unlooked-for Accident put a stop to all Proceedings in the Court of Rome For on Epiphany-day the Pope was taken extreme ill at Mass and a great sickness followed of which it was generally believed he could not recover and though his distemper did soon abate so much that it
some days publick Dispute on the 1st of Iuly determined to the same purpose about which Crooks Letter will be found among the Instruments at the end of this Book At Ferrara the Divines did also confirm the same conclusion and sâ—t their Seal to it but it was taken away violently by some of the other Faction yet the Duke made it be restored The profession of the Canon-Law was then in great credit there and in a Congregation of 72 of that proâ—ession it was determined for the King but they asked 150 Crowns foâ— setting the Seal to it and Crook would not give more than an hundred the next day he came and offered the Money but then it was told him they would not meddle in it and he could not afterwards obtain it In all Crook sent over by Stokesley an hundred several Books Papers and Subscriptions and there were many hands subscribed to many of those Papers But it seems Crook died before he could receive a reward of this great Service he did the King for I do not find him mentioned after this I hope the Reader will forgive my insisting so much on this Negotiation for it seemed necessary to give full and convincing Evidences of the sincerity of the Kings proceedings in it since it is so confidently given out that these were but mercenary Subscriptions What difficulties or opposition those who were employed in France found does not yet appear to me but the Seals of the chief Universities there were procured The University of Orleance determined it on the 7th of April The faculty of the Canon-Law at Paris did also conclude that the Pope had no Power to dispence in that Case on the 25th of May. But the great and celebrated faculty of the Sorbon whose Conclusions had been lookt on for some Ages as little inferiour to the Decrees of Councils made their Decision with all possible Solemnity and Decency They first met at the Church of St. Mathurin where there was a Mass of the H. Ghost and every one took an Oath to study the Question and resolve it according to his Conscience and from the 8th of Iune to the 2d of Iuly they continued searching the matter with all possible diligence both out of the Scriptures the Fathers and the Councils and had many Disputes about it After which the greater part of the Faculty did Determine That the King of Englands Marriage was unlawful and that the Pope had no Power to dispence in it and they set their common Seal to it at St. Mathurin's the 2d of Iuly 1530. To the same purpose did both the Faculties of Law Civil and Canon at Angiers Determine the 7th of May. On the 10th of Iune the Faculty of Divinity at Bourges made the same Determination And on the 1st of October the whole University of Tholose did all with one consent give their judgment agreeing with the former Conclusions More of the Decisions of Universities were not Printed though many more were obtained to the same effect In Germany Spain and Flanders the Emperors Authority was so great that much could not be expected except from the Lutherans with whom Cranmer conversed and chiefly with Osiander whose Neece he then Married Osiander upon that wrote a Book about Incestuous Marriages which was published but was called in by a Prohibition Printed at Ausburg because it Determined in the Kings cause and on his side But now I find the King did likewise deal among those in Switzerland that had set up the Reformation The Duke of Suffolk did most set him on to this so one who was imployed in that time writes for he often asked him how he could so humble himself as to submit his Cause to such a vile vitious stranger Priest as Campegio was To which the King answered He could give no other reason but that it seemed to him Spiritual men should judge Spiritual things yet he said he would search the matter further but he had no great mind to seem more curious than other Princes But the Duke desired him to discuss the matter secretly amongst Learned men to which he consented and wrote to some Forreign Writers that were then in great estimation Erasmus was much in his favour but he would not appear in it He had no mind to provoke the Emperor and live uneasily in his own Country But Simon Grineus was sent for whom the King esteemed much for his Learning The King informed him about his Process and sent him back to Basil to try what his Friends in Germany and Switzerland thought of it He wrote about it to Bucer Oecolampadius Zuinglius and Paulus Phrygion Oecolampadius as it appears by three Letters one dated the 10th of August 1531. another the last of the same Month another to Bucer the 10th of September was positively of Opinion That the Law in Leviticus did bind all mankind and says That Law of a Brothers Marrying his Sister-in-Law was a Dispensation given by God to his own Law which belonged only to the Jews and therefore he thought that the King might without any scruple put away the Queen But Bucer was of another mind and thought the Law in Leviticus did not bind and could not be Moral because God had dispensed with it in one Case of raising up seed to his Brother Therefore he thought these Laws belonged only to that Dispensation and did no more bind Christians than the other Ceremonial or Judiciary Precepts and that to Marry in some of these Degrees was no more a sin than it was a sin in the Disciples to pluck Ears of Corn on the Sabbath-day There are none of Bucers Letters remaining on this Head but by the answers that Grineus wrote to him one on the 29th of August another of the 10th of September I gather his Opinion and the reasons for it But they all agreed That the Popes Dispensation was of no force to alter the nature of the thing Paulus Phrygion was of Opinion That the Laws in Leviticus did bind all Nations because it is said in the Text That the Canaanites were punished for doing contrary to them which did not consist with the Iustice of God if those Prohibitions had not been parts of the Law of Nature Dated Basil the 10th of September In Grineus's Letter to Bucer he tells him that the King had said to him That now for seven years he had perpetual trouble upon him about this Marriage Zuinglius Letter is very full First he largely proves that neither the Pope nor any other Power could dispence with the Law of God Then that the Apostles had made no new Laws about Marriage but had left it as they found it That the Marrying within near degrees was hated by the Greeks and other Heathen Nations But whereas Grineus seemed to be of opinion that though the Marriage was ill made yet it ought not to be dissolved and inclined rather to advise that the King should take
and many Clerks advanced in the Realm were put out of their Benefices by those Provisors therefore the King being bound by Oath to see the Laws kept did with the assent of all the great men and the Commonalty of the Realm ordain that the free Elections Presentments and Collations of Benefices should stand in the Right of the Crown or of any of his Subjects as they had formerly enjoyed them notwithstanding any Provisions from Rome And if any did disturb the Incumbents by vertue of such Provisions those Provisors or others employed by them were to be put in Prison till they made Fine and Ransome to the King at his will or if they could not be apprehended writs were to be issued out to seize them and all Beneficeâ— possessed by them were to fall into the Kings hands except they were 〈◊〉 or Priories that fell to the Canons or Colledges By another Act the Provisors were put out of the Kings Protection and if any man offended against them in Person or Goods he was excused and was never to be impeached for it And two years after that upon another Complaint of their Suing the Kings Subjects in other Courts or beyond Sea it was Ordained that any who Sued either beyond Sea or in any other Court for things that had been Sued and about which judgment had been given in former times in the Kings Courts were to be Cited to answer for it in the Kings Courts within two Months and if they came not they were to be put out of the Kings Protection and to forfeit their Lands Goods and Chattels to the King and to be imprisoned and ransomed at the Kings will Both these Statutes received a new Confirmation Eleven years after that But those Statutes proved ineffectual and in the beginning of the Reign of Richard the 2d the former Acts were Confirmed by another Statute and appointed to be Executed and not only the Provisors themselves but all such as took Procuratories Letters of Attourney or Farms from them were involved in the same Guilt And in the 7th year of that King Provisions was made against Aliens having Benefices without the Kings Licence and the King promised to abstain from granting them Licences for this was another Artifice of the Roman Court to get the King of their side by accepting his Licence which by this Act was restrained This failing they betook themselves to another course which was to prevail with the Incumbents that were presented in England according to Law to take Provisions for their Benefices from Rome to Confirm their Titles This was also forbidden under the former Pains As for the Rights of Presentations by the Law they were tryed and judged in the Kings Courts and the Bishops were to give Institution according to the Title declared in these judgments This the Popes had a mind to draw to themselves and to have all Titles to Advousons tryed in their Courts and Bishops were Excommunicated who proceeded in this matter according to the Law Of which great Complaint was made in the 16th year of the Reign of Richard the 2d And it was added to that that the Pope intended to make many Translations of Bishops some to be within and some out of the Realm which among other Inconveniences reckoned in the Statute would produce this effect That the Crown of England which had been so free at all times should be subjected to the Bishop of Rome and the Laws and Statutes of the Realm by him defeated and destroyed at his Will They also found those things to be against the Kings Crown and Regality used and approved in the time of his Progenitors Therefore all the Commons resolved to live and dye with him and his Crown and they required him by way of Iustice to Examine all the Lords Spiritual and Temporal what they thought of those things and whether they would be with the Crown to uphold the Regality of it To which all the Temporal Lords answered they would be with the Crown But the Spiritual Lords being asked said they would neither deny nor affirm that the Bishop of Rome might or might not Excommunicate Bishops or make Translations of Prelates But upon that Protestation they said that if such things were done they thought it was against the Crown and said they would be with the King as they were bound by their Leageance whereupon it was ordained that if any did purchase Translations Sentences of Excommunication Bulls or other Instruments from the Court of Rome against the King or his Crown or whosoever brought them to England or did receive or execute them they were out of the Kings Protection and that they should forfeit their Goods and Chattels to the King and their Persons should be imprisoned And because the Proceedings were to be upon a writ called from the most material words of it Premunire facies this was called the Statute of Premunire When Henry the 4th had Treasonably Usurped the Crown all the Bishops Carlisle only excepted did assist him in it and he did very gratefully oblige them again in other things yet he kept up the force of the former Statutes For the Cistercian Order having procured Bulls discharging them of paying Tithes and forbiding them to let their Farms to any but to possess them themselves This was complained of in Parliament in the 2d year of his Reign and those Bulls were declared to be of no force and if any did put them in Execution or procured other such Bulls they were to be proceeded against upon the Statutes made in the 13th year of the former Kings Reign against Provisors But all this while though they made Laws for the future yet they had not the Courage to put them in Execution And this Feebleness in the Government made them so much despised and so oft broken whereas the severe execution of one Law in one Instance would more effectually have prevenâ—ed the Mischief than all these Laws did without Execution In the 6th year of his Reign Complaints being made of the excessive Rates of Compositions for Arch-Bishopricks and Bishopricks in the Popes Chamber which were raised to the treble of what had been formerly payed it was Enacted That they should pay no more than had been formerly wont to be payed In the 7th year of his Reign the Statuâ—e made in the 2d year was confirmed and by another Act the Licences which the King had Granted for the Executing any of the Popes Bulls are declared of no force to prejudice any Incumbent in his Right Yet the abuses and Encroachments of the Court of Rome still encreasing all former Statutes against Provisors were Confirmed again and all Elections declared free and not to be interrupted either by the Pope or the King But at the same time the King pardoned all the former Transgressions against these Statutes By those Pardon 's the Court of Rome was more encouraged than terrified by the Laws therefore there was a
Therefore he requires them under pain of Damnation to repeal it and offers to secure them from any abuses which might have crept in formerly with these Provisions This is dated the Third of October Decimo Pontificat but I believe it is an error of the Transcriber and that its true date was the 13th of October The Parliament sate in Ianuary 1427 being the 6th year of King Henry the 6th during which on the 30th of Ianuary the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury accompanyed by the Arch-Bishop of York the Bishops of London St. Davids Ely and Norwich and the Abbots of Westminster and Reading went from the House of Lords to the place where the House of Commons ordinarily sate which was the Refectory of the Abbey of Westminster where the Arch-Bishop made a long Speech in the form of a Sermon upon that Text Render to Coesar the things that are Coesars and to God the things that are Gods He began with a Protestation that he and his Brethren intended not to say any thing that might derogate from the King the Crown or the people of England Then he alledged many things for the Popes Power in granting Provisions to prove it was of Divine Right and admonished and required them to give the Pope satisfaction in it otherwise he laid out to them with tears what mischiefs might follow if he proceeded to censures which will appear more fully from the Instrument that will be found in the Collection at the end But it seems the Parliament would do nothing for all this for no Act neither of Repeal nor Explanation was passed Yet it appears the Pope was satisfied with the Arch-Bishops carriage in this matter for he soon after restored him to the Exercise of his Legantine Power as Godwin has it only he by a mistake says he was made Legate Anno 1428. whereas it was only a Restitution after a Censure Thus stood the Law of England in that matter which was neither Repealed nor well Executed for the Popes Usurpations still encreasing those Statutes lay dead among the Records and several Cardinals had procured and executed a Legantine Power which was clearly contrary to them And as Cardinal Wolsey was already brought under the lash for it so it was now made use of partly to give the Court of Rome apprehensions of what they were to expect from the King if they went on to use him ill and partly to proceed severely against all those of the Clergy who adhared obstinately to the Interests of