to bring the same more easily to pass some have abused the Name of Me Thomas Arch-bishop of Canterbury bruting abroad that I have set up the Mass at Canterbury and that I offered to say Mass before the Queen's Highness and at Paul's Church and I wot not where I have been well exercised these twenty Years to suffer and bear evil Reports and Lies and have not been mych grieved thereat and have born all things quietly Yet when untrue Reports and Lies turn to the hindrance of God's Truth they be in no wise to be tolerate and suffered Wherefore these be to signify to the World that it was not I that did set up the Mass at Canterbury but it was a false flattering lying and dissembling Monk which caused the Mass to be set up there without my Advice or Counsel And as for offering my self to say Mass before the Queen's Highness or in any othea Place I never did as her Grace knoweth well But if hâ—r Grace will give me leave I shall be ready to prove against all that will say the contrary and that the Communion-Book set forth by the most innocent and godly Prince K. Edward VI in his High Court of Parliament is conformable to the Order which our Saviour Christ did both observe and command to be observed and which his Apostles and Primitive Church used many Years Whereas the Mass in many things not only hath no Foundation of Christ his Apostles nor the Primitive Church but also is manifest contrary to the same and containeth many horrible Blasphemies in it And altho many either unlearned or maliciously do report that Mr. Peter Martyr is unlearned yet if the Queen's Highness will graunt thereunto I with the said Mr. Peter Martyr and other four or five which I shall choose will by God's Grace take upon us to defend that not only our Common-Prayers of the Churches Ministration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies but also that all the Doctrine and Religion by our said Soveraign Lord K. Edward VI is more pure and according to God's Word than any that hath been used in England these thousand Years so that God's Word may be the Judg and that the Reason and Profes may be set out in writing To th entent as well all the World may examine and Judg them as that no Man shall start back from their Writing and what Faith hath been in the Church these fifteen hundred Years we will joyne with them in this Point and that the Doctrine and Usage is to be followed which was in the Church fifteen hundred Years past And we shall prove that the Order of the Church set out at this present in this Church of England by Act of Parliament is the same that was used in the Church fifteen hundred Years past And so shall they never be able to prove theirs Some Copies of this Declaration soon fell into the Hands of certain Bishops who brought them to the Council The Council sent a Copy to the Queen's Commissioners Who soon after ordered him to appear before them and to bring in an Inventory of his Goods The reason as is alledged of his being ordered to bring in this Inventory was because it was then intended that he should have a sufficient Living assigned him and to keep his House and not meddle with Religion So on the Day appointed which was August 27 the Arch-bishop together with Sir Thomas Smith Secretary of State to K. Edward and May Dean of S. Pauls came before the Queen's Commissioners in the Consistory of Pauls and the Arch-bishop brought in his Inventory We are left to guess what he was now cited for I suppose it was to lay to his charge Heresy and his Marriage What more was done with him at this time I find not He retired to his House at Lambeth where he seemed to be confined For about the beginning of August as may be collected from a Letter of the Arch-bishop's to Cecyl he was before the Council about the Lady Iane's Business without all question And then with the severe Reprimands he received was charged to keep his House and be forth-coming At that time he espied Cecyl who was in the same Condemnation and would fain have spoken with him but durst not as he told him in a Letter dated August 14 as it seems out of his Love and Care of him lest his very talking with Cecyl might have been prejudicial to that Pardon which he now lay fair for But by Letter he desired him to come over to him to Lambeth because he would gladly commune with him to hear how Matters went and for some other private Causes Cecyl being now at Liâ—erty September 13 following the Arch-bishop was again summoned to appear that Day before the Queen's Council Then he appeared and was dismissed but commanded to be the next Day in the Star-Chamber And so he was The effect of which appearance was that he was committed to the Tower partly for setting his Hrnd to the Instrument of the Lady Iane's Succession and partly for the publick Offer he made a little before of justifying openly the Religious Proceedings of the deceased King But the chief Reason was the inveterate Malice his Enemies conceived against him for the Divorse of K. Henry from the Queen's Mother the blame of which they laid wholly upon him though Bishop Gardiner and other Bishops were concerned in it as deep as he In the Tower we leave the good Arch-bishop a while after we have told you that soon after the Queen coming to the Tower some of the Arch-bishop's Friends made humble suit for his Pardon and that he might have access to her but She would neither hear him nor see him Holgate also the other Arch-bishop about the beginning of October was committed to the Tower upon pretence of Treason or great Crimes but chiefly I suppose because he was Rich. And while he was there they rifled his Houses at Battersea and Cawood At his former House they seized in Gold coined three hundred Pounds in Specialties and good Debts four hundred Pounds more in Plate gilt and Parcel gilt sixteen hundred Ounces A Mitre of fine Gold with two Pendants set round about the sides and midst with very fine pointed Diamonds Saphires and Balists and all the Plain with other good Stones and Pearls and the Pendants in like manner weighing one hundred twenty five Ounces Six or seven great Rings of fine Gold with Stones in them whereof were three fine blew Saphires of the best an Emerald very fine a good Turkeys and a Diamond a Serpent's Tongue set in a Standard of Silver gilt and graven the Arch-bishop's seal in silver his Signet an old Antick in Gold The Counterpane of his Lease of Wotton betwixt the late Duke of Northumberland and him with Letters Patents of his Purchase of Scrowby Taken from Cawood and other Places appertaining to the Arch-bishop by one Ellis Markham First in ready Money nine hundred
Willelmus Episcopus Landavensis Bishop of Landaff whose Title of Landavensis the Ignorance or Mistake of the Scribe changed into Navatensis By a like mistake very frequent in our Ancient Records the Bishop of Lincoln Lincolniensis is corruptly stiled Nicoliensis Page 37. line 6. Iohn Thornden who was often Commissary of Oxon while Archbishop Warham was Chancellor of that University was stiled Episcopus Syrinensis His Name was Iohn Thornton Many years after him Richard Thornden was Suffragan Bishop in the Diocess of Canterbury In Thornton endeth the Catalogue of Suffragan Bishops which you could find Consecrated before the time of Archbishop Cranmer being in all seven If it pleaseth God to permit me to to finish my Angliâ— Sacra I shall exhibit a perfect Succession of Suffragan Bishops in almost all the Diocesses of England for about Two hundred years before the Reformation Ibid. line 8. And hereafter we shall meet with a Bishop of Hippolitanum who assisted Archbishop Cranmer at his Ordinations It will be hard to find such a City as Hyppolitanum in the world We had in England many Suffragan Bishops who successively assumed the Title of Bishops of Hippo the See of the Great St. Austin These were wont to stile themselves Hipponenses but some of them not being so good Grammarians took the Stile of Ypolitanenses and Hippolitanenses which latter Appellation might give occasion to the mistake concerning a Bishop of Hippolitanum Page 38. line 3. ab imo The King sent to the Archbishop to make Thomas Mannyng Suffragan of Gipwich who was accordingly Consecrated by the Archbishop This Gipwich is no other than Ipswich the chief Town of Suffolk in Latin called Gipâ—svicum and Gipwicum from which place Mannyng at his Prâ—motion to the Office of a Suffragan Bishop took his Title Page 41. line 3. This choice Treasure the Original Book containing the Subscription of the Members of the Convocation to certain Articles of Religion Sir Robert Cotton afterwards procured And at the bottom of the first Page is written Robertus Cotton Bruceâ—s by Sir Robert's own hand signifying his Value of this Monument Sir Robert did not by that Subscription of his Name testify any extraordinary Value of this Volume for he wrote the same words at the bottom of the first Page of all or almost all the Manuscript Volumes of his Library Page 50. line 26. Iune Anno 1536. William Rugg was Consecrated Bishop of Norwich His Consecration is omitted in the Register Probably he was consecrated with Sampson Bishop of Chicâ—ester who was Confirmed Iune 10 th Rugg could not be Consecrated in Iune for he was not Confirmed till the 28 th of that Month and the first Sunday after that day was Iuly 2 d. Bishops were wont to be Consecrated on the next Sunday after their Confirmation So that it is most likely Sampson was Consecrated Iune 11 th and Rugg together with Warton of St. Asaph on Iuly 2 d. Page 61. line 18. ab imo Iune 24. Anno 1537. Iohn Bird was Consecrated Suffragan of the See of Penrith in Landaff Diocess and Lewis Thomas Suffragan Bishop of the See of Salop. It should have been said that Bird was Consecrated Suffragan of the Diocess of Landaff with the Title of Bishop of Penrith Bishop of Shrewsbury not Salop for Penrith is no more in Landaff Diocess than Shrewsbury is in that of St. Asaph But it may be observed That in the first Act of Parliament made in this Reign touching Suffragan Bishops certain Titles were appointed to which the said Suffragans should be Consecrated taken from several of the chief Towns in England but it was not required that the Suffragan of any particular Diocess should take his Title from some Town in that Diocess but was left at liberty to take it from any Town mentioned in that Act. Which was accordingly practised indifferently till the Promulgation of the second Act concerning Suffragans Ibid. line 2. It was now forbidden by the Parliament that the Feast of St. Thomas a Becket the pretended Martyr should be celebrated any more He is also stiled Thomas a Becket Page 70. line 21. 28. Page 92. line 4. c. This is a small Error but being so often repeated deserveth to be observed and corrected The Name of that Archbishop was Thomas Becket nor can it otherwise be found to have been written in any Authentick History Record Kalendar or other Book If the Vulgar did formerly as it doth now call him Thomas a Becket their Mistake is not to be followed by Learned men Page 62. line 8. The Reason why Archbishop Cranmer all this while that is from the first making the Act concerning Suffragans in the year 1534 to this time 1537. had nominated none for Suffragan to this See Dover till now when he nominated and consecrated Richard Yngworth in December might be because there seemed to be a Suffragan already even the same that had been in the time of Archbishop Warham namely Iohn Thornton Prior of Dover who was one of the Witnesses appointed by that Archbishop to certify what was found and seen at the opening of St. Dunstan's Tomb. Richard Thornden seems to have succeeded Yngworth in this Office St. Dunstan's Tomb was opened in April 1508 and Thornden died not till the last year of Queen Mary So that if to Thernton succeeded Yngworth and to Yngworth succeeded Thornden there will be no room for any of those three Bishops of Sidon who were before in this History pag. 36. said to have assisted the Archbishops Warham and Cranmer in the Quality of Suffragan Bishops For the very first of them Thomas Wellys was Suffragan Bishop after the year 1508. I know not when he was made Suffragan or when he died but I am certain that he survived the year 1511. As for Christopher and the other Thomas Bishops of Sidon they indeed were not the peculiar Suffragans of the Archbishops of Canterbury as I before said Page 63. line 28. March 24. 1537. Henry Holbeach was Consecrated Suffragan Bishop of Bristow in the Bishop of London's Chappel in the said Bishop's House scituate in Lambeth-Marsh by the said Bishop c. The Bishops of London never had any House scituate in Lambeth-Marsh but the Bishops of Rochester at that time had which House was soon after conveyed from the See of Rochester to the Crown and afterwards from the Crown by exchange to the See of Carlisle to which it now belongeth Page 86. line 22. ab imo In this Consecration of Bonner Bishop of London Anno 1540. the Prior and Chapter of Canterbury insisted it seems upon an Ancient Privilege of their Church which I do not find in this Register that of Archbishop Cranmer they had at other Consecrations done namely that the Consecration should be celebrated at the Church of Canterbury and at no other Church or Oratory without their allowance And so in a formal Instrument they gave their License and Consent The renewing of this their old pretended Privilege looked
I had omitted in their Places not meeting with them in Cranmer's Register The former I suppose was consecrated with Shaxton in April as the latter might be with Fox and Barlow in September his Temporalties having been restored to him in the beginning of October This Hilsey was a great Assistant to Archbishop Cranmer and a learned man He wrote a Book of Prayers with Epistles and Gospels in English I suppose which he dedicated to the Lord Crumwel by whose command it was published P. 57. l. 17. After Him add But he could not see his Desire effected by these men till it was happily done by other hands P. 75. l. 7. r. Superstitions P. 58. l. 6. * f. Three or four r. Four or five P. 59. l. 14. del Some years after came forth c to thâ— end of the Paragraph P. 77. l. 4. * After Winton Whereas I had said That the Bishop of Winchester was not in a Commission there specified it appears by Crumwel's Speech set down by the Bishop of Sarum that that Bishop was then indeed a Commissioner Here my MS. deceived me But be it noted what the L. Paget testified before the Commissioners at that Bishop's Trial in 1549 namely That because he was so wilful in his opinion and addicted to the Popish part the King left him out of the Commission for Compiling the last Book of Religion And what that Book was I know not unless the Necessary Erudition P. 78. l. 13. * after Hands dele the Period P. 85. l. 21. * Remove thâ— Close of the Parenthesis after That P. 94. l. 8. * r. Translation P. 95. l. 13. after Bulkley insert was Consecrated P. 97. l. 4. * r. Abused P. 104. l. 17. * r. one P. 109. l. 16. r. Archbishop's Endeavour P. 126. l. 13. * After Arms Whereas it was conjectured there that the King changed Archbishop Cranmer's Coat of Arms about 1544 it must have been several years before For his New Coat of the Pelicans may be seen in the Frontispiece of the great English Bible printed 1540. And how long before that time I know not P. 135. l. 16. * r. Church living P. 146. l. 7. * f. Counties r. Episcopal Sees P. 149. l. 25 26. These words When the old Order was broken and a New brought in by Homilies to be within a Parenthesis Ibid. l. 5. * after and add said P. 151. l. 17. dele and. Ibid. after Charge add was P. 153. l. 4. r. Protectors P. 154. l. 17. after them instead of a Period make a Colon. P. 186. l. 16. f. them r. it P. 196. l. 15. * r. Bucer P. 197. l. 4. in the Marg. r. Vit. P. 219. l. 8 9 10 11. dele the Comma's on the sides P. 220 l. 1. r. Augmentations P. 226. l. 4. r. Wreaked P. 234. l. 25. r. Strangers P. 235. l. 7. r. Embark P. 237. l. 12. of the Marg. r. Extent P. 238. l. 14. * dele the Comma's before Leave P. 239. l. 4. r. Strasburgh P. 243. l. 14. r. Glastenbury P. 266. l. 22. r. Superstitious P. 268. l. 5. r. Counsil P. 270. l. 12. * add in the Margent The Sweating Sickness P. 271. l. 12. r. two P. 286. l. 12. f. were r. was P. 306. l. 23. r. other Ibid. l. â—5 dele the Comma P. 307. l. 16. * r. Hand P. 311. l. 14. r. one P. 314. l. 14. * r. Joh. Ibid. l. ult after Humfrey make a Comma P. 315. l. 24. â— r. convince P. 349. l. 19. after all add and. P. 351. l. 11. * r. Conversation P. 352. l. 5. * after it add in P. 354. l. 25. r. Corpus P. 378. l. ult r. but. P. 395. l. 10. f. Contrived r. Composed P. 396. l. 21. del With a Preface P. 394 395 396 397 398 399 400. on the Top of each Margent del An. 1555. P. 411. l. 10. r. was P. 421. l. 21. * after him add be P. 422. l. 1â— f. Flesh r. Fish P. 424. l. 4. * r. one Ibid. l. 3. * f. John r. Thomas P. 425. l. 2. after two add to P. 427. l. 20. after appointed add a. P. 437. l. 9. * f. Historiae r. Historia P. 444 l. 18. * f. 1538 or 1539. r. 1537 or 1538. P. 448. l. 1. f. that r. the. Ibid. l. 9. * r. Sanctuary P. 461. l. 5. f. infringing r. incurring Ibid. l. 28. after about add with P. 464. l. 22. f. is r. was Errata in the Appendix PAge 7. in the Margent for Sir W. S. read Sir W H. P. 8. l. 10. * r. Popes P. 45. l. 9. * r. Controversiam P. 46. l. 13. * r. Oecolampadio Ibid. l. 3. * r. nec P. 55. l. 9. dele the Colon. P. 56. l. 13. r. Concedant Ibid. r. concessit P. 116. l. 18. after Parcyalyte add as P. 131. l. 18. r. Circumcision And so P. 132. l. 21. and l. 29. and l. 31. P. 143. l. 15. * r. praeponenda P. 180. l. 6. * r. Decanatu P. 183. l. 18. after Verbo add a Comma and after Consentientibus dele the Comma l. 19. after Authoritatibus add a Comma P. 188. l. 18. after Liberantes instead of the Period make a Semicolon Ibid. l. 20. after Legati dele the Period P. 190. l. 22. before dam add quibus Ibid. l. 6. * Draw the Comma after Eos before it P. 191. l. 12. r. Procedetur P. 193. l. 10. * r. deterrimo carcere P. 194. l. 13. * f. ita r. ira P. 195. l 17. r. Bernher P. 197. l. 6. * f. quin r. quum P. 199. l. 5. Cognoscentiae perhaps for Ignoscentiae Ibid. l. 11. * r. imbuerat P. 212. l. 3. r. your P. 222. l. 14. Remove the Comma after Abripere before it P. 224. l. 20. * r. punitus P. 232. l. 20. r. habes P. 237. l. 16. * r. angustijs P. 238. l. 17. f. 1552. r. 1553. P. 251. l. 9. r. Appointment MEMORIALS OF Arch-Bishop CRANMER BOOK I. CHAPTER I. Cranmer's Birth Education and Rise THE Name of this most Reverend Prelate deserves to stand upon Eternal Record having been the first Protestant Arch-Bishop of this Kingdom and the greatest Instrument under God of the happy Reformation of this Church of England In whose Piety Learning Wisdom Conduct and Blood the Foundation of it was laid And therefore it will be no unworthy Work to revive his Memory now though after an hundred and thirty Years and upwards I pretend not to write a compleat Narrative of his Life and Death that being scarce possible at such a distance of Time and in the want of full Intelligence and Information of the various Matters that passed through his Hands and the Events that befel him All that I attempt by this present Undertaking is to retrieve and bring to light as many Historical Passages as I can concerning this Holy Prelate by a careful and long search not only into printed Books of History but the best Archives and many most precious and inestimable Manuscripts
