Now to measure my self with this Diligence and Faithfulness I trust hath not been wanting in me I have been governed by a hearty Desire and Love of Truth I have read over such Printed Books as are of the best Credit and Vogue and I have often compared them with good MSS. especially when I have had occasion to make use of them which I have done but sparingly and briefly that I might not cumber the Book with what hath been known and written afore But the Collections I have here made and do publish to the world are chiefly from Manuscript Records Registers Letters Orders of Council Original and Authentick For besides Archbishop Cranmer's Register in a great Folio in which I have bestowed some considerable time I have had the Perusal of several Rare Papers Volumes I may say of Sir Iohn Cotton preserved in his Invaluable Library and of Archbishop Parker that great Antiquarian collected by him and now remaining in the private Library of Bennet-College in Cambridge among which there is a Writing entituled A Declaration concerning the Progeny with the Manners and Trade of Life and bringing up of the most Reverend Father in God Thomas Cranmer late Archbishop of Canterbury and by what Order and Means he came to his Preferments and Dignities Which I perceive was drawn up by Cranmer's Secretary at the desire of Archbishop Parker and for his use I have been conversant in what remaineth of the Papers of Iohn Fox communicated to me by the Favour of my good Friend William Willys of Hackney Esquire Among which there is a MS. Life of Cranmer Annals writ by an Augustine Monk of Canterbury from the year 1532. to 1538. Many Letters of Fox and other Learned Men to him relating to the Affairs or Afflictions of the Church in those Times and abundance more too long here to be inserted I have consulted also many MSS. of great Worth originally belonging to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh's Secretary imparted to me by Sir Will. Hickes of Low-Leyton in Essex Knight and Baronet Wherein are divers of Archbishop Cranmer's Letters written by his own Pen. By the Kindness of the Reverend Mr. Nicolas Battely of Kent and his great readiness and zeal to forward my Design I have received a great many material Excerpta out of the Registers and Records of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury and out of other Books and MSS. William Petyt of the Inner-Temple Esquire and Keeper of the Tower-Records did with great humanity communicate unto me his Collection of excellent Papers contained in two large Volumes Which tho in these Memorials I have made but little use of yet may be admirably subservient to me or whosoever's Lot else it may happen to fall to to give the world some account of Qu. Elizabeth's Archbishops and the Church-Affairs in their times In this Catalogue of Friends and Assistants I must mention also the Reverend Dr. Thomas Smith and Mr. Henry Wharton Mr. Laughton Keeper of the Publick Library in Cambridge and Mr. Harrison Fellow of Sidney-College in that University Unto all these Gentlemen now named I do here as I ought in Gratitude publickly acknowledge my self beholden I did also consult the MS. Library at Lambeth by the favourable Permission of the last and the present Archbishop of Canterbury But tho there be divers Shelves of very choice MSS. yet I found little or nothing there serviceable to my purpose unless it should please God to lengthen my Life and Health to write in this Method concerning Archbishop Whitgift Neither was I successful in Enquiries which I procured Friends to make from such as were Relations of the Archbishop in any Matters or Notices concerning him There is one Mr. Cartwright of Nottinghamshire that is an Heir of that Ancient Family of the Cranmers a Worthy Gentleman and now or late Justice of the Peace for that County who being made acquainted with my Design and moved to impart any Letters or Writings that might be of use thereunto answered a Friend that he was plundered in the late Civil Wars of abundance of Papers and not a few to that effect but that now he had not any thing left to contribute but his own good wishes to the Undertaker But still further for the better satisfying the Readers in the Truth of what I write I have according to a good practice first begun by Mr. Sumner of Canterbury cast the most material Records and Original Letters together by themselves in an Appendix that those that please may read them there rather than in the Body of the Story where it might too much interrupt the Thread of the Discourse and make the reading more tedious Which Appendix will serve both as a Proof of the History and moreover as a Repository for many choice Monuments of Antiquity which otherwise being in loose Papers and private Studies might in time be utterly extinguished and irrecoverably lost And I do here protest once for all that I have not inserted into this Book any one single Historical Passage out of mine own head but such as I have either found in some credible published History or in some oldBook printed in those times or the Prefaces and Epistles to them or lastly in some good MS. or other I have digested these Memorials into Annals and have laid matters under their respective Years and Months and Days as near as I could Sometimes indeed I have been left to conjecture at the true time which I have done with as much Care and Exactness as by considering all Circumstances I could Yet herein I am not so confident but that I may sometimes perhaps make a mistake And if I do so it will I hope be excused to me considering that I was fain oftentimes to go by guess grounded however upon the best probability I could make the Papers I used being not seldom without Date sometimes of the Year sometimes of the Month and sometimes of both I thought it not amiss tho I have not observed it done in any other History to set down under every Year what Bishops Diocesan and Suffragan were Consecrated in the Province of Canterbury and by whom And I am jealous some of the Suffragans may be omitted by me which Defect must be attributed to the Registers rather than to me I have taken particular heed to the Convocations and to what was done in them And because the Affairs of the English Church have such a near relation unto the Archbishops of the Church so as their Histories are but maimed and imperfect without some respect had to those Affairs I have diligently interwoven many Ecclesiastical Emergencies into this History and a great many more I have been forced to omit tho well worthy the Publick left the Volume might swell too much If any might perhaps deem this a needless Work the Life of this Archbishop having been writ already in the Book of Martyrs and the British Antiquities I answer such that I have therefore been short and it may be
Which in the Title is said to be composed by R. W. There is also a Hymn of his preserved and set usually at the end of our English singing Psalms in our Bibles beginning Preserve us Lord by thy dear Word He writ here also many godly and learned Sermons upon the Epistles and Gospels read on Sundays He translated a Postil of Antonius Corvinus a Lutheran Divine and divers other Learned Mens Works And some of his Adversaries having laid certain Errors to his Charge very unjustly he writ a Confutation thereof a Book it seems replenish'd with all kind of godly Learning These and several other things he writ while he was here but they were not published After his abode in this Place some time he was by Letters called away again among his former Friends and Acquaintance And what became of him afterwards I find not until here in Edward the Sixth's Reign he was nominated by our Arch-bishop to be made Arch-bishop of Armagh But in Queen Mary's Reign he fled to Frankford where he remained one of the Members of the English Congregation there And when an unhappy Breach was made there among them some being for the use of the Geneva Discipline and Form and others for the continuance of that Form of Prayers that had been used in England in K. Edward's Days and the Faction grew to that Head that the former separated themselves from the rest and departed to Geneva this Wisdome did in a Sermon preached at Frankford vindicate the English Book and somewhat sharply blamed them that went away calling them Mad-heads As one Tho. Cole wrote from thence to a Friend with this Censure on him That he so called them he would not say Vnwisely alluding to his name Wisdom but he might well say Vncharitably I have thought good to give this Account of these Men that we may perceive hence the good Judgment of our Arch-bishop in propounding them for those Irish Preferments so fit and well qualified for them as in other Respects of Prudence and Learning so especially for their tried Zeal and Boldness in preaching the Gospel and their Constancy in suffering for it which were Vertues that there would be great occasion for in Ireland Of all these Four our Arch-bishop judged Mr. Whithead the fittest giving this Character of him That he was endued with good Knowledg special Honesty fervent Zeal and politick Wisdom And the next to him in fitness he judged Turner of whom he gives this Relation That he was Merry and Witty withal Nihil appetit nihil ardet nihil somniat nisi Iesum Christum And in the lively preaching of Him and his Word declared such Diligence Faithfulness and Wisdom as for the same deserveth much Commendation In fine Turner was the Man concluded upon by the King for the Arch-bishoprick of Armagh Whithead either being not overcome to accept it or otherwise designed And the Arch-bishop had Order from Court to send to Canterbury for him to come up Which accordingly he did And now about the middle of September much against his Will as not liking his designed Preferment Turner waited upon the Arch-bishop Who urging to him the King's Will and Pleasure and his ordinary Call unto this Place and such-like Arguments after a great Unwillingness prevailed with him to accept it But the Arch-bishop told the Secretary that Turner seemed more glad to go to hanging which the Rebels three Years before were just going to do with him for his preaching against them in their Camp than he was now to go to Armagh He urged to the Archbishop That if he went thither he should have no Auditors but must preach to the Walls and Stalls for the People understood no English The Arch-bishop on the other hand endeavoured to answer all his Objections He told him They did understand English in Ireland tho whether they did in the Diocess of Armagh he did indeed doubt But to remedy that he advised him to learn the Irish Tongue which with diligence he told him he might do in a Year or two And that there would this Advantage arise thereby that both his Person and Doctrine would be more acceptable not only unto his Diocess but also throughout all Ireland And so by a Letter to Secretary Cecyl recommended him to his Care entreating That he might have as ready a Dispatch as might be because he had but little Money This Letter of the Arch-bishop is dated Sept. 29 1552. So that it must be a Mistake in the late excellent Historian when he writes That Bale and Goodacre were sent over into Ireland to be Bishops in the Month of August Which cannot agree with this Letter of Cranmer which makes Turner to be in nomination only for that See a Month after And by certain Memorials of King Edward's own Hand which I have it appears that as Turner at last got himself off from accepting that Bishoprick so by the Date thereof it is evident it was vacant in October following For the King under that Month put the providing for that Place which Turner refused