that Court and to make the rest compound the matter both by a full Submission and a considerable Subsidy It was in vain to pretend it was a publick and allowed Error and that the King had not only connived at the Cardinals Proceedings but had made him all that while his chief Minister That therefore they were excusable in submitting to an Authority to which the King gave so great encouragement and that if they had done otherwise they had been unavoidably ruined For to all this it was answered that the Laws were still in force and that their Ignorance could not excuse them since they ought to have known the Law yet since the violation of it was so publick though the Court proceeded to a Sentence That they were all out of the Kings protection and were liable to the pains in the Statutes the King was willing upon a reasonable Composition and a full Submission to Pardon them So in the Convocation of Canterbury a Petition was brought in to be offered to the King In the Kings Title he was called the Protector and Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of England To this some opposition was made and it was put off to another day but by the Interposition of Cromwell and others of the Kings Council who came to the Convocation and used arguments to perswade them to it they were prevailed with to pass it with that Title at least none speaking against it For when Warham Arch-Bishop of Canterbury said That silence was to be taken for consent They cried out they were then all silent Yet it was moved by some to add these words to the Title in so far as is lawful by the Law of Christ. But Parker says The King disliked that Clause since it left his Power still disputable therefore it was cast out and the Petition passed simply as it was first brought in Yet in that he was certainly misinformed for when the Convocation of the Province of York demurred about the same Petition and sent their reasons to the King why they could not acknowledge him Supreme Head which as appears by the Kings answer to them were chiefly founded on this that the term Head was improper and did not agree to any under Christ the King wrote a long and sharp answer to them and showed them that words were not always to be understood in their strict sense but according to the common acceptation And among other things he showed what an Explanation was made in the Convocation of Canterbury That it was in so far as was agreeable to the Law of Christ by which it appears that at that time the King was satisfied to have it pass any way and so it was agreed to by nine Bishops the Bishop of Rochester being one and 52 Abbots and Priors and the major part of the lower House of Convocation in the Province of Canterbury Of which number it is very probable Reginald Pool was for in his Book to the King he says he was then in England and adds that the King would not accept of the sum the Clergy offered unless they acknowledged him Supreme Head he being then Dean of Exceter was of the lower House of Convocation and it is not likely the King would have continued the Pensions and other Church-Preferments he had if he had refused to Signe that Petition and Submission By it they prayed the King to accept 100000 l. in lieu of all punishments which they had incurred by going against the Statutes of Provisors and did promise for the future neither to make nor execute any Constitution without the Kings Licence upon which he granted them a general Pardon and the Convocation of the Province of York offering 18840 l. with another Submission of the same nature afterwards though that met with more opposition they were also Pardoned When the King 's Pardon for the Clergy was brought in to the House of Commons they were much troubled to find themselves not included within it for by the Statutes of Provisors many of them were also liable and they apprehended that either they might be brought in trouble or at least it might be made use of to draw a Subsidy from them so they sent their Speaker with some of their Members to represent to the King the great grief of his Commons to find themselves out of his favour which they concluded from the Pardon of the pains of Premunire to his Spiritual Subjects in which
House of Convocation and when it was put to the Vote 14 were for the Affirmative 7 for the Negative one was not clear and another voted the Prohibition to be Moral but yet dispensable by the Pope In the Upper House it was long debated Stokesly Bishop of London arguing for the Affirmative and Fisher Bishop of Rochester for the Negative The Opinions of 19 Universities were read for it and the oneHouse being as full as the other was empty 216 being present either in person or by Proxy it was carried in the Affirmative Nemine contradicente those few of the Queens party that were there it seems going out For the other Question about the Matter ofFact it was remitted to the Faculty of the Canon Law it being a matter that lay within their Stâ—dies whether the Presumptions were violent and such as in the course of Law must be look'd on as good Evidences of a thing that was secret and was not capable of formal proof They all except five or six were for the Affirmative and all the Upper House confirmed this the Bishop of Bath and Wells onely excepted In this account it may seem strange that there were but 23 persons in the Lower House of Convocation and 216 in the Upper House It is taken from an unquestioned Authority so the Matter of Fact is not to be doubted The most Learned Sir Henry Spelman has in no place of his Collection of our Councils considered the Constitution of the two Houses of Convocation and in none of our Records have I been able to discover of what persons they were made up in the Times of Popery and therefore since we are left to conjecture I shall offer mine to the learned Reader It is that none sate in the Lower House but those who were deputed by the inferiour Clergy and that Bishops Abbots Mitered and not Mitered and Priors Deans and Archdeacons sate then in the Upper House of Convocation To which I am induced by these two Reasons It is probable that all who were declared Prelates by the Pope and had their Writ to sit in a General Council had likewise a right to come to the Upper House of Convocation and sit with the other Prelates And we find in the Tomes of the Councils that not onely Abbots and Priors but Deans and Archdeacons were summoned to the fourth Council in the Lateran and to that at Vienna Another Reason is that their sitting in two Houses for in all other Nations they sit together looks as if it had been taken from the Constitution of our Parliament in which all that have Writs personally sit in the Lords House and those who come upon an Election sit in the Lower House So it is not improbable that all who were summoned personally sate in the Upper House and those who were returned with an Election sate in the Lower House of Convocation This Account of that Convocation I take from that Collection of the British Antiquities which is believed to have been made by Matthew Parker who lived at that time and was afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury But the Convocation Books being burnt there are no Records to be appealed to yet it is not to be supposed that in a Matter of Fact that was so publick and well known any man especially one of that high Rank would have delivered Falshoods while the Books were yet extant that would have disproved them The Church of England having in her Representative made such a full Decision nothing remained but to give Judgment and to declare the Marriage Null The thing was already determined onely the Formality of a Sentence Declarative was wanting But before they proceeded to that a new Message was sent to the Queen to lay all that had passed before her and to desire her to acquiesce in the Opinions of so many Universities and Learned Men. But she still persisted in her Resolution to own her Marriage and to adhere to her Appeal till the Pope should judge in it And when it was told her that the King would settle the Joynture that she was to have by his Brother and that the Honour of Princess of Wales should still be paid her she rejected it But the new Queen was now with child and brought forth Queen Elizabeth the 7th of September this year from which looking backwards nine moneths to the beginning of December it shews that she must have been married at or before that time for all the Writers of both sides agree that she was married before she conceived with child The King therefore thought not fit to conceal it much longer so on Easter Eve she was declared Queen of England It seems it was not thought needful at that time to proceed to any further Sentence about the former Marriage otherwise I cannot see what made it be so long delayed since the thing was in their power now as well as after And it was certainly a preposterous Method to judge the first Marriage Null after the second was published So that it seems more probable they did not intend any Sentence at all till afterwards perhaps upon Advertisements from beyond Sea they went on to a formal Process Nor is it unlikely that the King remembering the old Advice that the Pope sent him once to marry a second Wife and then to send for a Commission to try the matter which the Pope was willing to confirm though he would not seem to allow it originally resolved to follow this Method for the Pope was now closing with Francis from which Union the King had reason to expect great Advantages Whatsoever were the Reasons of the Delay the Process was framed in this Method First Cranmer wrote to the King that the World had been long scandalized with his Marriage and that it lay on him as his Duty to see it tried and determined therefore craved his Royal Leave to proceed in it Which being obtained both the King and Queen were cited to appear before the Archbishop at Dunstable the 20th of May and the Archbishop went thither with the Bishops of London Winchester Gardiner Bath and Wells and Lincoln and many Divines and Canonists That place was chosen because the Queen lay then very near it at Ampthill and so she could not pretend ignorance of what was done and they needed not put many days in the Citation but might end the Process so much the sooner On the 10th of May the Archbishop sate in Court and the King appeared by Proxy but the Queen appeared not Upon which she was declared Contumax and a second Citation was issued out and after that a third But she intended not to appear and so she was finally declared Contumax Then the Evidences that had been brought before the Legates of the Consummation of the Marriage with Prince Arthur were read After that the Determinations of the Universities and Divines and Canonists were also produced and read Then the Judgments of the Convocations of both Provinces were also
over his own Clergy that he could sâ—arce have expected more if he had set up a Patriarch in France so that Francis did resolve to go on in the designs which had been concerted between him and the King of England no further but still he considered his alliance so much that he promised to use his most effectual intercession with the Pope to prevent all Censures and Bulls against the King and if it were possible to bring the matter to an Amicable conclusion And the Emperor was not ill-pleased to see France and England divided Therefore though he had at first opposed the Treaty between the Pope and Francis yet afterwards he was not troubled that it took effect hoping that it would dis-unite those two Kings whose conjunction had been so troublesome to him But when the news was brought to Rome of what was done in England with which it was also related that Books were coming out against the Popes Supremacy all the Cardinals of the Imperial Faction pressed the Pope to give a definitive Sentence and to proceed to Censures against the King But the more moderate Cardinals thought England was not to be thrown away with such precipitation And therefore a temper was found that a Sentence should be given upon what had been attempted in England by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury which in the Stile of the Canon-Law were called the Attentates for it was pretended that the matter depending in the Court of Rome by the Queens Appeal and the other steps that had been made it was not in the Arch-Bishop's Power to proceed to any Sentence Therefore in general it was declared that all that had been attempted or done in England about the Kings Suit of Divorce was null and that the King by such attempts was liable to Excommunication unless he put things again in the state they were in and that before September next and that then they would proceed further and this Sentence was affixed in Dunkirk soon after The King resolving to follow the thing as far as it was possible sent a great Embassy to Francis who was then on his Journey to Marseilles to dissuade the Interview and Marriage till the Pope gave the King satisfaction But the French King was engaged in honour to go forward yet he protested he would do all that lay in his Power to compose the matter and that he would take any injury that were done to the King as highly as if it were done to himself and he desired the King would send some to Marseilles who thereupon sent Gardiner and Sir Francis Brian But at this time the Queen brought forth a Daughter who was Christened Elizabeth the renowned Queen of England the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury being her God-Father She was soon after declared Princess of Wales though Lawyers thought that against Law for she was only Heir presumptive but not apparent to the Crown since a Son coming after he must be preferred Yet the King would justifie what he had done in his Marriage with all possible respect and having before declared the Lady Mary Princess of Wales he did now the same in favour of the Lady Elizabeth The Interview between the Pope and the French King was at Marseilles in October where the Marriage was made up between the Duke of Orleance and Katharine de Medici to whom besides 100000 Crowns Portion the Principality of many Towns in Italy as Milan Reggio Pisa Legorn Parma and Piacenza and the Dutchy of Urbin were given To the former the Pope pretended in the Right of the Popedom and to the last in the Right of the House of Medici But the French King was â—o clear all those Titles by his Sword As for the Kings business the Pope referred it to the Consistory But it seems there was a secret Transaction between him and Francis that if the King would in all other things return to his wonted obedience to the Apostolick See and submit the matter to the judgment of the Consistory excepting only to the Cardinals of the Imperial Faction as partial and incompetent judges the Decision should be made to his hearts content This I collect from what will afterwards appear The King upon the Sentence that was passed against him sent Bonner to Marseilles who procuring an Audience of the Pope delivered to him the Authentick Instrument of the Kings Appeal from him to the next general Council lawfully called At this the Pope was much incensed but said he would consider of it in Consistory and having consulted about it there he answered that the Appeal was unlawful and therefore he rejected it and for a general Council the calling of it belonged to him and not to the King About the same time the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury being threatned with a Process from Rome put in also his Appeal to the next general Council Upon which Bonner delivered the threatnings that he was ordered to make with so much vehemency and fury that the Pope talked of throwing him in a Cauldron of melted Lead or of Burning him alive and he apprehending some danger made his escape About the middle of November the Interview ended the Pope returning to Rome and the French King to Paris a firm Alliance being established between them But upon the Duke of Orleance his Marrying the Pope's Neece I shall add one observation that will neither be unpleasant nor impertinent The Duke of Orleance was then but Fourteen years and Nine Months old being born on the last of March 1518. and yet was believed to have consummated his Marriage the very first night after so the Popes Historians tell us with much Triumph though they represented that improbable if not impossible in Prince Arthur who was nine Months elder when he died Upon the French Kings return from Marseilles the Bishop of Paris was sent over to the King which as may be reasonably collected followed upon some Agreement made at Marseilles and he prevailed with the King to submit the whole matter to the Pope and the Consistory on such terms that the Imperialists should not be allowed a Voice because they were Parties being in the Emperor's Power None that has observed the genius of this King can think that after he had proceeded so far he would â—aâ—e made this Submission without very good assurances and if there had not been great grounds to expect good effects from it the Bishop of Paris would not in the middle of Winter have undertaken a Journey from England to Rome But the King it seems would not abase himself so far as to send any Submission in writing till he had fuller assurances The Lord Herbert has published a Letter which he transcribed from the Original written by the Arch-Bishop of York and the Bishop of Duresmâ— to the King the 11th of May 1534. giving an account of a Conference they had with Queen Katharine in which among other motives they used this was one to perswade her to comply with what