that have fallen into my hands I shall pass over in a few words his earlier Days because I have so much to say of him in his riper Years Aslacton a Town in the County of Nottingham was the Place of his Birth and the second Day of Iuly in the Year 1489 was the Day of it He was the Son of Thomas Cranmer Esq a Gentleman of a right ancient Family whose Ancestor came in with the Conqueror And for a long Series of Time the Stock continued in good Wealth and Quality as it did in France for there were extant of his Name and Family there in the Reign of Henry the Eighth One whereof came then into England in company with the French Ambassador To whom for Relation-sake our Bishop gave a noble Entertainment Our Youth was put to learn his Grammar of a rude Parish-Clerk in that barbarous Age. Under whom he learn'd little and endured much from the harsh and curst Disposition of his School-master Though his Father were minded to have his Son educated in Learning yet he would not he should be ignorant of Civil and Gentleman-like Exercises Insomuch that he used himself to Shoot And many times his Father permitted him to Hunt and Hauk and to ride rough Horses So that when he was Bishop he feared not to ride the roughest Horses that came into his Stables which he would do very comely As otherwise at all times there was not any in his House that would become an Horse better And after his Studies when it was time for Recreation he would both Hauk and Hunt the Game being prepared for him And sometimes he would shoot in the Long-Bow and many times kill the Deer with his Cross-Bow though his Sight was not perfect for he was pore-blind But to return to his younger Days He lost his Father early but his Mother at the Age of fourteen Years Anno 1503 sent him to study at Cambridg Where he was nursled in the grossest kind of Sophistry Logick Philosophy Moral and Natural Not in the Text of the old Philosophers but chiefly in the dark Riddles of Duns and other subtile Questionists And in these he lost his Time till he came to two and twenty Years of Age. After that he gave himself to the reading of Faber Erasmus good Latin Authors four or five Years together unto the Time that Luther began to write And then considering what great Controversy was in Matters of Religion not only in Trifles but in the chiefest Articles of our Salvation he bent himself to try out the Truth herein And forasmuch as he perceived he could not judg indifferently in such weighty Matters without the Knowledg of the Holy Scriptures therefore before he was infected with any Man's Opinions or Errors he applied his whole Study three Years therein After this he gave his Mind to good Writers both New and Old not rashly running over them for he was a slow Reader but a diligent Marker of whatsoever he read seldom reading without Pen in Hand And whatsoever made either for the one Part or the other of things in Controversy he wrote it out if it were short or at least noted the Author and the Place that he might find it and write it out at leisure which was a great help to him in debating of Matters ever after This kind of Study he used till he was made Doctor of Divinity which was about the Thirty-fourth Year of his Age and about the Year 1523. But before this being Master of Arts and Fellow of Iesus College he married a Gentleman's Daughter And then leaving the College he read the Common Lecture in Buckingham College before that called Monks College because Monks studied there but now Magdalen College But in a Year after his Wife travailing with Child both she and the Child died And being now single again immediately the Master and Fellows of his old College chose him in Fellow again where he remained During his Residence here divers of the ripest and solidest sort of Scholars were sought out of this University of Cambridg to be transplanted into Cardinal Wolsey's new College in Oxon to be Fellows there Our Cranmer was nominated for one by Dr. Capon to whom that Matter was as it seems intrusted by the Cardinal And tho the Salary was much more considerable there and the way to Preferment more ready by the Favour of the Cardinal to such as were his own Scholars yet he refused to go chusing rather to abide among his old Fellow-Collegians and more closely to follow his Studies and Contemplations here though he were not without danger for his incompliance with this Invitation giving them that were concerned great Offence hereat But of those that went from Cambridg at this time who were all Men pick'd out for their Parts and Learning these were the chief Clark Friar afterwards Doctor of Physick Sumner Harman afterwards Fellow of Eaton Betts afterwards Chaplain to Queen Ann. Cox afterwards School-master to King Eâ—ward Frith afterwards a Martyr Baily Godman Drum afterwards one of the six Preachers at Canterbury Lawney afterwards Chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk All these were cast into Prison for suspicion of Heresy and divers through the hardship thereof died So that well it was for Cranmer that he went not Soon after he took his Degree of Doctor of Divinity and became the Reader of the Divinity-Lecture in his own College And out of the value the University had of his Learning he was appointed one of the Examiners of such as commenced Batchelors and Doctors in Divinity According to whose Approbations the University allowed them to proceed In which Place he did much Good for he used to examine these Candidates out of the Scriptures And by no means would let them pass if he found they were unskilful in it and unacquainted with the History of the Bible So were the Friars especially whose Study lay only in School-Authors Whom therefore he sometimes turned back as insufficient advising them to study the Scriptures for some Years longer before they came for their Degrees it being a shame for a Professor in Divinity to be unskilled in the Book wherein the Knowledg of God and the Grounds of Divinity lay Whereby he made himself from the beginning hated by the Friars Yet some of the more ingenuous sort of them afterward rendred him great and publick Thanks for refusing them whereby being put upon the Study of God's Word they attained to more sound Knowledg in Religion One of these was Dr. Barat a White Friar who lived afterwards in Norwich Not long after this King Henry being perswaded that the Marriage between him and Q. Katharine Daughter to K. Ferdinand of Spain was unlawful and naught by Dr. Longland Bishop of Lincoln his Confessor and other of his Clergy he sent to six of the best learned Men of Cambridg and as many of Oxford to debate this Question Whether it were
stuff their Histories with strange Prophecies and Falshoods mixed with some Truth And I suppose the Matter might be no more than this This grave and sober Arch-Bishop was sensible of the gross Encroachments of the Bishops of Rome upon the Authority of the Kings of this Realm in their own Dominions and his Judgment stood for the restoring of this Imperial Crown to its antient Right and Soveraignty and for the abridging the Papal Power And knowing how learned a Man Dr. Thomas Cranmer was and perceiving what an able Instrument he was like to prove in vindicating the King 's Right to the Supremacy in his own Kingdoms the Arch-Bishop upon these Accounts might think him the fittest to succeed in the Archiepiscopal Chair and might have some reason to believe that the King intended him thereunto And that Arch-Bishop Warham was of this Judgment it may appear if we trace some Footsteps of him In the Year 1530 when all the Clergy were under a Praemunire and a Petition was drawing up in the Convocation for that Cause the King in the said Petition was addressed to by the Title of Supream Head of the Church and Clergy of England At this Title when the Arch-Bishop found some of the Clergy to boggle who were yet afraid openly to declare their disallowance of it he took the opportunity of their Silence to pass the Title by saying That Silence was to be taken for their Consent In the last Synod wherein this Arch-Bishop was a Member and the main Director many things were debated about Abolishing the Papacy This Synod was prorogued from April 26 to October 5. In the mean time he died But had he lived and been well unto the next Sessions some further Steps had been made in evacuating the Bishop of Rome's Usurpations as may be guessed by what was done under his influence the last Sessions when the Supremacy of that foreign Prelate was rejected Something more of this Arch-Bishop's Endeavours of restoring the King to his Supremacy appears by what Arch-Bishop Cranmer said to Brooks Bishop of Glocester before a great Assembly not long before his Burning Brooks had charged him for first setting up the King's Supremacy To which Cranmer replied That it was Warham gave the Supremacy to Henry VIII and that he had said he ought to have it before the Bishop of Rome and that God's Word would bear it And that upon this the Universities of Cambridg and Oxford were sent to to know what the Word of God would allow touching the Supremacy Where it was reasoned and argued upon at length and at last both agreed and and set to their Seals and sent it to the King That he ought to be Supreme Head and not the Pope All which was in Arch-Bishop Warham's Time and while he was alive three quarters of a Year before ever Cranmer had the Arch-Bishoprick of Canterbury as he also added in that Audience So that these things considered we may conclude that Warham did think that none would be so fit to come after him as Cranmer a Learned and diligent Man to carry on this Cause which he before him had begun and so might speak of him as the properest Person to be advanced to this See To this I will add the Sense of an Ingenious and Learned Friend of mine concerning this Passage in Harpsfield's History Which the Author also of the Athenae Oxonienses hath made use of to the good Arch-Bishop's Discredit and which Somner also had unluckily selected though without design to hurt his good Name and is all he writes of him But may it not be considered saith he that the pretended Martyr Thomas Becket though he died in vindication of the Privileges of the Church yet he was the first betrayer of the Rights of his See He made the greatest Breach upon the Authority of the Primacy of Canterbury by resigning the Arch-Bishoprick into the Pope's Hands and receiving it again from him as the Pope's Donation But it is the Honour of the blessed Martyr Thomas Cranmer that he was the first who began to claim the Primacy and retrieve the Rights of his See from being slavishly subjected to the Roman Power Indeed little credit is to be given to the Author who first published this Story considering what a Violent Man he was and how much prejudiced against Cranmer and interessed in the Popish Cause and coming into the Arch-Deaconry of Canterbury by the deprivation of the Arch-Bishop's Brother Cranmer Noluit Episcopari had no mind to be Arch-Bishop He loved his Studies and affected Retirement and well knew the Dangers and Temptations of a publick Station But especially he could not induce his Mind to take his Office from the Pope and to swear Fidelity to him as well as to the King whereby he should ensnare himself in two contrary Oaths Wherefore when the King sent for him home from his Embassy in Germany with a design to lay that honourable Burden upon him he guessing the Reason first endeavoured to delay his coming by signifying to the King some Matters of Importance that would require his tarrying there somewhat longer for the King's Service Hoping in that while the King might have bestowed the Place upon some other In fine our Historians say he stayed abroad one half Year longer But I find him in England in the Month of November which was not much more than a quarter of a Year after Warham's Death Then the King was married to the Marchioness of Pembroke and Cranmer was present So that the King must have sent for him home in Iune two or three Months before the Arch-Bishop's Death probably while he was in a declining dying Condition But after when that which Cranmer seemed to suspect of certain Emergences in those parts wherein the English State might be concerned fell not out the King again commanded his return Home Now more perfectly knowing by some of his Friends the King's Intentions to make him Arch-Bishop he made means by divers of his Friends to shift it off desiring rather some smaller Living At length the King brake his Mind to him that it was his full Purpose to bestow that Dignity upon him for his Service and for the good Opinion he conceived of him But his long disabling himself nothing disswaded the King till at last he humbly craved the King's Pardon for that he should declare to him and that was That if he should accept it he must receive it at the Pope's Hand which he neither would nor could do for that his Highness was the only Supream Governour of the Church of England as well in Causes Ecclesiastical as Temporal and that the full Right of Donation of all manner of Benefices and Bishopricks as well as any other temporal Dignities and Promotions appertained to him and not to any other Foreign Authority And therefore if he might serve God him and his Countrey in that Vocation he would accept it of his Majesty and of no Stranger
was at a stand He was translated from this imaginary Bishoprick to be Bishop of Oxford in the Year 1541. One Iohn Hatton had the Title of Episcopus Negropont He was Suffragan under the Arch-bishop of York Iohn Thornden who was several times Commissiary of Oxon while Arch-bishop Warham was Chancellor of that University was stiled Episcopus Syrinensis And hereafter in the progress of this Book we shall meet with a Bishop of Hippolitanum who assisted Arch-bishop Cranmer at his Ordinations These were but Titulary Bishops and the use of them was to supply the Diocesans absence to consecrate Churches and Church-yards and to reconcile them to assist at Ordinations and confer Orders to confirm Children and the like Sometimes these Suffragans had no Titles at all to any place but were Bishops at large Such an one named Richard Martin is met with in an old Register at Canterbury who was Guardian of the Gray-Fryars there By his last Will made 1498 he gave a Library to the Church and Covent He was Parson of Ickham and Vicar of Lyd in Kent and writ himself in the said Will Bishop of the Vniversal Church By which the Antiquarian supposed nothing else was meant but that he was a Bishop in Name endued with Orders but not with Jurisdiction Episcopal having no particular Charge to intend but generally officiating as Bishop in any part of the Christian Church This I have writ that the Reader may not be put to a stand when he shall in these Commentaries meet with some of these Titular Bishops But proceed we now to the Bishops that were this Year Consecrated Diocesan Bishops April the 11 th Nicholas Shaxton was consecrated Bishop of Sarum in the King's Chappel of S. Stephen by our Arch-bishop Iohn Bishop of Lincoln and Christopher Sidoniens assisting Septemb. the 15 th was the Act of Confirmation and Election of Edward Fox Elect of Hereford and of William Barlow Prior of the Priory of Canons Regular of Bisham of the Order of S. Augustin Sarum for the Bishoprick of S. Asaph The Consecration of these two last are not inserted in the Register March the 18 th the Act of Confirmation and Election of George Brown D. D. Provincial of the Order of Friars Augustin in the City of London for the Arch-bishoprick of Dublin Consecrated March the 19 th by the Arch-bishop at Lambeth Nicholas Bishop of Sarum and Iohn Bishop of Rochester assisting Of this last-mentioned Bishop I shall take some further notice having been the first Protestant Bishop in Ireland as Cranmer was in England a great furtherer of the Reformation in that Land being a stirring Man and of good Parts and Confidence He was first taken notice of by Crumwel Lord Privy Seal and by his sole means preferred to this Dignity in the Church of Ireland upon the observation that was taken of him when he was Provincial of the Augustin Order in England advising all People to make their Application only to Christ and not to Saints Whereby he was recommended unto K. Henry who much favoured him When the King's Supremacy was to be brought in and recognized in Ireland which was the same Year wherein he was made Arch-bishop he was appointed one of the King's Commissioners for the procuring the Nobility Gentry and Clergy to reject the Pope and to own the King for Supream Head of the Church In which Commission he acted with that diligence that it was to the hazard of his Life such opposition was made to it in that Realm At which time in an Assembly of the Clergy George Dowdal Arch-bishop of Ardmagh made a Speech to them and laid a Curse upon those whosoever they were that should own the King's Supremacy Within five Years after this this Arch-bishop Brown caused all Superstitious Relicks and Images to be removed out of the two Cathedrals in Dublin and out of the rest of the Churches in his Diocess and ordered the Ten Commandments the Lord's Prayer and the Creed to be set up in Frames above the Altar in Christ's-Church Dublin In K. Edward VI. his Reign he received the English Common-Prayer-Book into that Realm upon the King's Proclamation for that purpose after much opposition by Dowdal And it was read in Christ's-Church Dublin on Easter Day 1551. He preached also a Sermon in Christ's-Church for having the Scripture in the Mother-Tongue and against Image-worship And for this his forwardness and conformity in Religion and the perverseness of the other Arch-bishop of Ardmagh who had violently resisted all good Proceedings the Title of Primacy was taken from him and conferred upon the Arch-bishop of Dublin And Dowdal was banished or as others say voluntarily left his Bishoprick And then Goodacre sent from England with Bale for the See of Ossory succeeded In Q. Mary's days Dowdal was restored and being a great Man in this Reign expulsed Archbishop Brown from his See for being a married Man Who two or three Years after was succeeded by Hugh Corwin a Complier in all Reigns and Brown soon after died Suffragan Bishops The first of these standing in the Register of the Arch-bishop was the Suffragan of the See of Ipswich The Bishop of Norwich according to the direction of the late Act wherein the Bishop was to nominate two for Suffragan to the King and the King was to name one of them to the Arch-bishop to receive Consecration humbly signified to the King that he was destitute of the Aid of a Suffragan and so prayed him to appoint either George Abbot of the Monastery of S. Mary's of Leyston or Thomas Mannyng Prior of the Monastery of S. Mary's of Butley to be his Suffragan without mentioning for what place And on the 7 th of March in the 27 th of his Reign he sent to the Arch-bishop to make the latter Suffragan of Gipwich Who was accordingly consecrated by the Arch-bishop and invested in insigniis Episcopalibus Nicholas Bishop of Sarum and Iohn Bishop of Rochester assisting The Date not specified but probably on the same Day with the Consecration following there being the same Assistants The said Bishop of Norwich sent to the King recommending to him to be Suffragan Thomas de Castleacre of the Cluniac Order and Iohn Salisbury Prior of S. Faiths of Horsham of the Order of S. Benet both Priors of Monasteries in Norwich Diocess The King sent to the Arch-bishop to consecrate Iohn the Prior of S. Faiths for Suffragan of Thetford Accordingly he consecrated him March the 19 th Nicholas Bishop of Sarum and Iohn Bishop of Rochester assisting CHAP. X. The Audience Court THE good Arch-bishop almost every Year met with new Opposition from the Popish Clergy The late Act for abolishing the Pope's Authority and some Acts before that for restraining of Applications to Rome served them now as a Colour to strike at one of the Arch-bishop's Courts viz. that of the Audience a Court which the Arch-bishops used to hold in
their Clients Causes It was urged also that it was a great discouragement to young Men in studying the Law when there is so little prospect of Benefit thereby Lastly That it was contrary to the Civil and Canon Law that permits any Man to be Proctor for another a few excepted But this Paper notably enough written may be read at large in the Appendix And so I leave the Reader to judg of the Expediency of this Order of the Arch-bishop by weighing the Arch-bishop's Reasons with these last mentioned Surely this his Act deserved commendation for his good Intentions thereby though some lesser Inconveniences attended which no doubt he had also well considered before he proceeded to do what he did When Queen Ann on May the 2 d was sent to the Tower by a sudden Jealousy of the King her Husband The next day the Arch-bishop extreamly troubled at it struck in with many good Words with the King on her behalf in form of a Letter of Consolation to him yet wisely making no Apology for her but acknowledging how divers of the Lords had told him of certain of her Faults which he said he was sorry to hear And concluded desiring that the King would however continue his Love to the Gospel lest it should be thought that it was for her sake only that he had favoured it Being in the Tower there arose up new Matter against Queen Ann namely concerning some lawful Impediment of her Marriage with the King and that was thought to be a Pre-Contract between her and the Earl of Northumberland Whereupon the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York were made Commissioners to examine this Matter And she being before the Arch-bishop of Canterbury confessed certain just true and lawful Impediments as the Act in the 26 of Hen. VIII expresseth it but not mentioning what they were So that by that Act the said Marriage is declared never to have been good nor consonant to the Laws Yet the Earl of Northumberland being examined upon Oath before both the Arch-bishops denied it Upon the Truth of which he received also the Blessed Sacrament And the Lord Herbert saw an Original Letter to Secretary Crumwel to the same import But her Confession of it so far prevailed with the King that he would be divorced from her and with our Arch-bishop that he performed it by due Order and Process of Law And an Act passed that the Marriage between the King and Queen Ann was null and void and the Issue illegitimate The Arch-bishop granted a Licence dated Iuly the 24 th with the full Consent of Richard Withipol Vicar of Walthamstow in Essex to George Monoux Alderman of London and Thomas his Son to have the Sacrament administred in his Chappel or Oratory in his House De Moones now a Farm near Higham-hill in the said Parish of VValthamstow Indulging therein to the Wife of the said Thomas to be purified or churched in the same Chappel I the rather mention this that it may serve to recal the Memory of that pious and charitable Citizen and Draper Sir Geo. Monoux who built the fair Steeple of that Parish-Church and allowed a Salary for ever for ringing the great Bell at a certain Hour in the Night and Morning the Winter half Year He built also the North Isle of the said Church in the Glass-windows whereof is yet remaining his Coat of Arms. In the Chancel his Body was interred under a fair Altar-Monument yet standing In the Church-yard he founded an Hospital and Free-School and very liberally endowed it though now the Endowments are sadly diminished He also made a Causeway over Walthamstow-Marsh to Lockbridg over the River Lee for the conveniency of Travellers from those Parts to London and left wherewith to continue and keep it in Repair but that also is lost and the Ruins now only to be seen But enough of that The Germans conceived great hope of good to befal the Church by Cranmer's Influence and Presidency in England and took their opportunities of addressing to him This Year Martin Bucer published a large Book in Folio upon the Epistle to the Romans intituled Metaphrasis Enâ—rratio and dedicated it in a long Epistle to the Arch-bishop Wherein are sundry Expressions which will shew how well known abroad the Arch-bishop was already among the Protestants and what an excellent Bishop they looked upon him to be and how fixed their Eyes were upon him for doing great things towards a Reformation in England For thus he writ in this Epistle Te omnes praedicant animo praeditum Archiepiscopo tanti sicque ad gloriam Christi comparati regni Primate digno c. That all Men proclaimed him endowed with a Mind worthy of an Arch-bishop and Primate of so great a Kingdom and so disposed to the Glory of Christ. That he had so attained to this high Estate in Christ by his spiritual Wisdom Holiness of Life and most ardent Zeal to render Christ's Glory more illustrious that gathering together the Humble and taking pity upon the Sheepfold being indeed dispersed and scattered abroad he always sought and saved that which was lost and brought back Christ's poor Sheep to his Fold and the Pastures of everlasting Life when they had been before most miserably harassed by the Servants of Superstition and the Emissaries of the Roman Tyranny And after speaking of the King 's rooting out the Usurpation of the Pope and his pretended Jurisdiction by taking to himself the Supremacy the said Learned Man excited Cranmer to a further Reformation by telling him How easy now it would be for him and the other Arch-bishops and Bishops who were endued with the Spirit and Zeal of Christ from the remainders of the Ecclesiastical Administration to retain what might contribute to the true edifying of Consciences the saving Instruction of Youth and to the just Discipline and Polity of the whole Christian People For when the Enemies were once removed out of the way there could not then happen among us any extraordinary great Concussion of Religion and Ecclesiastical Discipline or any dashing one against another as among them in Germany of necessity came to pass striving so many Years for the Church of Christ against such obstinate Enemies The Consecrations this Year were these Diocesan Bishops Iune the 10 th Richard Sampson Doctor of Decrees and Dean of the King's Chappel was elected and confirmed Bishop of Chichester by Resignation of Robert Sherburn who was now very old No Consecration set down in the Register Iune William Rugg a Monk was consecrated Bishop of Norwich This is omitted also if I mistake not in the Register Probably he was consecrated with Sampson Iuly the 2 d Robert Warton Abbot of Bermondsey was consecrated Bishop of S. Asaph at Lambeth by the Arch-bishop Iohn Bishop of Bangor and William Bishop of Norwich assisting Suffragan Bishops Octob. 20. William More B. D. consecrated Suffragan of Colchester by Iohn Bishop of