among his Matters to be remembred The Arch-bishop's Letters concerning this Irish Affair are in the Appendix So that at last this Charge fell upon Hugh Goodacre the last Man as it seems nominated by the Arch-bishop whom he termed A Wise and Learned Man He and Bale as they came together out of Bishop Poynet's Family unto their Preferments so they were consecrated together by Brown Arch-bishop of Dublin Febr. 2. assisted by Thomas Bishop of Kildare and Eugenius Bishop of Down and Connor Which makes me think they were not come over long before Goodacre died about a quarter of a Year after at Dublin and there buried not without suspicion of Poison by procurement of certain Priests of his Diocess for preaching God's Verity and rebuking their common Vices as Bale writes He left many Writings of great Value behind him as the said Bale his dear Friend relates but none as ever I heard of published As he was a sober and vertuous Man so he was particularly famed for his Preaching He was at first I suppose Chaplain to the Lady Elizabeth at least to her he had been long known And for him about the Year 1548 or 1549 she procured a Licence to preach from the Protector as appears by a Letter she wrote from Enfield to Mr. Cecyl who then attended on him Of which Goodacre himself was the Bearer Wherein she gave this Testimony of him That he had been of long time known unto her to be as well of honest Conversation and sober Living as of sufficient Learning and Judgment in the Scriptures to preach the Word of God The advancement whereof as she said she so desired that she wished there were many such to set forth God's Glory She desired him therefore that as heretofore at her Request he had obtained Licence to preach for divers other honest Men so he would recommend this Man's Case unto my Lord
any Arguments for the Popish Doctrine brought them all to him many whereof were windy and trivial enough and he out of the heap made his Collections as he thought good But Watson and Smith were his chief Assistants The Arch-bishop though the Times now soon after turned and he cast into Prison was very desirous to prepare another Book in Confutation of Marcus Antonius and in Vindication of his own Writing He lived long enough to finish three Parts whereof two unhappily perished in Oxford and the third fell into Iohn Fox's Hands and for ought I know that by this time is perished also But the great desire he had to finish his Answer to that Book was the chief cause that at his last Appearance before the Queen's Commissioners he made his Appeal to a General Council That thereby he might gain some time and leisure to accomplish what he had begun before his Life were taken away which he saw was likely to be within a very short space Otherwise as he writ to his Lawyer who was to draw up his Appeal it was much better for him to die in Christ's Quarrel and to reign with him than to be shut up and kept in that Body Unless it were to continue yet still a while in this Warfare for the Commodity and Profit of his Brethren and to the further advancing of God's Glory Peter Martyr his surviving and learned Friend being solicited by many English-Men by Letter and word of Mouth undertook the answering this Book But before he had finished it an English Divine and Friend of Martyr's with whom he held Correspondence in Q. Mary's Reign wrote him word in the Year 1557. that an Answer to Antonius by some other hand was then in the Press naming the Author Martyr replied That he was rather glad of it than any ways moved or disturbed at it as a disappointment of what he was doing and added that he expected nothing from that Man but what was very exquisite acute and elaborate But that he feared the noise thereof would not hold true And so it proved Whether this Learned Man withdrew his Book that he might give way to that which P. Martyr was writing or whether it were a Flam given out to stop Martyr in his Design it is uncertain But not long after this Learned Italian put forth his Answer He had it under the Press at Zurick in December 1558 and it came out the next Year Wherein as he wrote to Calvin he did unravel and confute all the Sophisms and Tricks of the Bishop of Winchester And it came forth very seasonably as Martyr hoped For hereby the English Papalins might see at this time especially that that Book was not as they boasted hitherto invincible He gave this Title to his Book Defensio Doctrina veteris Apostolicae de S.S. Eucharistiae Sacramento In the Preface to which he shewed How this Work fell to his Lot Not that that most Reverend Father wanted an Assistant for he could easily have managed Gardiner himself For he knew how Cranmer in many and various Disputes formerly had with him came off with Victory and great Praise but because the ABp when in Prison was forced to leave his Answer which he had begun unfinished by reason of his strait keeping having scarce Paper and Ink allowed him and no Books to make use of and being cut off so soon by Death before he could bring to perfection what he had writ Wherein as Martyr said he had harder measure by far from the Papists than Gardiner had from the Protestants in K. Edward's Days when he wrote his Book Gardiner in that Book of his under the Name of M. Constantius had shewn such foul play with Cranmer's Book mangling it and taking Pieces and Scraps of it here and there and confounding the Method of it to supply himself with Objections to give his own Answers to with the most advantage that the Arch-bishop thought that if Learned Foreigners saw but his first Book of the Sacrament as he wrote it it would be vindication enough against Gardiner's new Book against it And therefore he took order to have it translated into the same Language in which Gardiner wrote that is Latin that impartial Strangers might be able to read and judg and Sir Iohn Cheke elegantly performed it for his Friend the Arch-bishop This Book of Cranmer's thus put into Latin with some Additions came forth 1553. Before it he prefixed an Epistle to King Edward VI. dated at Lambeth Idib Mart. the same Year Wherein he said It was his Care of the Lord's Flock committed to him that put him upon renewing and restoring the Lord's Supper according to the Institution of Christ. And that that was the Reason that about three Years ago he set forth a Book in English against the principal Abuses of the Papistical Mass. Which Book had great Success upon the Peoples Minds in bringing them to embrace the Truth Whereby he said he perceived how great the Force of Truth was and understood the Benefits of the Grace of Christ that even the Blind should have their Eyes opened and partake of the Light of Truth as soon as it was revealed and shewed it self clearly to them But that this gave great Offence unto Gardiner then Bishop of Winchester so that he thought nothing was to be done till he had answered the Book supposing that there would be no helper of so declining forsaken a Cause unless he put to his Hand And so the Arch-bishop proceeded to shew how that Bishop first put forth his English Book endeavouring to overthrow the true Doctrine and to restore and bring again into Repute the Mass with all its Superstitions and afterwards his Latin Book under a feigned Name In which Gardiner had so unfairly dealt with the Arch-bishop's Arguments chopping and changing defacing and disfiguring them that he could not know them for his own and all that he might make it serve his own turn the better Insomuch that he resolved to have his own Book translated out of English into Latin that his true Opinion and Mind in this Controversy might the better be apprehended The whole Epistle is writ in a pure elegant Latin Stile with a good sharpness of Wit The publication of this his Latin Book he thought sufficient for the present to entertain the World till he should put forth in Latin also a full Answer to Gardiner which he intended shortly to do To this Latin Book the Arch-bishop occasionally reviewing it while he was in Prison made sundry Annotations and Additions not of any new Arguments but only of more Authorities out of the Fathers and Ancient Writers This valuable Autograph fell into the Hands of some of the English Exiles at Embden it may be by the Means of Bp Scory who was Superintendent of the English Church there or Sir Iohn Cheke who also for some time was in this Place both great Friends of the Arch-bishop In the
Rochester by virtue of the Arch-bishop's Letters Commissional to him assisted by Robert Bishop of S. Asaph and Thomas Bishop of Sidon This More held the Monastery of Walden in Essex an House of Benedictines in Commendam where Audley-end now stands and surrendred it to the King 1539. CHAP. XIII The Bishops Book THE pious ABp thought it highly conducible to the Christian Growth of the common People in Knowledg and Religion and to disintangle them from gross Ignorance and Superstition in which they had been nursled up by their Popish Guides that the Ten Commandments the Lord's Prayer and the Creed and the Grounds of Religion should be explained soundly and orthodoxly and recommended unto their reading Wherefore he consulting with the Lord Crumwel his constant Associate and Assistant in such Matters and by his and other his Friends importuning the King a Commission was issued out from him in the Year 1537. to the Arch-bishop to Stokesly Bishop of London Gardiner of Winchester Sampson of Chichester Repps of Norwich Goodrick of Ely Latimer of Worcester Shaxton of Salisbury Fox of Hereford Barlow of S. Davids and other Bishops and Learned Divines to meet together and to devise an wholsome and plain Exposition upon those Subjects and to set forth a Truth of Religion purged of Errors and Heresies Accordingly they met at the Arch-bishop's House at Lambeth Their Course was that after they had drawn up their Expositions upon each Head and agreed thereto they all subscribed their Hands declaring their Consent and Approbation In the Disputations which happened among them in this Work Winchester the Pope's chief Champion with three or four other of the Bishops went about with all subtil Sophistry to maintain all Idolatry Heresy and Superstition written in the Canon Law or used in the Church under the Pope's Tyranny But at the last whether overpower'd with Number or convinced by the Word of God and consent of Ancient Authors and the Primitive Church they all agreed upon and set their Hands to a Godly Book of Religion Which they finished by the end of Iuly and staid for nothing but the Vicar-General's Order whether to send it immediately to him or that the Bishop of Hereford should bring it with him at his next coming to the Court But the Plague now raging in Lambeth and People dying even at the Palace-Doors the Arch-bishop desired Crumwel for the King's Licence to the Bishops to depart for their own Safety their Business being now in effect drawn to a Conclusion Soon after the Bishops and Divines parted and the Arch-bishop hastened to his House at Ford near Canterbury The Book was delivered by Crumwel to the King which he at his leisure diligently perused corrected and augmented And then after five or six Months assigned Crumwel to dispatch it unto the Arch-bishop that he might give his Judgment upon the King's Animadversions A Pursevant brought it to Ford. The Arch-bishop advisedly read and considered what the King had writ and disliking some things made his own Annotations upon some of the Royal Corrections there especially we may well imagine where the King had altered the Book in favour of some of the old Doctrines and Corruptions And when he sent it back again with those Annotations he wrote these