Man's Inheritance very few not having their Tenure certain from the King by Patent can assure themselves to be free from this Calamity The truth is that originally none held in Capite but Peers of the Realm who were therefore called the King's Barons and such as by this their Tenure as appears by the Council of Clarendon 10 Hen. 2. had the privilege to sit in the King's House and to hear and judge all Causes brought before the King and to be of his great Council And tho' afterwards the meaner of them were neglected yet King John was tied by his great Charter to call them all to Parliament where the Knights of the Shires in that respect have their place at this day I am too prone you see to run out of my way into this Discourse but to hold me nearer to my Center I cannot but admire what mov'd the Parliament in 27 Henry 8. cap. 27. to enact that a Tenure in Capite by Knights Service should be reserv'd to the King upon their granting out of their Abbies and their Lands as tho' it were some singular benefit to the Commonwealth It may be they conceiv'd that according to the Project of the Parliament at Leicester in 2 Hen. 5. that the King should thereby have a perpetual means to support a standing Army or to have it ready whensoever need required and so ease the Subject of all Military Contribution O how far was that great School of Wisdom deceived or what hath that Art of theirs produc'd other than as if some Scholars had bound their Masters for to whip them soundly and I suppose they have had their fill of it long e're this time But these Tenures by being by this means multiply'd in such excessive manner the Kings former Officers that before could span their Business with their Hand could not now fathom this with both their Arms. The greater Harvest must have greater Barns and more Labourers and therefore in 32 Hen. 8. cap. 46. and 33 Hen. 8. cap. 22. and 39. the Court now called of Wards and Liveries with the Orders Officers and Ministers thereto belonging was erected What is thereby fallen upon the Subject I need not relate heavy Experience makes it generally known and generally felt one while by Wardship and Marriage another while by suing out Livery and Ouster se main by Pardons of Alienation Concealments Intrusions respite of Homage and other Calamities accompanying this Tenure almost innumerable consuming the Fruit of the Wards Lands for many Years and as sometimes I have seen for many Ages the Grandfathers Fathers and Sons Inheritance militant together in this Court the Mother equally lamenting the Death of her Husband and the Captivity of her Child the Confiscation of his Lands for the 3d part of his Age and the Ransom of his Person before he can enter into the World the Family oftentimes so ruin'd and impoverish'd as if at last it recover yet it stands tottering and lame for a long time after Marriage is honourable and instituted by God in Paradise do you think that a Man by the Word of God may be compelled to pay for a Licence to marry I doubt the Schoolmen would not so determine it nor did any civil or moral Nation of old admit it the Custom rose from the barbarous Goths and Loâ—gobards and yet I confess not without reason as the Genius of their Nation did then lead them and by their Example all others where they conquered It was an impious manner of those times to hold Malice and Enmity one Family against another and against their Friends and Alliances from one Generation to another our Ancestors called it deadly feude the Feudists feudam and Tacitus in his time noteth it of Germans saying Inimicitias mutuo ponunt suscipiunt It was therefore of urgent necessity that the Lord should be well assur'd that his Tenant married not unto any Family that might be either in feud with him or in alliance with them that were and to prevent that danger as appears by the Charter of Hen. 1. cap. 4. the Lord would have him bound not to marry without his consent for which in the beginning the Tenant gave his Lord some small matter as munus honorarium but from thence it grew afterwards to Nundinaria gratissima And as Bondmen used to pay to their Lords Chiefage for their Marriage so the Tenants by Knights Service which in the Feudal Law is called Feudum nobile is likewise subject to this brand of Servitude and more grievously in some respect But I reverence the Law I live under and hath been so long receiv'd and practis'd all I aim at is only to shew in the course of my Argument the Evils that have either fallen newly upon us or been encreased since the Confiscation of the Churches and Church-patrimony which if it be not offensive I may say doth seem to be foretold 800 Years since by one Egelzedus an Hermit who assigned three Causes of those Evils viz. First Effusion of Blood 2ly Drunkenness and 3ly Contempt