of two Houses of Religious Persons namely that of Christ's-Church Canterbury and that of Rochester Towards the latter end of this Year several new Bishopricks were founded out of old Monasteries and several Deaneries and Colleges of Prebends out of divers Priories belonging to Cathedral Churches Herein as Crumwel so Cranmer had a great Hand Who laboured with the King that in these New Foundations there should be Readers of Divinity Greek and Hebrew and Students trained up in Religion and Learning From whence as a Nursery the Bishops should supply their Diocesses with honest and able Ministers And so every Bishop should have a College of Clergy-men under his Eye to be preferred according to their Merits For it was our Arch-bishops regret that the Prebendaries were bestowed as they were This Complaint Bishop Burnet tells us he saw in a long Letter of Cranmer's own hand Bishops Confirmed In Arch-bishops Cranmer's Register I find these Bishops Confirmed their Consecrations being omitted August the 11 th Iohn Bell LL. D. brought up in Baliol College and Arch-deacon of Glocester was Confirmed Bishop of Worcester upon the Resignation of Bishop Latimer in the Chappel of Lambeth He is stiled in the Register the King's Chaplain and Councellor November the Iohn Skyp D. D. Arch-deacon of Dorset and once Chaplain to Queen Ann Boleâ— was Confirmed Bishop of Hereford The King's Letter to the Archbishop to consecrate him bears date November 8. CHAP. XX. The Arch-bishop in Commission THE next Year viz. 1540. The Arch-bishop lost his great Friend and Assistant in carrying on the Reformation I mean the Lord Crumwel And when he was by Popish Craft and Malice taken off their next Work was to sacrifice Cranmer And many were the Accusations that were put up against him and Trial was made many ways to bring him to his Death or at least to bring him in disgrace with the King And first they thought to compass their Ends against him by occasion of a Commission now issued out from the King to a select Number of Bishops whereof the Arch-bishop was one which Commission was confirmed by Act of Parliament for inspecting into Matters of Religion and explaining some of the chief Doctrines of it These Commissioners had drawn up a set of Articles favouring the old Popish Superstitions And meeting together at Lambeth they produced them and vehemently urged that they should be established and that the Arch-bishop would yield to the Allowance of them especially seeing there was a signification that it was the King's Will and Pleasure that the Articles should run in that Tenour But they could not win the Arch-bishop neither by Fear nor Flattery No though the Lord Crumwel at this very time lay in the Tower There was not one Commissioner now on his part but all shrank away and complied with the Time and even those he most trusted to viz. Bishop Hethe of Rochester and Bishop Skip of Hereford The Arch-bishop as he disliked the Book already drawn up by them so he presented another Book wherein were divers Amendments of theirs After much arguing and disputing nor could the Arch-bishop be brought off Hethe and Skip with a Friend or two more walked down with him into his Garden at Lambeth and there used all the Perswasion they could urging to him that the King was resolved to have iâ— so and the Danger therefore of opposing it But he honestly persisted in his constancy telling them That there was but one Truth in the Articles to be concluded upon which if they hid from his Majesty by consenting unto a contrary Doctrine his Highness would in process of Time perceive the Truth and see how colorably they had delt with him And he knew he said his Grace's Nature so well that he would never after credit and trust them And they being both his Friends he bad them beware in time and discharge their Consciences in maintenance of the Truth But though nothing of all this could stir them yet what he said sufficiently confirmed the Arch-bishop to persist in his Resolution The Arch-bishop standing thus alone went himself to the King and so wrought with him that his Majesty joined with him against all the rest of them and the Book of Articles past on his side When indeed this stifness of Canterbury was the very thing his Enemies desired thinking that for this Opposition the King would certainly have thrown him into the Tower and many Wagers were laid in London about it So that this ended in two good Issues that the Arch-bishop's Enemies were clothed with Shame and Disappointment and a very good Book chiefly of the Arch-bishop's composing came forth for the Instruction of the People known by the Name of A necessary Erudition of any Christian Man A particular Account whereof may be read in the History of the Reformation This vexed Winchester to the Heart that his Plot took no better Effect but he put it up till he should find other Opportunities to attack him which after happened as we shall see in the sequel of this Story But this Matter deserves to be a little more particularly treated of The King had as was said before appointed several of the Eminent Divines of his Realm to deliberate about sundry Points of Religion then in Controversy and to give in their Sentences distinctly And that in regard of the Germans who the last Year had sent over in Writing the Judgment of their Divines respecting some Articles of Religion and had offered his Majesty to appoint some of their Divines to meet some others of the King 's in any Place he should assign or to come over into England to confeâ— together And also in regard of a more exact review of the Institution of a Christian Man put forth about two or three Years before and now intended to be published again as a more perfect Piece of Religious Instruction for the People The King therefore being minded thorowly to sift divers Points of Religion then started and much controverted commanded a particular number of Bishops and other his Learned Chaplains and Dignitaries to compare the Rites and Ceremonies and Tenets of the present Church by the Scriptures and by the most Ancient Writers and to see how far the Scripture or good Antiquity did allow of the same And this I suppose he did by the instigation of Arch-bishop Cranmer The Names of the Commissioners were these Cranmer ABp of Canterbury Lee ABp of York Boner Bishop of London Tunstal Bishop of Durham Barlow Bishop of S. David's Aldrich Bishop of Carlisle Skyp Bishop of Hereford Hethe Bishop of Rochester Thirleby Bishop Elect of Westminster Doctors Cox Robinson Day Oglethorp Redman Edgeworth Symonds Tresham Leyghton Curwen Crayford Where we may wonder not to see the Name of the Bishop of Winton But if we consider the Reason the King gave why he left him out of the Number of his Executors viz. because as he told several
Irenicum published by him from a Manuscript Volume once belonging to Arch-bishop Cranmer In this Convocation the Arch-bishop bore the great Sway and what things were agitated herein were chiefly by his Motion and Direction Some whereof were turned into Laws by the Parliament that was now sitting through his Activeness and Influence As particularly that Repeal of the Statute of the Six Articles and of some other severe Laws decreeing divers things Treason and Felony made in the former King's Reign For when the Arch-bishop in the Convocation had made a Speech to the Clergy exhorting them to give themselves to the study of the Scriptures and to consider what Things in the Church needed Reformation that so the Church might be discharged of all Popish Trash not yet thrown out Some told him that as long as the Six Articles remained it was not safe for them to deliver their Opinions This he reported to the Council Upon which they ordered this Act of Repeal By his means also another great thing moved in the Convocation was now ratified and made a Law by this Parliament which was for the Administration of the Communion under both Kinds throughout the Kingdom of England and Ireland And upon this the King appointed certain Grave and Learned Bishops and others to assemble at Windsor-Castle there to treat and confer together and to conclude upon and set forth one perfect and uniform Order of Communion according to the Rules of Scripture and the Use of the Primitive Church And this being framed it was enjoined to be used throughout the Realm by a Proclamation and all required to receive it with due Reverence I meet with a Writing of the Arch-bishop without Date consisting of Queries concerning the Mass in order to the abolishing it and changing it into a Communion Which I know not where so well to place as here now the Convocation was employed upon this Matter For it seems to have been drawn up by the Arch-bishop on purpose to be laid before the Consideration of this House The Queries were these What or wherein Iohn Fasting giving Alms being Baptized or receiving the Sacrament of the Altar in England doth profit and avail Thomas dwelling in Italy and not knowing what Iohn in England doth Whether it profit them that be in Heaven and wherein Whether it lieth in the Faster Giver of Alms Receiver of the Sacrament him that is Baptized to defraud any Member of Christ's Body of the Benefit of Fasting Alms-Deeds Baptism or Receiving of the Sacrament and to apply the same Benefit to one Person more than to another What thing is the Presentation of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass which you call the Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ And wherein standeth it in Act Gesture or Word and in what Act Gesture or Word Is there any Rite or Prayer and expressed in the Scripture which Christ used or commanded at the first Institution of the Mass which we be now bound to use and what the same be Whether in the Primitive Church there were any Priests that lived by saying of Mass Mattens and Even-song and praying for Souls only And where any such State of Priesthood be allowed in the Scriptures or be meet to be allowed now For what Cause were it not expedient nor convenient to have the whole Mass in the English Tongue Wherein consisteth the Mass by Christ's Institution What Time the accustomed Order began first in the Church that the Priests alone should receive the Sacrament Whether it be convenient that the same Custom continue still within this Realm Whether it be convenient that Masses Satisfactory should continue that is to say Priests hired to sing for Souls departed Whether the Gospel ought to be taught at the Time of the Mass to the understanding of the People being present Whether in the Mass it were convenient to use such Speech as the People may understand To proceed to some other Things wherein our Arch-bishop was this Year concerned In Iune the Church of S. Pauls was hanged with Black and a sumptuous Hearse set up in the Choire and a Dirige there sung for the French King who deceased the March precedent And on the next Day the Arch-bishop assisted with eight Bishops more all in rich Mitres and their other Pontificals did sing a Mass of Requiem and the Bishop of Rochester preached a Funeral Sermon A nice Matter was now put by the Council to the Arch-bishop having some other Bishops and Learned Men joined with him to the Number of Ten. The Case was Whether a Man divorced from his Wife for her Adultery might not lawfully marry again This was propounded upon the Account of a great Man in those Times namely the Brother of Queen Katherine Par Marquess of Northampton who had gotten a Divorce from his Wife the Daughter of Bourchier Earl of Essex for Adultery The Canon Law would not allow marrying again upon a Divorce making Divorce to be only a Separation from Bed and Board and not a Dissolving the Knot of Marriage This was a great Question depending among the Civilians And it being committed to the Determination of our Arch-bishop and some other Delegates tho the Marquess staid not for their Resolution but in this Interval married Elizabeth Daughter of the Lord Brook he searched so diligently into the Scriptures first and then into the Opinions of Fathers and Doctors that his Collections swelled into a Volume yet remaining in the Hands of a Learned Bishop of this Realm The Sum whereof is digested by the Bishop of Saâ—â—m Cranmer seemed to allow of Marriage in the Innocent Person He was a Means also to the Council of forbidding Processions Wherein the People carried Candles on Candlemass-day Ashes on Ash-wednesday Palms on Palm-sunday because he saw they were used so much to Superstition and looked like Festivals to the Heathen Gods So that this Year on Candlemass-day the old Custom of bearing Candles in the Church and on Ash-wednesday following giving Ashes in the Church was left off through the whole City of London He was a Member of a Committee this Winter appointed to examine all the Offices of the Church and to consider where they needed Reformation and accordingly to reform them Of this Commission were most of the Bishops and several others of the most Learned Divines in the Nation And a new Office for the Communion was by them prepared and by Authority set forth as was observed before and received all over England CHAP. V. The Arch-bishop's Catechism THIS Year the Arch-bishop put forth a very useful Catechism intituled A short Instruction to Christian Religion for the singular Profit of Children and young People This Catechism went not by way of Question and Answer but contained an easy Exposition of the Ten Commandments the Creed the Lord's Prayer and the two Sacraments The first and second Commandments were put together as one and the whole recital
because by this means all hope of ripe and compleated Learning was immaturely cut off in the very Bud and also all the Expectations of the poorer sort whose whole Time was spent in good Studies was eluded by these Drones occupying those Places and Preferments which more properly belonged unto them For Parts Learning Poverty and Election were of no strength at Home where Favour and Countenance and the Letters of Noblemen and such-like extraordinary and illegal Courses from Abroad bore all the Sway. CHAP. VII Dr. Smith and others recant AND now before I conclude this Year let me pass from more publick Matters and present the Reader with two or three Passages wherein the Arch-bishop had to do with private Men. May the 15 th Richard Smith D. D. Master of Whittington College and Reader of Divinity in Oxford a hot turbulent Man made his Recantation at Pauls Cross convinced and moved thereunto by the Pains of the Arch-bishop What his Errors were that he had publickly vented in the University and in his Writings may be known by the words of his Recantation which were these I do confess and acknowledg that the Authority as well of the Bishop of Rome whose Authority is justly and lawfully abolished in this Realm as of other Bishops and others called the Ministers of the Church consisteth in the Dispensation and Ministration of God's Word and not in making Laws Ordinances and Decrees over the People besides God's Word without the Consent and Authority of the Prince and People I say and affirm that within this Realm of England and other the King's Dominions there is no Law Decree Ordinance or Constitution Ecclesiastical in force and available by any Man's Authority but only by the King's Majesty's Authority or of his Parliament This Man had wrote two Books in favour of Popish Doctrine and those he also now disclaimed viz. A Book of Traditions and another of the Sacrifice of the Mass. In the former of which he maintained That Christ and his Apostles taught and left to the Church many things without writing which he asserted were stedfastly to be believed and obediently fulfilled under pain of Damnation In the other Book he maintained That Christ was not a Priest after the Order of Melchizedeck when he offered himself upon the Cross for our Sins but after the Order of Aaron and that when Christ did offer his Body to his Father after the Order of Melchizedek to appease his Wrath it was to be understood not of the Sacrifice of the Cross but of the Sacrifice that he made at his Maundy in form of Bread and Wine In which Book were other Errors He that is minded to see his Recantation of these his Books may have it in the Appendix as I transcribed it out of an old Book made by Becon intituled Reports of certain Men. This Recantation he not long after made at Oxon viz. in August following Where he also protested openly That he would abide in the sincere and pure Doctrine of Christ's Gospel all humane trifling Traditions set apart even unto Death though it should cost him his Life And this Recantation he also printed for further Satisfaction to the World Bishop Gardiner who was now at Winchester was very uneasy at the News of this Recantation which some took care to bring down to him He signified to the Protector That Smith was a Man with whom he had no Familiarity nor cared for his Acquaintance That he had not seen him in three Years nor talked with him in Seven He was greatly displeased with the first words of his Recantation which yet were but the words of Scripture Omnis Homo mendax Making all the Doctors in the Church as he inferred to be Liars with himself How it argued his Pride for he that sought for such Company in Lying had small Humility and that he would hide himself by that Number that his depraving of Man's Nature in that sort was not the setting out of the Authority of Scripture He said he neither liked his Tractation nor yet his Retractation That he was mad to say in his Book of Vnwritten Verities that Bishops in this Realm could make Laws wherein he said he lied loudly About this time Chadsey Standish Yong Oglethorp and divers others recanted whose Recantations Fox had by him to shew as well as Smith whom we have now before us After this Recantation he carried not himself according to it but favoured the Old Errors And in the Year 1549 offered some Affront unto Arch-bishop Cranmer opposing him in the Doctrine of the Lawfulness of Priests Marriage and endeavoured to make a Rout in Oxford to the endangering P. Martyr's Life and printed a Book the same Year against him De Votis Monasticis Whereupon incurring as he apprehended some Danger he fled into Scotland But weary of being there and willing to have his Peace made in England he wrote two Letters to the Arch-bishop from thence professing that he would out of hand by open Writing in the Latin Tongue revoke all that erroneous Doctrine which he had before taught and published and set forth the pure Doctrine of Christ. And for a Proof hereof he would straight after his return into England set forth a Book in Latin in defence of the most lawful Marriage of Priests In the Year 1550 he wrote certain Treatises against P. Martyr printed at Lovain And the same Year came out his Book against the Arch-bishop's Treatise of the Sacrament This Man was of a most inconstant as well as turbulent Spirit For in the Reign of Queen Mary he turned to the Religion then professed and was great with Bishop Boner in those Times but greatly despised for his Fickleness He once attempted to discourse with Hawks in Boner's House in London Hawks threw in his Dish his Recantation To which when he said it was no Recantation but a Declaration the other gave him this Rub To be short I will know whether you will Recant any more ere ever I talk with you or believe you and so departed from him We shall hear of him again in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when he again complied and submitted himself to Arch-bishop Parker And last of all returned to his old Opinions and fled to Lovain Pass we from this Man to another of the same Strain with whom the Arch-bishop had to do As the Popish Clergy in the former King's Reign had made all the rudest and eagerest Opposition they dared against the Steps that were then made towards a Reformation so they ceased not to do in this King 's nay and more hoping to shelter themselves under a milder Government One Instance of this appeared in what was done by the Quondam Abbot of Tower-hill London Who for some Recompence of the loss of his Abby was made Vicar of Stepney-Church succeeding I suppose Mr. Hierom burnt to death in the Year 1540 with Dr. Barnes and Garret He being a bold Man and
