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B01850 The history of the reformation of the Church of England. The second part, of the progress made in it till the settlement of it in the beginning of Q. Elizabeth's reign. / By Gilbert Burnet, D.D. Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715. 1681 (1681) Wing B5798A; ESTC R226789 958,246 890

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having examined it reported that the Process had been legally carried on and the Sentence justly given and that there was no good reason why the Appeal should be received and therefore they rejected it This being reported to the Council they sent for Bonner in the beginning of February and declared to him that his Appeal was rejected and that the Sentence against him was in full force still But the Business of Bulloigne was that which pressed them most Ambassadors sent to the Emperor They misdoubting as was formerly shewn that Paget had not managed that matter dexterously and earnestly with the Emperor sent on the 18th of October Sir Tho. Cheyney and Sir Phil. Hobbey to him to entreat him to take Bulloigne into his protection they also sent over the Earl of Huntington to command it with the addition of a thousand Men for the Garrison When the Ambassadors came to the Emperor they desired leave to raise 2000 Horse and 3000 Foot in his Dominions for the preservation of Bulloigne Cotton Libr. Galba B. 12. The Emperor gave them very good words but insisted much on his League with France and referred them to the Bishop of Arras who told them plainly the thing could not be done So Sir Tho. Cheyney took his leave of the Emperor who at parting desired him to represent to the Kings Council how necessary it was to consider matters of Religion again that so they might be all of one mind for to deal plainly with them till that were done he could not assist them so effectually as otherwise he desired to do And now the Council saw clearly they had not been deceived by Paget in that Particular and therefore resolved to apply themselves to France for a Peace But now the Earl of Warwick falling off wholly from the Popish Party The Earl of Southampton leaves the Court. the Earl of Southampton left the Court in great discontent He was neither restored to his Office of Chancellor nor made Lord Treasurer that Place which was vacant by the Duke of Somersets Fall being now given to the Lord St. John who soon after was made Earl of Wilt-shire nor was he made one of those who had charge of the Kings Person So he began to lay a Train against the Earl of Warwick but he was too quick for him and discovered it upon which he left the Court in the night and it was said he poisoned himself or pined away with discontent for he died in July after A new Office for Ordinations So now the Reformation was ordered to be carried on and there being one part of the Divine Offices not yet reformed that is concerning the giving Orders some Bishops and Divines brought now together by a Session of Parliament were appointed to prepare a Book of Ordination A Session of Parliament But now I turn to the Parliament which sate down on the 4th of November In it a severe Law was made against unlawful Assemblies that if any An Act against Tumultuary Assemblies to the number of twelve should meet together unlawfully for any matter of State and being required by any lawful Magistrate should not disperse themselves it should be Treason and if any broke Hedges or violently pulled up Pales about Inclosures without lawful Authority it should be Felony It was also made Felony to gather the People together without Warrant by ringing of Bells or sound of Drums and Trumpets or the firing of Beacons There was also a Law made against Prophecies concerning the King or his Council since by these the People were disposed to sedition for the first offence it was to be punished by Imprisonment for a year and 10 l. Fine For the second it was Imprisonment during Life with the forfeiture of Goods and Chattels All this was on the account of the Tumults the former year and not with any regard to the Duke of Somersets security as some have without any reason fancied for he had now no Interest in the Parliament nor was he in a condition any more to apprehend Tumults against himself being stript of his so much envied greatness And against Vagabonds Another Law was made against Vagabonds relating That the former Statute made in this Reign being too severe was by that means not executed so it was repealed and the Law made in King Henry the 8th's Reign put in force Provisions were laid down for relieving the Sick and Impotent and setting the Poor that were able to work That once a month there should be every where a Visitation of the Poor by those in Office who should send away such as did not belong to that Place and those were to be carried from Constable to Constable till they were brought to such Places as were bound to see to them There was a Bill brought in for the repealing of a Branch of the Act of Uniformity but it went no further than one reading On the 14th of November the Bishops made a heavy complaint to the Lords of the abounding of vice and disorder The Bishops move