of the House of God telling us farther That we should know the time of the fulfilling this Prophecy by the various fashions and mutability of Apparel that should be in use the very ear-mark of the Age we live in How this Contempt of the House of God worketh upon the Sacrilegious Instruments thereof is to be seen in the Particulars before recited to which if I should run higher into former Ages or further from home in other Countries I might tire you with thousands of Examples But for a Conclusion mark this by the way that as England hath not been faulty alone in this kind of Transgression so other Nations offending in like manner have likewise tasted of the same Corrections or others like them Scotland after the rasing of their Monasteries hath had the Royal Throne removed from them and placed in another Kingdom The Low-Countries harrassed with a continued War of 60 Years and more The Palsgrave beaten out of his own Dominions and living now with his Royal Wife and Children in lamentable Exile to which may be added as concurring with the usual Infelicity of meddling with Church Lands that the Palsgrave having attained the Crown of Bohemia and seizing the Ecclesiastical Livings there for maintenance of his Wars as the Report goes he was presently cast out both of that Kingdom and of his other Inheritance Having mentioned this unfortunate Prince I must add also another accident that befell him in this kind The State of the Low Countries while he lived in Exile among them gave unto him as a place of Recreation the Abby of Regutian near Vtrecht where intending a sumptuous Building he drew out thereof such Materials of Stone and Timber as might be usefull to his new Designs and making a Store-house of the Abby-Church laid them up there to be in readiness It chanc'd that the truly noble Lord Craven returning out of Italy where my Son was very happily fallen into his Company
apprehend Will. de Bruce and his whole Family but he having Intelligence of it fled with his Wife Children and Kinsmen into Ireland whither the King coming afterward besieged his Wife and his Son William with his Wife in a Munition in Methe and having taken them they privily escaped to the Island of May where being again recovered and brought unto him he now bound them surely and sent them to Windsor-Castlâ— and there by his Commandment they all died miserably famished William himself the Father escaping into France died also shortly after and was buried at Paris leaving all according to St. Austin's Words to the King's Extortioners pag. 218 221. What Reax King John kept among Churches is generally well known Yet I find not that either he destroyed or profaned any of them otherwise than by rifling of their Wealth and persecuting the Clergy as his Enemies To say truth they were not his Friends But the last Riot that he committed among them was in Suffolk and Norfolk as he brought his Army that way to waste the Lands of the Barons his Enemies and to pass by the Town of Lyn which stood faithful to him when the most of England had forsaken him into the North parts Having lodg'd there to his great Content and taking his Journey Spoliis onustus opimis over the Washes when he came upon the Sands of Wellstream a great part of his Sacrilegious Army with the Spoils he had taken and his Treasure Plate Jewels Horses and Carriages were all drowned So that it was judg'd saith the History to be a punishment by God that the Spoil which had been gotten and taken out of Churches should perish and be lost by such means together with the Spoilers Stow reporteth That the Earth opened in the midst of the Waves on the Marsties and the Whirlpit of the deep so swallowed up both Men and Horses that none escaped to bring King John Tidings For he with his Army going before escap'd more happily than Pharaoh but very narrowly with his Life especially if it were any Happiness to live in that miserable Condition he was now brought to having lost his Treasure and Fortunes at the very time wherein above all other he had most need of them as flying from his Enemy Lewis the Dauphin of France call'd in by his Subjects to take the Crown and possessing peaceably the City and Tower of London the Cities of Canterbury and Winchester with all the Castles of Kent except Dover which could not hold out and all the Barons in a manner with the Citizens of London and Winchester having sworn him Fealty and done him Homage as also the King of Scots for the Lands he held of the King of England who likewise had subdued all Northumberland except Barnard-Castle to him If after all this I say it were any Happiness to live yet enjoy'd he that miserable Happiness but a very short time for whether by Poyson given him at Swinsted-Abbey as the common report is or by a Surfeit taken with eating