addicted to the old Superstition would commonly disturb the Preachers in his Church when he liked not their Doctrine by causing the Bells to be rung when they were at the Sermon and sometimes beginning to sing in the Choir before the Sermon were half done and sometimes by challenging the Preacher in the Pulpit For he was a strong stout Popish Prelat Whom therefore the Godly-disposed of the Parish were weary of and especially some of the eminentest Men at Limâ—hurst whose Names were Driver Ive Poynter March and others But they durst not meddle with him until one Vnderhil of the Band of Gentlemen-Pensioners of a good Family and well respected at Court came to live at Limehurst He being the King's Servant took upon him to reprehend this Abbot for these and such-like his Doings and by his Authority carried him unto Croyden to the Arch-bishop there the Persons above-named going along as Witnesses In fine the mild Arch-bishop sent him away with a gentle Rebuke and bad him to do no more so This Lenity offended Vnderhil who said My Lord methinks you are too gentle unto so stout a Papist To which Cranmer replied Well we have no Law to punish them by No Law my Lord said the other If I had your Authority I would be so bold to unvicar him or minister some sharp Punishment upon him and such other If ever it come to their Turn they will shew you no such Favour Well said the good Arch-bishop if God so provide we must abide it Surely replied the other again God will never con you Thanks for this but rather take the Sword from such as will not use it upon his Enemies And so they parted And this indeed was the constant Behaviour of the Arch-bishop towards Papists and such as were his Enemies For which he was now and at other times taxed by Men of hotter Spirits but his Opinion was that Clemency and Goodness as it was more agreeable to the Gospel which he laboured to adorn so was more likely to obtain the Ends he desired than Rigour and Austerity The Arch-bishop did one thing more this Year of good Conducement to the promoting true Religion and exposing False and that was in countenancing and licensing an earnest Preacher in the South-West Parts named Thomas Hancock a Master of Arts whose Mouth had been stopped by a strict Inhibition from Preaching in the former King's Reign The Arch-bishop saw well what a useful Man he had been in those parts of England where he frequented having been a very diligent Preacher of the Gospel and Declaimer against Papal Abuses in the Diocesses of two bigotted Bishops Gardiner of Winchester and Capon of Sarum In this first Year of the King many zealous Preachers of the Gospel without staying for publick Orders from Above earnestly set forth the Evangelical Doctrine in confutation of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Corporal Presence in the Sacrament and such like And of the Laity there were great numbers every where especially in populous Towns of such as did now more openly shew their Heads and their good Inclinations to the New Learning as it was then called In Southampton of the Diocess of Winchester in Salisbury Pool and Dorset of the Diocess of Sarum did this Hancock chiefly converse and officiate in the latter end of K. Henry When he was suspended à Celebratione Divinorum by Dr. Raynold Commissary under Dr. Steward then Chancellor to Bp Gardiner upon pretence of the Breach of the Act of Six Articles because he had taught out of the Ninth to the Hebrews That our Saviour Christ entred once into the Holy Place by the which he obtained unto us everlasting Redemption That he once suffered and that his Body was once offered to take away the Sins of many People And that one only Oblation sufficed for the Sins of the whole World And though all this was but mere Scripture yet they found it to contradict their Notions and therefore they thought convenient to suspend him But as these Bishops did what they could to stifle all Preaching of God's Word so the Arch-bishop's Principle was to encourage and send forth Preachers So Hancock notwithstanding his former Suspension obtained a Licence from our Arch-bishop to preach Now to follow this Preacher a little after his Licence obtained At Christ-Church Twinham in the County of Southampton where he was born as I take it from his own Narration he preached out of the Sixteenth Chapter of S. Iohn The Holy Ghost shall reprove the World of Sin of Righteousness c. because I go to the Father The Priest being then at Mass Hancock declared unto the People That that the Priest held over his Head they did see with their bodily Eyes but our Saviour Christ doth here say plainly that we shall see him no more Then you saith he that do kneel unto it pray unto it and honour it as God do make an Idol of it and your selves do commit most horrible Idolatry Whereat the Vicar Mr. Smith sitting in his Chair in the face of the Pulpit spake these words Mr. Hancock you have done well until now and now have you plaid an ill Cow's part which when she hath given a good Mess of Milk overthroweth all with her Foot and so all is lost And with these words he got him out of the Church Also in this first Year of the King the same Person preached in S. Thomas Church at Salisbury Dr. Oking Chancellor to Bishop Capon and Dr. Steward Chancellor to Bishop Gardiner being present with divers others of the Clergy and Laity His place was Every Plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out Whence he inveighed against the Superstitious Ceremonies Holy Bread Holy Water Images Copes Vestments c. And at last against the Idol of the Altar proving it to be an Idol and no God by the First of S. Iohn's Gospel No Man hath seen God at any time with other places of the Old Testament But that the Priest held over his Head they did see kneeled before it honoured it and so made an Idol of it And therefore they were most horrible Idolaters Whereat the Doctors and certain of the Clergy went out of the Church Hancock seeing them departing charged them They were not of God because they refused to hear the Word of God But when the Sermon was ended Thomas Chaffen the Mayor set on as is likely by some of the Clergy came to him laying to his Charge the Breach of a Proclamation lately set forth by the Lord Protector That no Nick-names should be given unto the Sacrament as Round-Robin or Iack in the Box. Whereto he replied That it was no Sacrament but an Idol as they used it But for all this Excuse the Mayor had committed him to Jail had not Six honest Men been bound for his Appearance the next Assizes to make his Answer As Dr. Ieffery about this time had committed two to Prison for the like
Places collected from thence in the nature of Inferences and Observations Which I conclude the Arch-bishop put him upon doing while he was now with him The Work was looked over and examined by the Arch-bishop Notes and Corrections of his own Hand being here and there inserted Also the Gospel of S. Mark is handled in the same method by another of the Arch-bishop's Guests Which Writing hath this Inscription by Cranmer's Hand Petrus Alexander in Marcum At this time therefore there were at the Arch-bishop's House besides Bucer Alasco Peter Martyr Paulus Phagius Peter Alexander Bernardine Ochin Mat. Negelinus after a Minister of Strasburgh who accompanied Bucer and Fagius into England and others whose Names do not occur Three of these were soon after preferred to publick Places of Reading in the Universities Peter Alexander was of Artois and lived with the Arch-bishop before Bucer came into England He was a Learned Man but had different Sentiments in the Matter of the Eucharist enclining to the belief of a Corporeal Presence with the Lutherans Though some Years after he came over to a righter Judgment as his Companion Peter Martyr signified to Calvin in a Letter wrote from Strasburgh Peter Martyr coming about the beginning of the Year 1549 unto the University of Oxford his first Readings were upon the eleventh Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians In which Chapter is some Discourse of the Lord's Supper The Professor when he came so far took occasion to expatiate more largely upon that Argument and the rather that he might state it aright in the midst of those hot Contests that were then about it among Learned Men. These Lectures on the Sacrament he soon after printed at London for the Benefit of the World as they were two Years after done at Zurick and dedicated them to his Patron the Arch-bishop And that partly to give a publick Testimony of his Sense of the Arch-bishop's great Humanity and Benefits towards him Which were so large that he must do nothing else but tell of them to be sufficiently thankful for them And known it was to all as he said how obligingly he received and how liberally he entertained both himself and many other Strangers of his Rank and Condition And partly that by his Authority he would protect and defend what he should find in his Book to be consonant to the Holy Scriptures and agreeable to the King's Laws For he had he said Skill and Industry enough to do it who had himself often both in Publick and Private conflicted with the Adversaries and with admirable Learning accuracy of Wit and Dexterity vindicated the Truth from the spinous and confused Cavils of Sophisters Nor did he want Will to stand up for Sound and Christian Doctrines as all good Men knew who saw how earnest he was in his Labours of restoring Religion that for that Cause he drew upon himself many Enmities and threatning Dangers The first Occasion of Bucer's Call into England was thus He had wrote to Iohn Hales a learned English-man his Acquaintance the sad Estate of Germany and that he could scarce stay any longer in the Place where he was This Hales acquainted the Arch-bishop with which made a great Impression upon his compassionate Soul and he brake out into those words of the Psalmist Mirifica misericordias tuas qui salvos facis sperantes in te a resistentibus dexterae tuae And forthwith writ to Brucer a Letter in October 1548 to come over to this Realm which should be a most safe Harbour for him urging him to become a Labourer in the Lord's Harvest here begun and using other Arguments with him to move him hereunto in the most obliging Stile possible calling him My Bucer And that he might come over the safer from Harms and Enemies the Arch-bishop recommended him to one Hills an English-Merchant to provide for his Passage The Arch-bishop's Letter may be found in the Appendix To this Letter Bucer wrote an Answer seeming upon some Considerations to decline the Arch-bishop's Invitation This Letter coming to the Arch-bishop's Hands he shewed to Peter Alexander who by the Arch-bishop's Order wrote back to Bucer in the said Arch-bishop's and the Protector 's Name to call him again over which Letter was dated March 24 from Lambeth telling him withal that the good old Man Latimer saluted him Letters I suppose of the same Import were also dispatched to the Learned Fagius Bucer and Fagius who were thus honourably invited into England by repeated Letters of the Lord Protector and Arch-bishop Cranmer were by them also nominated for Publick Professors in the University of Cambridg the one of Divinity the other of the Hebrew Tongue This was looked on by their Friends as a notable piece of God's good Providence that when these two eminent Champions of the true Religion were in so much present Danger in Germany so seasonable a Refuge was provided for them elsewhere They both arrived safe in England in the end of April and abode with the Arch-bishop above a quarter of a Year until towards the end of the long Vacation the Arch-bishop intending they should be at Cambridg when the Term should begin in order to their Reading During this Interval while they continued at Lambeth they were not idle being every day busied in some Study and Exercise agreeable to their Function as was hinted before But the main of their Thoughts were taken up in preparing for their University-Lectures Which of what Subject-Matter they should be the Arch-bishop himself directed As it had been a great while his pious and most earnest Desire that the Holy Bible should come abroad in the greatest Exactness and true Agreement with the original Text. So he laid this Work upon these two Learned Men. First That they should give a clear plain and succinct Interpretation of the Scripture according to the Propriety of the Language And Secondly Illustrate difficult and obscure Places and reconcile those that seemed repugnant to one another And it was his Will and his Advice that to this End and Purpose their publick Readings should tend This pious and good Work by the Arch-bishop assigned to them they most gladly and readily undertook For their more regular carrying on this Business they allotted to each other by consent their distinct Tasks Fagius because his Talent lay in the Hebrew Learning was to undertake the Old Testament and Bucer the New The Leisure they now enjoyed with the Arch-bishop they spent in preparing their respective Lectures Fagius entred upon the Evangelical Prophet Esaias and Bucer upon the Gospel of the Evangelist Iohn And some Chapters in each Book were dispatched by them But it was not long but both of them fell Sick which gave a very unhappy stop to their Studies Fagius his Distemper proved mortal who was seized at first with a very acute Fever And notwithstanding Physick and Attendance remaining very ill he had a great desire to remove to Cambridg to
his Charge appointed him hoping the Change of Air might help him He made a shift to travel thither leaving his dear Colleague sick behind him But Fagius still declining in his Health ardently desired Bucer's Company Who on the fifth of November came to Cambridg And ten Days after Fagius deceased aged about forty five Years to the extraordinary Loss of that University and the Grief of all pious Men that wished well to Religion and which was most to be lamented before he had given any Specimen of his Learning and Abilities in England though he had already given many to the World all shewing what a Master he was in Hebrew and Rabbinical Learning His published Labours of this nature all within the space of six Years may be seen in the Appendix Which I have placed there for the preserving the Memory of that Learned Professor which our University of Cambridg was once honoured with The good Arch-bishop troubled at the sudden Death of this Learned Man from whom he had promised himself some great Good to accrue to the University sent a Letter November the last unto his sorrowful Companion Bucer desiring him among other things as from him to comfort Fagius's Widow and to let her know that he had sent her by the Carrier seven and twenty Pounds which was part of the Stipend due out of the Exchequer to her Husband Which although it were not yet pay'd into Cranmer's Hands yet he thought good to send her the Money so soon that it might be some alleviation of her present Sorrow There were fifty Pounds due for his Readings reckoning from Lady-day last when his Pension began but three Pounds were disbursed for Charges in taking out the Patent and twenty Pounds the Arch-bishop had sent him before Bucer above all lamented the loss of his Mate and wrote a sorrowful Letter ad Fratres Symmystas to his Brethren and fellow-Ministers in Germany upon this Subject And in a Letter to P. Martyr then at Oxon he not only complained of this heavy Loss but as if himself were like to follow him of several things that made him uneasy at Cambridg where he was now placed as of the want of a convenient House of a Body impatient of Cold which the Time of the Year made him begin to feel need of Necessaries That the Letters Patents were not yet signed for his Salary and the slow and uncertain paiment of his Pension But Cranmer out of that high respect he had for him was not wanting in his diligence in due time to make all easy to him and to have so useful and grave a Man well provided for But the next Year the last Day of February he followed his Companion to the other World But not before he had made himself and his Learning known to the University Which to qualify him to moderate at the publick Disputations at the Commencement had given him the Degree of Doctor as a peculiar Honour done him without the common Rites and Forms ordinarily used in those Cases Yet he chose to do his Exercises responding the first Day of the Commencement and opposing the second with great Learning and no less Satisfaction of the University CHAP. XIV Peter Martyr disputes in Oxford being Challenged thereunto THE Papists in both Universities were resolved to try the Metal and Learning of their new Professors being exceedingly nettled at their coming and offended at their Readings PETRUS MARTYR VERMILIUS S.S. Theologiae apud Oxonienses â—rofessor Regius Natus Florentiae Sept. 8 Anno MD Obijt Nov 12. MDLXII Being come to the Chair he gently told his Adversaries in a modest Speech to them That he refused not to dispute but that at that time he came to read and not to dispute And so themselves yielding to it he proceeded to his Lecture which he performed with much constancy and undauntedness without the least disturbance of Mind or change of Countenance or Colour or hesitation in his Speech notwithstanding the Murmur and Noise of the Adversaries Which got him much Credit and Applause As soon as he had done his Reading the Adversaries began to make loud Cries that he should Dispute and especially Smith the Champion But he modestly refused it and said He would do it at another time and that he was not then prepared because they had so studiously concealed the Propositions to be disputed of and had not propounded them publickly according to the accustomed manner and that he knew nothing of them till that very Day But they told him He could not be unprepared who had read so much of the Lord's Supper whatsoever Arguments they propounded in this Matter They still rudely urging him he said He would do nothing in such a Matter without the King were first made privy to it especially when the thing tended to Sedition Moreover for a lawful Disputation it was requisite he said that certain Questions be propounded Judges and Moderators constituted and publick Notaries be present that might impartially and faithfully write down the Arguments and Speeches on both Sides In fine the Matter came to that pass that fearing a Tumult the Vice-chancellor decided the Controversy after this manner That both P. Martyr and Smith with some Friends should meet in his House and should appoint the Propositions to be disputed of the Time the Order and Manner of Disputation And so the Vice-chancellor the Beadle making him way went to the Pulpit where the Professor was and took him by the Hand and led him down through the Crouds to his own House his Friends going along with him and among the rest Sidal and Curtop then vigorous Defenders of the Truth but after in Q. Mary's Days revolting Smith also and his Friends Cole Oglethorp and three more repaired to the Vice-chancellor where it was agreed after some jangling That Martyr should observe the same Order in Confuting as he did in Teaching and abstaining from strange barbarous and ambiguous Words wont to be used in the Schools he said he would use only Carnaliter and Corporaliter Realiter and Substantialiter because the Scripture useth only the words Flesh and Body Res or Substantia And so it was agreed and the Day set was the fourth of May ensuing And it was agreed also on both Sides That all this whole Matter should be signified to the Council that they might have Cognizance of the thing And by them the Day of the Disputation was appointed when some from the King as Judges and Keepers of Peace would be present at it The Papists reported falsly That he having appointed the Time of the Disputation to be ten Days hence in the mean time got the Magistrates acquainted with this Affair that they might stop and forbid it which they did indeed proroguing it till some Months after the first Challenge And that afterwards when the Professor saw his Opportunity he provoked to a publick Disputation offering to dispute of his Questions formerly propounded and thought