Lines to Crumwel therewith on the 25 th day of Ianuary MY very singular good Lord After most hearty Commendations unto your Lordship these shall be to advertise the same That as concerning the Book lately devised by me and other Bishops of this Realm which you sent unto me corrected by the King's Highness your Lordship shall receive the same again by this Bearer the Pursevant with certain Annotations of mine own concerning the same Wherein I trust the King's Highness will pardon my Presumption that I have been so scrupulous and as it were a picker of Quarrels to his Grace's Book making a great Matter of every little Fault or rather where no Fault is at all Which I do only for this Intent that because now the Book shall be set forth by his Grace's Censure and Judgment I would have nothing therein that Momus could reprehend And I refer all mine Annotations again to his Grace's most exact Judgment And I have ordered my Annotations so by Numbers that his Grace may readily turn to every place And in the lower Margin of this Book next to the Binding he may find the Numbers which shall direct him to the Words whereupon I make the Annotations And all those his Grace's Castigations which I have made none Annotations upon I like them very well And in divers places I have made Annotations which places nevertheless I mislike not as shall appear by the same Annotations At length this Book came forth printed by Barthelet in the Year 1537 and was commonly called the Bishops Book because the Bishops were the Composers of it It was intituled The godly and pious Institution of a Christian Man and consisted of a Declaration of the Lord's Prayer and of the Ave Mary the Creed the Ten Commandments and the Seven Sacraments It was Established by Act of Parliament having been signed by the two Arch-bishops nineteen Bishops eight Arch-deacons and seventeen Doctors of Divinity and Law The Opinion that the Favourers of the Gospel had of this Book in those Times may appear by what I find in a Manuscript of the Life of this Arch-bishop by an unknown Author that wrote it soon after the said Arch-bishop's Death A godly Book of Religion not much unlike the Book set forth by K. Edward VI. except in two Points The one was the real Preâ—ence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament of the Altar Of the which Opinion the Arch-bishop was at that time and the most part of the other Bishops and learned Men. The other Error was of Praying Kissing and Kneeling before Images Which saith he was added by the King after the Bishops had set their Hands to the contrary But this Book came forth again two Years after viz. 1540. unless my Manuscript mistake this Year for 1543. very much enlarged and reduced into another Form and bearing another Name A necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any Christian Man And because the King had put it forth by his own Authority it was called now The King's Book as before it was called The Bishops But that none might be confounded in these Books he may know that there was in the Year 1536 another Book also called The Bishops Book upon the same reason that this was so called because the Arch-bishops and Bishops had the making thereof It was a Declaration against the Papal Supremacy written upon occasion of Pole's Book of Ecclesiastical Vnion mentioned before And in the Year 1533 there came forth another Book in Latin called The King's Book intituled The Difference between the Kingly and Ecclesiastical Power reported to be made as Bale writes by Fox the King's Almoner Which was translated into English
all Disobedience against it The Bishop of Winchester also was now in great Favour with the King a constant Adversary to Canterbury and implacably set against the New Learning as it was then called He thought to take this opportunity to deal so effectually with the King as to get the Gospel destroyed and all that adhered to it And moreover about this time was given out a saying ordinarily That the Bishop of Winchester had bent his Bow to shoot at some of the head Deer Meaning as the Issue made manifest the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Queen Katharine Par and others of the Court. And to carry on his Purpose he being a Privy-Counsellor himself had an understanding with some of the Council who were of his Mind and ready to second these his Ends as among the rest was Baker the Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations These were his Confidents at home Abroad to be his Soliciter and his great Agitator he had a very fit Man for his purpose one Dr. London Warden of New-College Oxon Prebend of Shipton in the Church of Sarum Canon of Windsor and Dean of Osenay a very busy Zealot Who was in his Time the great Contriver and Practiser of Mischief against good Men that could not comply with Papal Superstitions He was one of the three that some Years before now prosecuted most rigorously the good Students in the Cardinal's College when by Imprisonment and hard Usage several of them died But this Man was met with not long after this suffering publick shame for Perjury and died in a Jail At one and the same time Winchester with this his trusty Partner London was driving on two Games together The one was to bring into trouble several of the King 's own Court that were Favourers of the Gospel not liking that such should be so near the King and the other was to overthrow the good Arch-bishop and his Friends in his Diocess of Canterbury and to extinguish that Light of the Gospel that began notably to shine there For the compassing the first they procured among them a special Sessions to be held at Windsor Wherein they not only upon the Six Articles condemned four poor honest Men viz. Persons Filmer Testwood and Marbeck whereof the three former were burnt to Death but they drew up a bundle of Indictments against a very great many and some of Eminency about the King as Cardin and Hobby Knights of the King's Privy-Chamber with the Ladies Harman and Welden Snowbal and his Wife and a great many more of the King 's true and peaceable Subjects One Ockham that served for Clark of the Peace at that time had these Indictments ready to carry them to the chief Patron of these Plots the Bishop of Winchester But this Design notwithstanding the Privacy and crafty Contrivance of it took not effect but he rather brought himself into Disgrace thereby For one Fulk belonging unto the Queen being at Sessions at Windsor at that time and observing what was done hastily rode to Court and discovered to the Persons concerned what was hatching against them letting them know that Ockham was coming with his Indictments to the Bishop of Winchester who as soon as he had received them would without doubt have laid them before the King and his Council But by this seasonable Notice they way-laid Ockham and Cardin and others seized him and all his Papers as soon as he came to Court before he got to Winchester These Papers were perused by some of the Privy-Council and seeing what large numbers it may be of themselves and of their Friends as well as others were indicted and designed for Death they thought fit to acquaint the King with it And he not liking such bloody Doings gave them all a Pardon And observing how Winchester was the great Agenâ— in all this never liked him after But Winchester and London had other Irons in the Fire against the Arch-bishop and his Friends at and about Canterbury and particularly Dr. Ridley a Prebendary Scory Lancelot Ridley and Drum three of the Preachers And to bring Mischief upon these by the instigation of Winchester and practice of London several of the Prebendaries and some of the Six Preachers combine in a Resolution to draw up Accusations both against the Arch-bishop and against his Friends But neither did this Winchester's second Plot succeed but rather drew Shame upon himself and those that assisted in it There is a Volume in the Benet College Library intitled Accusatio Cranmeri wherein are contained the rough Papers of the Examinations that were taken of these Accusers of the Arch-bishop the Interrogatories put to them their Confessions and Submissions to the Arch-bishop Upon which Papers this was writ by the hand of Arch-bishop Parker in whose possession they afterwards came viz. Memorandum That King Henry being divers times by Bishop Gardiner informed against Bishop Cranmer and the said Gardiner having his Instructions of one Dr. London a stout and filthy Prebendary of Windsor who there convicted of Perjury did wear a Paper openly and rode through the Town with his Face toward the Horse-tail and also had Information of Mr. Moyles Mr. Baker and of some others promoted by the said Cranmer Whose Tales he uttered to the King perceiving the Malice trusted the said Cranmer with the Examination of these Matters which he did of divers Persons as by this doth appear Hence I have carefully extracted some Particulars that I may give a particular Account of this exquisite Piece of Malice which aimed at nothing less than this good Man's Life and that they might make him tread the same Path with his Friend Crumwel two or three Years before as a Reward of his endeavours in setting forward a Reformation in the Church But first I will set down the Names of the Prebendaries and Preachers of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury because we shall have occasion often to mention divers of them Canons of Canterbury Anno 1543. Richard Thornden Suffragan of Dover Arthur Sentleger Richard Parkhurst Parson of Leneham Nicolas Ridley Iohn Meines Hugh Glazier William Hunt William Gardiner Iohn Milles Iohn Daniel Robert Goldson Iohn Baptist. The Six Preachers Robert Serles Vicar of Charing Michael Drum Lancelot Ridley Iohn Sâ—ory Edmund Shether Thomas Brooke Many of these he had himself preferred and was a special good Lord unto And yet such was the ingratitude of several of them that they voluntarily yielded to be made Tools to carry on this wicked Machination against him The Names of the chief Actors were Thornden who lived in the Arch-bishop's Family and eat at his Table and with whom he used to converse most familiarly Gardiner whom Cranmer had taken as his own Child and he had resigned up himself to him with Heart Body and Service as he once solemnly professed to thâ— Arch-bishop Sentleger Milles Parkhurst Serles and Shether and one Dr. Willoughby beneficed in Kent and the King's Chaplain Their first Attempt