Peaches accompany'd with an intolerable Grief for his Losses as others deliver it he died about five or six Days after at Newark-Castle and wanting all civil Lamentation was presently so spoil'd by his Servants who fled every Man his way as they left nothing worth the Carriage to cover his dead Carcass Discite O Reges sacratae parcere turbae Robert Fitz-Walter so great a Baron in the time of King John that Mat. Paris saith of him Cui vix aliquis Comes in Anglia tum temporis potuit comparari was a grievous Enemy to the Monastery of St. Alban and prosecuting it with many Injuries did among others besiege the Priory of Binham in Norfolk a Cell of St. Albans as if it were a Castle and constrain'd the Monks there to extream Famine for that John the Abbot of St. Albans had removed Thomas the Prior of Binham and put another in his room without the assent of the said Robert who was Patron of the Priory and a singular Friend of Thomas The Complaint hereof being brought to the King he presently sent Forces to remove and apprehend the Besiegers but they having notice thereof departed Mat. Paris wondreth at the Revengeful wrath of which thereupon fell on Robert Fitz-Walter From that time saith he he never wanted manifest pursuit of Enemies or the afflictions of Infirmities All that he had is Confiscate and during the Life of King John he liv'd in Exile and Vagrant suffering great Adversities and Misfortunes And tho'King Hen. III. granted Peace to all yet did he never recover fully his Favour but died Dishonourable and Infamous Thus Mat. Paris in Vita Joh. Abbat S. Albani xxi MS. Falcasius de Brent a Valiant and Powerful Baron that on the part of King John grievously afflicted the Barons his Adversaries and all England beside pulled down the Church of St. Paul at Bedford to have the Stones and Materials thereof for the Building and Fortifying his Castle of Bedford He fell afterward in the ... Year of Hen. III. to be Fined before the Justices Itinerant at Dunstable a 100 l. a-piece for thirty forcible Entries and Disseissins made by him upon divers Men in all at 3000 l. Upon this he attempted by his Brethren and Followers to have taken the Justices sitting in Court and to imprison them in his Castle at Bedford But they all save Henry de Braybrock escaped him they Imprison'd and his Wife complaining thereon to the King and Parliament then sitting at Northampton they all set all other Business a-part and with all the Power they could make went and besieged the Castle which was to the utmost admirably defended against them and to the extream loss of the Assailants Yet by raising a Wooden-Tower close by it which they call Malvicine it was at length taken the Justice delivered 24 hang'd and his Brethren Himself being escap'd lost all his Possessions and whatsoever else he had But for the great Service he had done King John his Life upon his submission was pardon'd and he banished yet Vengeance still pursued him for he died by Poyson I must not forget a memorable Relation which Matthew Paris further maketh touching this matter The Abbess of Helnestene hearing that Falcasius had pull'd down St. Paul's Church to build his Castle caus'd the Sword which was in the Hand of the Image of St. Paul to be taken out of it and would not suffer it to be restor'd till now that he had so worthily reveng'd himself Whereupon one writ thus Perdidit in mense Falco tam fervidus ense Omne sub saevo quicquid quaesivit ab aevo The fierce Sir Falco ere one Month was run Lost all the Wealth that in his Life he won William Earl of Pembroke sirnam'd The great Earl Marshal Tutor of King Henry 3. took by force of War two Mannors belonging to the Church and Bishoprick of Fernes in Ireland The Bishop a Godly Man requir'd Restitution and failing of it
Clergy had so disproportionable a share by way of excess in the Lands of the Kingdom yet when in 17 Edw. II. it came to the point that the Order of the Templars for their wickedness was overthrown the Parliament then wherein many of those no doubt that made the Statute of Mortmain were present would not give the Lands and Possessions of the Templars to the King or the Lords of whom they were holden but ordain'd that they should go to the Order of the Hospital of St. John's of Jerusalem then lately erected for the defence of Christendom and the Christian Religion Edward le Bruce brother to Robert le Bruce King of Scots invadeth the North parts of Ireland with 6000 Men and accompanied with many great persons of the Nobility conquer'd the Earldom of Ulster gave the English many overthrows and prevail'd so victoriously that he caus'd himself to be crown'd King of Ireland His Soldiers in the mean time burn Churches and Abbies with the People whom they found in the same sparing neither Man Woman nor Child