the King had done That the Pope had said at Marseilles that if the King would send a Proxy to Rome he would give the Cause for him against the Queen because he knew his Cause was good and just Which is a great presumption that the Pope did really give some engagements to the French King about the King's business When the Bishop of Paris came to Rome the Motion was liked and it was promised that if the King sent a promise of that under his Hand with an Order to his Proxies to appear in Court there should be Judges sent to Cambray to form the Process and then the matter should be Determined for him at Rome This was sent to the King with the Notice of the day that was prefixed for the return of his answer and with other Motives which must have been very great since they prevailed so much For in answer there was a Courier dispatcht from the King with a formal promise under his Hand And now the matter seemed at a point the French Interest was great in the Court of Rome four new Cardinals had been made at Marseilles and there were six of that Faction before which with the Popes Creatures and the indifferent or venal Voices ballanced the Imperial Faction so that a wound that was looked on as fatal was now almost healed But God in his wise and unsearchable Providence had designed to draw other great ends out of this Rupture and therefore suffered them that were the most concerned to hinder it to be the chief instruments of driving it on For the Cardinals of the Imperial Faction were now very active they liked not the President of excluding the Cardinals of the Nations concern'd out of any business But above all things they were to hinder a Conjunction between the Pope and the King of England for the Pope being then allied to France there was nothing the Emperor feared more than the closing the Breach with England which would make the union against him so much stronger Therefore when the day that had been prefixed for the return of the Courier from England was elapsed they all pressed the Pope to proceed to a Sentence Definitive and to Censures Bellay the Bishop of Paris represented the injustice of proceeding with so much Precipitation since where there were Seas to cross in such a Season many accidents might occasion the delay of the Express The King of England had followed this Suit six years and had patience so long therefore he desired the delay of six dayes and if in that time no return came they might proceed But the Imperialists represented that those were only delays to gain time and that the King of England was still proceeding in his contempt of the Apostolick See and of the Cardinals and publishing Books and Libels against them This so wrought on the angry Pope that without consulting his ordinary prudence he brought the business into the Consistory where the Plurality of voices carryed it to proceed to a Sentence And though the Process had been carryed on all that winter in their usual Forms yet it was not so ripe but by the Rules of the Consistory there ought to have been three Sessions before Sentence was given But they concluded all in one day and so on the 23d of March the Marriage between the King and Queen Katharine was declared good and the King required to take her as his wife otherwise Censures were to be denounced against him Two days after that the Courier arrived from England with the Kings Submission under his hand in due Form and earnest Letters from the French King to have it accepted that so the business might be composed When this was known at Rome all the indiâ—â—erent and wise Cardinals among whom was Farnese that was afterwards Pope Paul the 3d. came to the Pope and desired that it might be again considered before it went furâ—her So it was brought again into the Consistory But the secret reason of the Imperialists opposing it was now more pressing since there was such an appearance of a settlement if the former Sentence were once recalled Therefore they so managed the matter that it was confirmed a-new by the Pope and the Consistory and they ordered the Emperor to execute the Sentence The King was now in so good hope of his business that he sent Sr. Edward Karne to Rome to prosecute his Suit who on his way thither met the Bishop of Paris coming back with this Melancholick account of his unprosperous Negotiation When the King heard it and understood that he was used with so much scorn and contempt at Rome being also the more vexed because he had come to such a submission he resolved then to break totally from Rome And in this he was before hand with that Court. For judging it the best way to procure a peace to manage the War vigorously he had held a Session of Parliament from the 15th of Ianuary till the 30th of March in which he had procured a great Change of the whole Constitution of the Government of the Church But before I give an account of that I shall first open all the Arguments and reasons upon which I find they proceeded in this Matter The Popes Power had been then for 4 years together much examined and disputed in England in which they went by these steps one leading to another They first controverted his Power of Dispensing with the Law of God From that they went to examine what Jurisdiction he had in England upon which followed the Convicting the Clergy of a Premunire with their Submission to the King And that led them to controvert the Popes right to Annates and other Exactions which they also condemned The Condemning all appeals to Rome followed that naturally And now so many branches of that Power were cut off the Root was next struck at and the Foundations of the Papal Authority were examined For near a year together there had been many publick debates about it and both in the Parliament and Convocation the thing was long disputed and all that could be alledged on both sides was Considered The Reader will be best able to judge of their reasons and thereby of the ripeness of their judgments when they Enacted the Laws that passed in this Parliament when he sees a full account of them which I shall next set down not drawn from the Writings and Apologies that have been published since but from these that came out about that time For then were written the Institution for the Necessary Erudition of a Christian man Concluded in the Convocation and published by Authority and another Book De Differentia Regiae Ecclesiasticae Potestatis The former of these was called the Bishops and the latter the Kings Book Gardiner also wrote a Book De vera Obedientia to which Bonner prefixed a Preface upon the same Subject Stokesly Bishop of London and Tonstal Bishop of Duresm wrote a long
them a few Bishops in the Northern and Western Parts When afterwards the Patriarch of Constantinople was declared by the Emperor Mauritius The Vniversal Bishop Gregory the great did exclaim against the Ambition of that Title as being equal to the Pride of Lucifer and declared that he who assumed it was the Forerunner of Antichrist saying that none of his Predecessors had ever claimed such a Power And this was the more observable since the English were Converted by those whom he sent over so that this was the Doctrine of that See when this Church received the Faith from it But it did not continue long within those limits for Boniface the Third assumed that Title upon the Grant of Phâ—â—as And as that Boniface got the Spiritual Sword put in his hand so the Eighth of that name pretended also to the Temporal Sword but they owe these Powers to the Industry of those Popes and not to any Donation of Christs The Popes when they are Consecrated promise to obey the Canons of the Eight first General Councils which if they observe they will receive no Appeals nor pretend to any higher Jurisdiction than these give to them and the other Patriarchs equally As for the Decrees of Latter Councils they are of less Authority For those Councils consisted of Monks and Friers in great part whose exemptions obtained from Rome obliged them to support the Authority of that Court and those who sate in them knew little of the Scriptures Fathers or the Tradition of the Church being only conversant in the Disputes and Learning of the Schools And for the Florentine Council the Eastern Churches who sent the Greek Bishops that sate there never received their Determination neither then nor at any time since Many places were also brought out of the Fathers to show that they did not look on the Bishops of Rome as superior to other Bishops and that they understood not those places of Scripture which were afterwards brought for the Popes Supremacy in that sense so that if Tradition be the best Expounder of Scripture those latter glosses must give place to the more ancient But that passage of St. Ierome in which he equals the Bishops of Eugubium and Constantinople to the Bishop of Rome was much made use of since he was a Presbyter of Rome and so likely to understand the Dignity of his own Church best There were many things brought from the Contests that other Sees had with Rome to show that all the Priviledges of that and other Sees were only founded on the practice and Canons of the Church but not upon any Divine Warrant Constantinople pretended to equal priviledges Ravenna Milan and Aquileia pretended to a Patriarchal Dignity and Exemption Some Arch-Bishops of Canterbury contended that Popes could do nothing against the Laws of the Church so Laurence and Dunstan Robert Grostest Bishop of Lincoln asserted the same and many Popes confessed it And to this day no Constitution of the Popes is binding in any Church except it be received by it and in the daily practice of the Canon Law the customs of Churches are pleaded against Papal Constitutions which shows their Authority cannot be from God otherwise all must submit to their Laws And from the latter Contests up and down Europe about giving Investitures receiving Appeals admitting of Legates and Papal Constitutions it was apparent that the Papal Authority was a Tyranny which had been managed by cruel and fraudulent Arts but was never otherwise received in the Church than as a Conquest to which they were constrained to yield And this was more fully made out in England from what passed in William the Conqueror and Henry the 2d's time and by the Statutes of Provisors in many Kings Reigns which were still renewed till within an hundred years of the present time Upon these grounds they Concluded that the Popes Power in England had no Foundation neither in the Law of God nor in the Laws of the Church or of the Land As for the Kings Power over Spiritual persons and in Spiritual causes they proved it from the Scriptures In the old Testament they found the Kings of Israel intermedled in all matters Ecclesiastical Samuel though he had been Judge yet acknowledged Sauls Authority So also did Abimelech the High-Priest and appeared before him when cited to answer upon an Accusation And Samuel 1 Sam. 15.18 sayes he was made the head of all the Tribes Aaron in that was an Example to all the following High-Priests who submitted to Moses David made many Laws about sacred things such as the Order of the Courses of the Priests and their Worship and when he was dying he declared to Solomon how far his Authority extended He told him 1 Chron. 28.21 That the Courses of the Priests and all the people were to be wholly at his commandment pursuant to which Solomon 2 Chron. 8.14 15. did appoint them their charges in the service of God and both the Priests and Levites departed not from his commandment in any matter and though he had turned out Abiathar from the High-Priesthood yet they made no opposition Iehosophat Hezekiah and Iosias made likewise Laws about Eccledsiastical Matters In the New Testament Christ himself was obedient he payed Taxes he declared that he pretended to no earthly Kingdom he charged the people to render to Caesar the things that were Caesars and his Disciples not to affect temporal dominion as the Lords of the Nations did And though the Magistrates were then Heathens yet the Apostles wrote to the Churches to obey Magistrates to submit to them to pay Taxes they call the King Supream and say he is Gods Minister to encourage them that do well and to punish the evil doors which is said of all persons without exception and every Soul is charged to be subject to the Higher Power Many passages were cited out of the Writings of the Fathers to show that they thought Church-men were included in these places as well as other persons so that the Tradition of the Church was for the Kings Supremacy and by one place of Scripture the King is called Supream by another he is called Head and by a third every Soul must be subject to him which laid together make up this conclusion That the King is the Supream Head over all persons In the primitive Church the Bishops in their Councils made rules for ordering their Dioceses which they only called Canons or Rules nor had they any compulsive Authority but what was derived from the Civil Sanctions After the Emperors were Christians they made many Laws about sacred things as may be seen in the Codes and when Iustinian digested the Roman Law he added many Novel Constitutions about Ecclesiastical persons and causes The Emperors called general Councils presided in them and confirmed them And many Letters were cited of Popes to Emperors to call Councils and of the Councils to them to Confirm their Decrees The Election of the Popes themselves was