for a reviving of Ecclesiastical Censures and that their Power was so abridged that they could punish no sin nor oblige any to appear before them or to observe the Orders of the Church This was heard by all the Lords with great regret and they ordered a Bill to be drawn about it On the 18th of November a Bill was brought in but rejected at first reading because it seemed to give the Bishops too much Power So a second Bill was appointed to be drawn by a Committee of the House It was agreed to and sent down to the Commons who laid it aside after the second reading They thought it better to renew the design that was in the former Reign of two and thirty Persons being authorized to compile the Body of Ecclesiastical Laws and when that was prepared it seemed more proper by confirming it to establish Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction than to give the Bishops any Power while the Rules of their Courts were so little determined or regulated So an act passed empow'ring the King to name fixteen Persons of the Spiritualty of whom four should be Bishops and sixteen of the Temporalty of whom four should be common Lawyers who within three years should compile a Body of Ecclesiastical Laws and those being nothing contrary to the Common and Statute Laws of the Land should be published by the Kings Warrant under the Great Seal and have the force of Laws in the Ecclesiastical Courts Thus they took care that this should not be turn'd over to an uncertain Period as it had been done in the former Reign but designed that it should be quickly finished The Bishops of that time were generally so backward in every step to a Reformation that a small number of them was made necessary to be of this Commission The effect that it had shall be afterwards opened There was a Bill brought in to the House of Commons That the Preaching and holding
to give full answer of denial to those Suits that be not reasonable nor convenient Also to dispatch all Matters of Justice and to send to the common Courts those Suits that be for them The Calling of Forfeits done against the Laws for punishing the Offenders and breakers of Proclamations that now stand in force The Lord Privy-Seal The Earl of Pembrook The Lord Chamberlain Sir Thomas Wroth. Sir Robert Bowes Mr. Secretary Petre. Mr. Hobbey Mr. Wotton Sir John Baker Mr. Sollicitor Mr. Gosnald These shall first see what Laws Penal and what Proclamations standing now in force are most meet to be executed and shall bring a Certificate thereof Then they shall enquire in the Countries how they are disobeyed and first shall begin with the greatest Offenders and so afterward punish the rest according to the pains set forth They shall receive also the Letters out of the Shires of Disorders there done and punish the Offenders For the State The Bishop of Canterbury The Lord Chancellor The Lord Treasurer The Duke of Northumberland The Duke of Suffolk The Lord Privy-Seal The Marquess of Northampton The Earl of Shrewsbury The Earl of Pembrook The Earl of Westmoreland The Lord Admiral The Viscount Hereford The Lord Chamberlain Mr. Vicechamberlain Mr. Treasurer and Comptroller Mr. Cecil Mr. Petre. Mr. Wotton Sir Philip Hobbey Sir Robert Bowes These to attend the Matters of the State I will sit with them once a week to hear the debating of things of most importance These Persons under-written shall look to the state of all the Courts especially of the new erected Courts as the Augmentation the First Fruits and Tythes the Wards and shall see the Revenues answered at the half Years end and shall consider with what superfluous Charges they be burdened and thereof shall make a Certificate which they shall deliver The Lord Chamberlain The Bishop of Norwich Sir Thomas Wroth. Sir Robert Bowes Sir Richard Cotton Sir Walter Mildmay Mr. Gosnald I understand it is a Member of the Commission that followeth but yet those shall do well to do it for the present because the other shall have no leasure till they have called in the Debts after which done they may sit with them Those that now be in Commission for the Debts to take Accompts of all Paiments since the 35th of the King that dead is after that they have done this Commission they are now in hand with Likewise for the Bullwarks the Lord Chamberlain Mr. Treasurer and Mr. Comptroller to be in Commission in their several Jurisdictions The rest of the Council some go home to their Countries streight after the Parliament some be sore sick that they shall not be able to attend any thing which when they come they shall be admitted of the Council Also that these Councils that sit apart Also that those of the Council that have these several Commissions Desunt quedam 15. Jan. 1552. This seems not to be the King's Hand but is interlined in many places by him Certain Articles devised and delivered by the King's Majesty for the quicker better and more orderly dispatch of Causes by his Majesty's Privy-Council Cotton Libr. Nero. C. 10. 