And most wickedly entring into other Churches spoil'd and defac'd the same of all such Tombs Monuments Plate Copies and other Ornaments as they found there He thus prevailing and the Irish much revolting to him the Archbishop of Armagh blesseth and encourageth the English Army against him Whereupon they joyn'd battle overthrew the whole Power of the Scots slew 2000 of their Men and amongst them this their King Edward le Bruce himself King Edw. III. to begin his Wars with France in An. 1337. taketh all the Treasure that was laid up in the Churches throughout England for the defence of the Holy Land Speed p. 190. And whereas there were anciently in England many Cells and Houses of Religion 110 they were counted and more belonging to greater Monasteries beyond the Seas fraught with Aliens and Strangers especially French-men and those of the Orders of Clunis and Cistertien King Edward III. at his entry into his French Wars An. 1337 Regni 12. partly fearing that they might hold intelligence with his Enemies but seeking chiefly to have their Wealth toward the payment of his Soldiers confiscated their Goods and Possessions letting their Priories and Lands to farm for Rent and selling some of them right out to others of his Subjects Yet like a Noble and Religious Prince touch'd with remorse when the Wars were ended viz. An. 1361 regni 35. he granted them all save those few that he had put away back again unto them by his Letters Patents as freely as they had formerly enjoy'd them And divers of those that were purchas'd by his Subjects were by them new-founded and given back to Religious Uses This act of the King 's was a precedent of singular Piety yet was it but a lame Offering not an Holocaust He gave back the Possessions but he retain'd the Profits which he had taken for 23 Years Speed p. 211. King John whom they so much condemn did more than this if he had done it as willingly He restor'd the Lands with the Damages But let not this good King want the charitable Commendation due unto his Piety though having dipt his Hands in this We be driven by the course of our Argument to observe what after befell to him and his Off-spring There be some things saith ... are sweet in the Mouth but bitter in the Belly pleasant at the beginning but woful in the end If these Priories and their Churches were of that nature the sequel verifies the Proverb The middle part of the King's Life was most fortunate and victorious yea all the while that these things were in his Hands even as if God had bless'd him as he did Obed-Edom 1 Sam. 6. 10. whilst the Ark was in his House and had the King then dy'd he had been a most glorious pattern of earthly Felicity But the Wheel turn'd and his Oriental Fortunes became Occidental The Peace he had concluded with France for the solace of his Age brake out again into an unfortunate War Many of his Subjects there rebell Gascony in effect is lost Afflictions at home fall upon him in sequence his Son Lionel Duke of Clarence dieth without Issue-male and when he had greatest need of his renowned Son the Prince of Wales miracle of Chivalry and the Anchor of his Kingdom him even then did God take from him his Court and Nobles discontented and in Faction himself and all things much misgovern'd by his Son the Duke of Lancaster and others of that part who by the Parliament are therefore remov'd from him and by him recall'd notwithstanding to the grief of all the Kingdom Thus he dieth leaving his unweildy Scepters to the feeble Arms of a Child of Eleven Years old King Richard II. whose lamentable History for the honour of Kings is best unspoken of But so unfortunate he was among his other Calamities that he was not only deposed by his unnatural Subjects but imprison'd and murther'd dying without Issue and leaving an Usurper possessor of his Kingdoms which kindled such Fuel of Dissention as consum'd almost all the Royal Line and Ancient Nobility of the Kingdom by the Civil War between the Houses of York and Lancaster To return to the Restitution made by King Edw. III. of the Priories-Alien An Historian termeth it A rare Example of a just King it being seldom seen that Princes let go any thing whereon they have once fasten'd But this King having made a Door in this manner into the freedom and possession of the Church all the Power he had either ordinarily or by Prerogative could not now so shut it up but that this Precedent would for ever after be a Key to open it at the pleasure of Posterity which was well seen not long after For in the Parliament An. 9. of King Richard II. The Knights and Burgesses with some of the Nobility being in a great rage as John Stow saith against the Clergy for that William Courtney the Archbishop would not suffer them to be charged in Subsidy by the Laity exhibited a