Court had an eye on their Lands made them to be as complyant as could be But Fisher was a man of great reputation and very ancient so that much pains was taken to satisfie him A week before the Parliament sat down the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury proposed to him that he and any Five Doctors such as he should choose and the Bishop of London and Five Doctors with him might confer about it and examine the Authorities of both sides that so there might be an Agreement among them by which the scandal might be removed which otherwise would be taken from their Janglings and Contests among themselves Fisher accepted of this and Stokesley wrote to him on the 8th of Ianuary that he was ready whenever the other pleased and desired him to name time and place and if they could not agree the matter among themselves he moved to refer it to two Learned men whom they should choose in whose determination they would both acquiesce How far this overture went I cannot discover and perhaps Fishers sickness hindred the progress of it But now on the 15th of Ianuary the Parliament sat down by the Journals I find no other Bishops present but the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Bishops of London Winchester Lincoln Bath and Wells Landaffe and Carlisle There were also twelve Abbots present but upon what pretences the rest excused their attendance I do not know perhaps some made a difference between submitting to what was done and being active and concurring to make the change During the Session a Bishop preached every Sunday at Pauls-Cross and declared to the people That the Pope had no Authority at all in England In the two former Sessions the Bishops had preached that the general Council was above the Pope but now they struck a note higher This was done to let the people see what justice and reason was in the Acts that were then passing to which I now turn and shall next give an account of this great Session of Parliament which I shall put rather in the natural Method according to the matter of the Acts than in the order of time as they passed On the 9th of March a Bill came up from the Commons for dischargeing the Subjects of all dependance on the Court of Rome it was read the first time in the House of Lords the 13th of March and on the 14th was read the second time and Committed The Committee reported it on the 19th by which it appears there was no stiff nor long opposition and he that was likest to make it was both obnoxious and absent as will afterwards appear On the 19th it was read the third time and on the 20th the fourth time and then passed without any protestation Some Proviso's were added to it by the Lords to which the Commons agreed and so it was made ready for the Royal assent In the Preamble the intolerable exactions for Peter-pence Provisions Pensions and Bulls of all sorts are complained of which were contrary to all Laws and grounded only on the Popes Power of Dispensing which was Usurped But the King and the Lords and Commons within his own Realm had only power to consider how any of the Laws were to be Dispensed with or Abrogated and since the King was acknowledged the Supreme Head of the Church of England by the Prelates and Clergy in their Convocations Therefore it was Enacted that all Payments made to the Apostolick Chamber and all Provisions Bulls or Dispensations should from thenceforth cease But that all Dispensations or Licences for things that were not contrary to the Law of God but only to the Law of the Land should be granted within the Kingdom by and under the Seals of the two Arch-Bishops in their several Provinces who should not presume to grant any contrary to the Laws of Almighty God and should only grant such Licences as had been formerly in use to be granted but give no Licence for any new thing till it were first examined by the King and his Council whether such things might be dispensed with and that all Dispensations which were formerly taxed at or above 4 l. should be also confirmed under the Great-Seal Then many clauses follow about the Rates of Licences and the ways of procuring them It was also declared that they did not hereby intend to vary from Christ's Church about the Articles of the Catholick Faith of Christendom or in any other things declared by the Scriptures and the word of God necessary for their Salvation confirming withal the exemptions of Monasteries formerly granted by the Bishop of Rome exempting them still from the Arch-Bishops Visitations declaring that such Abbeys whose Elections were formerly confirmed by the Pope shall be now confirmed by the King who likewise shall give Commission under his Great-Seal for visiting them providing also that Licences and other Writs obtained from Rome before the 12 of March in that year should be valid and in force except they were contrary to the Laws of the Realm giving also to the King and his Council power to order and reform all Indulgences and Priviledges or the abuses of them which had been granted by the See of Rome The offenders against this Act were to be punished according to the Statutes of Provisors and Premunire This Act as it gave great ease to the Subject so it cut off that base trade of Indulgences about Divine Laws which had been so gainful to the Church of Rome but was of late fatal to it All in the Religious Houses saw their Priviledges now struck at since they were to be reformed as the King saw cause which put them in no small confusion Those that favoured the Reformation rejoyced at this Act not only because the Popes Power was rooted out but because the Faith that was to be adhered to was to be taken from those things which the Scriptures declared necessary to Salvation so that all their fears were now much qualified since the Scripture was to be the standard of the Catholick Faith On the same day that this Bill passed in the House of Lords another Bill was read for confirming the Succession to the Crown in the Issue of the Kings present Marriage with Queen Anne It was read the second time on the 21 of March and Committed It was reported on the 23th and read the third time and passed and sent down to the Commons who sent it back again to them on the 26th so speedily did this Bill go through both Houses without any opposition The Preamble of it was The distractions that had been in England about the Succession to the Crown which had occasioned the effusion of much Blood with many other mischiefs all which flowed from the want of a clear Decision of the true Title from which the Popes had Usurped a Power of investing such as pleased them in other Princes Kingdoms and Princes had often maintained such Donations for their other ends therefore to avoid the like
would grant But he wrote back excusing himself that all he did was only to try whether her Revelations were true He confessed he conceived a great opinion of her Holiness both from common Fame and her entring into Religion from the report of her Ghostly Father whom he esteemed Learned and Religious and of many other Learned and Vertuous Priests from the good opinion the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had of her and from what is in the Prophet Amos That God will do nothing without revealing it to his Servants That upon these grounds he was induced to have a good opinion of her and that to try the truth about her he had sometimes spoken with her and sent his Chaplains to her but never discovered any falsehood in her And for his concealing what she had told him about the King which was laid to his charge he thought it needless for him to speak of it to the King since she had said to him that she had told it to the King her self She had named no person who should kill the King which by being known might have been prevented And as in Spiritual things every Church-man was not bound to denounce judgments against those that could not bear it so in temporal things the case might be the same and the King had on other occasions spoken so sharply to him that he had reason to think the King would have been offended with him for speaking of it and would have suspected that he had a hand in it therefore he desired for the passion of Christ to be no more troubled about that matter otherwise he would speak his Conscience freely To all which Cromwell wrote a long Letter which the Reader will find in the Collection copied from the rude draught of it written with his own hand In which he charges the Matter upon him heavily and shews him that he had not proceeded as a grave Prelate ought to have done for he had taken all that he had heard of her upon trust and had examined nothing that if every person that pretends to Revelations were believed on their own words all Government would be thereby destroyed He had no reason to conclude from the Prophecie of Amos that every thing that is to fall out must be revealed to some Prophet since many notable things had fallen out of which there was no Revelation made before hand But he told him the true reason that made him give credit to her was the matter of her Prophecies to which he was so addicted as he was to every other thing in which he once entred that nothing could come amiss that served to that end And he appealed to his Conscience whether if she had prophecied for the King he would have given such easie credit to her and not have examined the matter further Then he showes how guilty he was in not revealing what concerned the Kings Life and how frivolous all his excuses were And after all tells him that though his excusing the matter had provoked the King and that if it came to a Tryal he would certainly be found guilty yet again he advises him to beg the Kings pardon for his Negligence and offence in that matter and undertakes that the King would receive him into his favour and that all matters of displeasure pass'd before that time should be forgiven and forgotten This shows that though Fisher had in the progress of the Kings cause given him great offence yet he was ready to pass it all over and not to take the advantage which he now had against him But Fisher was still obstinate and made no submission and so was included within the Act for misprision of Treason and yet I do not find that the King proceeded against him upon this Act till by new provocations he drew a heavier storm of indignation upon himself When the Session of Parliament was at an end Commissioners were sent every-where to offer the Oath of the Succession to the Crown to all according to the Act of Parliament which was universally taken by all sorts of persons Gardiner wrote from Winchester the 6th of May to Cromwell that in the presence of the Lord Chamberlain the Lord Audley and many other Gentlemen all Abbots Priors Wardens with the Curates of all Parishes and Chappels within the Shire had appeared and taken the Oath very obediently and had given in a list of all the Religious persons in their Houses of 14 years of Age and above for taking whose Oaths some Commissioners were appointed The forms in which they took the Oath are not known and it is no wonder for though they were enrolled yet in Queen Maries time there was a Commission given to Bonner and others to examine the Records and raze out of them all things that were done either in contempt of the See of Rome or to the defamation of Religious Houses pursuant to which there are many things taken out of the Rolls which I shall sometimes have occasion afterwards to take notice of yet some Writings have escaped their diligence so there remains but two of the Subscriptions of Religious Orders both bearing date the 4th of May 1534. One is by the Prior and Convent of Langley Regis that were Dominicans the Franciscans of Ailesbury the Dominicans of Dunstable the Franciscans of Bedford the Carmelites of Hecking and the Franciscans de Mare The other is by the Prioress and Convent of the Dominican Nuns at Deptford In these besides the renewing their allegiance to the King they swear the Lawfulness of his Marriage with Queen Anne and that they shall be true to the Issue begotten in it that they shall always acknowledge the King Head of the Church of England and that the Bishop of Rome has no more Power than any other Bishop has in his own Diocess and that they should submit to all the Kings Laws notwithstanding the Popes censures to the contrary That in their Sermons they should not pervert the Scriptures but preach Christ and his Gospel sincerely according to the Scriptures and the Tradition of Orthodox and Catholick Doctors and in their Prayers that they should pray first for the King as Supreme Head of the Church of England then for the Queen and her issue and then for the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the other ranks of the Clergy To this these Six Priors set their hands with the Seals of their Convents and in their Subscriptions declared that they did it freely and uncompelled and in the name of all the Brethren in the Convent But Sir Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester refused to take the Oath as it was conceived Whose Fall being so remarkable I shall shew the steps of it There was a meeting of the Privy Council at Lambeth to which many were cited to appear and take the Oath Sr. Thomas More was first called and the Oath was tendred to him under the great Seal then he called for the Act of Succession
Wives gained most on his esteem and affection But she was happy in one thing that she did not out-live his love otherwise she might have fallen as signally as her Predecessor had done Upon this turn of Affairs a great change of Counsels followed There was nothing now that kept the Emperor and the King at a distance but the Illegitimation of the Lady Mary and if that matter had been adjusted the King was in no more hazard of trouble from him Therefore it was proposed that she might be again restored to the Kings favour She found this was the best opportunity she could ever look for and therefore laid hold on it and wrote an humble submission to the King and desired again to be admitted to his presence But her Submissions had some reserves in them therefore she was pressed to be more express in her acknowledgments At this she stuck long and had almost embroyled her self again with her Father She freely offered to submit to the Laws of the Land about the Succession and confessed the fault of her former Obstinacy But the King would have her acknowledge that his Marriage to her Mother was incestuous and unlawful and to renounce the Popes Authority and to accept him as Supream Head of the Church of England These things were of hard digestion with her and she could not easily swallow them so she wrote to Cromwell to befriend her at the Kings hands Upon which many Letters passed between them He wrote to her that it was impossible to recover her Fathers favour without a full and clear Submission in all points So in the end she yielded and sent the following Paper all written with her own hand which is set down as it was Copied from the Original yet extant The Confession of me the Lady Mary made upon certain points and Articles under written in the which as I do now plainly and with all mine heart confess and declare mine inward Sentence Belief and Judgment with a due conformity of Obedience to the Laws of the Realm so minding for ever to persist and continue in this determination without change alteration or variance I do most humbly beseech the Kings Highness my Father whom I have obstinately and inobediently offended in the denial of the same heretofore to forgive mine offences therein and to take me to his most gracious Mercy First I confess and knowledg the Kings Majesty to be my Soveraign Lord and King in the Imperial Crown of this Realm of England and do submit my self to his Highness and to all and singular Laws and Statutes of this Realm as becometh a true and faithful Subject to do which I shall also obey keep observe advance and maintain according to my bounden duty with all the power force and qualities that God hath endued me with during my Life Item I do recognize accept take repute and knowledg the Kings Highness to be Supream Head in Earth under Christ of the Church of England and do utterly refuse the Bishop of Romes pretended Authority Power and Jurisdiction within this Realm heretofore usurped according to the Laws and Statutes made in that behalf and of all the Kings true Subjects humbly received admitted obeyed kept and observed and also do utterly renounce and forsake all manner of Remedy Interest and advantage which I may by any means claim by the Bishop of Rome's Laws Process Jurisdiction or Sentence at this present time or in any wise hereafter by any manner of title colour mean or case that is shall or can be