1. HIs Majesty willeth that all Suits Petitions and common Warrants delivered to his Privy-Council be considered by them on the Mundays in the Morning and answered also on the Saturdays at Afternoon and that that day and none others be assigned to that purpose 2. That in answering of these Suits and Bills of Petition heed be taken that so many of them as pertain to any Court of his Majesty's Laws be as much as may be referred to those Courts where by order they are triable such as cannot be ended without them be with expedition determined 3. That in making of those Warrants for Mony that pass by them it be foreseen that those Warrants be not such as may already be dispatcht by Warrant dormant lest by means of such Warrants the Accompts should be uncertain 4. His Majesty's pleasure is That on the * Provided that on Sundays they be present at Common-Prayer Sundays they intend the Publick Affairs of this Realm they dispatch Answers to Letters for the good order of the Realm and make full Dispatches of all Things concluded the Week before 5. That on the Sunday Night the Secretaries or one of them shall deliver to his Majesty a Memorial of such Things as are debated to be by his Privy-Council and then his Majesty to appoint certain of them to be debated on several days viz. Munday Afternoon Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Morning 6. That on Friday at Afternoon they shall make a Collection of such things as have been done the four days past how many of those Articles they have concluded how many they debated but not ended how many the time suffered not to peruse and also the principal Reasons that moved them to conclude on such Matters as seemeth doubtful 7. That on Saturday Morning they shall present this Collection to his Majesty and know his Pleasure upon such things as they have concluded and also upon all the private Suits 8. That on Sunday Night again his Majesty having received of the Secretaries such new Matters as hath arisen upon new occasion with such Matters as his Council have left some not determined and some not debated shall appoint what Matters and on which days shall be determined the next Week following 9. That none of them depart his Court for longer than two days without there be left here at the least eight of the Council and that not without giving notice thereof to the King's Majesty 10. That they shall make no manner of Assembly or Meeting in Council without there be to the number of four at the least 11. Furthermore if they be assembled to the number of four and under the number of six then they shall reason and debate things examine all Inconveniences and Dangers and also Commodities on each side make those things plain which seem diffuse at the first opening and if they agree amongst themselves then at the next full Assembly of six they shall make a perfect conclusion and end with them 12. Also if there rise such matter of weight as it shall please the King's Majesty himself to be at the debating of then warning shall be given whereby the more may be at the debating of it 13. If such Matter shall happen to rise as shall require long debating and reasoning or e're it come to a full conclusion or end then his Majesty's Council shall not intermeddle other Causes nor fall to other Matters for that day until they have brought it to some end 14. When Matters for lack of time be only debated and yet brought to no end then it shall be noted how far and to what point the Matter is brought and which have been the principal Reasons on each side to the intent when the Matter is treated or spoken of again it may the sooner and easilier come to
prayed in general for their quiet Rest and their speedy Resurrection Yet these Prayers growing as all superstitious devices do to be more considered some began to frame an Hypothesis to justifie them by that of the Thousand Years being generally exploded And in St. Austin's time they began to fancy there was a state of punishment even for the Good in another Life out of which some were sooner and some later freed according to the measure of their Repentance for their Sins in this Life But he tells us this was taken up without any sure ground and that it was no way certain Yet by Visions Dreams and Tales the belief of it was so far promoted that it came to be generally received in the next Age after him and then as the People were told that the Saints interceded for them so it was added that they might intercede for their departed Friends And this was the Foundation of all that Trade of Souls-Masses and Obits Now the deceased King had acted like one who did not believe that these things signified much otherwise he was to have but ill reception in Purgatory having by the subversion of the Monasteries deprived the departed Souls of the benefit of the many Masses that were said for them in these Houses yet it seems at his death he would make the matter sure and to shew he intended as much benefit to the Living as to himself being dead he took care that there should be not only Masses and Obits but so many Sermons at Windsor and a frequent distribution of Alms for the relief of the Poor But upon this occasion it came to be examined what value there was in such things Yet the Arch-bishop plainly saw that the Lord Chancellor would give great opposition to every motion that should be made for any further alteration for which he and all that Party had this specious pretence always