Petition to the King that the Temporalities might be taken from them saying That they were grown to such Pride that it was Charity and Alms to take them from them to compell them thereby to be more meek and humble And so near the Parliament-men thought themselves the point of their desire that one promised himself thus much of this Monastery another so much of another Monastery And I heard saith Tho. Walsingham one of the Knights deeply swear that of the Abbey of St. Albans he would have a thousand Marks by the Year of the Temporalities But the King hearing the inordinate crying out on the one side and the just defence on the other deny'd his consent and commanded the Bill to be cancell'd Stow p. 479. Two valiant Esquires John Shakel and Robert Hauley having taken the Earl of Dene Prisoner at the Battel of Nazers in Spain and receiv'd his Son Hostage for performing Conditions between
the meanest of the People to Shop-keepers Taverners Taylors Tradesmen Burghers Brewers Grasiers and it may be supposed that as Constantine the Great seeing the inconvenience of the multitude of Comites of his time distinguished them as Eusebius reporteth into three degrees making the latter far inferior to the former so may it one day come to pass among these of our times and it shall not want some precedent of our own to the like purpose Vide Glossarium in voc Comes pag. 109. IV. What hath happened to the Crown it self It now remaineth to shew how the Lands themselves thus pulled from the Church have thriven with the Crown and in the Hands of the King his Heirs and Successors truly no otherwise than the Archbishop I spake of so long since foretold For they have melted and dropt away from the Crown like Snow yet herein that Snow leaves moisture to enrich the Ground but those nothing save dry and fruitless Coffers for now they are all gone in a manner and little to speak of remaining for them to the Treasury for my own part I think the Crown the happier that they are gone but very unhappy in their manner of going for as Sampson going out of Gaza carried with him the Gates the Bars and Posts of the City leaving it thereby exposed to Enemies weak and undefenced so those Lands going from the Crown have carried away with them the very Crown-Lands themselves which were in former times the glorious Gates of Regal Magnificence the present and ready Bars of Security at all Necessities and like immoveable Posts or Hercules Pillars in all the transmigrations of Crown and Kingdom had to our Time 1000 Years and upward remained fixed and amor ... to the Scepter These I say are in effect all gone since the Dissolution the new Piece hath rent away the old Garment and the Title of terra Regis within Dooms-day Book was generally the Targett in every County is now a Blank I fear in most of them But his Majesty hath a great Fee-farm reserved out of the greatest part of both of them 40000 l. a Year they say out of the Crown Lands and 60000 l. out of the Church Lands I confess it makes a goodly sound yet is it but froth in respect of the solid Land which is deemed to be more than ten times if not twenty times as much and this being but succus redditus a sick and languishing Rent will grow daily as our Rents of Assess have already done to be of lesser worth as the price of Lands and Commodities increase and rise higher but I hear there is ... thousand pounds a Year of the Crown-lands gone without any Reservation at all and above ... thousand likewise of the Church Lands and to tell the truth which my self do well know a great proportion of the Fee-farm Rents themselves are likewise aliened already but mihi Cynthius aurem vellit I must launch no further V. What happened to the whole Kingdom generally What the whole Body of the Kingdom hath suffered since these Acts of Confiscation of the Monasteries and their Churches is very remarkable let the Monks and Friers shift as they deserv'd the good if you will and the bad together my purpose is not to defend their Iniquities the thing I lament is that the Wheat perish'd with the Darnel things of good and pious Institution with those that abused and perverted them by reason whereof the Service of God was not only grievously wounded and bleedeth at this day but infinite Works of Charity whereby the Poor were universally reliev'd thro' the Kingdon were utterly cut off and extinguish'd many thousand masterless Servants turn'd loose into the World and many thousand of poor People which were constantly fed clad and nourished by the Monasteries now like young Ravens seek their Meat at God Every Monastery according to their Ability had an Ambery greater or little for the daily relief of the Poor about them Every principal Monastery an Hospital commonly for Travellers and an Infirmary which we now call a Spittle