devised for that purpose Mary Item I do freely frankly and for the Discharge of my duty towards God the Kings Highness and his Laws without other respect recognize and knowledg that the Marriage heretofore had between his Majesty and my Mother the late Princess Dowager was by Gods Law and Mans Law incestuous and unlawful Mary Upon this she was again received into favour One circumstance I shall add that shows the frugality of that time In the Establishment that was made for her Family there was only 40 l. a quarter assigned for her privy purse I have seen a Letter of hers to Cromwell at the Christsmas quarter desiring him to let the King know that she must be at some Extraordinary expence that season that so he might encrease her allowance since the 40 l. would not defray the Charge of that quarter For the Lady Elizabeth though the King devested her of the Title of Princess of Wales yet he continued still to breed her up in the Court with all the care and tenderness of a Father And the new Queen what from the sweetness of her disposition and what out of compliance with the King who loved her much was as kind to her as if she had been her Mother Of which I shall add one pretty evidence though the childishness of it may be thought below the Gravity of a History Yet by it the Reader will see both the kindness that the King and Queen had for her and that they allowed her to subscribe Daughter There are two Original Letters of hers yet remaining writ to the Queen when she was with Child of King Edward the one in Italian the other in English both writ in a fair hand the same that she wrote all the rest of her life But the conceits in that writ in English are so pretty that it will not be unacceptable to the Reader to see this first Blossome of so great a Princess when she was not full Four years of Age She being born in September 1533. and this writ in Iuly 1537. Although your Highness Letters be most joyful to me in absence yet considering what pain it is to you to write your Grace being so great with Child and so sickly your Commendation were enough in my Lords Letter I much rejoyce at your health with the well liking of the Countrey with my humble thanks that your Grace wished me with you till I were weary of that Countrey Your Highness were like to be combered if I should not depart till I were weary being with you although it were in the worst soil in the World your presence would make it pleasant I cannot reprove my Lord for not doing your Commendations in his Letter for he did it and although he had not yet I will not complain on him for that he shall be diligent to give me knowledg from time to time how his busie child doth and if I were at his birth no doubt I would see him beaten for the trouble he has put you to Mr Denny and my Lady with humble thanks prayeth most entirely for your Grace praying the Almighty God to send you a most lucky deliverance And my Mistress wisheth no less giving your Highness most humble thanks for her commendations Writ with very little leisure this last day of Iuly Your Humble Daughter Elizabeth But to proceed to more serious matters A Parliament was Summoned to meet the 8th of Iune
to shake him in his Throne The Preamble of it was That as our Saviour had pity on St. Peter after his fall so it became St. Peters successors to imitate our Saviour in his Clemency and that therefore though he having heard of King Henry's crimes had proceeded to a sentence against him Here the former Bull was recited Yet some other Princes who hoped he might be reclaimed by gentler methods had interposed for a suspension of the Sentence and he being easie to believe what he so earnestly desired had upon their Intercession suspended it But now he found they had been deceived in their hopes and that he grew worse and worse and had done such dishonour to the Saints as to raise St. Thomas of Canterburies body to arraign him of High Treason and to burn his Body and Sacrilegiously to rob the Riches that had been offered to his Shrine as also to suppress St. Austins Abbey in Canterbury and that having thrust out the Monks he had put in wild Beasts into their grounds having transformed himself into a Beast Therefore he takes off the Suspension and publishes the Bull commanding it to be executed Declaring that the affixing it at Diepe or Bulloign in France at St. Andrews or Callistren that is Callstream a Town near the border of England in Scotland or Tuam or Artifert in Ireland or any two of these should be a sufficient Publication Dated the 7th of December Anno Dom. 1538. No man can read these Bulls but he must conclude that if the Pope be the Infallible and Universal Pastor of the Church whom all are bound to obey he has a full authority over all Kings to proceed to the highest Censures possible and since the matters of fact enumerated in the Sentence as the grounds of it were certainly true then 〈◊〉 the Pope is either cloathed with the powers of Deposing Princes or if otherwise he lied to the world when he pretended to it thus and taught false Doctrine which cannot stand with Infallibility And the pretended grounds of the sentence as to matter of fact being evidently true this must be a just Sentence and therefore all that acknowledged the Infallibility of that See were bound to obey it and all the Rebellions that followed during the reign of the King or his Children were founded on this sentence and must be justified by it otherwise the Popes Infallibility must fall to the ground But this was to be said for the Pope that though he had raised the several branches of this Sentence higher than any of his Predecessors had ever done yet as to the main he had very good and Authentick Precedents for what he did from the Depositions of Emperours or Kings that were made by former Popes for about 500 years together This I thought needful to be more fully opened because of the present Circumstances we are now in since hereby every one that will consider things must needs see that the belief of the Popes Infallibility does necessarily infer the acknowledgment of their power of deposing Heretical Kings For it is plain the Pope did this ex Cathedra and as a Pastor Feeding and Correcting his Flock But not content with this he also wrote to other Princes inflaming them against the King Particularly to the Kings of France and Scotland To the last of these he sent a Breve declaring King Henry a Heretique a Schismatique a manifest Adulterer a publick Murtherer a Rebel and convict of High Treason against him the Pope his Lord for which Crimes he had deposed him and offered his Dominions to him if he would go and invade them And thus the breach between him and the Pope was past reconciling and at Rome it was declared equally meritorious to fight against him as against the Turk But Card. Pool made it more meritorious in his Book Yet the Thunders of the Vatican had now lost their force so that these had no other effect but to enrage the King more against all such as were suspected to favour their interests or to hold any correspondence with Cardinal Pool Therefore he first procured a Declaration against the Popes pretensions to be Signed by all the Bishops of England In which after they declared against the Popes Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction upon the grounds formerly touched they concluded That the People ought to be Instructed that Christ did expresly forbid his Apostles or their Successors to take to themselves the power of the Sword or the authority of Kings And that if the Bishop of Rome or any other Bishop assumed any such power he was a Tyrant and Usurper of other mens Rights and a subverter of the Kingdom of Christ. This was subscribed by 19 Bishops all that were then in England and 25 Doctors of Divinity and Law It was at some time before May 1538. For Edward Fox Bishop of Hereford who was one that signed it died the 8th of May that year There was no Convocation called by Writ for doing this For as there is no mention of any such Writ in the Registers so if it had been done by Convocation Cromwell had signed it first but his hand not being at it it is more probable that a meeting of the Clergy was called by the Kings Missive Letters or that as was once done before the Paper was drawn at London and sent over the Kingdom to the Episcopal Sees for the Bishops hands to it There is another original Paper extant Signed at this time by eight Bishops from which I conjecture those were all that were then about London It was to shew That by the Commission which Christ gave to Church-men they were only Ministers of his Gospel to instruct the people in the purity of the Faith But that by other places of Scripture the Authority of Christian Princes over all their Subjects as well Bishops and Priests as others was also clear And that the Bishops and Priests have charge of Souls within their Cures Power to administer Sacraments and to teach the word of God To the which word of God Christian Princes acknowledg themselves subject and that in case the Bishops be negligent it is the Christian Princes Office to see them do their duty This being Signed by Iohn Hilsey Bishop of Rochester must be after the year 1537. in which he was consecrated and Latimer and Shaxton also Signing it must be before the year 1539. in which they resigned But I believe it was Signed at the same time that the other was And the design of it was to refuse those Calumnies spread at Rome as if the King had wholly Suppressed all Ecclesiastical Offices and denyed them any divine Authority making them wholly dependent on the Civil Power and Acting by Commission only from him And therefore they explained the limits of both these Powers in so clear and moderate a way that it must have stopt the Mouths of all Opposers But whether there was any publick use made of this Paper I can by no means discover
laid very close and managed with great dexterity chiefly by the Duke of Norfolk and Gardinâ—r pursued the ruine of those whom they called Hereticks knowing well that if the King was once set against them and they provoked against the Government he would be not only alienated from them but forced for securing himself against them to gain the hearts of his other Subjects by a Conjunction with the Emperor and by his means with the Pope The first on whom this design took effect were Doctor Barnes Mr. Gerard and Mr. Ierome all Priests who had been among the earliest Converts to Luther's Doctrine Barnes had in a Sermon at Cambridg during the Cardinals greatness reflected on the Pomp and State in which he lived so plainly that every body understood of whom he meant So he was carried up to London but by the interposition of Gardiner and Fox who were his friends he was saved at that time having abjured some opinions that were objected to him But other accusations being afterwards brought against him he was again Imprisoned and it was believed that he would have been burnt But he made his escape and went to Germany where he gave himself to the study of the Scriptures and Divinity In which he became so considerable that not only the German Divines but their Princes took great notice of him and the King of Denmark sending over Ambassâ—dors to the King he was sent with them though perhaps Fox was ill informed when he says he was one of them Fox Bishop of Hereford being at Smalcald in the year 1536. sent him over to England where he was received and kindly entertained by Cromwel and well used by the King And by his means the correspondence with the Germans was chiefly kept up For he was often sent over to the Courts of the several Princes But in particular he had the misfortune to be first employed in the project of the Kings Marriage with the Lady Anne of Cleves for that giving the King so little satisfaction all who were the main promoters of it fell in disgrace upon it But other things concurred to destroy Barnes In Lent this year Bonner had appointed him and Gerrard and Ierome turns in the Course of Sermons at St. Pauls Cross they being in favour with Cromwel on whom Bonner depended wholly But Gardiner sent Bonner word that he intended himself to preach on Sunday at St. Pauls Cross and in his Sermon he treated of Justification and other points with many reflections on the Lutherans Barnes when it came to his Turn made use of the same Text but preached contrary Doctrine not without some unhandsome reflections on Gardiners person and he played on his name alluding to a Gardiners setting ill Plants in a Garden The other two preached the same Doctrine but made no reflections on any person Gardiner seemed to bear it with a great appearance of neglect and indifferency But his friends complained to the King of the unsufferable insolencies of these Preachers who did not spare so great a Prelate especially he being a Privy Councellor So Barnes was questioned for it and commanded to go and give the Bishop of Winchester satisfaction And the Bishop carried the matter with a great shew of moderation and acted ouâ—wardly in it as became his Function though it was believed the matter stuck deeper in his heart which the effects that followed seemed to demonstrate The King concerned himself in the matter and did argue with Barnes about the points in difference But whether he was truly convinced or overcome rather with the fear of the King than with the force of his reasonings he and his two Friends William Ierome and Tho. Gerrard signed a paper which will be found in the Collection in which he acknowledged That having been brought before the King for things preached by him His Highness being assisted by some of the Clergy had so disputed with him that he was convinced of his rashness and oversight and promised to abstain from such indiscretions for the future and to submit to any orders the King should give for what was past The Articles were First That though we are Redeemed only by the death of Christ in which we participate by Faith and Baptism yet by not following the Commandments of Christ we lose the benefits of it which we cannot recover but by Pennance Secondly That God is not the Author of Sin or evil which he only permits Thirdly That we ought to reconcile our selves to our neighbours and forgive before we can be forgiven Fourthly That good works done sincerely according to the Scriptures are profitable and helpful to Salvation Fifthly That Laws made by Christian Rulers ought to be obeyed by their Subjects for conscience sake and that whosoever breaks them breaks Gods Commandments It 's not likely that Barnes could say any thing directly contrary to these Articles though having brought much of Luthers heat over with him he might have said some things that sounded ill upon these heads There were other points in difference between Gardiner and him about Justification but it seems the King thought these were of so subtile a nature that no Article of Faith was controverted in them and therefore left the Bishop and him to agree these among themselves which they in a great measure did So the King commanded Barnes and his friends to preach at the Spittle in the Easter-week and openly to recant what they had formerly said And Barnes was in particular to ask the Bishop of Winchester's pardon which he did and Gardiner being twice desired by him to give some signe that he forgave him did lift up his Finger But in their Sermons it was said they justified in one part what they recanted in another Of which complaints being brought to the King he without hearing them sent them all to the Tower And Cromwels interest at Court was then declining so fast that either he could not protect them or else would not prejudice himself by interposing in a matter which gave the King so great offence They lay in the Tower till the Parliament met and then they were attained of Heresie without ever being brought to make their answer And it seems for the Extraordinariness of the thing they resolved to mix attaindors for things that were very different from one Another For four others were by the same Act attainted of Treason who were Gregory Buttolph Adam Damplip Edmund Brindholme and Clement Philpot for assisting Reginald Pool adhering to the Bishop of Rome denying the King to be the Supream Head on earth of the Church of England and designing to surprize the Town of Callice One Derby Gunnings was also attainted of Treason for assisting one Fitz-Girald a Traitor in Ireland And after all these Barnes Gerard and Ierome are attainted of Heresie being as the Act sayes Detestable Hereticks who had conspired together to set forth many Heresies and taking themselves to be men of learning had expounded the Scriptures perverting