in their Mouths That their late Glorious King was not only the most learned Prince but the most learned Divine in the World for the flattering him did not end with his Life and that therefore they were at least to keep all things in the condition wherein he had left them till the King were of Age. And this seemed also necessary on Considerations of State For Changes in matter of Religion might bring on Commotions and Disorders which they as faithful Executors ought to avoid But to this it was answered That as their late King was infinitely learned for both Parties flattered him dead as well as living so he had resolved to make great Alterations and was contriving how to change the Mass into a Communion that therefore they were not to put off a thing of such consequence wherein the Salvation of Peoples Souls was so much concerned but were immediately to set about it But the Lord Chancellor gave quickly great advantage against himself to his Enemies who were resolved to make use of any Error he might be guilty of so far as to ease themselves of the trouble he was like to give them The Kings Funeral being over The Creation of Peers order was given for the Creation of Peers The Protector was to be Duke of Somerset the Earl of Essex to be Marquess of Northampton the Viscount Lisle to be Earl of Warwick the Lord Wriothesley Earl of Southampton beside the new Creation of the Lords Seimour Rich Willoughby of Parham and Sheffield the rest it seems excusing themselves from new Honours as it appeared from the Deposition of Paget that many of those on whom the late King had intended to confer Titles of Honour had declined it formerly 1547. Feb. 20. Coronation On the 20th of Feb. being Shrove-Sunday the King was Crowned by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury according to the form that was agreed to The Protector serving in it as Lord Steward the Marquess of Dorset as Lord Constable and the Earl of Arundel as Earl Marshal deputed by the Protector A Pardon was proclaimed out of which the Duke of Norfolk Cardinal Pole and some others were excepted The first Business of importance after the Coronation The Lord Chancellor is removed from his Office was the Lord Chancellors fall Who resolving to give himself wholly to Matters of State had on the 18th of Feb. put the Great Seal to a Commission directed to Sir Richard Southwell Master of the Rolls John Tregonnel Esq Master of Chancery and to John Oliver and Anthony Bellasis Clerks Masters of Chancery setting forth that the Lord Chancellor being so employed in the Affairs of State that he could not attend on the hearing of Causes in the Court of Chancery these three Masters or any two of them were empowered to execute the Lord Chancellors Office in that Court in as ample manner as if he himself were present only their Decrees were to be brought to the Lord Chancellor to be Signed by him before they were Enrolled This being done without any Warrant from the Lord Protector and the other Executors it was judged a high presumption in the Lord Chancellor thus to devolve on others that Power which the Law had trusted in his Hands The Persons named by him encreased the offence which this gave two of them being Canonists so that the common Lawyers looked upon this as a President of very high and ill consequence And being encouraged by those who had no good will to the Chancellor they petitioned the Council in this Matter and complained of the evil consequences of such a Commission and set forth the fears that all the Students of the Law were under of a Change that was intended to be made of the Laws of England The Council remembred well they had given no Warrant at all to the Lord Chancellor for the issuing out any such Commission so they sent it to the Judges and required them to examine the Commission with the Petition grounded upon it Who delivered their Opinions on the last of Feb. That the Lord Chancellor ought not without Warrant from the Council to have set the Seal to it Feb. 28. and that by his so doing he had by the Common Law forfeited his Place to the King and was liable to Fine and Imprisonment at the Kings pleasure March 6. This lay sleeping till the sixth of March and then the Judges Answer being brought to the Council Signed with all their Hands they entred into a debate how far it ought to be punished The Lord Chancellor carried it very high and as he had used many Menaces to those who had petitioned against him and to the Judges for giving their Opinions as they did so he carried himself insolently to the Protector and told him he held his Place by a better Authority than he held his That the late King being empow'red to it by Act of Parliament had made him not only Chancellor but one of the Governours of the Realm during his Sons Minority and had by his Will given none of them Power over the rest to throw