both as to their Lodgings and Benefits But at a late Chapter they had obtained an Order in their behalf This the Arch-bishop now who favoured Preaching reminded them speedily to make good Concerning both these Affairs he wrote this Letter to them for the preserving Quietness Peace and good Order in his Church AFter my hearty Commendations Whereas I am informed that you be in doubt whether any Prebendary of that my Church may exchange his House or Garden with another Prebend of the same Church-Living and that you be moved by this Statute so to think which here followeth Statuimus ut Canonicus de novo Electus demissus in demortui aut resignantis aut quovismodo cedentis aedes succedat These be to signify unto you that neither this Statute nor any other Reason that I know maketh any thing against the Exchange between two Prebends Living but that they may change House Orchard or Garden during their Life this Statute or any other Reason contrary notwithstanding And whereas you have appointed your Preachers at your last Chapter their Chambers and Commodities I require you that they may be indelayedly admitted thereunto according to that your Order Thus fare you well From my Mannor of Croyden the 12 th of December 1546. Th. Cantuariens To my loving Friends the Vice-dean and Prebendaries of my Church in Canterbury This was the last Year of King Henry And the two last things the Arch-bishop was concerned in by the King were these The King commanded him to pen a Form for the Alteration of the Mass into a Communion For a Peace being concluded between Henry and the French King while that King's Ambassador Dr. Annebault was here a notable Treaty was in hand by both Kings for the promoting that good Piece of Reformation in the Churches of both Kingdoms of abolishing the Mass. The Kings seemed to be firmly resolved thereon intending to exhort the Emperor to do the same The Work our King committed to the Arch-bishop who no question undertook it very gladly But the Death of the King prevented this taking Effect The last Office the Arch-bishop did for the King his Master was to visit him in his last Sickness whom of all his Bishops and Chaplains he chose to have with him at that needful Hour to receive his last Comfort and Counsel But the King was void of Speech when he came though not of Sense and Apprehension For when the King took him by the Hand the Arch-bishop speaking comfortably to him desired him to give him some Token that he put his Trust in God through Iesus Christ according as he had advised him and thereat the King presently wrung hard the Arch-bishop's Hand and soon after departed viz. Ianuary the 28 th The End of the First Book MEMORIALS OF Arch-Bishop CRANMER BOOK II. CHAPTER I. He Crowns King Edward OUR Arch-bishop having lost his old Master was not so sorrowful but the Hopefulness of the new One did as much revive and solace him because he concluded that the Matters requisite for the Reformation of the Church were like now to go on more roundly and with less Impediment One of the very first Things that was done in young King Edward the Sixth's Reign in relation to the Church was that the Bishops who had the Care of Ecclesiastical Matters and the Souls of Men should be made to depend intirely upon the King and his Council and to be subject to suspension from their Office and to have their whole Episcopal Power taken from them at his Pleasure which might serve as a Bridle in case they should oppose the Proceedings of a Reformation In this I suppose the Arch-bishop had his Hand For it was his Judgment that the Exercise of all Episcopal Jurisdiction depended upon the Prince And that as he gave it so he might restrain it at his Pleasure And therefore he began this Matter with himself Petitioning That as he had exercised the Authority of an Arch-bishop during the Reign of the former King so that Authority ending with his Life it would please the present King Edward to commit unto him that Power again For it seemed that he would not act as Arch-bishop till he had a new Commission from the new King for so doing And that this was his Judgment appeared in the first words of that Commission granted to him In the composing of which I make no question he had his Hand Quandoquidem omnis juris dicendi autoritas atque etiam jurisdictio omnimoda tam illa quae Ecclesiastica dicitur quam Secularis à Regia potestate velut à supremo capite ac omnium Magistratuum infra Regnum nostrum fonte scaturigine primitus emanaverit c. That is Since all Authority of exercising Jurisdiction and also all kind of Jurisdiction as well that which is called Ecclesiastical as Secular originally hath flowed from the King's Power as from the Supream Head and the Fountain and Source of all Magistracy within our Kingdom We therefore in this part yielding to your humble Supplications and consulting for the Good of our Subjects have determined to commit our Place to you under the Manner and Form hereunder described And the King then licenseth him to ordain within his Diocess and to promote and present to Ecclesiastical Benefices and to institute and invest and if occasion required to deprive to prove Testaments and the rest of the Business of his Courts And so all the rest of his Offices were reckoned This was dated Feb. 7. 1546. But yet all these things were committed to him with a Power of Revocation of the Exercise of this Authority reserved in the King durante beneplacito Thus a formal Commission was made to him I do not transcribe it because the Bishop of Sarum hath saved me that Pains And hence I find that the Arch-bishop in some of his Writings is stiled The Commissary of our dread Soveraign Lord King Edward One of the first Exercises of his Episcopal Power was the Coronation of young King Edward Which was celebrated February the 20 th at the Abbey of Westminster the Arch-bishop assisting now at his Coronation as he had done about nine Years before at his Christening when he stood his Godfather The Form and Solemnity of it and wherein the Arch-bishop bore so great a part was in this manner as I collect and transcribe out of a Manuscript in Benet College First There was a goodly Stage richly hanged with Cloth of Gold and Cloth of Arras and the Steps from the Choire contained two and twenty Steps of height and down to the high Altar but fifteen Steps goodly carpetted where the King's Grace should tread with his Nobles Secondly The high Altar richly garnished with divers and costly Jewels and Ornaments of much Estimation and Value And also the Tombs on each side the high Altar richly hanged with fine Gold Arras Thirdly In the midst of the Stage was a goodly thing
that was such a great Instrument of promoting the Reformation He is generally charged for the great Spoil of Churches and Chappels defacing antient Tombs and Monuments and pulling down the Bells in Parish-Churches and ordering only one Bell in a Steeple as sufficient to call the People together Which set the Commonalty almost into a Rebellion As the Arch-bishop the last Year had procured Amendments and Alterations in the Book of Publick Prayers and had consulted therein with the two Learned Foreign Divines Bucer and Martyr so this Year in Ianuary an Act was made by the Parliament for authorizing the new Book and obliging the Subjects to be present at the reading of it In this Book the general Confession was added and the Absolution At the beginning of the second Service was added the Recital of the Ten Commandments with the short Ejaculation to be said between each Commandment Something was left out in the Consecration of the Sacrament that seemed to favour a Corporal presence Several Rites were laid aside as that of Oil in Confirmation and Extream Unction and Prayer for the Dead which was before used in the Communion-Office and that of Burial together with the change and abolishing of some other things that were offensive or Superstitions as may be seen by those that will take the pains to compare the two Books the one printed in the Year 1549 and the other 1552. And this was brought about by the great and long Diligence and Care of our pious Arch-bishop and no question to his great Joy and Satisfaction So that I look upon that but as an improbable report that was carried about in Frankford in those unseemly Branglings among the English Exiles there that Bullinger should say That Cranmer had drawn up a Book of Prayers an hundred times more perfect then that which was then in being but the same could not take place for that he was matched with such a wicked Clergy and Convocation with other Enemies But as his Authority was now very great so there was undoubtedly a great Deference paid to it as also to his Wisdom and Learning by the rest of the Divines appointed to that Work so that as nothing was by them inserted into the Liturgy but by his good Allowance and Approbation so neither would they reject or oppose what he thought fit should be put in or Altered The Learning Piety and good Deserts of Miles Coverdale in translating the Holy Scriptures into the English Tongue and in a constant preaching of the Gospel and sticking to the true Profession for many a Year and withall very probably their antient acquaintance in Cambridg were reasons that made our Arch-bishop a particular Friend to him When the Lord Russel was sent down against the Rebels in the West he was attended by Coverdale to preach among them Coverdale afterwards became Coadjutor to Veyzy the Bishop of Exeter who seldom resided and took little care of his Diocess But this Year whether voluntarily or by some Order he resigned up his Bishoprick having first greatly spoiled it of its Revenues And when some wise and bold Person and excellent Preacher was found extreamly needful to be sent thither to inspect the Clergy and Ecclesiastick Matters in those Parts the late Rebellion having been raised chiefly by Priests in hatred to the Religion heating and disaffecting the Minds of the common People Coverdale was judged a very fit Person to succeed in that Charge Being now Bishop Elect of Exon he had long attended at Court to get his Matters dispatched namely The doing of his Homage and the obtaining a Suit to be excused the paiment of his first Fruits being but a poor Man But such at that Time were the great and urgent Affairs of the State or the secret Hinderers of the Gospel that he found nothing but Delaies So that he was forced to apply himself unto his Friend the Arch-bishop to forward his Business Who forthwith sent his Letters to Secretary Cecyl making Coverdale himself the Bearer Entreating him to use his Interest to get this Bishop dispatched and that with speed Urging this for his Reason becoming his paternal Care over his Province That so he might without further delay go down into the Western Parts which had great need of him And also because he was minded on the 30 th of August to consecrate him and the Bishop of Rochester Scory according to the King's Mandate This Scory was at first preferred by the Arch-bishop to be one of the six Preachers at Canterbury and always continued firm to the Purity of Religion and endured Trouble for the good and wholesome Doctrine that he preached having been presented and complained of both in the Spiritual Courts and to the Justices at their Sessions when the Six Articles were in Force He was a Married Man and so deprived at the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign fled beyond Sea and was Superintendent of the English Congregation at Embden in Friezland There in the Year 1555 he wrote and printed A Comfortable Epistle unto all the Faithful that be in Prison or in any other Trouble for the defence of God's Truth Wherein he doth as well by the promises of Mercy as also by the Examples of divers holy Martyrs comfort encourage and strengthen them patiently for Christ's Sake to suffer the manifold cruel and most tyrannous Persecutions of Antichristian Tormentors As the Book bears title There were divers Bishopricks vacant this Year As that of Lincoln by the Death of Holbech The Arch-bishop deputed the Spiritualties to Iohn Pope LL. B. and Chancellor of that Church The Church commending unto the Arch-bishop this Pope and two more viz. Iohn Prin LL. D. Subdean of the Church and Christopher Massingberde LL. B. Arch-deacon of Stow. So he chose the first But yet he committed a special trust to Taylor the Dean of Lincoln whom he knew to be tight to Religion sending a Commission fiduciary to him before Pope entred upon his Office to give the said Pope his Oath Legally and faithfully to perform his Office committed to him by the Arch-bishop and to answer to the said Arch-bishop for all Obventions coming to him by virtue of his Jurisdiction and Office and that he should not by Malice or Wrong squeez the Subjects of the King and of that Diocess whether Clerks or Laics that he should not knowingly grieve them in their Estates or Persons and that he shall abstain from Oppressions Extortions and unlawful Exactions and that he shall renounce the Bishop of Rome his usurped Jurisdiction and Authority according to the Statutes of Parliament And of all this he wrote a Letter to the said Pope signifying that he required such an Oath of him to be taken before the Dean The Tenor of the Arch-bishop's Letter to the Dean went on further requiring him by his sound Council singular Prudence and by the assistance of his sincere Judgment to be present with him in any hard Cases and of