to the Commons with words to be put in or put out of it On the 6th the Commons sent it up with some alterations And on the 8th the Lords sent it down again to the Commons where it lay till the 17th and then it was sent up with their agreement And the Kings Assent was given by his Letters Patents on the 29th of March. The Preamble was That whereas untrue accusations and presentments might be maliciously contrived against the Kings Subjects and kept secret till a time were espied to have them by malice convicted Therefore it was Enacted That none should be Endited but upon a presentment by the Oaths of twelve men to at least three of the Commissioners appointed by the King and that none should be Imprisoned but upon an Enditement except by a special Warrant from the King and that all Presentments should be made within one year after the Offences were committed and if words were uttered in a Sermon contrary to the Statute they must be complained of within forty dayes unless a just cause were given why it could not be so soon Admittiâ—g also the parties Endited to all such Challenges as they might have in any other case of Felony This Act has clearly a Relation to the Conspiracies mentioned the former year both against the Arch-Bishop and some of the Kings Servants Another Act passed continuing some former Acts for revising the Canon-Law and for drawing up such a body of Ecclesiastical Laws as should have Authority in England This Cranmer pressed often with great vehemence and to shew the necessity of it drew out a short Extract of some passages in the Canon-Law which the Reader will find in the Collection to shew how undecent a thing it was to let a Volume in which such Laws were be studyed or considered any longer in England Therefore he was earnest to have such a Collection of Ecclesiastical Laws made as might regulate the Spiritual Courts But it was found more for the greatness of the Prerogative and the Authority of the Civil Courts to keep that undetermined so he could never obtain his desire during this Kings Reign Another Act passed in this Parliament for the remission of a Loan of Money which the King had raised This is almost copied out of an Act to the same effect that passed in the twenty first year of the Kings Reign with this addition That by this Act those who had got payment either in whole or in part of the Sums so lent the King were to repay it back to the Exchequer All business being finished and a general pardon passed with the ordinary exceptions of some Crimes among which Heresie is one the Parliament was Prorogued on the 29th of March to the 4th of November The King had now a War both with France and Scotland upon him And therefore to prepare for it he both enhanced the value of Money and embased it for which he that writes his vindication gives this for the reason That the Coin being generally embased all over Europe he was forced to do it lest otherwise all the Money should have gone out of the Kingdom He resolved to begin the War with Scotland and sent an Army by Sea thither under the command of the Earl of Hartford afterwards Duke of Somerset who landing at Grantham a little above Leith burnt and spoiled Leith and Edenburgh in which they found more riches than they thought could possibly have been there and they went through the Countrey burning and spoiling it every-where till they came to Berwick But they did too much if they intended to gain the hearts of that people and too little if they intended to subdue them For as they besieged not the Castle of Edinburgh which would have cost them more time and trouble so they did not fortifie Leith nor leave a Garrison in it which was such an inexcusable Omission that it seems their Counsels were very weak and ill laid For Leith being fortified and a Fleet kept going between it and Berwick or Tinmouth the Trade of the Kingdom must have been quite stopt Edinburgh ruined the Intercourse between France and them cut off and the whole Kingdom forced to submit to the King But the spoils this Army made had no other effect but to enrage the Kingdom and unite them so entirely to the French Interests that when the Eaâ—l of Lâ—nnâ—x was sent down by the King to the Western parts of Scotland where his Power lay he could get none to follow him And the Governor of Dunbritton Castle though his own Lieutenant would not deliver that Castle to him when he understood he was to put it in the King of Englands hands but drove him out others say he â—â—ed away of himself else he had been taken Prisoner The King was now to cross the Seas but before he went he studied to settle the matters of Religion so that both Parties might have some content Audley the Chancellor dying he made the Lord Wriothesley that had been Secretary and was of the Popish Party Lord Chancellor but made Sir William Petre that was Cranmers great friend Secretary of State He also committed the Government of the Kingdom in his absence to the Queen to whom he joyned the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Lord Chancellor the Earl of Hartford and Secretary Petre. And if there was need of any Force to be raised he appointed the Earl of Hartford his Lieutenant under whose Government the Reformers needed not fear any thing But he did another Act that did wonderfully please that whole Party which was the Translating of the Prayers for the Processions and Litaâ—ies into the English tongue This was sent to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury on the 11th of Iune with an Order that it should be used over all his Province as the Reader will find in the Collection This was not only very acceptable to that Party because of the thing it self but it gave them hope that the King was again opening his ears to motions for Reformation to which they had been shut now about six years And therefore they looked that more things of that nature would quickly follow And as these Prayers werâ— now set out in English so they doubted not but there being the same reason to put all the other Offices in the vulgar tongue they would prevail for that too Things being thus setled at home the King having sent his Forces over before him crossed the Seas with much pomp the Sails of his Ship being of Cloth of Gold He Landed at Calais the 14th of Iuly The Emperor pressed his marching straight to Paris But he thought it of more importance to take Bulloign and after two months Siege it was surrendred to him into which he made his Entry with great Triumph on the 18th of September But the Emperor having thus engaged those two Crowns in a War and designing while they should fight it out to make himself Master of Gâ—rmanâ— concluded a Treaty
Abbeys All those Sir Edward Nevill only excepted pleaded Guilty and so they were condemned but Sir Geofrey Pole was the only person of the number that was not Executed for he had discovered the matter At the same time also Cardinal Pole Michael Throgmorton Gentleman Iohn Hilliard and Thomas Goldwell Clerks and William Pâ—â—to a Franciscan of the Observance were Attainted in Absence because they had cast off their duty to the King and had subjected themselves to the Bishop of Rome Pole being made Cardinal by him and for writing Treasonable Letters and sending them into England On the 4th of February following Sir Nicholas Carew that was both Master of the Horse and Knight of the Garter was Arraigned for being an adherent to the Marquess of Exeter and having spoke of his Attaindor as unjust and cruel he was also Attainted and Executed upon the 3d of March When he was brought to the Scaffold he openly acknowledged the errors and superstition in which he had formerly lived and blessed God for his Imprisonment for he then began to relish the Life and sweetness of Gods holy Word which was brought him by his Keeper one Phillips who followed the Reformation and had formerly suffered for it After these Executions followed the Parliament in the year 15â—9 in which not only these Attaindors that were already passed were confirmed but new ones of a strange and unheard-of nature were Enacted It is a blemish never to be washed off and which cannot be enough condemned and was a breach of the most sacred and unalterable Rules of Justice which is capable of no excuse it was the Attainting of some persons whom they held in custody without bringing them to a Tryal Concerning which I shall add what the great Lord Chief Justice Cook writes although I question not the Power of the Parliament for without question the Attaindor stands of force in Law yet this I say of the manner of proceeding Aâ—ferat Oblivio si potest si non utrumque silentium tegat For the more high and absolute the Jurisdiction of the Court is the more just and honourable it ought to be in the proceedings and to give Example of Justice to inferior Courts The chief of these were the Marchioness of Exeter and the Countess of Sarum The special matter charged on the former is her confederating her self to Sir Nicolas Carew in his Treasons to which is added that she had committed divers other abominable Treasons The latter is said to have confederated her self with her Son the Cardinal with other aggravating words It does not appear by the Journal that any Witnesses were examined only that day that the Bills were read the third time in the House of Lords Cromwell shewed them a Coat of white silk which the Lord Admiral had found among the Countess of Sarums Cloaths in which the Arms of England were wrought on the one side and the Standard that was carryed before the Rebels was on the other side This was brought as an evidence that she approved of the Rebellion Three Irish Priests were also Attainted for carrying Letters out of Ireland to the Pope and Cardinal Pole as also Sir Adrian Fortescue for endeavouring to raise Rebellion Thomas Dingley a Knight of St. Iohn of Ierusalem and Robert Granceter Merchant for going to several Forreign Princes and perswading them to make War upon the King and assist the Lords Darcy and Hussie in the Rebellion they had raised Two Gentlemen a Dominican Frier and a Yeoman were by the same Act Attainted for saying that that venemous Serpent the Bishop of Rome was Supream Head of the Church of England Another Gentleman two Priests and a Yeoman are Attainted for Treason in general no particular crime being specified Thus sixteen persons were in this manner Attainted and if there was any Examination of Witnesses for convicting them it was either in the Star-Chamber or before the Privy Council for there is no mention of any evidence that was brought in the Journals There was also much haste made in the passing this Bill it being brought in the 10th of May was read that day for the first and second time and the 11th of May for the third time The Commons kept it five days before they sent it back and added some more to those that were in the Bill at first but how many were named in the Bill Originally and how many were afterwards added cannot be known Fortescue and Dingley suffered the 10th of Iuly As for the Countess of Sarum the Lord Herbert saw in a Record that Bulls from the Pope were found in her House that she kept correspondence with her Son and that she forbade her Tenants to have the new Testament in English or any other of the Books that had been published by the Kings Authority She was then about seventy years of Age but shewed by the answers she made that she had a vigorous and masculine mind She was kept two years Prisoner in the Tower after the Act had passed the King by that reprieve designing to oblige her Son to a better behaviour but upon a fresh provocation by a new Rebellion in the North she was beheaded and in her the name and line of Plantagenet determined The Marchioness of Exceter died a natural death In November this year were the Abbots of Reading Glossenbury and Colechester Attainted of Treason of which mention was made formerly In the Parliament that sate in the year 1540 they went on to follow that strange precedent which they had made the former year By the 56th Act Giles Heron was Attainted of Treason no special matter being mentioned By the 57th Act Richard Fetherstoun Thomas Abell and Edward Pole Priests and William Horn a Yeoman were Attainted for denying the Kings Supremacy and adhering to the Bishop of Rome by the same Act the Wife of one Tirrell Esquire was Attainted for refusing her duty of Alleageance and denying Prince Edward to be Prince and heir of the Crown and one Laurence Cook of Doncaster was also Attainted for contriving the Kings death By the 58th Act Gregory Buttolph Adam Damplip and Edward Brindeholm Clerks and Clement Philpot Gentleman were Attainted for adhering to the Bishop of Rome for corresponding with Cardinal Pole and endeavouring to surprize the Town of Callais By the same Act Barnes Gerard and Ierome were Attainted of whose sufferings an account has been already given By the 59th Act William Bird a Priest and Chaplain to the Lord Hungerford was attainted for having said to one that was going to Assist the King against the Rebels in the North I am sorry thou goest seest thou not how the King plucketh down Images and Abbies every day and if the King go thither himself he will never come home again nor any of them all which go with him and in truth it were pity he should ever come home again and at another time upon ones saying O good Lord I ween all the World will be