than to make a new one which might give occasion to more Objections and he was the most indifferent Writer they knew Afterwards Cranmer knowing what was likely to work most on him let fall some words as Gardiner writ to the Protector of bringing him into the Privy-Council if he would concur in what they were carrying on But that not having its ordinary effect on him he was carried back to the Fleet. There were also many complaints brought by some Clergy-men of such as had used them ill for their obeying the Kings Injunctions and for removing Images Many were upon their submission sent away with a severe rebuke others that offended more hainously were put in the Fleet for some time and afterwards giving Bond for their good behaviour were discharged But upon the Protectors return the Bishop of Winchester writ him a long Letter in his own vindication He complained of the Visitors proceeding in his absence in so great a matter He said the Injunctions were contrary to themselves for they appointed the Homilies to be read and Erasmus's Paraphrase to be put in all Churches so he selected many passages out of these that were contrary to one another He also gathered many things out of Erasmus's Paraphrase that were contrary to the Power of Princes and several other censurable things in that Work which Erasmus wrote when he was young being of a far different strain from what he writ when he grew older and better acquainted with the World But he concluded his Letter with a discourse of the extent of the King and Councils Power Collection Number 14. which is all I transcribed of it being very long and full of things of no great consequence He questions how far the King could command against Common or Statute Law of which himself had many occasions to be well informed Cardinal Wolsey had obtained his Legatine Power at the Kings desire but notwithstanding that he was brought into a Praemunire and the Lawyers upon that Argument cited many Precedents of Judges that were fined when they transgressed the Laws though commanded by Warrants from the King and Earl Typteft who was Chancellor lost his Head for acting upon the Kings Warrant against Law In the late Kings time the Judges would not set Fines on the breakers of the Kings Proclamations when they were contrary to Law till the Act concerning them was passed about which there were many hot words when it was debated He mentions a Discourse that passed between him and the Lord Audley in the Parliament concerning the Kings Supremacy Audley bid him look the Act of Supremacy and he would see the Kings doings were restrained to Spiritual Jurisdiction and by another Act no Spiritual Law could take place against the Common Law or an Act of Parliament otherwise the Bishops would strike in with the King and by means of the Supremacy would order the Law as they pleased but we will provide said he that the Praemunire shall never go off of your backs In some late Cases he heard the Judges declare what the King might do against an Act of Parliament and what danger they were in that medled in such matters These things being so fresh in his memory he thought he might write what he did to the Lords of Council But by this it appears that no sort of Men is so much for the Kings Prerogative but when it becomes in any instance uneasie to them they will shelter themselves under the Law He continued afterwards by many Letters to the Protector to complain of his ill usage That he had been then seven weeks in the Fleet without Servants a Chaplain or a Physician that though he had his Writ of Summons he was not suffered to come to the Parliament which might be a ground afterwards of questioning their Proceedings He advised the Protector not to make himself a Party in these matters and used all the insinuations of decent flattery that he could invent with many sharp reflections on Cranmer and stood much on the force of Laws that they could not be repealed by the Kings Will. Concerning which he mentions a Passage that fell out between Cromwel and himself before the late King Cromwel said That the King might make or repeal Laws as the Roman Emperors did and asked his opinion about it whether the Kings Will was not a Law To which he answered facetiously That he thought it was much better for the King to make the Law his Will than to make his Will a Law But notwithstanding all his Letters which are printed in the second Volume of Acts and Monum Edit 1641. yet he continued a Prisoner till the Parliament was over and then by the Act of Pardon he was set at liberty This was much censured as an invasion of Liberty and it was said these at Court durst not suffer him to come to the House lest he had confounded them in all they did And the explaining Justification with so much nicety in Homilies that were to be read to the People was thought a needless subtilty But the former abuses of trusting to the Acts of Charity that Men did by which they fancied they bought Heaven made Cranmer judge it necessary to express the matter so nicely though the expounding those Places of St. Paul was as many thought rather according to the strain of the Germans than to the meaning of these Epistles And upon the whole matter they knew Gardiners haughty temper and that it was necessary to mortifie him a little though the pretence on which they did it seemed too slight for such severities But it is ordinary when a thing is once resolved on to make use of the first occasion that offers for effecting it The Party that opposed the Reformation The Lady Mary dissatisfied with