Catalogue of Learned Men and such as he esteemed fit for Places of Preferment in the Church and University that so as any Place fell in the King's Gift the said Secretary might be ready at the least Warning to recommend fitting and worthy Men to supply such Vacancies and to prevent any Motion that might be made by any Courtiers or Simonists for ignorant Persons or corrupt in Religion In answer to which Letter the Arch-bishop writ him word That he would send him his Mind in that Matter with as much Expedition as he could And undoubtedly we should have seen the good Fruits of this afterwards in the Church had not the untimely Death of that admirable Prince that followed not long after prevented this good Design This Year the Arch-bishop laboured under two Fits of Sickness at Croydon The latter was caused by a severe Ague of which his Physicians doubted whether it were a Quotidian or a double Tertian and seizing him in the declining of the Year was in danger to stick by him all the Winter But by the Care of his Physicians in the latter end of August it had left him two Days which made him hope he was quit thereof yet his Water kept of an high Colour That second Day he wrote to Cecyl and desired him to acquaint Cheke how it was with him And now the most Danger was as he said that if it came again that Night it was like to turn to a Quartan a most stubborn Ague and likelier to continue and wear him out A Disease indeed that carried off his Successor Cardinal Pole and was as Godwin observed a Disease deadly and mortal unto elder Folk The Arch-bishop's Friends had reason to fear his Distemper if we think of the Severity of Agues in that Age greater as it seems than in this Roger Ascham complaineth to his Friend Iohn Sturmius Anno 1562 That for four Years past he was afflicted with continual Agues that no sooner had one left him but another presently followed and that the State of his Health was so impaired and broke by them that an Hectick Fever seiz'd his whole Body And the Physicians promised him some Ease but no solid Remedy And I find six or seven Years before that mention made of hot burning Feavers whereof died many old Persons and that there died in the Year 1556 seven Aldermen within the space of ten Months And the next Year about Harvest-time the Quartan Agues continued in like manner or more vehemently than they had done the Year before and they were chiefly mortal to old People and especially Priests So that a great number of Parishes became destitute of Curats and none to be gotten and much Corn was spoiled for lack of Harvest-men Such was the Nature of this Disease in these Days But the Severity or Danger of the Arch-bishop's Distemper did not so much trouble him as certain Inconveniences that attended it viz. That it put him off from â—hose pious and holy Designs that he was in hand with for God's Glory and the Good of the Church For so he exprest his Mind to his Friend the Secretary However the Matter chance the most Grief to me is that I cannot proceed in such Matters as I have in hand according to my Will and Desire This Terrenum Domicilium is such an Obstacle to all good Purposes So strongly bent was the Heart of this excellent Prelat to the serving of God and his Church But out of this Sickness he escaped for God had reserved him for another kind of Death to glorify him by A little before this Sickness befel him something fell out which gave him great Joy Cecyl knew how welcome good News out of Germany would be to him and therefore in Iuly sent him a Copy of the Pacification that is the Emperor's Declaration of Peace throughout the Empire after long and bloody Wars which consisted of such Articles as were favourable unto the Protestants after much persecution of them As that a Diet of the Empire should shortly be summoned to deliberate about composing the Differences of Religion and that the Dissensions about Religion should be composed by placid and pious and easy Methods And that in the mean time all should live in Peace together and none should be molested for Religion with divers other Matters And in another Letter soon after the said Cecyl advised him of a Peace concluded between the Emperor and Maurice Elector of Saxony a warlike Prince and who headed the Protestant Army Which being News of Peace among Christians was highly acceptable to the good Father But he wanted much to know upon what Terms out of the Concern he had that it might go well with the Protestant Interest And therefore Cecyl having not mentioned them the Arch-bishop earnestly in a Letter to him desired to know whether the Peace were according to the Articles meaning those of the Pacification or otherwise Which when he understood for upon the same Articles that Peace between the Emperor and Duke Maurice stood it created a great Tranquillity to his pious Mind Thus were his Thoughts employed about the Matters of Germany and the Cause of Religion there Which he rejoiced not a little to see in so fair a way to a good Conclusion CHAP. XXXI His Kindness for Germany TO this Country he had a particular Kindness not only because he had been formerly there in quality of Ambassador from his Master King Henry and had contracted a great Friendship with many eminent Learned Men there and a near Relation to some of them by marrying Osiander's Niece at Norinberg but chiefly and above all because here the Light of the Gospel began first to break forth and display it self to the spiritual Comfort and Benefit of other Nations He had many Exhibitioners in those Parts to whom he allowed Annual Salaries Insomuch that some of his Officers grumbled at it as though his House-keeping were abridged by it For when once in King Henry's Reign one in discourse with an Officer of his Grace had said He wondred his Lordship kept no better an House though he kept a very good one He answered It was no wonder for my Lord said he hath so many Exhibitions in Germany that all is too little to scrape and get to send thither He held at least a monthly Correspondence to and from Learned Germans and there was one in Canterbury appointed by him on purpose to receive and convey the Letters Which his Enemies once in his Troubles made use of as an Article against him And Gardiner a Prebend of Canterbury and preferred by the Arch-bishop of this very thing treacherously in a secret Letter informed his grand Enemy and Competitor Gardiner the Bishop of Winton Among the rest of his Correspondents in Germany Herman the memorable and ever-famous Arch-bishop and Elector of Colen was one who by the Counsel and Direction of Bucer and Melancthon did vigorously labour a Reformation of
this Time by a pious Italian to his Friend who had conceived these good Opinions of him This I have put in the Appendix and the rather because it will give some Light into our present History CHAP. XIII A Convocation Articles framed therein AT a Convocation the latter end of this Year an Address was made by the Lower House to the Upper wherein they petitioned for divers things in 28 Articles meet to be considered for the Reformation of the Clergy One whereof was That all Books both Latin and English concerning any heretical erroneous or slanderous Doctrines might be destroyed and burnt throughout the Realm And among these Books they set Thomas Cranmer late Arch-bishop of Canterbury his Book made against the Sacrament of the Altar in the forefront and then next the Schismatical Book as they called it viz. the Communion-Book To which they subjoined the Book of ordering Ecclesiastical Ministers and all suspect Translations of the Old and New Testament and all other Books of that nature So that if Cranmer's Book was burnt it was burnt with very good Company the Holy Bible and the Communion-Book And that such as had these Books should bring the same to the Ordinary by a certain Day or otherwise to be taken and reputed as Favourers of those Doctrines And that it might be lawful for all Bishops to make enquiry from time to time for such Books and to take them from the Owners And for the repressing of such pestilent Books Order should be taken with all speed that none such should be printed or sold within the Realm nor brought from beyond Sea upon grievous Penalties And from another Article we may learn from what Spring all the Bloody Doings that followed the ensuing Years sprang namely from the Popish Clergy For they petitioned That the Statutes made in the fifth of Richard II. and in the second of Henry IV. and the second of Henry V. against Heresy Lollards and false Preachers might be revived and put in force And that Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Ordinaries whose Hands had been tied by some later Acts might be restored to their pristine Jurisdiction against Hereticks Schismaticks and their Fautors in as large and ample manner as they were in the first Year of Henry VIII I shall not recite here the whole Address as I find it in a Volume of the Benet-College Library because the Bishop of Sarum hath faithfully printed it thence in his History Only I observe that the 17 th Article is in the Manuscript scratched out and crossed viz. That all exempt Places whatsoever might be from henceforth under the Jurisdiction of the Arch-bishop or Bishop or Arch-deacon in whose Diocesses or Arch-deaconaries they were That they judged might grate a little too much upon the Pope's Authority which they were now receiving since these Exemptions were made by Popes And the last or 28 th Article was added by another Hand viz. That all Ecclesiastical Persons that had lately spoiled Cathedral Collegiate or other Churches of their own Heads might be compelled to restore them and all singular things by them taken away or to the true value and to reedify such things as by them were destroyed or defaced This I suppose was added by Boner's Interest that he might hereby have a pretence against Ridley his Predecessor it affording a fair opportunity to crush the good Bishops and Preachers that had in Zeal to God's Glory taken away out of their Churches all Instruments of Superstition and Idolatry And it might serve their turn who had lately in a most barbarous manner plundered the rich Arch-bishop of York And as they of this Convocation were for burning Hereticks Books so they were as well disposed to the burning of the Hereticks themselves For Protestants were already not only imprisoned but put to Death without any Warrant of Law but only by virtue of Commissions from the Queen and the Lord Chancellor Whereupon when one in the Convocation started this Objection That there was no Law to condemn them Weston the Prolocutor answered It forceth not for a Law We have a Commission to proceed with them and when they be dispatched let their Friends sue the Law CHAP. XIV The Condition of the Protestants in Prison Free-Willers BY this time by the diligence of the Papists the Popish Religion was fully established in England This Apostacy Cranmer saw with a sad Heart before his Death and all his Labour overturned And Ridley sends the bad News of it from Oxon to Grindal