signified unto you as by inferring the high and extream dishonour and intolerable prejudice that the Pope's Holiness thereof should do to his said Legates and also the contrariety both of his Bull and Commission and also of his Promise and Pollicitation passed upon the same beside the notable and excellent displeasure thereby to be done by his Holiness to us and our Realm clear contrary to our merits and deserts extending also the other dangers mentioned in the said former Writings apparent to ensue thereby to his Holiness and the See Apostolick with the manifold and in manner inâ—inite inconveniences like to follow of the same to all Christendom and all other such reasons introductions and perswasions ye can make and devise for that purpose putting him also in remembrance of the great Commodity coming unto his Holiness herein by reason that this Cause being here decided the Pope not only is delivered from the pains that he should in this time of Disease and Sickness to the extream peril of his Life sustain with the same seeing that it is of such moment and importance as suffereth no tract or delay but also his Holiness shall by such decision here eschew and avoid all displeasure that he should not fail to have if it were or should be passed elsewhere which matter is no little wisdom well to foresee and consider and not only to forbear to do or pass any thing derogatory or prejudicial to his said Commission but also by all means possible to corroborate and fortify the same and all such Acts judicial as shall pass by his said Legates by virtue thereof Like-as we doubt not but that the Pope's Holiness of his Uprightness Vertue and perfect Wisdom will do and rather like a most loving Father and Friend tender and favour our good just and reasonable Causes and Desires putting thereunto all the furtherance he may do than to do or consent to be done any thing hurtful prejudicial dammageable or displeasant unto us or this our said Cause And finally If need shall be we will ye also infer as the case shall require how inconvenient it were this our Matter should be decided in the Court of Rome which now dependeth totally in the Emperor's Arbitre having such puissance near thereunto that as hath been written by the Pope's own Letters their State and Life there is all in the Emperor's hands whose Armies may famish or relieve them at their pleasure And semblably ye shall not forget the prerogative of our Crown and Jurisdiction Royal by the ancient Laws of our Realm which admitteth nothing to be done by the Pope to the prejudice thereof and also what danger they should incur that would presume to bring or present any such thing unto the same as in our last Letters sent by Alexander was touched at good length Wherein since ye be already so well and amply instructed knowing also how much the Matter imports and toucheth us and what profit and agreeable service ye may do unto us herein with the high thanks that ye may deserve for the same We shall not be more prolix but refer the substantial perfect and assured handling hereof to your circumspections fidelities and diligences not doubting but that ye will now above all other things look vigilantly hereunto and so acquit your selves in the same as it may well appear that your Acts shall be correspondent to our firm trust and expectation and no less tender this thing than ye know it to be imprinted in the bottom of our Heart nor then as ye know both the importance and high moment and also the very necessity of the Matter doth require In which doing beside the laud and praise that ye shall consecute thereby of all good Men we shall so have your acquittals in our remembrance as ye shall have cause to think your travels pains and studies herein in the best wise collocate and emploied Given under our Signet at our Palace of Bridewel the 23 d day of Iune Rome 9 Iuly 1529. XXIX Doctor Bennet's Letter to the Cardinal shewing how little they might expect from the Pope An Original PLease it your Grace to understand that the 6 th day of this month the Pope's Holiness send for us Albeit we had made great sute for audience before to his Holiness soon after that we had understanding that his Holiness was recovered of this his last Sickness into the which he fell the second day after I had my first audience of his Holiness which was the 21 day of the last month And after our long communication and reasoning in the King's Highness Cause which at length we have written to your Grace in our common Letter for a confirmation of many inconveniences and dangers which we perswaded to his Holiness to follow both to himself and to the See Apostolick in case his Holiness should avoke the cause I thought much convenient at that same time to deliver the King 's familiar and likewise your Grace's Letter and so to shew your Grace's Credence to his Holiness After the foresaid Letters delivered and by his Holiness read his Holiness shewed me that he perceived by your Grace's Letters that I had certain Credence to shew unto him of great moment and importance concerning him and the See Apostolick I shewed to his Holiness your Grace's Faith and observance his Holiness doth best know most humbly besought his Holiness to believe these undoubtedly to follow That if his Holiness should at the labours of the Caesareans avoke the Cause he should not alonely offend the King's Highness which hitherto hath been a stay a help and a defence of the See Apostolick but also by reason of this injury without remedy shall alienate his Majesty and Realms with others from the devotion and obedience of the See Apostolick This I shewed his Holiness that your Grace doth evidently perceive to follow in case his Holiness should incline to the Caesareans desire on this behalf Yea further I said that your Grace most clearly perceiveth also by that Act the Church of England utterly to be destroyed and likewise your Person and that these your Grace with weeping tears most lamentably committed unto me to shew to his Holiness Furthermore I shewed to his Holiness that your Grace howsoever you should proceed in this Cause did intend to proceed so sincerely indifferently and justly that you would rather suffer to be jointed Joint by Joint than either for affection or fear do any act either against your Conscience or Justice Furthermore I said that seeing his Holiness may be so well assured that your Grace will do nothing but according to Justice in this Cause he may the more boldly deny Avocations to the Caesareans seeing that the Queen and the Emperor can desire but Justice which they may have at your Grace's hand and my Lord Campegius as well there as here and by this means his Holiness should deliver himself from great pains and unquietness of mind which he should sustain
monumenta literas scripturas censuras conclusiones Magistrales opiniones consilia assertiones affirmationes tractatus foedera pacis processus res alias caetera promissa coram nobis in dicta causa respective habita gesâ—a facta exhibita producta Necnon ex eisdem diversis aliis ex causis considerationibus argumentisque probationum generibus variis multiplicibus validis quidem efficacibus quibus animum nostrum hac in parte ad plenum informavimus plene evidenter invenimus comperimus dictum Matrimonium inter praefatos Illustrissimum Potentissimum Principem Dominum nostrum Henricum Octavum ac Serenissimam Dominam Catharinam ut praemittitur contractum consummatum nullum omnino invalidum fuisse esse Divino Jure prohibente contractum consummatum extitisse Idcirco nos Thomas Archiepiscopus Primas Legatus antedictus Christi nomine primitus invocato ac solum Deum prae oculis nostris habentes pro nullitate invaliditate dicti Matrimonii pronunciamus decernimus declaramus ipsumque praetensum Matrimonium fuisse esse nullum invalidum ac Divino Jure prohibente contractum consummatum nulliusque valoris aut momenti esse sed viribus firmitate juris caruisse carere praefatoque Illustrissimo Potentissimo Principi Henrico Octavo Serenissimae Dominae Catharinae non licere in eodem praetenso Matrimonio remanere pronunciamus decernimus declaramus ipsosque IllustrissimuÌ„ Potentissimum Principem Henricum Octavum ac Serenissimam Dominam Catharinam quatenus de facto non de jure dictum praetensum Matrimonium ad invicem contraxerunt consummarunt ab invicem separamus divorciamus atque sic separatos divorciatos necnon ob omni vinculo Matrimoniali respectu dicti praetensi Matrimonii liberos immunes fuisse esse pronunciamus decernimus declaramus per hanc nostram sententiam definitivam sive hoc nostrum finale Decretum quam sive quod ferimus promulgamus in his scriptis In quorum praemissorum fidem testimonium has literas nostras testimoniales sive praesens publicum sententiae vel Decreti instrumentum exinde fieri ac per Notarios Publicos subscriptos scribas actuarios nostros in ea parte specialiter assumptos subscribi signari nostrique sigilli appensione jussimus fecimus communiri He likewise passed Iudgment confirming the King's Marriage with Queen Ann at Lambeth May 28 1533. which is in the same Inspeximus Act 5. Anno Regni 25. XLVIII An Act concerning the Deprivations of the Bishops of Salisbury and Worcester WHere before this time the Church of England by the King 's most noble Progenitors and the Nobles of the same have been founded ordained and established in the Estate and degree of Prelatie Dignities and other Promotions Spiritual to the intent and purpose that the said Prelates and other Persons having the said Dignities and Promotions Spiritual continually should be abiding and Reseants upon their said Promotions within this Realm and also keep use and exercise Hospitality Divine Services teaching and preaching of the Laws of Almighty God to such Persons as were and have been within the precinct of their Promotions or Dignities for the Wealth of the Souls of their Givers and Founders greatly to the honour of Almighty God Of the which said Spiritual Persons the King's Highness and his most noble Progenitors have had right honourable and well-learned Personages apt meet and convenient for to guide and instruct his Highness and his most noble Progenitors in their Counsels concerning as well their Outward as Inward Affairs to be devised and practised for the utility and preservation of this Realm by reason whereof the Issues Revenues Profits and Treasure rising and coming of the said Spiritual Promotions and Dignities were and should be spent employed and converted within this Realm to the great profit and commodity of the King's Subjects of the same And where also by the laudable Laws and Provisions of this Realm before this time made it hath been ordained used and established that no Person nor Persons of whatsoever Estate Degree or Quality he or they were should take or receive within this Realm of England to Farm by any Procuracy Writ Letter of Attorney Administrations by Indenture or by any other Mean any Benefice or other Promotion within this Realm of any Person or Persons but only of the King 's true and lawful Subjects being born under the King's Dominions And also that no Person or Persons of what estate and degree soever he or they were by reason of any such Farm Procuracie Letter of Attorney Administration Indenture or by any other mean as is aforesaid should carry conveigh or cause to be carried and conveighed out of this Realm any Gold Silver Treasure or other Commodity by Letter of Exchange or by way of Merchandise or otherwise for any of the Causes aforesaid to the profit or commodity of any Alien or other Stranger being born out of this Realm having any such Promotion Spiritual within the same without license of the King's Highness by the advice of his Council as by the same Laws Statutes and Provisions more plainly at large it may appear which said laudable Laws Statutes and Provisions were made devised and ordained by great policy and foresight of the King 's most noble Progenitors the Nobles and Commons of this Realm for the great profit utility and benefit of the same to the intent that the Gold Silver Treasure Riches and other Commodity of the same by the occasion aforesaid should not be exhausted employed converted and otherwise transported out of this Realm and Dominions of the same to the use profit and commodity of any Stranger being born out of this Realm or the Dominions of the same But only to be spent and used and bestowed within the same to the great comfort and consolation of the Subjects of this Realm Notwithstanding which said wholsome Laws Statutes and Provisions the King's Highness being a Prince of great benignity and liberality having no knowledg nor other due information or instruction of the same Laws Statutes and Provisions heretofore hath nominated and preferred and promoted Laurence Campegius Bishop of Sarum with all the Spiritual and Temporal Possessions Promotions and other Emoluments and Commodities in any wise belonging or appertaining to the same And also hath nominated preferred and promoted Hierome being another Stranger born out of the King 's said Realm and Dominions to the See and Bishoprick of Worcester with all the Spiritual and Temporal Promotions and other Emoluments and Commodities in any wise belonging or appertaining to the same Which said two Bishops and namely the Bishop of Sarum nothing regarding their Duties to Almighty God nor their Cures of the said Bishopricks eversith or for the more part of the time of their said Promotions or Profections into the same have been and yet be resident dwelling
in him did not only erect and advance the same Thomas unto the State of an Earl and enriched him with many-fold Gifts as well of Goods as of Lands and Offices but also him the said Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex did erect and make one of your most trusty Counsellors as well concerning your Grace's Supream Jurisdictions Ecclesiastical as your most high secret Affairs Temporal Nevertheless your Majesty now of late hath found and tried by a large number of Witnesses being your faithful Subjects and Personages of great Honour Worship and Discretion the said Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex contrary to the singular trust and confidence which your Majesty had in him to be the most false and corrupt Traitor Deceiver and Circumventor against your most Royal Person and the Imperial Crown of this your Realm that hath been known seen or heard of in all the time of your most noble Reign Insomuch that it is manifestly proved and declared by the Depositions of the Witnesses aforesaid That the same Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex usurping upon your Kingly Estate Power Authority and Office without your Grace's Commandment or Assent hath taken upon him to set at liberty divers Persons being convicted and attainted of Misprision of High Treason and divers other being apprehended and in Prison for Suspection of High Treason and over that divers and many times at sundry places in this your Realm for manifold Sums of Mony to him given most traiterously hath taken upon him by several Writings to give and grant as well unto Aliens as to your Subjects a great number of Licenses for conveighing and carrying of Mony Corn Grain Beans Beer Leather Tallow Bells Mettals Horses and other Commodities of this your Realm contrary to your Highness's most Godly and Gracious Proclamations made for the Common-Wealth of your People of this your Realm in that behalf and in derogation of your Crown and Dignity And the same Thomas Cromwell elated and full of pride contrary to his most bounden Duty of his own Authority and Power not regarding your Majesty Royal And further taking upon him your Power Sovereign Lord in that behalf divers and many times most traiterously hath constituted deputed and assigned many singular Persons of your Subjects to be Commissioners in many your great urgent and weighty Causes and Affairs executed and done in this your Realm without the assent knowledg or consent of your Highness And further also being a Person of as poor and low degree as few be within this your Realm pretending to have so great a stroak about you our and his natural Sovereign Liege Lord that he letted not to say publickly and declare That he was sure of you which is detestable and to be abhorred amongst all good Subjects in any Christian Realm that any Subject should enterprize or take upon him so to speak of his Sovereign Liege Lord and King And also of his own Authority and Power without your Highness's consent hath made and granted as well to Strangers as to your own Subjects divers and many Pass-ports to pass over the Seas with Horses and great Sums of Mony without any search And over that most Gracious Soveraign Lord amongst divers other his Treasons Deceits and Falshoods the said Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex being a detestable Heretick and being in himself utterly disposed to sett and sow common Sedition and Variance among your true and loving Subjects hath secretly set forth and dispersed into all Shires and other Territories of this your Realm and other your Dominions great numbers of false Erroneous Books whereof many were printed and made beyond the Seas and divers other within this Realm comprising and declaring amongst many other Evils and Errors manifest Matters to induce and lead your Subjects to diffidence and refusal of the true and sincere Faith and Belief which Christian Religion bindeth all Christian People to have in the most Holy and Blessed Sacrament of the Altar and other Articles of Christian Religion most graciously declared by your Majesty by Authority of Parliament And certain Matters comprised in some of the said Books hath caused to be translated into our maternal and English Tongue And upon