first complained of to the King And being brought up the Arch-bishop and other Ecclesiastical Commissioners were commanded to examine him upon certain Articles But by the secret Favour of the Arch-bishop and his own prudent Answers he was then discharged Soon after upon some false Reports told of him King Henry was so offended that he sent for the Arch-bishop willing him to have him whipt out of the Country But the Arch-bishop pacified the King and sent him Home the second time Afterwards a third time his old Enemies the Popish Clergy got him convented before the Privy-Council and committed for Doctrines preached by him before he came into Kent The Arch-bishop being then down in his Diocess Turner was sent back to him with an Order to recant To whom when his fast Friend and Patron Mr. Morice had applied himself in his behalf the Arch-bishop himself being now under some Cloud dared not to interpose because as he then said it had been put into the King's Head that he was the great Favourer and Maintainer of all the Hereticks in the Kingdom Morice then that he might prevent this Recantation if possible which would have been such a Reflection to the Doctrine he before had preached addrest his Letters to Sir Anthony Denny Gentleman of the King's Bed-Chamber and Sir William Butts his Physician relating at large Turner's Casâ— And by their means the King became better informed of the Man and in fine commanded him to be retained as a faithful Subject This Story is at large related by Fox And this I judg to be that Turner whom the Arch-bishop nominated for Ireland having lived long in his Diocess and so well known to him and whom he had I suppose removed to Canterbury to a Prebend or some other Preferment there Here he did this remarkable and bold piece of Service that when about three Years past the Rebels were up in Kent he then preached twice in the Camp near Canterbury for which the Rebels were going to hang him But God preserved him In Queen Mary's time he fled to Basil where he expounded upon S. Iames the Hebrews and the Ephesians to the Exiles there when Iames Pilkington expounded Ecclesiastes and both Epistles of of Peter and the Galatians And Bentham the Acts of the Apostles Thomas Rosse or Rose was also as memorable a Man very eminent both for his Preachings and Sufferings He was a West-country Man but by Providence was removed into Suffolk And at Hadley had preached against Purgatory and worshipping Images about the time that Bilney and Latimer did the like in Cambridg which was five and twenty or thirty Years past whereby he had brought many to the knowledg of the Truth in that Town About the Year 1532 when certain Persons out of their Zeal against Idolatry had stolen by Night the Rood out of the Church at Dover-court in Essex for which being found guilty of Felony they were hanged Rose seemed to have been privy hereunto For with the Rood they conveyed away the Slippers the Coat and the Tapers belonging to it which Coat Rose burnt Whether for this or some other thing he was complained of to the Council and brought before them and by the Bishop of Lincoln was committed to Prison Where he lay for some Days and Nights with both his Legs in an high pair of Stocks his Body lying along on the Ground Thence he was removed to Lambeth in the Year that Cranmer was Consecrated which was 1533 who set him at liberty Afterward he was admitted by Crumwel to be his Chaplain that thereby he might get a Licence to preach After various tossings from Place to Place for safety of his Life he fled into Flanders and Germany and came to Zurick and remained with Bullinger and to Basil where he was entertained by Grineus After some time he returned back into England But was glad to fly beyond Sea again Three Years after in his Voyage back to his own Country again he was taken Prisoner by some French and carried into Diep where he was spoiled of all he had His Ransom was soon after paid by a well-disposed Person who also brought him over into England Then the Earl of Sussex received him and his Wife and Child privately into his House But when this was known the Earl sent him a secret Letter to be gone And so he lurked in London till the Death of King Henry VIII King Edward gave him the Living of VVest-Ham near London in Essex Being deprived upon Queen Mary's coming to the Crown he was sometime Preacher to a Congregation in London But was taken at one of their Meetings in Bow-Church-yard Which I suppose was in the Year 1555. For then he was in the Tower and thence in the Month of May by the Council's Letters he was delivered to the Sheriff of Norfolk to be conveyed and delivered to the Bishop of Norwich and he either to reduce him to recant or to proceed against him according to Law Much Imprisonment and many Examinations he underwent both from the Bishops of Winchester and Norwich but escaped at last by a great Providence beyond Sea where he tarried till the Death of Queen Mary And after these his Harassings up and down in the World he was at last in Queen Elizabeth's happy Reign quietly settled at Luton in Bedfordshire where he was Preacher and lived to a very great Age. The fourth was Robert Wisdome a Man eminent as the rest both for his exemplary Conversation and for his Preaching together with his Sufferings attending thereon In Henry the Eighth his Reign he was a Person of Fame among the Professors of the Gospel in the South Parts of the Nation whence after many painful Labours and Persecutions he fled into the North as did divers other Preachers of the pure Religion in those Times There in Staffordshire he was one of those that were entertained by Iohn Old a pious Professor and Harbourer of good Men and Thomas Becon was another who was taken up with Bradford in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign and committed to the Tower Of this Old the said Becon in a Treatise of his printed in Edward the sixth his Reign gives this Character That he was to him and VVisdom as Iason was to Paul and Silas He received us joyfully into his House and liberally for the Lord's Sake ministred to our Necessities And as he begun so did he continue a right hearty Friend and dearly loving Brother so long as we remained in the Country While VVisdom was here he was ever vertuously occupied and suffered no Hour to pass without some good Fruit employing himself now in Writing as he had before in Preaching Besides other Books formerly writ by him he penned here a very godly and fruitful Exposition upon certain Psalms of David Of the which he translated some into English Metre There is one of them and I think no more still remaining in our ordinary singing Psalms namely the hundred twenty fifth
that had the Gift of God and that they pronounced it wicked and abominable and termed it a Doctrine of Devils and the Invention of Antichrist All which Bishop Ponet in the Name of all the Protestants in his Book did utterly deny that ever they said writ or thought so This Book was indeed made by the Bishop of Winchester when he was in the Tower and he borrowed much of it from Albertus Pighius and published about that time Martin being then a Student at the University of Bourges in France it once happened in some Conversation there that Edward the King of England was commended whether it were for his Vertue or Learning or Abilities beyond his Years whereat Martin began as it seemed to eclipse the King's Honour by mentioning the Imprisonment of Winchester saying That there was a Head-Papist Prisoner in England meaning him Upon which several asked him Whether it was not the same Winchester that had set out an Hodgpodg concerning Marriage of Priests He laughing answered It was even he But that no Man ought to marvel for that VVinchester was more meet for Warlike than for Ecclesiastical Disputations Which Passage I have from Bale who was acquainted at that University with Franciscus Baldwin the Learned Professor of Law there Out of this Book Martin framed that which went under his Name with Winchester's Privity And this was well enough known to Bale and others in those Times Ponet said that Martin was abused by others who set him a-work to bear the Name and to desire the Fame of so gay a Book rather than he was the Author of it indeed The said Ponet or Poinet late Bishop of Winchester but now an Exile very learnedly answered this Book in two several Treatises The first was intitled An Apology against Tho. Martin's Blasphemies In this Treatise upon occasion of the Papists prohibition of Marriage to Priests he proved that the said Papists were Hereticks and had taken part in the most principal Parts with all the Hereticks that had corrupted the true Church of Christ. The Second Treatise replenished with great Learning he lived not to finish though some doubt whether he were the Author of this Book but the Copy falling into the Hands of Matthew Parker Arch-bishop of Canterbury he published it in the beginning of Q. Elizabeth's Reign with very large and excellent Additions of his own Ponet had thorowly studied this Point and I believe was put upon the Study of it by Arch-bishop Cranmer whose Chaplain he was For before this he put forth two Books upon this Argument viz. Of the Marriage of Ministers And a Defence of that Marriage The last thing I have to say concerning these Orders taken with the Married Clergy is That there were two things thought very Hard which were put upon those that were willing to comply and put away their Wives The one was in relation to the publick Confessions they were to make Which were put into their Mouths by others and drawn up for them in that manner as made them tell horrible Lies They must speak their own Shame in Bills of their Penance lying against themselves most vilely and most shamefully disabling their Credit and Estimation for ever And to give an Instance One such Confession which was much cried out against was made by one Sir Iohn Busby of Windsor Iune 29. in the Year 1555. Which Ponet calleth a goodly Confession of his hearty and earnest Repentance Which saith he was so finely penned and so Catholickly tracted that I warrant you it was none of the smallest Fools that forged it The other thing was that after these poor Men had thus done their Penances and spoke their Confessions the Imposers of these Penalties upon them were not so good as they pretended they would be and as the Queen's Instructions required them to be towards them Not restoring them to their Ministration Some that had been two or three Years parted from their Wives could not be admitted again to Ministration yet they must do open Penance and go by the Cross without any Redemption or Entreaty that could be made CHAP. IX Evils in this Change A Parliament BY this time the face of the Church was perfectly changed and all the Reformation that was made for twenty Years before namely from Cranmer's first ascent to the Archiepiscopal Chair to this time was unravelled in less than a Year and abolished But the Favourers of the Gospel lamented it exceedingly And Bishop Ridley writ a Treatise wherein he shewed what a deplorable Change in Religion this was by setting down at large what Religion was in K. Edward's Days and what it was at that present laying the Cause of this sore Judgment upon the vile and naughty Lives of the People so unsuitable to the good Religion professed The Professors lamented two great Evils lighting upon the People upon this turn of Religion Not only that it brought the People into error and Superstition but involved them universally in the Crime of Perjury The blame of which they laid upon the Popish Clergy For they not only had connived at but allowed and encouraged the casting off the Pope's Supremacy and made both Priests and Laity swear to the King And now they set up the Pope's Authority again in England and required all to swear to that For they compelled not only such as were Priests to perjure themselves but all the Laity Nobility Gentry Magistrates Merchants and others for hardly any were exempted the Oath of Supremacy in the former Reigns For in every Law-day the Keepers of the same were sworn to call all the Young Men of their Hundred even as they came to Years of Discretion to swear never to receive the Bishop of Rome nor no other Foreign Potentate to be Head of the People of England but only the King and his Successors Which Oath if it were unlawful as the Clergy-Men now said then all the Realm had reason of high Displeasure against them that so led them and knew it Such gross Dissembling were the Bishops guilty of to the involving the People in Guilt And this dissembling Quality the Priests still retained in this Queen's Days For when any came to some of them shewing them that his Conscience was not satisfied in the present way of Religion the Priest would tell him that he said the Truth My Conscience would he say is as yours but we must bear for a time and that he himself looked for another Change When another of a contrary Opinion came to the Priests and talked about Religion they would say to him That they had been deceived and thanks be to God said they that ye kept your Conscience all this while And even so was mine but I durst not do any otherwise but trusted that this time would come as is now thanks be to God Nay and sometimes in the same Town they would minister the Service two ways to the People to please both In
so much that the Bishops and Priests grew for this Cause as well as for their Cruelty into great dislike with the People This more at large is shewed in a short Manuscript Treatise I have made by a certain Person nameless imprisoned for Religion intitled thus All sorts of People of England have just Cause of displeasure against the Bishops and Priests of the same There was this Year April 2 a new Parliament that the last Year being dissolved Great was the Sadness that now possessed the Hearts of the English Nation even of Papists themselves the most considerate and wisest part of them seeing the great Slavery the Kingdom was like to be ensnared in by what the Parliament was now in doing that is to say restoring the Pope's Tyranny here in England that had been so long and happily cast out and allowing the Queen's matching with Prince Philip whereby a Spaniard should become King of England Which when P. Martyr had signified in a Letter from Strasburgh to Calvin May 8 he told him Tanta est rerum perturbatio ut nullo pacto explicari queat That it could not be told what a Disturbance there now was and that all good Men that could fled away from their own Country from all Parts of the Land Mentioning three noble Knights to be come lately to Strasburg not less famous for Piety then Learning Morisin Cheke and Cook At this Parliament wherein the Mass was set up and confirmed by an Act all that were suspected to favour the Truth were turned out of the House Which made Hoper out of Prison in one of his Letters write Doubtless there had not been seen before our Time such a Parliament as this that as many as were suspected to be Favourers of God's Word should be banished out of both Houses In this Parliament a strong and certain Report went that the bloody Act of the Six Articles should be revived and put in execution This created abundance of Terror in Mens Hearts There was nothing but Sighs and Lamentations every where and a great many were already fled out of the Realm unto whom this Rumor had reached Iohn Fox a Learned and Pious Man who had an excellent pathetick Stile was now set on work Who took his Pen in his Hand and in the Name of the Protestant Exiles wrote a most earnest expostulatory Letter to the Parliament to disswade them from restoring this Law again He told them they had a Queen who as She was most Noble so She was ready to listen to sound and wholesome Counsel And that they had a Lord Chancellor that as he was Learned so of his own Nature he was not Bad were it not for the Counsels of some But that as among Animals some there were that were born to create Trouble and Destruction to the other so there were among Mankind some by Nature cruel and destructive some to the Church and some to the State The Letter is worthy the Reading Which I have therefore placed in the Appendix as I transcribed it out of a Manuscript Collection of Fox's Letters There was indeed such a Design in the House of Commons of bringing again into force that Act of the Six Articles but whether it were by the importunity of this and other Petitions or that the Court thought it not convenient so much to countenance any of K. Henry's Acts this Business fell And this Parliament was short-liv'd for in May it was dissolved by reason of a Bill for confirming Abby-Lands to the present Possessors which it seems gave offence to the Court. CHAP. X. Arch-bishop Cranmer disputes at Oxon. A Convocation of the Clergy now met in S. Paul's but was adjourned the Prolocutor Dr. Weston Dean of Westminster and some other of the Members being sent to Oxon and it was generally thought the Parliament would remove thither too to dispute certain Points of Religion in Controversy with three of the Heads of the Protestant Party Arch-bishop Cranmer Bishop Ridley and old Father Latimer now all Prisoners Who for that purpose in the Month of April were removed from the Tower by the Queen's Warrant to the Lieutenant towards Windsor and there taken into Custody of Sir Iohn afterwards Lord Williams who conveyed them to Oxford there to remain in order to a Disputation The Convocation while they sat at London agreed upon the Questions to be disputed and they resolved that these three pious Men should be baited by both the Universities and therefore that they of Cambridg should be excited to repair to Oxford and engage in this Disputation also The Questions were these I. In Sacramento Altaris virtute verbi divini a Sacerdote prolati praesens est realiter sub speciebus panis vini naturale corpus Christi conceptum de virgine Maria item naturalis ejus sanguis II. Post consecrationem non remanet substantia panis vini neque alia ulla substantia nisi substantia Christi Dei Hominis III. In Missa est vivisicum Ecclesiae Sacrificium pro peccatis tam vivorum quam mortuorum propitiabile These Questions the Convocation sent to the University of Cambridg requiring them seriously to weigh and deliberate upon them and if they contained true Doctrine then to approve of them Accordingly the Senate of that University met and after due deliberation found them agreeable in all things to the Catholick Church and the Scripture and the antient Doctrine taught by the Fathers and so did confirm and ratify them in their said Senate And because Cranmer Ridley and Latimer the Heads of the Hereticks that held contrary to these Articles were formerly Members of their University and being to be disputed withal at Oxford concerning these Points they decreed in the Name of all the University to send seven of their Learned Doctors to Oxford to take their parts in disputing with them and to use all ways possible to reclaim them to the Orthodox Doctrine again And accordingly the said Senate April 10. made a publick Instrument to authorize them in their Names to go to Oxford and dispute Which Instrument may be seen in the Appendix They also wrote a Letter the same Date to the University of Oxford to signify that they had appointed those Persons to repair unto them not so much to dispute Points so professedly Orthodox and agreeable to the Fathers and General Councils and the Word of God as to defend those Truths in their Names and reduce those Patrons of false and corrupt Doctrine if possible unto a sound Mind This Letter is also in the Appendix So that this coming of the Cambridg-Divines to Oxford was to seem a voluntary thing to shew their Zeal for Popery and vindication of their University against liking or approbation of Cranmer and his two Fellow-Prisoners So roundly was the University already come about to the old forsaken Religion This Oxford-Disputation was after this manner Hugh Weston S.T.P. Prolocutor of the