beyond Sea in these words To tell you much naughty Matter in a few words Papismus apud nos ubique in pleno suo antiquo robore regnat As for the Protestants some were put in Prisons some escaped beyond Sea some went to Mass and some recanted and many were burned and ended their Lives in the Flames for Religion's sake They that were in Prison whereof Cranmer was the chief being the Pastors and Teachers of the Flock did what in them lay to keep up the Religion under this Persecution among the Professors Which made them write many comfortable and instructive Letters to them and send them their Advices according as Opportunity served One thing there now fell out which caused some disturbance among the Prisoners Many of them that were under restraint for the Profession of the Gospel were such as held Free-will tending to the derogation of God's Grace and refused the Doctrine of Absolute Predestination and Original Sin They were Men of strict and holy Lives but very hot in their Opinions and Disputations and unquiet Divers of them were in the King's-Bench where Bradford and many other Gospellers were Many whereof by their Conferences they gained to their own Perswasions Bradford had much discourse with them The Name of their chief Man was Harry Hart Who had writ something in defence of his Doctrine Trew and Abingdon were Teachers also among them Kemp Gybson and Chamberlain were others They ran their Notions as high as Pelagius did and valued no Learning and the Writings and Authorities of the Learned they utterly rejected and despised Bradford was apprehensive that they might now do great Haâ—m in the Church and therefore out of Prison wrote a Letter to Cranmer Ridley and Latimer the three chief Heads of the Reformed though Oppressed Church in England to take some Cognizance of this Matter and to consult with them in remedying it And with him joined Bishop Ferrar Rowland Taylor and Iohn Philpot. This Letter worthy to be read may be found among the Letters of the Martyrs and transcribed in the Appendix Upon this Occasion Ridley wrote a Treatise of God's Election and Predestination And Bradford wrote another upon the same Subject and sent it to those three Fathers in Oxâ—ord for their Approbation and theirs being obtained the rest of the eminent Divines in and about London were ready to sign it also I have seen another Letter of Bradford to
seemed to gratify him For Vstazades desired that the Cause of his Death might be published This I ask said he for the Guerdon of my Time-service to thee and to thy Father Which the King readily granted thinking that when the Christians should all know it it would make them the more afraid and sooner to consent to him But so soon as it was published and Vstazades put to death Lord how it comforted not only Simeon then being in Prison but also all the Christians Bradford having told this History improved it after this Tenor. This History I wish said he were marked as well of us as of all our Popish Gospellers which have none other things to excuse them than Vstazades had For his Heart was with God howsoever he framed his Body We should behave our selves straitly against such Brethren as Simeon did and then they the sooner would play Vstazades Part. Which thing no marvail though they do not so long as we rock them asleep by regarding them and their Companions as daily we do and so are partakers of their Evil and at the length shall feel of their Smart and Punishment Of these outward Compliers with the Mass was one Ann Hartipol that formerly harboured the Lady Ann Ascue burnt in King Henry's Reign She now went to Mass pretending her Conscience to be â—ound before God and that her Conscience gave her leave to go To whom Philpot wrote an excellent Letter which is extant among the Letters of the Martyrs The People of this Practice had been tampering with the Lady Vane a pious Lady and a great Benefactor to the poor Prisoners of Christ Insomuch that she propounded to Bradford three Questioâ—s concerning the Mass being Cases of Conscience what she were best to do whether to go to it or not He told her in a Letter That the Questions would never be well seen nor answered until the Thing whereof they arose were well considered That is how great an Evil it was That there was never Thing upon the Earth so great and so much an Adversary to God's true Service to Christ's Death Passion Priesthood Sacrifice and Kingdom to the Ministry of God's Word and Sacrament to the Church of God to Repentance Faith and all true Godliness of Life as that was whereof the Questions arose And that therefore a Christian Man could not but so much the more abhor it and all things that in any Point might seem to allow it or any thing pertaining to the same Bradford also writ a little Book on this Argument intituled The Hurt of the Mass. This Book he sent to his Acquaintance to stop their going to the Popish Service and particularly to Mr. Shaleros a Friend of his in Lancashire and recommended the reading of it to one Riddleston that had defiled himself in this false Service CHAP. XVII A bloody Time The Queen 's great Belly A Convocation THE Year 1555 was a bloody Year and many honest People both of the Clergy and Laity were burnt alive in all Parts because they believed not Transubstantiation Insomuch that a tender Heart cannot but shrink at the very remembrance thereof And as if there were a kind of Delight in this sort of cruel Executions Instructions were sent abroad in the beginning of the Year unto the Justices of Peace through all Counties in England to enquire diligently in every Parish for Persons disaffected to the Popish Religion And in each Parish were some appointed to be secret Informers against the rest And for the better discovery of such poor Professors of the Gospel that fled from Place to Place for their Safety the Constables and four or more of the Catholick sort in every Parish were authorized to take Examination of all such as might be suspected how they lived and where they were And such as absented from the Mass and conformed not themselves to the Church were to be brought before the Justices Who were to perswade them to conform and if they would not to bind them to good Abearing or commit them to Prison The Justices were also commanded by another Order soon after to deliver such as leaned to Erroneous and Heretical Opinions and would not be reclaimed by the Justices to the Ordinaries to be by them travailed with and continuing Obstinate to have the Laws executed upon them May 27. These Orders came from the King and Queen to the Justices of Norfolk Which as I extract from a Manuscript relating the Orders sent into that County were in these special Articles I. To divide themselves into several Districtions II. To assist such Preachers as should be sent For it was thought convenient to send abroad Itinerary Preachers as was done in the last King's Reign who should by their Doctrine endeavour to reduce the People to the old Religion and to use them reverently and to be present at their Sermons and to travail soberly with such as abstained from coming to Church or by any other open Doings should appear not perswaded to conform themselves and to use others that be wilful and perverse more roundly either by rebuking them or binding them to good Behaviour or by imprisoning them as the Quality of the Persons and the Circumstance of their Doings may deserve III. To lay special wait for Teachers of Heresies and Procurers of secret Meetings to that purpose That they and their Families shew good Examples and begin first to reform their Servants if any of them be faulty IV. To apprehend spreaders of false and seditious Rumours V. To procure one or more in every Parish secretly instructed to give information of the Behaviour of the Inhabitants VI. To charge the Constable and four or more Catholick Inhabitants of every Parish to give account of idle Vagabonds and suspected Persons meaning by these the poor Professors or Preachers of the Gospel who crept about for their own Safety and had no settled Habitation and the Retainers of such Persons To observe Hue and Cry and to look after the Watches in every Parish VII To send an Account of Felons c. when any should be apprehended VIII To meet every Month and confer about these Matters Whereupon the Justices meeting together it was resolved by them to obey every of the said Orders Particularly concerning the Fifth they resolved That these secret Informations should be given to the Justices and that the accused Parties should be examined without knowledg by whom they were accused The Earl of Sussex lived in that County and was one of chief Trust there For this Earl had Command in Norfolk of Queen Mary's Army when she first laid her Claim to the Crown and managed it with that Prudence and Conduct that others were induced by his Means to come in This Earl received several Informations against Ministers and others for it seems notwithstanding all these severe Usages the Popish Mass had not yet so prevailed every where but that in divers places there were some remainders of
dispraise his obstinate stubbornness and sturdiness in dying and specially in so evil a Cause Surely his Death much grieved every Man but not after one sort Some pitied to see his Body so tormented with the Fire raging upon the silly Carcass that counted not of the Folly Other that passed not much of the Body lamented to see him spill his Soul wretchedly without Redemption to be plagued for ever His Friends sorrowed for Love his Enemies for Pity Strangers for a common kind of Humanity whereby we are bound one to another Thus I have enforced my self for your sake to discourse this heavy Narration contrary to my Mind and being more than half weary I make a short End wishing you a quieter Life with less Honour and easier Death with more Praise The 23 d of March. Yours I. A. All this is the Testimony of an Adversary and therefore we must allow for some of his Words but may be the more certain of the Arch-bishop's brave Courage Constancy Patience Christian and Holy Behaviour being related by one so affected In regard of this Holy Prelat's Life taken away by Martyrdom I cannot but take notice here of two tâ—â—ngs as tho God had given him some intimation thereof long before it happened The one is that whereas his paternal Coat of Arms was three Cranes alluding to his Name K. Henry appointed him to bear in the room thereof three Pelicans feeding their Young with their own Blood The like Coat of Arms or much resembling it I find several of Q. Elizabeth's first Bishops took whether to imitate Cranmer or to signify their Zeal to the Gospel and their readiness to suffer for it I do not determine The other Remark I make is what his Friend Andreas Osiander in an Epistle to him in the Year 1537 told him Which was that he had Animum vel Martyrio parem A Mind fit or ready for Martyrdom And so took occasion to exhort him at large to bear the Afflictions that were to attend him as though God had inspired that great German Divine with a prophetick Spirit to acquaint this his faithful Servant by what Death he should glorify God and what Sufferings he must undergo for his sake He urged him To contemn all Dangers in asserting and preserving the sincere Doctrine of Christ since as S. Paul testified That all that would live godly in Christ Iesus must suffer Persecution How much said he ought we to reckon that you are to receive the various Assaults of Satan seeing you are thus good for the Good of many But Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito Yield not to these Evils but go on the more boldly And seeing you must bear Adversity