for the sick and diseased Persons with Officers and Attendants to take care of them Gentlmen and others having Children without means of Maintenance had them here brought up and provided for which course in some Countries and namely in Pomerland as I hear is still observed tho' Monks and Friers be abandoned These and such other Miseries falling upon the meaner sort of People drove them into so many Rebellions as we spake of and rung such loud peals in the King's Ears that on his Death-bed he gave back the Spittle of St. Bartholomew's in Smithfield lately valued saith Stow at 308 l. 6 s. 7 d. and the Church of the Gray-Friers valued at 32 l. 19 s. 7 d. with other Churches and 500 Marks a Year added to it to be united and called Christ Church founded by King Henry 8. and to be Hospitals for relieving the Poor the Bishop of Rochester declaring his Bounty at Paul's Cross on the 3d of Jan. and on the 28th day following the King died viz the 28 Jan. This touching the Poor VI. What happened to private Owners of the Monasteries particularly I turn now to the richer sort and shall not need to speak of the Clergy whose irreparable Misery Piers Ploughman foresaw so many Ages before saying That a King should come that should give the Abbat of Abingdon such a blow as incurable should be the Wound thereof Their Misery and Wrack is so notorious as it needs no Pen to decypher it nor will I speak of the loss that the Lay-men our Grandfathers had by this means in their right of Founders and Patronage Meantenures Rents-services Pensions Corrodies and many other Duties and Privileges whereof some were saved by the Statutes yet by little and little all in effect worn out and gone Those I say I speak not of for that they are Wounds grown up and forgotten but of one instead of all that immortal and incurable Wound which every day bleedeth more than other given to us and our Posterity by the infinite number of Tenures by Knights service in capite either newly created upon granting out of these Monasteries and Lands or daily raised by double Ignoramus in every Town almost of the Kingdom For as the Abbies had Lands commonly scattered abroad in every of them in some greater or lesser quantity according to the Ability of their Benefactors so the Leprosie of this Tenure comes thereby as generally to be scatter'd thro' the Kingdom And whereas before that time very few did hold on that manner besides the Nobility and principal Gentlemen that were owners of great Lordships and Possessions which from time to time descended intirely to their Heirs and were not broken out into small parcels amongst inferiour Tenents and mean Purchasers Now by reason that those Abby Lands are minced into such infinite numbers of little Quillets and thereby privily sown like the Tares in the Parable almost in every
which we omit The said Monasteries were given to the King by authority of divers Acts of Parliament but no provision was herein made for the said Project or any part thereof Only ad favendum populum these Possessions were given to the King his Heirs and Successors to do and use therewith his and their own Wills To the Pleasure of Almighty God and the Honour and Profit of the Realm Now observe the Catastrophe In the same Parliament of 32. Henry VIII when the great and opulent Priory of St. Johns of Jerusalem was given to the King he demanded and had a Subsidy both of the Clergy and Laity and the like he had in 34. Henry VIII and in 37. Henry VIII he had another Subsidy And since the dissolution of the said Monasteries he exacted divers Loans and against Law receiv'd the same Thus the great Judge the Lord Coke doth severely censure the ill-doings under Henry VIII and sheweth that notwithstanding the infinite Wealth in Money Lands and other Riches which came to the King by the dissolutions yet the People were burthen'd with more Taxes Subsidies and Loans than ever in former Times That it fully appeareth that as the goodly pretences to free the People from Subsidies and several Payments were but empty and vain pretences only ad favendum populum to deceive and abuse the People So in our late long Parliament many publick Projects and Pretences were propos'd and the Presbyterian party were zealous to advance the Throne of Christ and the Tribunal of Christ with all his holy Ordinances in full force as their Language did propose it But it was quickly discover'd that no such Matters were truly intended but only the Land of the Church must be taken to maintain Armies to bring in the Scots-Highlanders Red-shanks Goths and Vandals to subvert the King his Crown and Dignity and in the end to take all the Crown-lands and to divide them amongst the Soldiers and others at their pleasures But the dismal Events and tragical Mischiefs that have happen'd might