the Romish Pox and the Leprosy shewing afterward the Remedies against these Diseases For being a very facetious Man he delivered his Reproofs and Counsels under witty and pleasant Discourse He wrote also The hunting of the Romish Fox Iohn Iuel afterwards Bishop of Salisbury assisted Peter Martyr at Strasburgh in setting out his Commentaries upon the Book of Iudges Who being publick Reader of Divinity there had first read those Commentaries and had many Learned English-Men for his Auditors as Poynet Grindal Sands Sir Iohn Cheke Sir Anthony Cook and divers other Knights and Gentlemen as well as Divines And when he was removed to Zurick to succeed Pelican he took Iuel with him thither In Frankford there happening as was said before unhappy Contentions about Ceremonies and Matters of Discipline and it was feared that these Dissensions might spread themselves into the other Fraternities in Zurick and other places Iuel's great Business was to allay these Animosities partly by Letters and partly by his own verbal Exhortations That they should as Brethren lay aside Strife and Emulation especially for such small Matters That they would hereby offend the Minds of all good Men which things they ought to have a special heed of Some who seemed more complaining and uneasy at these things he exhorted to Patience admonishing That we ought not to leap from the Smoke into the Fire and that we ought to bear a part in Christ's Cross and to consider how much better it was with them than with their poor Brethren that endured Tortures in England And he would often repeat to them Bear a while then things will not endure an Age. Thomas Becon formerly a Minister in Canterbury and well known to the Arch-bishop wrote an Epistle in his Exile and sent it to certain Godly Brethren in England Declaring in it the Causes of all the Miseries and Calamities that were fallen upon England How they might be redrest and what a merciful Lord our God is to all faithful penitent Sinners that unfeignedly turn to him This Epistle was brought into England and read of the Brethren in their Religious Meetings not without Fruit. In this Epistle he added a Supplication to God at good length for the restoring of his Holy Word to the Church of England Wherein the devout Christian complaineth his Grief and Sorrow to his Lord for taking away the Light of Christ's Gospel and humbly acknowledging his Fault and worthy Punishment most heartily wisheth the Subversion of Anti-christ's Kingdom and the Restitution of Christ's most Glorious Kingdom in this Realm He wrote also an Epistle to the Massing Priests wherein he shewed what a wicked Idol the Mass was and what a Difference there was between the Lord's-Supper and that and what Popes brought in every part of the Mass and put them together as it was then used Laurence Humfrey while he was in exile wrote a Book in Latin intituled Optimates being Instructions for Noble-men in three Books It was printed at Basil by Oporinus and dedicated to Q. Elizabeth soon after her entrance upon her Kingdom The Reason of this his Discourse was out of an universal Love to Mankind and desire to better the Condition of the World whose Welfare depended so much upon the Sobriety and Vertue of those of Noble Rank and Quality Since Nobility as he wrote widely spread it self through all the Regions and Coasts of Christendom and was preferred to Places of Trust and Honour in all Princes Courts and was the very Nerve and Strength of Commonwealths and since from it issued the greatest Helps or Hindrances to the Publick Safety Pure Religion the Lives and Maners of Men Therefore he thought the Gentry and Nobility being imbued with Right and Christian Opinions not formed to the corrupt Rules of Antiquity Kings would govern better the Ministers of Ecclesiastical Matters would more faithfully perform their Functions and the common Sort would more diligently discharge all necessary Offices and the whole Common-weal might seem more healthfully to breath to live and to recover and persist in a good Constitution Beside this excellent Book both for the Matter and Elegancy of the Latin Stile he printed two or three other things at Basil and he wrote while he was abroad a Commentary upon the Prophet Isaiah But I know not whether it were published Bartholomew Traheron Library-Keeper to K. Edward and Dean of Chichester made divers Readings to the English Congregation upon the beginning of St. Iohn's Gospel and after printed them against the wicked Enterprizes of the new start-up Arians in England Iohn Fox famous to Posterity for his immense Labours in his Acts and Monuments was received by the Accurate and Learned Printer Oporinus of Basil for the Corrector of his Press He published and which I think was the first thing he published and his first-fruits a Chronological History of the Church The first Part from the first Times unto Martin Luther This Book he presented unto Oporinus with an handsom Epistle Wherein he desired to be received by him into his Service and that he would vouchsafe to be his Learned Patron under whom he might follow his Studies being one that would be content with a small Salary Promising him that if he would employ him either there at Basil or at Argentine or some University which he should rather chuse Aut me said he destituent omnia aut efficiam Christo opitulante ut omnes politioris literaturae homines intelligant quantum Operiano nomini officinae debeant While he was here employed by Oporinus at spare Hours he began his History of the Acts of the Church in Latin Which he drew out more briefly at first and before his return home into England well near finished Having here compleated the Copy which was but the first Part of what he intended but making a just Volume in Folio he sent this Work to Basil to be printed And so it was in the Year 155 It remained many Years after in those Parts in great Request and was read by Foreign Nations although hardly known at all by our own Being now in Peace and Safety at Home Fox reviewed this his Work and in the Year 1566 first published it in English very Voluminous because of those many Relations of the Persecutions in Q. Mary's Days that came to his Hands All this Work he did himself without the help of any Amanuensis nor had he any Servant to do his necessary Domestick Business being fain to be often diverted by his own private Occasions from his Work He afterwards enlarged these his Labours into three large Volumes which have since undergone many Editions But to look back to what he published in his Exile There came to his Hand all the Trials and Examinations of the Learned Martyr Ioh. Philpot Arch-deacon of Winchester drawn up by himself and finally his Death being burnt in Smithfield 1555. These things Fox put into Latin as he had an excellent Latin Stile
I find in a Supplication made to Queen Elizabeth by Ralph Morice that had been his Secretary for the space of twenty Years During which time he was employed by that most Reverend Father in writing for him about the serious Affairs of the Prince and Realm committed unto him by those most noble and worthy Princes King Henry VIII and King Edward VI concerning as well the Writings of those great and weighty Matrimonial Causes of the said K. Henry VIII as also about the extirpation of the Bishop of Rome his usurped Power and Authority the Reformation of corrupt Religion and Ecclesiastical Laws and Alteration of Divine Service and of divers and sundry Conferences of Learned Men for the Establishing and Advancement of sincere Religion with such like Wherein he said he was most painfully occupied in writing of no small Volumes from time to time CHAP. XXIII The Arch-bishop's Regard to Learned Men. FROM these truly Noble and Useful Exercises of his great Knowledg and Learning let us descend unto the Respect he bare to good Letters Which appeared from his Favour to Places of Learning and Men of Learning We shewed before what were the Applications of the University of Cambridg to him and what a gracious Patron he was to it and its Members Among whose good Offices to that University besides those already mentioned it must not be omitted that he was the great Instrument of placing there those two very Learned Foreign Divines Paulus Fagius and Martin Bucer By his frequent Letters to them then at Strasburg urging them with the distracted and dangerous State of Germany he first brought them over into England in the Year 1548 and having entertained them in his Family the next Year he preferred them both in Cambridg Fagius to be publick Professor of the Hebrew Tongue and Bucer of Divinity And beside the University-Salary he procured for each of them from the King in the third Year of his Reign Patents for an Honorary Stipend of an hundred Pounds per Annum each De gratiâ speciali Domini Regis to be paid by the Hands of the Clerk of the Hanaper or out of the Treasury of the Court of Augmentations Durante beneplacito Domini Regis As I find by King Edward the Sixth's Book of Sales formerly mentioned Which Patents bare date Septemb. 26. Anno 1549. and their Salaries payable from the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin By the way I do not see any where in the said Book of Sales that Peter Martyr placed Professor of Divinity in the other University of Oxon enjoyed any such Royal Salary though he also had been invited over by Canterbury with the King's Knowledg and Allowance and placed there by that Arch-bishop's Means Yet he and his Companion Ochinus had their Annual Allowances from the King and so I suppose had all other Learned Foreigners here Melancthon also who was now expected over was intended some more extraordinary Gratuity Unto this Noble Christian Hospitality and Liberality Latimer the great Court-Preacher excited the King in one of his Sermons before him The Passage may deserve to be repeated I hear say Master Melancthon that great Clerk should come hither I would wish him and such as he is two hundred Pounds a Year The King should never want it in his Coffers at the Year's end There is yet among us two great Learned Men Petrus Martyr and Bernard Ochin which have an hundred Mark a piece I would the King would bestow a thousand Pounds on that Sort. These Matters I doubt not were concerted between Latimer and our Arch-bishop before at whose Palace he now was for the most part As I find by one of his Sermons wherein he speaks of his taking Boat at Lambeth and in another Place he mentioneth a Book he met with in my Lord of Canterbury's Library and elsewhere of many Suitors that applied to him at my Lord of Canterbury's that interrupted his Studies there The use I make of this is that it is a fair Conjecture hence that this and the many other excellent Things so plainly propounded by this Preacher to King Edward happened by the Counsel and Suggestion of the Arch-bishop But to return There was one Dr. William Mowse a Civilian and probably one of his Officers whom for his Merits and Learning our Arch-bishop for many a Year had been a special Benefactor to Sir Iohn Cheke also bare him a very good Will Upon the removal of Dr. Haddon to some other Preferment this Dr. Mowse succeeded Master of Trinity-hall in Cambridg And in the Year 1552 the Arch-bishop valuing his Worth and Integrity was a Suitor at Court for some further Preferment for him whatever it were which the Study of the Civil Law had qualified him for writing his Letters on Mowse's behalf to Secretary Cecyl who was then with the King in his Progress not to forget him And accordingly he was remembred and obtained the Place For which the Arch-bishop afterwards gave him his most hearty Thanks And Dr. Mowse also sent the same Secretary a Letter of Thanks from Cambridg for the Preferment he had obtained by his Means The main Drift thereof was to excuse himself for his Neglect in that he had not sooner paid his Acknowledgments Which as it seems the Secretary had taken some notice of having expected to be thanked for the Kindness he had done him This Letter because there is therein mention made of our Arch-bishop's singular Munificence and Cheke's Affection towards him and Mowse himself once making a Figure in that University I have thought it not amiss to insert in the Appendix Though this Man seemed to be none of the steadiest in his Religion For I find him put out of his Mastership of Trinity-Hall in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign for having been a Protestant and to make way for the Restoration of Dr. Gardiner Bishop of Winchester who had been outed before Upon whose Death that Mastership falling void and Mowse having complied with the Romish Religion he became Master there again And soon after in Queen Elizabeth's Reign he was deprived by her Commissioners for being a Papist and one Harvey came in his Room Dr. Mowse's Fickleness appeared that upon the first tidings that fled to Cambridg of Queen Mary's Success against the Lady Iane's Party he with several other temporizing University-Men changed his Religion and in four and twenty Hours was both Protestant and Papist The Truth is his Judgment varied according to his worldly Interest And being one of those that came about so roundly he was appointed by the complying Party of the University to be one of the two Dr. Hatcher being the other that should repair unto Dr. Sands then the Vice-Chancellor to demand of him without any colour of Reason or Authority the University-Books the Keys and such other things as were in his keeping And so they did And my Author makes an Observation of his Ingratitude as well as of
Aless turned into Latin and published for the Consolation of the Churches every where in those sad Times as it ran in the Title If any desire to look backward unto the more early Times of this Man the first Tidings we have of him was about the Year 1534. When upon a sharp Persecution raised in Scotland he with other Learned Men fled thence into England and was received into Crumwel's Family And it is said that he became known to and grew into such Favour with King Henry that he called him his Scholar But after Crumwel's Death in the Year 1540 he taking one Fife with him went into Saxony where both of them were for their great Learning made Professors in the University of Leipzig In the Year 1557. I find this Man at Leipzig where he was Professor of Divinity as was said before Hither this Year Melancthon sent to him from Wormes giving him some Account of the Preparations that were making by the Roman Catholick Party in order to a Conference with the Protestants At which the said Aless was to be present and make one of the Disputants on the Protestant side And ten Years before this viz. 1547 he was the Publick Moderator of Divinity both in the Schools and Pulpits of Leipzig or some other University Besides this Aless there were four other pious and learned Persons Foreigners who bringing along with them Letters of Recommendation from the said Melancthon were courteously received and freely entertained by our hospitable Arch-bishop all of them in the Year 1548 at which time the Persecution grew hot upon the Interim One of these was Gualter another Scot by Nation A second was one named Francis Dryander an Acquaintance of Melancthon's of long continuance Whom as he told the Arch-bishop he had tried and known inwardly and found him endowed with excellent Parts well furnished with Learning that he judged rightly of the Controversies altogether free from all wild and seditious Opinions and that he would soon perceive the singular gravity of his Manners after some few Days knowledg of him motioning withal to the Arch-bishop his fitness to be preferred in either of our Universities As he did also to K. Edward in Letters brought at this time to him by the said Dryander Wherein he recommended him to that King as one that would prove a very useful Person either in his Universities or elsewhere in his Kingdom This Recommendation had so much Force that this Man seemed soon after to be sent and placed at Oxon and there remained till in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign when all Strangers were commanded to depart the Realm he went hence to Paris and from thence to Antwerp Whence he wrote a Letter to one Crispin a Doctor of Physick in Oxon therein relating to him a Passage concerning the coarse Entertainment which the Divines of Lovain gave Gardiner Bishop of Winchester upon the Scandal they took against him for his Book De vera Obedientia Which Letter is extant in Fox The third was Eusebius Menius the Son of Iustus Menius Which Iustus was a Person of great Fame and Esteem both for his Learning in Philosophy and Divinity and for the Government of the Churches within the Territories of Iohn Frederick Duke of Saxony Of this Eusebius his Son Melancthon writ to our Arch-bishop That he had good Preferments in Germany but he could not bear to behold the Calamities of his poor Country which made him seek for a Being in Foreign Parts He recommended him to his Grace desiring him to cherish him Adding That in the Gothick Times what remained of the Church and of right Doctrines were preserved in our Island and that Europe being now in a Combustion it were to be wish'd that some peaceable Harbour might be for Learning He doubted not but that many flocked hither but that it was the part of Piety and Goodness especially to help the Youth of Excellent Men and the Sons of such as had well deserved of the Church especially when they themselves also were eminent for their Parts and Learning And since this Eusebius was a good Mathematician and had read Mathematicks in one of their Schools he propounded him to the Arch-bishop to be a fit Person for the Profession of that Science in our University The fourth was Iustus Ionas the Son also of a great German Divine of the same Name and who was one of the Four that in the Year 1530 came to Augsburgh upon a Diet appointed by the Emperor for Religion with the Elector of Saxony Melancthon Agricola and Georgius Spalatinus being the other Three The Son came over with Letters commendatory from Melancthon as the others did He commended his excellent Parts and his Progress in all kind of Philosophy and good Manners and especially his Eloquence which he said he had a Nature divinely framed to To which it may not be amiss to subjoin what Melancthon somewhere else did observe of his Family Namely That his Grandfather was a Person of Fame for Oratory and Civil Prudence His Father endowed with such Parts as naturally made him an Orator in respect of his fluency of Words and gracefulness of Delivery And this Felicity of Nature he improved by a great accession of Learning Which made him tell our Iustus that he was born in Oratoria Familia And such care did he take of him when he was young that he took the pains to write him a long Letter containing Instructions for his Improvement in the Grounds of Learning This Man the Arch-bishop was very kind to gave him Harbour and admitted him freely into his Society and Converse Insomuch that Iustus Ionas the Father entreated Melancthon That he would take particular notice to the Arch-bishop of his great Favour shewed to his Son Among the Discourses the communicative Prelat held with Ionas while he was with him one happened concerning a noted Question in Divinity Where launching out into free communication with him upon that Point he desired him to impart to Melancthon the Substance of what he had discoursed and that he should signify to him that the Arch-bishop requested his Judgment thereof Which accordingly Ionas did And Melancthon in a Letter to the Arch-bishop stiles it non obscarae Quaestio and that it had already much shaken the Church and says he Concutiet durius shall shake it yet more Giving his Reason for this Conjecture Because those Governours meaning I suppose the Papal Clergy did not seek for a true Remedy to so great a Matter It doth not appear to me what this Question was that the Arch-bishop was so earnest to confer with this great Divine about whether it were concerning the necessity of Episcopal Government and Ordination or concerning the Use of Ceremonies in the Church or about the Doctrine of the Sacrament this last I am apt to believe But either of them hath according to Melancthon's Prediction sufficiently shaken the Churches of Christ. But to