remember that we are baptized into the Death of Christ and buried together with him that we may be once made partakers of his Resurrection and eternal Happiness I do not find who were the Queen 's great Instigators now Winchester was dead stirring her up not to spare this Prelat but by any means to put him to Death and that even after his Subscription nor for what Reason of State this Resolution was taken at Court notwithstanding his former good Merits towards the Queen who therefore certainly must have felt great Strugglings before She could yield to have him die But I am apt to suspect the Cardinal who now governed the Queen had no small Hand in it to shew his Zeal for the Papacy and to revenge the Injuries done it in K. Henry's Reign as well as to succeed in his Place For his Latin Letter to the Arch-bishop mentioned above savoured of a great deal of Malice and mortal Hatred towards him In this Letter it appears the Cardinal looked upon our Arch-bishop as a mere Infidel and Apostate from Christianity and so to be treated For in the very beginning he makes it a Matter of Conscience to write to him It being in effect as much as receiving him into his House Against which S. Iohn gave a charge speaking of Christians turned Heathens That they should not be received into our Houses nor bid God speed And therefore he wrote he was once in his Mind not to speak at all to him but to God rather concerning him to send Fire from Heaven and consume him And asketh the Question as though it could not be reasonably gain-said whether he should not do justly in this Imprecation upon him who had before cast out the King out of the House of God that is the Church He meant as he explained himself casting him out as Satan cast out Man from Paradise not by force but by deceivable Counsels That him the Arch-bishop had followed and by his impious Advice forced the King to disjoin himself from the Communion of the Church and his Country together with himself And wickedly betrayed the Church the Mother of us all to the opposing whereof he gave Satan all advantages to the destruction as well of Souls as Bodies That he was the worst of all others For they being beset on all sides with divers Temptations a great while resisted and at last indeed gave way But he the Arch-bishop of his own free accord walked in the Counsel of the Ungodly and not only so but stood in it and in the Way of Sinners and confirmed the King therein And moreover sat in the Seat of the Scornful That when he came first to the Episcopal Chair he was called to it to cheat both God and Man and that he began his Actions with putting a Cheat upon the King and together with him upon the Church and his Country This and a great deal more to the same purpose he tells the Arch-bishop plainly and expresly though under a shew of great Sanctity Which shews with what an implacable Mind he stood affected towards him And thus we have brought this excellent Prelate unto his End after two Years and an half 's hard Imprisonment His Body was not carried to the Grave in State nor buried as many of his Predecessors were in his own Cathedral Church nor enclosed in a Monument of Marble or Touchstone Nor had he any Inscription to set forth his Praises to Posterity No Shrine to be visited by devout Pilgrims as his Predecessors S. Dunstane and S. Thomas had Shall we therefore say as the Poet doth Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet at Cato parvo Pompeius nullo Quis putet esse Deos No we are better Christians I trust than so who are taught That the Rewards of God's Elect are not Temporal but Eternal And Cranmer's Martyrdom is his Monument and his Name will out-last an Epitaph or a Shrine But methinks it is pity that his Heart that remained found in the Fire and was sound unconsumed in his Ashes was not preserved in some Urn. Which when the better Times of Q. Elizabeth came might in Memory of this truly great and good Thomas of Canterbury have been placed among his Predecessors in his Church there
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
the next IV. Your fourth Article is this WE wil have the Sacrament hang over the high Altar and there to be worshipped as it was wont to be and they which wil not therto consent we wil have them dy like Heretics against the holy Catholic faith What say you O ignorant people in things pertaining to God Is this the holy Catholic faith that the Sacrament should be hanged over the Altar and worshipped And be they Heretics that wil not consent therto I pray you who made this Faith Any other but the Bishops of Rome And that after more then a thousand years after the Faith of Christ was ful and perfect Innocent III. about 1215 years after Christ did ordain that the Sacrament and Chrism should be kept under lock and key But yet no motion he made of hanging the Sacrament over the high Altar nor of the worshiping of it After him came Honorius III. and he added further commanding that the Sacrament should be devoutly kept in a clean place and sealed and that the priest should often teach the people reverendly to bow down to the host when it is lifted up in the Mass time and when the priests should cary it to the sick folkes And altho this Honorius added the worshipping of the Sacrament yet he made no mention of the hanging therof over the high Altar as your Article proporteth Nor how long after or by what means that came first up into this realm I think no man can tel And in Italy it is not yet used until this day And in the beginning of the Church it was not only not used to be hanged up but also it was utterly forbid to be kept And wil you have al them that wil not consent to your Article to dy like heretics that hold against the Catholic faith Were the Apostles and Evangelists heretics Were the Martyrs and Confessors heretics Were al the old Doctors of the Church heretics Were al christen people heretics until within three or four hundred years last past that the Bishops of Rome taught them what they should do and believe All they before rehearsed neither hanged the Sacrament over the Altar nor worshiped it nor not one of them al spake any one word either of the hanging up or worshiping of the Sacrament Mary they speak very much of the worshiping of Christ himself setting in heaven at the right hand of his Father And no man doth duely receive the Sacrament except he so after that maner do worship Christ whom he spiritually receiveth spiritually feedeth and nourisheth upon and by whom spiritually he liveth and continueth that life that is towards God And this the Sacrament teacheth us Now to knit up this Article shortly Here is the issue of this matter that you must either condemn of heresy the Apostles Martyrs Confessors Doctors and al the holy Church of Christ until the time of Innocentius and Honorius because they hanged not the Sacrament over the Altar to be worshiped or else you must be condemned your selves by your own Article to dy like heretics against the holy Catholic faith Now to your fifth Article V. Your fifth Article is this WE wil have the Sacrament of the Altar but at Easter delivered to the Lay-people and then but in one kind Methinks you be like a man that were brought up in a dark dungeon that never saw light nor knew nothing that is abroad in the world And if a friend of his pitying his ignorance and state would bring him out of his dungeon that he might se the light and come to knowledg he being from his youth used to darknes could not abide the light but would wilfully shut his eyes and be offended both with the light and with his friend also A most godly Prince of famous memory K. Henry VIII our late Soveraign Lord pitying to se his Subjects many years so brought up in darknes and ignorance of God by the erroneous doctrines and superstitions of the Bp. of Rome with the counsil of al his Nobles and learned men studied by al means and that to his no little danger and charges to bring you out of your said ignorance and darknes unto the true light and knowledg of Gods word And our most dread Soveraign Lord that now is succeding his father as wel in this godly intent as in his realmes and dominions hath with no less care and diligence studied to perform his fathers godly intent and purpose And you like men that wilfully shut their own eyes refuse to receive the light saying you wil remain in your darknes Or rather you be like men that be so far wandred out of the right way that they can never come to it again without good and expert guides and yet when the guides would tel you the truth they would not be ordered by them but would say unto them Wee wil have and follow our own wayes And that you may understand how far you be wandred from the â—ight way in this one Article wherin you wil have the Sacrament of the Altar delivered to the Lay-people but once in the year and then but under one kind be you assured that there was never such law nor such request made among christen people until this day What injury do you to many godly persons which would devoutly receive it many times and you command the priest to deliver it them but at Easter Al learned men and godly have exhorted christen people altho they have not commanded them often to receive the Communion And in the Apostles time the people at Ierusalem received it every day as it appeares by the manifest word of the Scripture And after they received it in some places every day In some places four times in the week in some three times some twice commonly every where at the least once in the week In the beginning when men were most godly and fervent in the holy Spirit then they received the Communion daily But when the Spirit of God began to be more cold in mens hearts and they waxed more worldly than godly then their desire was not so hot to receive the Communion as it was before And ever from time to time as the world waxed more wicked the more the people withdrew themselves from the holy Communion For it was so holy a thing and the threatnings of God be so sore against them that come therto unworthily that an ungodly man abhorreth it and not without cause dare in no wise approch therunto But to them that live godly it is the greatest comfort that in this world can be imagined And the more godly a man is the more sweetnes and spiritual plesure and desire he shal have often to receive it And wil you be so ungodly to command the Priest that he shal not deliver it to him but at Easter and then but only in one kind When Christ ordained both the kinds as wel for the Lay-men as for the Priests and that to be eaten and drunken at