have been foreseen and prevented but that most Men are ignorant of our own Histories and Chronicles as well as of foreign Histories and Examples wherein they might easily have observ'd the fearfull ends that have follow'd upon the like doings both in our own Kingdoms and other neighbouring Nations as France Germany and Bohemia especially within these last forty Years For as Solomon saith There is no new thing under the Sun For the like hath happen'd often both at home and abroad but that Men will take no warning by any Examples but persist in their wicked and sacrilegious Attempts tho' in the end they bring confusion and destruction upon themselves Whereas it is said that when Henry V. suppress'd the Priories Aliens a good part of their Lands was given to other Religious Houses both by that King and his Son Henry VI. who bestow'd a great part of those Lands upon Colleges in the Universities it is true but in our Reformation there is no such care taken to convert any part of the Church-lands to pious and publick Uses but the Cormorants devour all They spake also of maintaining many Hospitals for relieving of maim'd Soldiers in our present time there is an infinite Number of maim'd Soldiers but no Hospitals provided for them whereas they should have provided some good Number and withall an hundred Bedlams to entertain pious zealous and outragious Puritans who have lost their Wits and Senses and are become extremely mad with distemper'd Zeal as the Anabaptists and Fifth-Monarchy-men Quakers and the rest of the Rabble Humfrey Duke of Glocester coming to the Parliament at St. Edmundsbury and lodging there in a place as Leland saith sacred to our Saviour he was by the Lord John Beaumont then High-Constable of England the Duke of Buckingham the Duke of Somerset and others arrested of High-Treason suggested and being kept in Ward in the same place was the Night following viz. 24. Febr. cruelly murther'd by De la Pole Duke of Suffolk Some judg'd him to have been strangled some to have a hot Spit thrust up his Fundament some to be smother'd between two Feather-beds But all indifferent Persons saith Hall might well understand that he died some violent Death Being found dead in his Bed his Body was shewed to the Lords and Commons as though he had died of a Palsie or Imposthume which others do publish But it falleth out that this Lord John Vicount Beaumont and the Duke of Buckingham were both slain in the Battle of Northampton 38. Henry VI. The Duke of Somerset taken Prisoner at the Battle of Exham An. 1462. and there beheaded The Duke of Suffolk being banisht the Land was in passing the Seas surpriz'd by a Ship of the Duke of Exeter's and brought back to Dover-Road where in a Cock-boat at the Commandment of the Captain his Head was stricken off and both Head and Body left on the Shore CHAP. VII Of the great Sacrilege and Spoil of Church-lands committed by Henry VIII His promise to employ the Lands to the advancement of Learning Religion and Relief of the Poor The preamble of the Statute 27. Henry VIII to that purpose which is omitted in the printed Statutes The neglect of that Promise The great increase of Lands and Wealth that came to the King by the Dissolution Quadruple to the Crown-lands The Accidents which happen'd to the King and his Posterity to the Agents under him as the Lord Cromwell and others to the Crown and the whole Kingdom and to the new Owners of the Lands A View of the Parliaments that passed the Acts of the 27 and 31 of Henry VIII and of the Lords that voted in them and what happened to them and their Families The Names of the Lords in the 27 of Henry VIII omitted in the Record but those of the 31 Henry VIII are remaining being most the same Men. The Names of the Lords Spiritual in those Parliaments and the great Spoil of Libraries and Books The Names of the Lords Temporal in those Parliaments with the Misfortunes in their Families and Dignity abated What hath happened to the Crown it self by the loss of crown-Crown-lands What hath happened to the Kingdom in general and the great Injury done to the Poor The Mischief of the Tenure of Knights-service in Capite which by Act is to be reserved upon all Church-lands that pass from the Crown The ancient Original of Wardship from the Goths and Lombards the abuse of it amongst us The prediction of Egebred an old Hermite The unfortunate Calamities of the Palsgrave and other Princes of Germany by invading the Patrimony of the Church How carefull the Heathens were not to misuse the things consecrated to their Gods King James's Letter to the University of Oxon about Impropriations I Am now come off the Rivers into the Ocean of Iniquity and Sacrilege where whole thousands of Churches and Chappels dedicated to the Service of God in the same manner that