return to Ionas He had written some Pieces and presented them to the King for which he intended to reward him And being now ready to go to France for the improvement of his Knowledg and so after a time to return into England again for which he had a great Affection he besought Secretary Cecyl in a well-penned Letter That whatsoever the King intended to bestow on him he would do it out of hand for the supply of his travelling Necessity This Letter for the Antiquity of it and the Fame of the Man I have inserted in the Appendix In which is also contained an Extract of part of Ionas the Father's Letter to his Son concerning the Miseries of Germany CHAP. XXIV Melancthon and the Arch-bishop great Friends THESE Occasions of the frequent mention of Melancthon do draw us into a relation of some further Passages between him and our Arch-bishop In the Year 1549 happened several Disputations chiefly concerning the Doctrine of the Lord's Supper before the King's Commissioners in both Universities In Oxford they were managed chiefly by Peter Martyr And in Cambridg Ridley then Bishop of Rochester and a Commissioner was the chief Moderator Soon after Martin Bucer in this University defended three Points one of the Sufficiency of the Scripture another concerning the Erring of Churches and the last concerning Works done before Iustification against Pern Sedgwick and Yong. They on the Popish Side pretended much in their Disputations to have Antiquity and the Fathers for them These Disputations did our most Reverend Prelate together with his own Letter convey to Melancthon by the Hand of one Germanicus a German Who probably might be one of those Learned Strangers that the Arch-bishop hospitably entertained The Reflection that that Divine in an Answer to his Grace in the Year 1550 made upon perusal of these Papers was That he was grieved to see that those who sought so much for the Antient Authorities would not acknowledg the Clearness of them Nor was there any doubt what the sounder Men in the Antient Church thought But that there were new and spurious Opinions foisted into many of their Books Into that of Theophylact most certainly for one And that there was some such Passage in the Copy that Oecolampadius made use of when he translated Theophylact which he liked not of but yet translated it as he found it But this was wholly wanting in the Copy that Melancthon had That the same happened in Bede's Books which he supposed might be found more incorrupt among us Bede being our Country-Man The same Melancthon with this his Letter sent our Arch-bishop a part of his Enarration upon the Nicene Creed for this end that he might pass his Judgment thereon As he also did for the same purpose to A Lasco Bucor and Peter Martyr all then in England The beginning of this Learned German's Acquaintance with our Prelat was very early For the Arch-bishop's Fame soon spred abroad in the World beyond the English Territories Which was the Cause of that Address of Melancthon mentioned before in the Year 1535 and in the Month of August when he sent a Letter and a Book to him by Alexander Aless. In the Letter he signified what a high Character both for Learning and Piety he had heard given of him by many honest and worthy Men and That if the Church had but some more such Bishops it would be no difficult Matter to have it healed and the World restored to Peace congratulating Britain such a Bishop And this seems to have been the first entrance into their Acquaintance and Correspondence PHILIP MELANCTHON In the Year 1548 Cranmer propounded a great and weighty Business to Melancthon and a Matter that was likely to prove highly useful to all the Churches of the Evangelick Profession It was this The ABp was now driving on a Design for the better uniting of all the Protestant Churches viz. by having one common Confession and Harmony of Faith and Doctrine drawn up out of the pure Word of God which they might all own and agree in He had observed what Differences there arose among Protestants in the Doctrine of the Sacrament in the Divine Decrees in the Government of the Church and some other things These Disagreements had rendred the Professors of the Gospel contemptible to those of the Roman Communion Which caused no small grief to the Heart of this good Man nearly touched for the Honour of Christ his Master and his true Church which suffered hereby And like a Person of a truly publick and large Spirit as his Function was seriously debated and deliberated with himself for the remedying this Evil. This made him judg it very adviseable to procure such a Confession And in order to this he thought it necessary for the chief and most Learned Divines of the several Churches to meet together and with all freedom and friendliness to debate the Points of Controversy according to the Rule of Scripture And after mature deliberation by Agreement of all Parties to draw up a Book of Articles and Heads of Christian Faith and Practice Which should serve for the standing Doctrine of Protestants As for the Place of this Assembly he thought England the fittest in respect of Safety as the Affairs of Christendom then stood And communicating this his purpose to the King that Religious Prince was very ready to grant his Allowance and Protection And as Helvetia France and Germany were the chief Countries abroad where the Gospel was prosessed so he sent his Letters to the most eminent Ministers of each namely to Bullinger Calvin and Melancthon disclosing this his pious Design to them and requiring their Counsel and Furtherance Melancthon first of all came acquainted with it by Iustus Ionas junior to whom the Arch-bishop had related the Matter at large and desired him to signify as much in a Letter to the said Melancthon and that it was his Request to him to communicate his Judgment thereupon This Ionas did and Melancthon accordingly writ to our Arch-bishop on the Calends of May this Year to this purpose That if his Judgment and Opinion were required he should be willing both to hear the Sense of other Learned Men and to speak his own and to give his Reasons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perswading and being perswaded as ought to be in a Conference of good Men letting Truth and the Glory of God and the Safety of the Church not any private Affection ever carry away the Victory Telling him withal That the more he considered of this his Deliberation than which he thought there could be nothing set on foot more Weighty and Necessary the more he wish'd and pressed him to publish such a true and clear Confession of the whole Body of Christian Doctrine according to the Judgment of Learned Men whose Names should be subscribed thereto That among all Nations there might be extant an illustrious Testimony of Doctrine delivered by grave Authority and
by any Doctor above a thousand Years after Christ that Christ's Body is in the Sacrament of the Altar really he would give over So that his Library was the Storehouse of Ecclesiastical Writers of all Ages And which was open for the use of Learned Men. Here old Latimer spent many an Hour and found some Books so remarkable that once he thought fit to mention one in a Sermon before the King And when Ascham of Cambridg a great Student of Politer Learning and of Greek Authors wanted Gregory Nyssen in Greek not the Latin Translation of him and which it seems the University could not afford he earnestly entreated Poynet his Grace's Chaplain to borrow it in his Name and for his use for some Months of the Arch-bishop For in those Times it was rare to meet with those Greek Fathers in their own Language and not spoiled by some ill Latin Translation Another of his Books I will mention because it is now in the possession of a Reverend Friend of mine near Canterbury in which Book the Arch-bishop's Name is yet to be seen written thus with his own Hand Thomas Cantuariensis and a remarkable Book it is which we may conclude the Arch-bishop often perused viz. Epistolae Historiae Joannis Hus. Printed at Wittemberg 1537. And this Learning happening in a Mind possessed with Piety made him the more deeply sensible of the greatness of the Charge that lay upon him And as he well knew under what Needs the Church laboured so he was very solicitous that nothing might be wanting on his part shewing himself a most conscientious Bishop and tender Pastor of Christ's Flock He was not guided in his Episcopal Function by vain Glory or Affectation of popular Applause or worldly Ambition or Covetousness but only by the Holy and Pious Ends of discharging his Duty and promoting the Honour of Christ and the Knowledg of his Gospel and the Good of his People as he took God to witness in the Preface of his Book of the Sacrament A Paragraph whereof I think not unworthy to be here inserted whereby it may appear of what a truly Apostolical Spirit our Arch-bishop was When I see said he Christ's Vinyard overgrown with Thorns Brambles and Weeds I know that everlasting Woe appertaineth to me if I hold my Peace and put not to my Hand and Tongue to labour in purging his Vinyard God I take to witness who seeth the Hearts of all Men thorowly unto the bottom that I take this Labour for none other Consideration but for the Glory of his Name and the Discharge of my Duty and the Zeal I have toward the Flock of Christ. I know in what Office God hath placed me and to what Purpose That is to say to set forth his Word truly unto his People to the uttermost of my Power without respect of Persons or regard of Things in the World but of him alone I know what Account I shall make to him hereof at the last Day when every Man shall answer for his Vocation and receive for the fame Good or Evil according as he hath done I know how Antichrist hath obscured the Glory of God and the true Knowledg of his Word overcasting the same with Mists and Clouds of Error and Ignorance thrô false Glosses and Interpretations It pitieth me to see the simple and hungry Flock of Christ led into corrupt Pastures to be carried blindfold they know not whither and to be fed with Poison instead of wholsome Meats And moved by the Duty Office and Place whereunto it hath pleased God to call me I give warning in his Name unto all that profess Christ that they flee far from Babylon if they will save their Souls and to beware of that great Harlot that is to say the pestiferous See of Rome that she make you not drunk with her pleasant Wine c. And as he had this Care of the whole Church of this Land as the high Patriarch thereof so he particularly had his Eye upon his own Diocess He took Care even in King Henry's ticklish Reign to place such Ministers in Kent as were Learned and dared to open their Mouths to preach Gospel-Doctrin and to convince the People of the Usurpations of the Bishop of Rome and of the Idolatry and Superstitions wherein they had been so long nursled up And for the preventing whereof for Time to come he ordered his Arch-deacon and other his Officers to take down Images out of Churches and deface them Which things created him much hatred among the Popish Clergy whose Gain depended so much therein He had a peculiar regard of the greater Towns of his Diocess that such Places might be furnished with able Men where the Inhabitants were numerous and the Salaries generally small Whereby he saw it came to pass that where there was most need of Learned Men there the most Ignorant were placed Therefore he thought this worthy his redressing I meet with this Memorandum in one of his Note-books These Towns following are especially to be remembred that in them there be placed Learned Men with sufficient Stipends Sandwich Dover Folkston Ashford Tenderden Crambroke Faversham Hearn Whitstable Marden Maydston Wye and Wingham In these great Towns as well as Canterbury he often preached himself And for his Sermons at Sandwich he was once complained of openly in the Parliament-house to have brought him under the Lash of the Statute of the Six Articles And within seven or eight Years after his first entrance into the See he had placed such store of good Preachers about Kent that at another time a long List of Articles were drawn up against them and given in to the Justices of the County at a Quarter-Sessions of the Peace and they by a Combination preferred the Complaint to the King and Council His high Estate puffed him not up nor made him forget the great Work of his Calling which he very earnestly desired to prosecute above all things in the World Nor did he care at all for the high Titles that were attributed to him as he was Arch-bishop of Canterbury as may appear by this Passage Upon occasion of a Question arising concerning his Stile of Primate of all England for bearing which in his Summons for a Provincial Visitation the Bishop of Winchester out of Malice had complained to King Henry against him as though it were an Encroachment upon the King's Supremacy he protested to Crumwel then Secretary who had sent him word of it That as God should be merciful to him in the Day of Judgment he set not more by any Title or Stile than he did by the paring of an Apple further than it should be to the setting forth God's Word and Will His Expression was That they were the Successors of Diotrephes that affected glorious Titles Stiles and Pomps He professed He could have been willing that Bishops should lay aside their lofty Stiles and only write themselves by the Stile of their Offices The
thereof according to Equity and Justice Thus favourable he was to Religion and good Men in the two former Kings Reigns But when Queen Mary succeeded he could no longer be a Sanctuary or Succour unto them unless it were to comfort them by Words and to pray for them as was said before The Arch-bishop added That he was for his part now utterly unable either to help or counsel being in the same Condemnation that they were But that the only thing that he could do he would not omit and that was to pray for them and all others then in Adversity But he entreated Cecyl who by this time seemed to have gotten his Pardon or at least to be in good assurance of it and so in a better Capacity to raise up Friends to those honest Men to use what Means possible he could for them This was all he could do now for the Prisoners of Christ. But while he was in Place and Capacity of succouring such distressed Persons as he was in King Edward's Days he gave them Countenance Entertainment at his House and Table Preferment Recommendation to the King and Protector And indeed there was great need of some such Patrons of poor Protestants the Persecutions in Italy in Spain in France in Germany and other Places being abâ—â—t this Time extreamly hot Which occasioned the flight of great Numbers into this Nation Which some of them stiled Christi Asylum A Sanctury for Christ In the Year 1549 the Persecution in France grew very warm Which was partly occasioned upon the Inauguration of King Henry II and his Entrance into Paris for that Purpose For the burning of Martyrs in several Streets of the City where and when the King was to pass by made a barbarous part of the Solemnity In this Year many French Protestants who had been Imprisoned for Religion in their own Country were either banished or secretly made their escape into this Kingdom These applied to some French Ministers entertained as it seems in the Arch-bishop's Family with Bucer Peter Martyr and others Which Ministers delivered the Condition of these poor Men to the Arch-bishop And having a Petition to present to the Lord Protector declaring their miserable State and requiring Relief he appointed the French Ministers to apply themselves to Cecyl then Master of Requests to the Lord Protector and that he might be the more ready to recommend and forward the Petition to render it the more effectual he advised Bucer Martyr Alexander and Fagius to write their Letters jointly unto the said Cecyl for the French Ministers to carry along with them as their Letter of Credence For the Arch-bishop well knew that Cecyl had a great Esteem for those Learned Men and that their Letters would go a great way with him Such was the particular Care and Diligence our Prelat piously used for Relief of these poor French Exiles The Copy of this Letter I have thought well worthy to be put in the Appendix Indeed it was noted at this Time as a Quality of the Nation That it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Addicted to shew Favour to Strangers nay to admire them And surely it was not without the Providence of God that when in these difficult Times so many Honest Pious Learned Men were forced from their own Countries Friends and Estates they found such hospitable Entertainment here Care was taken for their sufficient Livelyhoods and for those of them that were towards Learning Places were assigned them in the Colleges of the Universities and yearly Stipends settled on them Of those that were most forward and exemplary in these Christian Offices Dr. Laurence Humfrey one who lived in those Times and was well acquainted with these Matters names King Edward in the first place Who as he asserts of his own knowledg was extraordinarily bountiful to them both in London and in the Universities Among the Noble-men he mentions Henry Earl of Dorset and Duke of Suffolk And among the Bishops Thomas Cranmer the Arch-bishop of Canterbury of whom he bestowed this Character That he was worthy to succeed William Warham in his See whom he so well imitated both in courteous Behaviour and Hospitality And as he was in King Edward's Days of such an hospitable Disposition towards Strangers so he was noted for it in the Reign of his Father King Henry being wont then to shew himself very kind and humane to such as travelled into these Parts for Learning as well as for Shelter Gualter the great Divine of Zurick being but a young Man came into England about the Year 1537 and was so affected with the Civilities he received here that he let it stand upon Record in the Preface to his Homilies upon the first Epistle to the Corinthians how humanely he was received at Oxford not only by the Students but by the Publick Professors and by divers at Court But among them he particularly mentioned How Arch-bishop Cranmer whom he stiled The immortal Glory of England received him though a young Man then and a Stranger and had no experience of things nor any Mark or Excellency to recommend him And as he was Compassionate and Hospitable so he was of a free and liberal Disposition and as became a Christian Bishop and an English Peer kept great Hospitality Yet however he could not escape the Imputation of Niggardise and Closeness He had been once accused of it to his Master King Henry but came off with Honour the King himself clearing him of that injurious Scandal and giving him a Character of a quite contrary Nature And again in King Edward's Reign in the Year 1552 some taking the advantage of his Absence from the Court slandered him as though he were Covetous Which coming to his Ear by the cordial Friendship of Cecyl the King's Secretary he wrote that Courtier a Letter in vindication of himself professing That he was not so doted to set his Mind upon things here which neither he could carry away with him nor tarry long with them And that he took not half so much Care for his Living when he was a Scholar at Cambridg as he did at that present when he was Arch-bishop of Canterbury for as he had now much more Revenue than he had then so he had much more to do withal And That he rather feared stark Beggary at last This and other things to the same purpose he signified in that Letter that Cecyl thereby might the better understand his Condition and know how and what to plead at Court in his behalf as Occasion served as hath been more at large related before By the way I cannot but reflect upon one of the Arch-bishop's Expressions which seemed to have been uttered prophetically so exactly did the Event answer to his Words for to stark Beggary he was indeed at last reduced When in his Imprisonment at Oxon he had not a Penny in his Purse And which was more his Enemies were so barbarously severe that it
ostendatis quam ego vestra causa de officio fuerim meo stricte praecipientes ut his nostris constitutionibus vos omnes â—inguli tam in judicijs quam in gymnarijs utamini severè prohibentes ne quisquam vestrum alias praeter has regni nostri leges admittere praesumat Valete NUM XXXV The Bishop of Winchester to Archbishop Cranmer relating to the Reformation of Religion AFter my duty remembred to your Grace Your letters of the third came to my hands the of the same And upon the reading and advised consideration of the matter in them have thought requisite to answer unto them and at length to open my mind frankly in some points of them Tempering my words so as I shal not be seen to have forgotten your place and condition ne such familiarite as hath been between your G. and me The remembrance of which familiarite maketh me speke as frely as on the other side your astate brydeleth me to be more moderate in speech then sum matier I shal herafter speke of wold ells suffre and permit It greveth me moch to rede wryten from your G. in the begynning of your lettres how the King our late Soveraign was seduced and in that he knew by whom he was compassed in that I cal the Kings Majesties Book Which is not his Book bicause I cal it so but bicause it was indede so acknowledged by the hol Parliament and acknowledged so by your G. thenn and al his life which as you afterwards write ye commaunded to be published and red in your Diocese as his book Against which by your G's spech ye commaunded Ioseph he shuld not prech Al which I think your G. would not have doon if ye had not thought the book to have conteyned truth And in the truth can be no seducyng to it as the Kings book conteyneth but from it Which if it had been so I ought to think your G. would not for al the Princes christened being so high a Bishop as ye be have yâ—â—â—â—ed unto For Obedire oportet Dâ—o magis quam hominibus And therfore after your G. hath foure yere continually lyved in agrement of that doctrine under our late Soveraine Lord now so sodenly after his death to wryte to me that his Highness was seduced it is I assure you a very straunge spech Which if your G. shuld bring in to open contention as I know your G. of your Wisedome wyl not But in that case wyl I as an old servaunt of my late Soverayne Much wanting it self so many Calamities besides wherof I have more laysor to think on thenn your G. as my chance is now which I reckon in this respect very good After so many yeres Service and in such trouble without daunger passed over to aryve in this haven of quyetnes without losse of any notable takel as the Marryners say Which is a great matier as the wynds hath blowen And if the present astate in this world wer to be considered I have many times alleged for confirmation of thopinion of some in religion And the Protestants take it for a gret argument to establish ther procedyngs that themperor was ever letted when he went about to enterprize any thing against them as Bucer declareth at gret length in a letter written to the World And whenne Sledanus was here in England he told me the like at Windesore and then Tanquam praedixit of the effect of certain eclypse Adding that I shuld see magnas mutationes And so I have seen and have heard mervelous chaunges synnes that but otherwise than Sledanus toke it and to destroy ther fancies if that were to be regarded But for my self I have seen my Soveraine Lord with whom I consented in opinion make the honourable conquest of Bolen and honorably in his life mainteyne it And after in honorable peace made leave this world over soon to us but that was due by him to be payd to naâ—ure discharged it honoraâ—ly buried honorably with sorrow and lamentation of his servants and subgetts and my self his poor servant with a litel flâ—ebyting of this world conveyed to an easy astâ—te without diminution of my reputation And therfore whenne I hear fondly alleged or rede more fondly wryten the favor toto that is by Bâ—lâ— Ioye and Ioseph or such like newly called the Word of God to be embraced for preservation of the worldly astate I se the clere contrary in experience and conclude with my self that it proveth nought before man and take it before God to be abomination Which causeth me to spend some of my laysor to wryte so long a letter to your G. who hath lesse laysor Wyshing that our laysor gret or litel may be spent otherwyse then to trouble this Realm in the time of our Soveraine Lords Minority with any novelte in mâ—tiers of religion being so many other matiers which for that I was so late a Counsellor cannot out of my memory Requiring the hol endeavour of such as have charge and silence in the people who shuld serve and obey without quarelying among themself for matiers in religion Specially considering it is agreed our late Soverain is receyved to goddes mercy And though some wold say he had his errors and saw not perfitely Gods truth Yet for us it were better to go to heven with oon yie after hym thenne to travayle here for another yie with daungier to lose both There was good humanite in him that said Mâ—lim errare cum Platone quam cum alijs vera sentire Which affection were to the world plausible towching our Soveraine Lord that made us But we christen men may not teach so but esteme God above al and his true divinite In which case nevertheles whenne the divinite pretended is so rejected of many and utterly reproved So doubted of many other as it is suspected and confessed among us it is not necessary For our Soveraine Lord is gone from us to heaven in his way It is a mervelous matier what a certain loss it is aforehand to entreprize to serch which among a very few hath the name of Divinite and of al the rest is so named as I wil not reherse And this I write not because your G. entendeth any such thing soo far For I may not and wil not so think of you But this I take to be true that the way of error is let in at a little gappe The vehemence of novelty wil flow further thenne your G. wold admitte And when men hear of new gere every man maketh his request sum new hose sum new robes sum newe cappes sum new shirtes Like as in religion we have seen attempted where the people thought they might prevayle Which caused the commotion in Germany in bello civili Rusticorum and hath made the same stir there now in bello civili Nobilium It was a notable act of our late Soverain Lord to reform and thenne moderate religion as he did Which he did not without al