the Reformation finding these attempts so unsuccessful engaged the Lady Mary to appear for them She therefore wrote to the Protector that she thought all changes in Religion till the King came to be of Age were very much contrary to the respect they owed the memory of her Father if they went about to shake what he had setled and against their duty to their young Master to hazard the Peace of his Kingdom and engage his Authority in such Points before he was capable of judging them The Protector writ to her Collection Number 15. I gather this to have been the substance of her Letter from the Answer which the Protector wrote which is in the Collection In it he wrote That he believed her Letter flowed not immediately from her self but from the instigation of some malicious Persons He protests they had no other design but the Glory of God and the Honour and Safety of the King and that what they had done was so well considered that all good Subjects ought rather to rejoyce at it than find fault with it And whereas she had said That her Father had brought Religion to a godly order and quietness to which both Spiritualty
repealed and it was Enacted That from the first of May none should eat Flesh on Fridays Saturdays Ember-days in Lent or any other days that should be declared Fish-days under several Penalties A Proviso was added for excepting such as should obtain the Kings Licence or were sick or weak and that none should be indicted but within three Months after the Offence Christ had told his Disciples that when he should be taken from them then they should fast Accordingly the Primitive Christians used to fast oft more particularly before the Anniversary of the Passion of Christ which ended in a high Festivity at Easter Yet this was differently observed as to the number of days Some abstained 40 days in imitation of Christs Fast others only that Week and others had only an entire Fast from the time of Christs death till his Resurrection On these Fasts they eat nothing till the Evening and then they eat most commonly Herbs and Roots Afterwards the Fridays were kept as Fasts because on that day Christ suffered Saturdays were also added in the Roman Church but not without contradiction Ember-weeks came in afterwards being some days before those Sundays in which Orders were given And a General Rule being laid down that every Christian Festival should be preceded by a Fast thereupon the Vigils of Holy-days came though not so soon into the Number But this with the other good Institutions of the Primitive times became degenerate even in St. Austins time Religion came to be placed in these observances and anxious Rules were made about them Afterwards in the Church of Rome they were turned into a Mockery for as on Fast-days they dined which the Ancients did not so the use of the most delicious Fish drest in the most exquisite manner with the richest Wines that could be had was allowed which made it ridiculous So now they resolved to take off the severities of the former Laws and yet to keep up such Laws about Fasting and Abstinence as might be agreeable to its true end which is to subdue the Flesh to the Spirit and not to gratifie it by a change of one sort of diet into another which may be both more delicate and more inflaming So fond a thing is Superstition that it will help Men to deceive themselves by the slightest Pretences that can be imagined It was much lamented then and there is as much cause for it still that carnal Men have taken advantages from the abuses that were formerly practised to throw off good and profitable Institutions since the frequent use of Fasting with Prayer and true Devotion joyned to it is perhaps one of the greatest helps that can be devised to advance one to a spiritual temper of Mind and to promote a holy course of Life And the mockery that is discernable in the way of some Mens Fasting is a very slight excuse for any to lay aside the use of that which the Scriptures have so much recommended Some Bills were rejected There were other Bills put in into both Houses but did not pass One was for declaring it Treason to marry the Kings Sisters without consent of the King and his Council but it was thought that King Henry's Will disabling them from the Succession in that case would be a stronger restraint and so it was laid aside Another Bill was put in for Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Great Complaints were made of the abounding of Vices and Immoralities which the Clergy could neither restrain nor punish and so they had nothing left but to preach against them which was done by many with great freedom In some of these Sermons the Preachers expressed their apprehensions of signal and speedy Judgments from Heaven if the People did not repent but their Sermons had no great effect for the Nation grew very corrupt and this brought on them severe punishments The Temporal Lords were so jealous of putting power in Church-mens hands especially to correct those vices of which themselves perhaps were most guilty that the Bill was laid aside The pretence of opposing it was that the greatest part of the Bishops and Clergy were still Papists in their Hearts so that if Power were put