report made unto him by the Translator thereof that the Matter so translated hath expresly been against the said most Blessed and Holy Sacrament Yet the same Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex after he had read the same Translation most heretically hath affirmed the same material Heresie so translated to be good and further hath said that he found no fault therein and over that hath openly and obstinately holden Opinion and said That it was as lawful for every Christian Man to be a Minister of the said Sacrament as well as a Priest And where also your most Royal Majesty being a Prince of Vertue Learning and Justice of singular Confidence and Trust did constitute and make the same Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex your Highness's Vicegerent within this your Realm of England and by the same gave unto him Authority and Power not only to redress and reform all and all manner of Errors and Erroneous Opinions insurging and growing among your loving and obedient Subjects of this your Realm and of the Dominions of the same but also to order and direct all Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Causes within your said Realm and Dominions the said Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex not regarding his Duty to Almighty God and to your Highness under the Seal of your Vicegerent hath without your Grace's assent or knowledg licensed and authorized divers Persons detected and suspected of Heresies openly to teach and preach amongst your most loving and obedient Subjects within this your Realm of England And under the pretence and colour of the said great Authorities and Cures which your Majesty hath committed unto him in the Premisses hath not only of his corrupt and damnable Will and Mind actually at some time by his own Deed and Commandment and at many other times by his Letters expresly written to divers worshipful Persons being Sheriffs in sundry Shires of this your Realm falsly suggesting thereby your Grace's Pleasure so to have been caused to be set at large many false Hereticks some being there indicted and some other being thereof apprehended and in ward and commonly upon complaints made by credible Persons unto the said Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex of great and most detestable Heresies committed and sprung in many places of this your Realm with declaration of the Specialities of the same Heresies and the Names of the Offenders therein the same Thomas Cromwel Earl of Essex by his crafty and subtil means and inventions hath not only defended the same Hereticks from Punishment and Reformation but being a fautor maintainer and supporter of Hereticks divers times hath terribly rebuked divers of the said credible Persons being their Accusers and some others of them hath persecuted and vexed by Imprisonment and otherwise So that thereby many of your Grace's true and loving Subjects have been in much
whosesoever Daughter she was she should be his Wife and upon that Sir Thomas instructed his Daughter how she should hold the King in her toils Sir Thomas must have thought the King had an ill memory if he had forgot such a Story but the one part of this makes him afraid that the King should marry his Daughter and the other part makes him afraid they should miss their hopes in it Not to mention how little likely it is that a King of such high vanity would have done that which the privatest Person has an aversion to I mean the marrying the Daughter of one whom they know to be a common Prostitute 23. He says Wolsey before his return from France sent Gambara to the Pope desiring him to name himself Vicar of the Papacy during his captivity This was not done till almost a year after this and the motion was sent by Staphileus Dean of the Rota for which see pag. 50. 24. He says None but ill Men and ignorant Persons wrote against the Marriage but all learned and good Men wrote for it The whole Doctors of the Church in all Ages were against it and no Doctor ancienter than Cajetan could ever be found to have writ for it 25. He says That tho great endeavours were used to perswade Sir Tho. More of the unlawfulness of the marriage all was in vain Is it probable that the King would have made him Lord Chancellor when he was so earnest in this business if he had not known that he would have gone along with him in it By one of his Letters to Cromwel out of the Tower it appears that he approved the Divorce and had great hopes of success in it as long as it was prosecuted at Rome and founded on the defects in the Bull. And in the 22 d year of the King's Reign when the Opinions of the Universities and the Books of Learned Men were brought to England against the Marriage he carried them down to the House of Commons and made read them there after which he desired they would report in their Country what they had heard and seen and then all Men would openly perceive that the King had not attempted this matter of his Will and Pleasure but only for the discharge of his Conscience More was a Man of greater integrity than to have said this if he had thought the Marriage good so that he has either afterwards changed his mind or did at this time dissemble too artificially with the King 26. After a long flourish about the King 's secret fears and apprehensions and the perplexities the Cardinal was in which must pass for a piece of his Wit that is to say Lying for he knew none of their thoughts He says That Gardiner and Sir Francis Brian were sent to the Pope together Gardiner being then Secretary of State In this there are only three gross mistakes First Gardiner was not sent with the first Message to the Pope Secretary Knight carried it 2. Sir Francis Brian went never to Rome with Gardiner It is true a year after the commencing the Sute Sir Francis Brian was sent to Rome and about a month after him Gardiner was also sent so tho they were both together at Rome yet they were not sent thither together 3. Gardiner was not Secretary of State but was Wolsey's Secretary when he went first to Rome and was made a Privy Counsellor when he was sent thither the second time and was not Secretary of State till some months after his return from his Journey the last time 27. He says They made the Pope believe that the Queen would willingly retire into a Monastery This was on the contrary a contrivance of the Popes who thought it the easiest way to bring the Matter to a good issue but in England they had no hopes of it and so always diverted the motion when it was proposed by the Pope 28. He says ' The Pope said he would consult with some Cardinals and Divines and do all that he could lawfully do to give the King satisfaction Upon the first motion of it the Pope frankly granted the King's desire and gave a Bull with a Commission upon it And only consulted some Cardinals about the methods of doing it And did assure the King that he would not only do every thing that could be granted in Law or Justice but whatsoever he could grant out of the fulness of his Power It is true afterwards when the Pope changed his measures and resolved to agree with the Emperor he pretended he understood not these things himself but would needs turn it over upon the Cardinals and Divines 29. He says All the Cardinals were of a mind that the Marriage was good Cardinal Sanctorum Quatuor by the force of that mighty Argument of 4000 Crowns changed his mind All the other Cardinals were forward in granting the King's desires for which he wrote them a Letter of Thanks 30. He says The Pope granted the Commission to the two Legats not doubting but it was true that had been told him of the Queens readiness to go into a Monastery The Pope knew she would not yield to any such thing but when he granted that Commission he sent with Campegio a Decretal Bull annulling the Marriage and sent afterwards a promise never to avocate the Process but to confirm what Sentence the Legats should give tho soon after he broke his promise most signally And since he had often dispensed with others for breaking their Faith he might think that it was hard to deny him the same priviledg for himself 31. He says The Pope understanding that the Queen did not consent to the Propositions that were made and that he had been abused sent after Campegio when he was on his Journey that he should not proceed to a Sentence without a new order The Pope sent Campana to England after Campegio to assure the King he would do every thing for him that he could do out of the fulness of his Power And ordered the same Person to charge Cardinal Campegio to burn the Decretal Bull which he had sent by him In all which the Pope as appears by the Original Letters was only governed by politick Maxims and considered nothing but the dangers himself was like to fall in tho Sanders would perswade us he was ready to run the hazard of all these 32. He says The King by his Letters to the Pope did at the same time that he was moving scruples about his own Marriage transact about a Dispensation for a marriage betwixt his own natural Son the Duke of Richmond and his Daughter the Lady Mary Tho the whole Dispatches at that time both to and from Rome be most happily preserved there is not the least mention of any such design and can any body think that if any such motion had been made the Pope would not have taken great advantages from it and that these Letters would not
18. v. 16. Lev. 20.21 And in the New Mat. 14.4 1 Cor. 5. â— Lib. 4 to cont Marcionâ—â— The Authorities of Popes a ad omnes Galâ—iâ—e Episcopos b 30. Quaest. 3. cap. Pitanâ—m c De Pres. cap. cum in juventutem and Counciâ—s Can. 2. Chap. 5. 〈◊〉 61. Chap. 5. a And the Greek In 20. Levit. b Homil. 71. on 22. Mat. c Epist. ad Diodor. On Levit. 18. and 20. And the Latine Fathers a Lib. 8. Ep. 66. b Cont. Hâ—â—vidium c Cont. Faâ—st chap. 8 9 10. Quaest. 64. in Lev. Ad Bonifac Lib. 3. chap. 4. Lib. 15. de Civ Dâ—i chap. 16. And of the Modern Writers In Epist. ad Pium Fratâ—em e On 18. Lev. g Epist. ad Arch. Rotomag Epis. Sag. f Lib. 2. de Sacram. p. 2. chap. 5. Art 2. h Epist. 240. The Schoolmen 2 dâ— 2 dae Quaest. 154. art 9. In Tertiam Quaest. 54. art 3. In 4tam. dist 40. Q. 3. and 4. And Canonists Marriage compleated by Consent Violent presumptions of the Consummation of Prince Artâ—â—r's Marriage The Popes Dispensation of no force In Quodiâ— Lib. 4. Art 13. in 4 tam dist 15. Q. 3. art 2. Sâ—p Cap. Conjunctioniâ— 35. Q. 2. 3. Sup. Cap. Literas de Rest. Spons Cap. ad Audien Spousal Several Bishops refuse to submit to the Popes Decrees The Authority of Tradition The Arguments for the Marriage 1529. The Anwers made to h ese 1531. The Queen still intractable Hall A Session of Parliament Morâ— Convocation The whole Clergy sued in a Premâ—nire The Prerogative of the Kings of England in Ecclesiastical affairs The Encroachment of the Papacy Mat. Paris The Laws made against them 25 Edw. 1st repeated in the Stat. of Provisors 25. Edw. 3d. 25. Edward 3d. Statute of Provisors 27. Edward 3d. cap. 1st 38. Edward 3d. cap. 1st 3. Richard 2d cap. 3d. 12 Richard 2d cap. 15. 16. Richard 2d cap. 5. 2. Hen. 4. cap. 4. 6. Henry 4. cap. 1st 7. Hen. 4. cap. 6.8 17. Hen. 4. cap. 8. 4. Hen. 5. cap. 4. Ex MSS. D Petyt 1530. Reg. Chicâ—el Fol. 39. Collect. Numb 37. 1531. And to the King and Parliament Collect. Numb 38. Collect. Numb 39. But to no purpose Collect. Numb 40. The Clergy excuse themselves Yet they Compound And acknowledge the King Supreme Head of the Church of England Lord Heâ—bert Antiquit. Britanniae in vita Warham Printed in the Cabala The Commons desire to be included in the King's Pardon Hall Which thâ— King afterwards grants One Attainâ—â—ed for Poisoning 22. Hen. 8 Act. 16. Lord Herbert The King leaves the Queen A disorder among the Clergy of London about the Subsidy Hall The Pope falls off to the French Faction A Match projected between the Pope's Neece and the Duke of Orleance The Emperor is engaged in a War with â—he Turk 1532. The Parliament complains of the Ecclesiastical Courts Hall But reject a Bill about Wards The Commons Petition that they may be Dissolved 1532. The King's Answer An Act against Annates Collect. Numb 41. Parl. Rolls The Pope writes to the King about the Queens Appeal L. Herbert Collect. Numb 42. A Dispatch of the King to the Pope Sir Edward Karne sent to Rome His Negotiation there taken from the Original Letters Cott. lib. Viteli B. 13. The Cardinal of Ravenna corrupted by Bribes Collect. Numb 43. Collect. Numb 44. Collect. Numb 45. A Bull for erecting new Bishopricks The Pope desires the King would submit to him Collect. Numb 46. A Session of Parl. One moves for bringing the Queen to Court At which the King is offended A Subsidy is voted The King remits the Oaths which the Clergy swore to be considered by the Commons Their Oath to the Pope Their Oath to the King More laid down his Office An Enterveiw with the French King Eliot sent to Rome with Instructions Cott. Lib. Vil. B. 13. The King Married Anne Boâ—eyn Nov. 14. Cowper Holinsâ—ies and Sanders An enterview between Pope and Emperor Some overtures about the Divorce Lord Herbert 1533. A Session of Parliament An Act against Appeals to Rome 24. Hen. 8. Act 22. 1533. Warhams Death Aug. 23. The King resolves to promote Cranmer Fox Cranmers Bulls from Rome His Protestation about his Oath to the Pope Antiq. Brit. iâ— vita Cranmâ—â— 1532. New Endeavours to make the Queen submit But in vain 1533. Cranmer proceeds to a Sentence of Divorce taken from the Originals Cott. lib. Otho C. 1â— Collect. Numb 47. The Censures past at that time Cott. lib. Otho C. 10. The Pope unites himself to the French King And condemns the Kings proceedings in England Queen Elizabeth Born Sâ—p 7. An Interview between the Pope and Frâ—nch King at Marsâ—illâ—s The Pope promises to give Sentence for the King of England's Divorce Fidel. serv. Infidâ— subdit Responsio Bzovius The French King prevails with the King of England to submit to the Pope Which was well received at Rome Hist. Council of Trent by Padre Paule But the Imperialists opposed it 1531. And with great preparation procure a sentence against the King The King resolves to abolish the Popes Power in England Which had been much disputed there 1532. â—elerine Inglese Hall The Arguments upon which it was rejected 1533. 1534. The Arguments for the Kings Supremacy From the old Testament 1533. And the New And the Practises of the primitive Church And from Reason And from the Laws of England 1534. The Qualification of that Supremacy Necessary Erudition upon the Sacrament of Orders The necessity of extirpating the Popes Power Pains taken to satisfie Fisher about it The Origiâ—nal is in the Cott. lib. 〈◊〉 C. 10. Journal Procer The Act for taking away the Popes Power It is the Act 21 in the Statute Book 27 in the Record and 8 in the Journal The judgments past on that Act. Act about the Succession to the Crown 22 in the Statute Books 34 in the Reâ—ord 26 in the Journal The Oath about the Succesâ—ion Journal Procer Act about punishing Hereticks 14 in the Stâ—tute Book 33 in the Record 31 in the Journal The submission made by the Clergy to the King 19 in the Statute Book 25 in the Record Journal Procâ—r 〈…〉 26 in the Record Collect. â—umb 48. The Act about the Maid of Kâ—nt and her Complices 12 in Statute Book 31 in the Record 7 in the Journâ—â— See his Works paâ— 1435. The 〈…〉 of the 〈◊〉 Sâ—ow Stow. The Nuns speech at her death Hall Stow Fisher gently dealt with But is obstinate and intractable Collect. Numb 49. Cott. Lib. Cleopatâ—e E. 4. The Oath for the Succession generally sworn Orig. Cott. Lib. Otho C. â—â— Collect. Numb 50. Rot. Claus. Those last clausâ—◠〈◊〉 not in the other Writing More and Fisher refuse the Oath See his works p. 1428. Weavers Monuments page 504 and 506. And are proceeded against Another Session of Parliament The Kings Supremacy declared The Oath about the Succession conâ—iâ—med The first Fruits of Benefices given to the King Sundry