rowe Now God sped thee wel And I wil no more mell The Answer to the Enemy A rope is a fytt reward for such rysshe repers As have strowed this Church ageinst the Kings prechers THE Pulpits are now replenished with them that prech the truthe And Popish traitors banished which seemed to you great ruthe But yf you and the Freers were clean owt of this land This realme to the last years ful firme and sure should stand When such as with you trust shal al ly in the dust And ryse thereout agayne unto perpetual payne With them that laugh and scorne eyther at hye or lowe Had better not been borne such evil seeds to sowe Yee pray God spede them wel and ye wil no more mell Forsothe ye have said wel But if ye may be knowen Ye are like for to be taken and quartered like a baken And of your frends forsaken for these sedis ye have sowen Like as the last yere Traitors were knowen By standing in the felds with weapon and swordes So this year their treason is sowen In traiterous bills and railing words Some of their carcases standith on the gates And their heads most fyttely on London bridge Therefore ye Traytors beware your pates For yf ye be founde the same way must ye tridge God save the Kings Majestie long for to reigne To suppresse al rebells and truthe to maynteyne An old Song of John Nobody I. IN December when the dayes draw to be be short After November when the nights wax noysome and Long As I past by a place privily at a port I saw one sit by himself making a song His last talk of trifles who told with his tongue That few were fast i' th' faith I feyned that freake Whether he wanted wit or some had done him wrong He said he was little Iohn Nobody that durst not speak II. Iohn Nobody quoth I What news thou soon note and tell What maner men thou mean that are so mad He said These gay gallants that wil construe the gospel As Solomon the sage with semblance ful sad To discus divinity they nought adread More meet it were for them to milk kye at a fleyke Thou lyest quoth I thou Losel like a leud lad He said he was little Iohn Nobody that durst not speak III. It s meet for every man on this matter to talk And the glorious gospel ghostly to have in mind It is sothe said that Sect but much unseemly scalk As boyes babble in books that in Scripture are blind Yet to their fancy soon a cause wil find As to live in lust in lechery to leyke Such Caitives count to be come of Cains kind But that I little Iohn Nobody durst not speak IV. For our Reverend Father hath set forth an order Our service to be said in our Seignours tongue As Solomon the sage set forth the Scripture Our suffrages and service with many a sweet song With Homilies and godly books us among That no stiff stubborn stomacks we should freyke But wretches nere worse to do poor men wrong But that I little Iohn Nobody dare not speak V. For Bribery was never so great since born was our Lord And Whoredom was never les hated sith Christ harrowed Hel And poor men are so sore punished commonly through the world Thus would it grieve any one that good is to hear tel For al the homilies and good books yet their hearts be so quel That if a man do amiss with mischefe they wil him wreake The fashion of these new fellows it is so vile and fell But that I little Iohn Nobody dare not speake VI. Thus to live after their lust that life would they have And in letchery to lyke al their long life For al the preaching of Paul yet many a proud knave Wil move mischiefe in their mind both to maid and wife To bring them in advoutry or else they wil strife And in brawling about baudery Gods Commandments break But of these frantic il fellowes few of them do thrife Though I little Iohn Nobody dare not speak VII If thou company with them they wil currishly carp and not care According to their foolish fantacy but fast wil they naught Prayer with them is but prating Therefore they it forbear Both Almes deeds and holiness they hate it in their thought Therefore pray we to that Prince that with his bloud us bought That he wil mend that is amiss For many a man ful freyke Is sorry for these Sects though they say little or nought And that I little Iohn Nobody dare not once speake VIII Thus in no place this Nobody in no time I met Where no man then nought was nor nothing did appear Though the sound of a Synagogue for sorrow I swett That Hercules through the eccho did cause me to hear Then I drew me down into a dale wheras the dumb deer Did shiver for a shower but I shunted from a freyke For I would no wight in this world wist who I were But little Iohn Nobody that dare not once speake NUM L. John a Lasco's Letter from Embden signifying the dangerous condition they were in and the Persecutions they expected Clarissimo viro Domino Sicilio a consilijs libellis sâ—pplicibus Illustrissimi Domini Protectoris Domino fratri meo observandissimo S. Cum mihi ad alios scribendum istuc esset facere non potui quin ad te quoque scriberem Vir Clarissime memor videlicet illius quòd te mihi istic delegerim cui mea omnia nota prae alijs esse velim Volui itaque tibi de meo huc reditu significare nempe me felicissimo itinere gratia Domino usum me ex Anglia in Frisiam Orientalem intra triduum trajecisse Navis praesectum a Domino Protectore nobis additum habebamus virum optimum fidelissimum qui Dominum Comitem Bremam usque est sequutus ut certi aliquid opinor ab illo vobis adferat Ego quae scio ad Dominum Cantuariensem omnia perscripsi ut Illustriâ—â—imo Domino Protectori exponat quae tibi quoque incognita non fore puto Scripturus alioqui eadem ad te omnia si non id parum necessarium adeoque supervacaneum esse judicarem Nos hic crucem certissimam expectamus ad eam perferendam mutuo nos in Domino cohortamur cum invocatione nominis sancti sui ut per patientiam fidem ferendo superemus omnia quaeâ—únque in nos permittere ille volet ad nominis sui gloriam nostri probationem Certi illum curam nostri habere ita potentem esse ut â—mnes omnium hostium phalanges quicunque sint tandem illi unico oris sui verbo sternat momento uno rursum ita bonâ—m ut ne pilum quidem temerè e nostro capite detrahi patiatur etiamsi nos totus mundus impetere conetur Támque nobis malè velle non possit unquam quà m mater infanti
Year 1557 the Exiles here printed it with this Title Defensio c. a Thoma Cranmero Martyre scripta Ab Authore in Vinculis recognita aucta Before it is a new Preface to the Reader made as it is thought by Sir Iohn Cheke relating to the Arch-bishop and this his Book shewing how well-weighed and well-thought on this Doctrine of the Sacrament was before he published it and that he let it not go abroad till he had diligently compared and pondred all Scriptures and Ancient Authors and confirmed it at last by his Blood In the body of the Book the places where any Enlargements are are signified by an Hand pointing thereunto In the Margent is often to be found this word Object with certain Numbers added Which Numbers shew those Places which Gardiner under the Name of Marcus Antonius did endeavour to confute The very Original these English Exiles here at Embden kept as a great Treasure among them and as a Memorial of the Holy Martyr Besides this the Arch-bishop fully intended to have his Vindication of his Book impugned by Gardiner put into Latin also but he lived not to see that done But care was taken of this Business among the Exiles Insomuch that both Sir Iohn Choke and Iohn Fox were busied about it at the same time But the former surceased and left the whole Work to Fox then at Frankford after he had finished the first part In this Piece done by Cheke Iohn a Lasco had an hand for he put in the Latin School-Terms instead of more pure good Latin which Cheke had used And it was judged fit that such Words should be used where the ABp in his English had used them And this Cheke and A Lasco themselves wrote to Fox Fox undertook the rest by the Incitation and Encouragement of P. Martyr and of Grindal and Pilkington both Bishops afterwards Who gave him Directions for the translating and as Doubts occurred concerning the Sense of certain Matters in the Book as he met with them he consulted with these Men for their Judgments therein Grindal in one Letter bad him write a Catalogue of all Passages by him doubted of and send it to him Fox finished his Translation in the Year 1557 before Iune For which he had a Congratulatory Letter from Grindal who was his chief Assistant and Counsellor herein The Work was dispatched to the Press at Basil I suppose and when one Part was printed the Censors of the Press thought it would be better to defer an Argument of that Nature to better Times the Controversy having been bandied up and down so much already But Froscover undertook the printing of the whole Book Fox would do nothing of himself but leaving himself to the Judgment of his Learned Brethren to commit the Work now to Froscover or no Queen Mary's Death and the return of the Exiles I suppose stopped further progress in this Matter The Original Manuscript under Fox's own Hand in very cleanly elegant Latin I have lying by me It bears this Title De totâ Sacramenti Eucharistiae causa Institutionum Libri V. Autore D. THOMA CRANMERO Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi Quibus Stephani Garneri Episcopi Wintoniensi SMYTHI Doctoris Theologi impugnationibus respondetur And that I may bring here together all that relates to Cranmer as to this Matter of the Sacrament I must not omit what I saw in the Benet-Library There is a thin Note-book of this Arch-bishop's with this Title wrote by his own Hand De re Sacramentaria which I verily believe are his Meditations and Conclusions when he set himself accurately to examine the Sacramental Controversy and fell off from the Opinion of the Carnal Presence The Notes consist of nothing but Quotations out of ancient Ecclesiastical Authors about the Lord's Supper interlined in many Places by the Arch-bishop's Pen. On the top of some of the Pages are these Sentences writ by himself being Doctrines provable out of the Sentences there produced and transcribed Panis vocatur Corpus Christi Vinum Sanguis Panis est Corpus meum Vinum est Sanguis meus figurativae sunt locutiones Quid significet haec figura Edere carnem bibere sanguinem Mali non edunt bibunt corpus sanguinem Domini Patres Vet. Testamenti edebant bibebant Christum sicut Nos Sicut in Eucharistia ita in Baptismo presens est Christus Contra Transubstantiationem After this follow these Writings of the Arch-bishop's own Hand which Arch-bishop Parker elsewhere transcribed for his own Satisfaction Multa affirmant crassi Papistae seu Capernaitae quae neque Scriptura neque ullus Veterum unquam dixerat Viz. Quod Accidentia maneant sine subjecto Quod Accidentia panis vini sunt Sacramenta non panis vinum Quod Panis non est figura sed accidentia panis Quod Christus non appellavit panem corpus suum Quod cum Christus dixit Hoc est corpus meum pronomen Hoc non refertur ad panem sed ad corpus Christi Quod tot corpora Christi accipimus aut toties corpus ejus accipimus quoties aut in quot partes dentibus secamus panem Thus having set down divers Assertions of Papists or Capernaites as he stiled them which neither Scripture nor Ancient Fathers knew any thing of his Notes proceed to state wherein Papists and Protestants disagree Praecipua Capita in quibus a Papisticis dissentimus Christum Papistae statuunt in pane nos in homine comedente Illi in comedentis ore nos in toto homine Illi Corpus Christi aiunt evolare masticato vel consumpto pane Nos manere in homine dicimus quamdiu membrum est Christi Illi in pane statuunt per annum integrum diutius si duret panis Nos in homine statuimus inhabitare quamdiu Templum Dei fuerit Illorum Sententiâ quod ad realem praesentiam attinet non amplius edit homo quam bellua neque magis ei prodest quam cuivis animanti Thus God made use of this Arch-bishop who was once of the most violent Asserters of the Corporal Presence to be the chiefest Instrument of overthrowing it But this good Work required to be carried on after Cranmer's Death For great Brags were made of Gardiner's second Book and it was boasted that none dared to encounter this their Goliath P. Martyr was thought the fittest Man to succeed Cranmer in this Province to maintain the Truth that began now to shine forth He overcome by the Solicitation of Friends composed a Book against Gardiner as was said before and printed it at Zurick Wherein I. He defended the Arguments of our Men which had been collected together and pretended to be confuted by Gardiner's Book II. He defended those Rules which Cranmer had put forth in his Tract of the Sacrament III. He maintained those Answers whereby the Arguments of the Adversaries were wont to be refuted And IV. He asserted the just and