into such Mens hands it was reasonable to expect they would employ it chiefly against those who favoured the Reformation and would vex them on that score though with Pretences fetched from other things A design for digesting the Common Law into a Body There was also put into the House of Commons a Bill for reforming of Processes at Common Law which was sent up by the Commons to the Lords but it fell in that House I have seen a large Discourse written then upon that Argument in which it is set forth that the Law of England was a barbarous kind of Study and did not lead Men into a finer sort of Learning which made the Common Lawyers to be generally so ignorant of Forreign Matters and so unable to negotiate in them therefore it was proposed that the Common and Statute Laws should be in imitation of the Roman Law digested into a Body under Titles and Heads and put in good Latin But this was too great a Design to be set on or finished under an Infant King If it was then necessary it will be readily acknowledged to be much more so now the Volume of our Statutes being so much swell'd since that time besides the vast number of Reports and Cases and the Pleadings growing much longer than formerly yet whether this is a thing to be much expected or desired I refer it to the learned and wise Men of that Robe The only Act that remains of this Session of Parliament The Admirals Attainder about which I shall inform the Reader is the Attainder of the Admiral The Queen Dowager that had married him died in September last not without suspition of Poison She was a good and vertuous Lady and in her whole Life had done nothing unseemly but the marrying him so indecently and so soon after the Kings death There was found among her Papers a Discourse written by her concerning her self entituled The Lamentation of a Sinner which was published by Cecil who writ a Preface to it In it she with great sincerity acknowledges the sinful course of her Life for many years in which she relying on External Performances such as Fasts and Pilgrimages was all that while a Stranger to the Internal and True Power of Religion which she came afterwards to feel by the study of the Scripture and the calling upon God for his Holy Spirit She explains clearly the Notion she had of Justification by Faith so that Holiness necessarily followed upon it but lamented the great scandal given by many Gospellers So were all these called who were given to the reading of the Scriptures She being thus dead The Queen Dowager dying he courted the Lady Eliz. the Admiral renewed his Addresses to the Lady Elizabeth but in vain for as he could not expect that his Brother and the Council
would consent to it so if he had married her without that the possibility of succeeding to the Crown was cut off by King Henry's Will And this Attempt of his occasioned that Act to be put in which was formerly mentioned for declaring the marrying the Kings Sisters without consent of Council to be Treason Seeing he could not compass that design he resolved to carry away the King to his House of Holt in the Country and so to displace his Brother and to take the Government into his own hands For this end he had laid in Magazines of Arms and listed about 10000 Men in several Places and openly complained that his Brother intended to enslave the Nation and make himself Master of all and had therefore brought over those German Soldiers He had also entred into Treaty with several of the Nobility that envied his Brothers greatness and were not ill pleased to see a breach between them and that grown to be irreconcilable To these he promised that they should be of the Council and that he would dispose of the King in Marriage to one of their Daughters the Person is not named The Protector had often told him of these things and warned him of the danger into which he would throw himself by such ways but he persisted still in his designs though he denied and excused them as long as was possible Now his restless ambition seeming incurable he was on the 19th of Jan. sent to the Tower The original Warrant Jan. 19. The Admiral sent to the Tower Signed by all the Privy Council is in the Council-Book formerly mentioned where the Earl of Southampton Signs with the rest who was now in outward appearance reconciled to the Protector On the day following the Admirals Seal of his Office was sent for and put into Secretary Smiths Hands And now many things broke out against him and particularly a Conspiracy of his with Sir W. Sharington Vice-Treasurer of the Mint at Bristol who was to have furnished him with 10000 l. and had already coined about 12000 l. false Money and had clipt a great deal more to the value of 40000 l. in all for which he was attainted by a Process at Common Law and that was confirmed in Parliament Fowler also that waited in the Privy Chamber with some few others were sent to the Tower Many complaints being usually brought against a sinking Man the Lord Russel the Earl of Southampton and Secretary Petre were ordered to receive their Examinations And thus the Business was let alone till the 28 of Feb. in which time his Brother did again try if it were possible to bring him to a better temper And as