like some Check to the Archbishop and as tho they required of him a sort of Dependance on them now more than before and it shewed some secret Ill-will towards him This Privilege was first granted to the Prior and Chapter of Canterbury by Thomas Becket but afterwards more amply confirmed to them by St. Edmund the Archbishop in the year 1235 from which time to the present year 1540 I dare confidently â—ver That no Bishop of the Province of Canterbury had been Consecrated by the Archbishops or by any other by their Commission in any Church or Place without the Metropolitical Church of Canterbury without License first desired and obtained in writing from the Chapter of Canterbury under their Seal if we except only two or three Cases between the years 1235 and 1300 which were the occasions of great Controversies between the Archbishops Consecrating and the Bishops Consecrated on the one part and the Chapter of Canterbury on the other part which yet always ended to the advantage of the Chapter and the farther Confirmation of their Privilege herein If these Licenses be not registred in the Archbishops Registers it is not to be wondred at it being not their concern to cause those things to be enregistred which were not essential to the Confirmation or Consecration of the Bishops of their Province but related merely to the Privileges of the Chapter of Canterbury But they are all enregistred and may be found in the Registers of that Chapter If therefore the Prior and Convent of Canterbury did at this time require Boner to take out such a License before his Consecration they thereby gave no more evidence of any sinister Design or Ill-will against the Archbishop than they had done at any time before to him or any of his Predecessors for 300 years whensoever any Bishop of the Province was to be Consecrated out of their Church Page 95. line 18. Robert King Titular Bishop Reonen Suffragan to the Bishop of Lincoln was this year 1541. Consecrated Bishop of Oxford The Date or his Consecrators I cannot assign the Act being omitted in the Archbishop's Register Whensoever a Suffragan Bishop was promoted to any real Bishoprick he had no need of any new Consecration the Character and Order of Bishop having been all along as full valid and effectual in him as in any Bishop whatsoever So that in such a Promotion no other Form was observed than in the Translation of any Bishop from one Diocess to another viz. Election and Confirmation But in this case not so much as that was necessary for the Bishoprick of Oxford being then newly erected King the first Bishop of it was to be put in Possession of it not by any Act of the Archbishop's but by Letters Patents of the King the Founder of it which Letters were not issued out until the first day of September in the following year Page 111. line 13. The names of the chief Actors of a Conspiracy against the Archbishop were Thornden who lived in the Archbishop's Family and eat at his Table and with whom he used to converse most familiarly So also Pag. 121. line 12. Thornton who was Suffragan of Dover the Archbishop made Prebendary of his Church and whom he always set at his own Mess. Page 120. line 5. Dr. Thornton who was very great with the Archbishop but secretly false to him Page 304. line 7. ab imo This had the Suffragan of Dover Dr. Thornton done In these and other Passages of this History the Names and Persons of Dr. Thornton and Dr. Thornden both Suffragans of the Diocess of Canterbury are confounded Iohn Thornton Prior of Dover was Suffragan to Archbishop Warham and died in his time Richard Thornden was Monk of Christ-Church Canterbury and at the dissolution of that Monastery in 1539 or 1540 and Conversion of it into a College of Secular Canons was constituted the first Prebendary of it and soon after made Suffragan of the Diocess with the Title of Bishop of Dover in which Office he continued till his death ultimo Mariâ— He never lived in the Archbishop's Family but in the Monastery till the Dissolution of it and after that constantly resided upon his Prebend and other Benefices which he held in the Diocess You might perhaps find it noted That the Archbishop always set him at his own Mess which might give you occasion to think that he sometimes lived in the Archbishop's Family whereas indeed no more was meant thereby than that the Archbishop was wont to shew to him extraordinary Respect whensoever he attended him for in those days Suffragan Bishops however usual were treated with Contempt enough not wont to be admitted to dine at the Archbishops own Table in the Hall of the Archbishop's Palace There were generally three Tables spread in the Archbishops Hall and served at the same time The Archbishops Table at which ordinarily sate none but Peers of the Realm Privy-Counsellors and Gentlemen of the greatest Quality The Almoners Table at which sate the Chaplains and all Guests of the Clergy beneath Diocesan Bishops and Abbots The Stewards Table at which sate all other Gentlemen The Suffragan Bishops then were wont to fit at the Almoners Table and the Archbishop in admitting his Suffragan Thornden to his own Table did him an unusual Honour which was therefore noted to aggravate the Ingratitude of the man conspiring against the Archbishop Page 126. line 13. About this time 1544. it was I conjecture that the King changed the Archbishop's Coat of Arms for unto the year 1543 he bore his Paternal Coat of Three Cranes Sable as I find by a Date set under his Arms yet remaining in a Window in Lambeth-House Those Arms of Archbishop Cranmer here mentioned to remain in a Window in Lambeth-House together with the Arms of the other Archbishops succeeding to him since the Reformation and placed in the same Window were painted at the cost of and set up by my Lord Archbishop Sancroft not many years since Page 141. med One of the very first things that was done in K. Edward's Reign in relation to the Church was That the Bishops c. should be made to depend intirely upon the King and his Council c. and should take Commissions from him for the exercise of their Office and Jurisdiction and those to last only during the King's Pleasure In this I suppose the Archbishop had his hand And therefore he began this Matter with himself Petitioning for such a Commission which was granted to him Feb. 7. 1546. This Matter was not now first begun or done The Archbishop and all the Bishops of England had taken Commissions from K. Henry in the very same Form mutatis mutandis in the year 1535. Page 161. med An English Exile naming himself E. P. in Q. Mary's days published again the Archbishop's Book against Vnwritten Verities and prefixed to it a Preface of his own I will add one Passage taken out of this Book about the middle whereby it may be seen what
a Clergy was now in England He makes a heavy Complaint against the frequent practice of beastly sins in the Priests Adultery Sodomy c. and that they never were punished And in my memory as he proceeds which is above thirty years and also by the information of others that be twenty years older than I I could never learn that one Priest was punished These Exiles are a sort of men who generally write with Passion and Prejudice against their own Countrey so that ordinarily little more credit is to be given to their Information than to the Intelligence of Deserters from an Army I am sure he hath shamefully belied the Clergy of England in accusing them of the frequent practice of such beastly sins and then affirming that he could never learn that one Priest was punished for it in the space of fifty years before that time It is true that Crimes of Incontinence as such especially in the Clergy were then cognoscible and punishable only by the Ecclesiastical Law and in the Spiritual Courts but Rapes were then as well as now in Clergy-men as well as Lay-men tryable and punishable at Common-Law And of this the Laity took such malicious advantage immediately before the Reformation that they were wont to pretend all Acts and even Indications of Incontinence in Clergy-men to be so many Rapes and to Indict them as such Insomuch that scarce any Assizes or Sessions passed at that time wherein several Clergy-men were not Indicted of Rapes and a Jury of Lay-men Impannell'd to Try them who would be sure not to be guilty of shewing over-much favour to them in their Verdicts Neither was the Ecclesiastical Authority then so remiss as is pretended as not to have punished any one Priest for Incontinence within the space of fifty years before If I had my Papers by me I could produce Examples of many Incontinent Clergy-men punished and deprived by their Ordinaries within that time About this very time wherein this Preface was wrote Dr. Weston altho otherwise a man of great Note and Interest among the Popish Party was deprived of the Deanry of Windsor for a single Act of Incontinence and about twenty years before this Stokesly Bishop of London is by Iohn Bale reported to have deprived Iohn Lord Abbot of Colchester for an horrible Act of Incontinence Indeed I know Bale to have been so great a Lyar that I am not willing to take any thing of that kind upon his Credit however his Testimony may serve well enough against such another foul-mouth'd Writer as this E. P. seems to have been Ibid. line 11. ab imo The Archbishop supplied the City of Canterbury with store of Excellent Learned Preachers Turner the two Ridleys Becon c. Turner never was Preacher in Ordinary at Canterbury but at Chartham near Canterbury He is said indeed afterwards in this History to have been one of the Six Preachers of the Church of Canterbury which may be true yet to Preach there three or four Sermons in a year upon so many Holidays is not a sufficient ground to say that that City was supplied with such or such Preachers Page 164. in imo The University of Cambridge laboured under great suspicions of being spoiled of its Revenues she having observed how those of her Sister the Church were daily invaded by Secular hands The University hath ever been so dutiful as to own the Church to be her Mother Page 183. line 10. ab imo Farrar was Consecrated Bishop of St. Davids by Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury endued with his Pontificals The latter words are a Translation of Pontificalibus indutus which signifies no other than being Invested or Attired in his Episcopal Habit. Page 184. med Bishop Farrar hearing of great Corruption among those belonging to the Chapter of the Church of Carmarthen and chiefly Thomas Young Chanter after Archbishop of York c. I suppose the Chapter of the Church of St. Davids is here meant for there was no such Church at Carmarthen and Young was at this time Precentor of St. Davids Page 208. line 13. ab imo Bishop Ridley at his entrance upon the See of London was exceeding wary not to do his Predecessor Bonner the least injury but rather did many kindnesses to his Mother Servants and Relations he continued Bonner's Receiver one Staunton in his Place In this last case Ridley could not give any evidence of Kindness or Unkindness for Staunton held his Place of Receiver by Patent for life Page 224. med The Council sitting at Greenwich the Bishop's Gardiner of Winchester Servants came and desired that certain of them might be sworn upon certain Articles for Witness on his behalf And if they might not be sworn c. And they were allowed From this relation any Reader would imagine That the Bishop's Servants desired that themselves might be sworn in behalf of their Lord and Master whereas in the Council-Book from whence this Matter is reported it is plain that they desired that some of the Privy-Counsellors might be sworn or at least be obliged to declare upon their Honour what they knew of the matter then in question in favour of the Bishop Page 267. line 21. This Scory Bishop Elect of Rochester was at first preferred by the Archbishop to be one of the Six Preachers at Canterbury and always continued firm for the Purity of Religion and endured Trouble for it He was a Married man and so deprived at the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign fled beyond Sea c. Scory was so far from continuing always firm to the Purity of Religion that in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign he reconciled himself to the See of Rome submitted himself to Bishop Bonner made a formal Recantation and did open Penance for his Marriage however afterwards he resumed his former Principles when he had got beyond Sea Page 270. line 17. ab imo All this I have related of this Divine Dr. Iohn Redman who died in 1551. that I may in some measure preserve the Memory of one of the Learnedest men of his time and lay up the Dying Words of a Papist signifying so plainly his dislike and disallowance of many of their Doctrines I cannot imagine why Dr. Redman should be accounted or called a Papist at the time of his Death who had all along lived and then died in the Communion of the Establish'd Church and had but little before joined with the Archbishop and other Bishops and Divines in compiling the Book of Common-Prayer If because he had once held the Popish Doctrines concerning Justification the Sacrament of the Altar c. with equal and for the same reason Cranmer himself and all the Bishops and Eminent Divines of that time may be called Papists Or if it was because he judged it unlawful for any Priest to marry a second time as is related page 157. he therein followed the Canons and received Doctrines of the Ancient Church and hath many Learned and Worthy Divines of our own Time and Church
Istorum Authorum Maxime Memorabile sit quonam in pretio apud Eruditos seniper Habiti Fuerunt Opera Thomae Pope-Blunt Baronâ—iti Fol. V. Cl. Gulielmi Camdeni Illustrium Vâ—rorum ad G. Camdenum Epistolâ—e cum Appendice Varii Argumenti Accesserunt Annalitita Regni Regis Jacobi I. Apparatus Commentarius de Antiquitate Dignitate Officio Comitis Marescali Angliae Praemittitur G Camdeni Vita Scriptore Thoma â—mitho S.T.D. Ecclesiae Anglicanae Presbytero 4to Some Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont By Peter Allix D D Treasurer of Sarum 4to his Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical â—istory of the Ancient Churches of the Albigenses 4to A Vindication of Their Majesties Authority to fill the Sees of the Deprived Bishops in a Letter occasioned by Dr. B 's Refusal of the Bishoprick of Bath and Wells 4to A Discourse concerning the Unreasonableness of a New Separation on Account of the Oâ—ths to the Present Government With an Answer to the History of Passive Obedience so far as relates to them 4to A Vindication of the said Discourse concerning the Unreâ—â—â—nablenâ—ss of a New Separation from the Exceptions made against it in a Tract called A Brief Answer to the said Discourse c 4to Geologia Or â— Discourse concerning the Earth before the Deluge wherein the Form and Properties ascribed to it in a Book entituled The Theory of the Earth are expected against and it is made appear That the Dissolution of that Earth was not the Cause of the Universal Flood Also a new Explication of that Flood is attempted By Erasmus Warren Rector of Worlington in Suffolk 4to The Present State of Germany By a Person of Quality 8vo Memoirs relating to the Royal Navy of England for Ten Years determined December 1688. By Samuel Pâ—pys Esq 8 vo Memoirs of what past in Christendom from the War begun 1672. to the Peace concluded 1679. 8vo Disquisitiones Criticâ— de Variis per Diversa Loâ—a tempora Bibliorum Editionibus Quibus Accedâ—â—t Castigatiâ—nes Theologi Cujusdam Parificusis ad Opasculum Is. Vossii de Sybillinis Oraculis Ejusdâ—m Responsiâ—â—em ad Objectiones nâ—perâ—e Critica Sacra 4to Aâ—glâ—a Sacra sive Collectio Historiarum Auâ—â—quitâ—s Scriptarum de Archicpiscopis Episcopis Angliae a prima Fidâ—i Christianae susceptione ad Annum 1540. in Duobus Volaminâ—bus per Henricum Whartonum Fol. Jacobi Usserii Armachani Archipiscopi Historia Dogmatica Controversiae inter Orthodoxos Pontificios de scripturis Socris Vernaculis nunc Primâ—â—n Edita Accâ—sserunt â—jâ—sdem Dissertationes duâ—e de Pseudo-Dionysii scriptis de Epistola ad Lacdicâ—os antâ—â—ac mediâ—ae Discripsis Digâ—ssit noris atqâ—e Aâ—â—lavio Loâ—â—pleâ—avit Henricus Wharton A. M. Rev in Christo Pat. ac Dom. Archiepisc. Can 〈◊〉 a sacris Domesticâ—s 4to 1690. Sâ—â—iptorum Eâ—clesiasticorum Historia Literaria a Christo nato uâ—que ad sâ—â—ndran xiv facili methodo 〈…〉 de Vito Illorâ—â—â—â— as Reâ—us G. siis de 〈◊〉 Dogmatibus Elogio Stylo de Scriptis Geâ—â—â—â—is 〈◊〉 Suppositâ—tiis meditis Deperduis Fragmentis Deque Varsis Opâ—rion Editimubus perspâ—eue Agitur Accâ—dunt Scriptores Gentiles Christâ—â—ae Religionis Oppugnatores Cujusvis Sâ—eculi Brevâ—arian Inserusitâ—r sais Lo is Vâ—tâ—vâ—m aliquot Opuscula Fragmenta tum Graecâ—â—an Lativa 〈…〉 Praenussa demque Prolegomena qâ—â—buâ— plurima ad Antiqâ—â—tatis Ecclesiasticae Studium 〈…〉 Opuâ— indicibus necesâ—arus Iâ—structum Authore Gulielmo Cave SS Theol Proj â— Canoniâ—o Windesoâ—ensi Accedit ab Alia manu Appâ—ndix ab meunte Secula xiv ad Annum usque MDXVII Fol. Rusâ—worth 's Historical Collections The Third Part in Two Volumes Containing the Principal Mâ—tters which happened from the Meeting of the Parliament Nov. 3. 1640. to the end of the Year 1644. Wherein is a particular Account of the Rise and Progress of the Civil War to that Period Fol. A Discourse of the Pastoral Câ—re By Gilbert Burnâ—t Lord Bishop of Sarum 1692. Dr. 〈◊〉 Conant 's Sermons 1693. A Discourse of the Government of the Thoughâ—â— By Geo. Tully Sub-Dean of York 8vo 1694. Origo 〈◊〉 Or a Treatise of the Origine of Laws and their Obliging Power as also oâ— their great Variety and why some Laws are immutable and some not but may suffer change or cease to be or be suspended or abrogated In Seven Books By George Dawson Fol. 1694. In his Three Conversions E Foxij MSS. In his Protestation to the whole Church of England Pag. 418. Edit 1672. Life of Iohn Fox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Mac. III. 7. Parsons Three Conversions Part 3. p. 84. Acts and Mon. Vol. I. p. 532. Edit 1610. In his Antiq. of Canterb. Anno 1489 1503 1511 1516 1523 1529 1530 Anno 1530. Anno 1530 1531 1532. Anno 1532 1533. Anno 1533. Anno. 1534. Anno 1534. Anno 1535. Anno 1535. Anno 1536. Anno 1536. Anno 1536. Anno 1537. Anno 1537. Anno 1537. Anno 1537. Anno 1538. Anno 1538. Anno 1538 1539. Anno 1540. Anno 1540. Anno 1540. Anno 1541. Anno 1542. Anno 1543. Anno 1543. Anno 1543. Anno 1543 1544 Anno 1544. Anno 1545 1546. Anno 1546. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1548. Anno 1548. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1551. Anno 1551. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Annâ— 1552. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1553. Anno 1553. Anno 1553. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1553. Annâ— 1553. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1553. Anno 1553. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1554. Anno 1554. Annâ— 1554. Anno 1554. Anâ—â— 1554. Anno 1554. Annâ— 1554. Anno 1555. Anno 1555. Anno 1555. Annâ— 1555. Anno 1555. Hist. Reform Vol. I. p. 274. †Acts and Mon. first Edit p. 815 A worthy Work to revive his Memory His Family Anno 1489. Account of his younger Years Life of Cranm. in the MSS. C.C.C.C. Sent to Cambridg An. 1503. Life of Cranm. inter Foxii MSS. Anno 1511. Anno 1516. Sets himself to study the Scripture Anno 1519. Is made Doctor of Divinity An. 1523. Marries Refuses to go to Wolsey's College Oxon. He is made one of the University Examiners The King 's great Cause first proposed to the Universities The Occasion of his Rise His Opinion of the King's Cause Life of Cranmer in theMSS C.C.C.C. The King sends for him Anno 1529. Sutably placed with the Earl of Ormond Epist. 19. li. 27. Impensius gratulor tuae soelicitati quod homini potenti Lalco Aulico perspiciam etiam sacraâ— Literas â—sse cordi teque nobiliâ— illius Margaretae desiderio tenâ—ri Epist. 34. lib. 29. Friendshipand Correspondence between the Earl and Cranmer Anno 1530. A Providence in his being placed here Cranmer Disputes at Cambridg