he had since their first breach granted him 800 l. a year in Land to gain his friendship so means were now used to perswade him to submit himself and to withdraw from Court and from all employment But it appeared that nothing could be done to him that could cure his ambition or the hatred he carried to his Brother And therefore on the 22d of Feb. a full report was made to the Council of all the things that were informed against him consisting not only of the Particulars formerly mentioned but of many foul misdemeanours in the discharge of the Admiralty several Pirates being entertained by him who gave him a share of their Robberies and whom he had protected notwithstanding the Complaints made by other Princes by which the King was in danger of a War from the Princes so complaining The whole Charge consists of 33 Articles which will be found in the Collection Collection Number 31. The Particulars as it is entred in the Council-Book were so manifestly proved not only by Witnesses but by Letters under his own Hand that it did not seem possible to deny them Yet he had been sent to and examined by some of the Council but refused to make a direct Answer to them or to Sign those Answers that he had made So it was ordered that the next day all the Privy Council except the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Sir John Baker Speaker to the House of Commons who was engaged to attend in the House should go to the Tower and examine him On the 23d the Lord Chancellor with the other Councellors went to him and read the Articles of his Charge and earnestly desired him to make plain Answers to them excusing himself where he could and submitting himself in other things and that he would shew no obstinacy of Mind He answered them That he expected an open Trial and his Accusers to be brought face to face All the Councellors endeavoured to perswade him to be more tractable but to no purpose At last the Lord Chancellor required him on his Allegiance to make his Answer He desired they would leave the Articles with him and he would consider of them otherwise he would make no Answer to them But the Councellors resolved not to leave them with him on those terms On the 24th of Feb. it was resolved in Council that the whole Board should after Dinner acquaint the King with the state of that Affair and desire to know of him whether he would have the Law to take place and since the thing had been before the Parliament whether he would leave it to their determination so tender they were of their young King in a Case that concerned his Unkles Life But the King had begun to discern his seditious temper and was now much alienated from him The Council desired the King to refer the Matter to the Parliament When the Councellors waited on him the Lord Chancellor opened the Matter to the King and delivered his Opinion for leaving it to the Parliament Then every Councellor by himself spake his mind all to the same purpose Last of all the Protector spake he protested this was a most sorrowful business to him that he had used all the means in his power to keep it from coming to this extremity but were it Son or Brother he must prefer his Majesties safety to them for he weighed his Allegiance more than his Blood and that therefore he was not against the request that the other Lords had made and said if he himself were guilty of such offences he should not think he were worthy of life and the rather because he was of all Men the most bound to his Majesty and therefore he could not refuse Justice The King answered them in these words Who consented to it We perceive that there are great things objected and laid to my Lord Admiral my Unkle and they tend to Treason and We perceive that you require but Justice to be done We think it reasonable and We Will that you proceed according to your Request Which words as it is marked in the Council-Book coming so suddenly from his Graces Mouth of his own motion as the Lords might well perceive they were marvellously rejoyced and gave the King most hearty praise and thanks yet resolved that some of both Houses
Philosophical Subtilties and only pretended to be deduced from Scripture as almost all Opinions of Religion were and therefore they rejected them Among these the Baptism of Infants was one They held that to be no Baptism and so were re-baptiz'd but from this which was most taken notice of as being a visible thing they carried all the general Name of Anabaptists Of whom there were two sorts Of these there were two sorts most remarkable The one was of those who only thought that Baptism ought not to be given but to those who were of an Age capable of Instruction and who did earnestly desire it This Opinion they grounded on the silence of the New Testament about the Baptism of Children they observed that our Saviour commanding the Apostles to baptize did joyn Teaching with it and they said the great decay of Christianity flowed from this way of making Children Christians before they understood what they did These were called the gentle or moderate Anabaptists But others who carried that Name denied almost all the Principles of the Christian Doctrine and were Men of fierce and barbarous tempers They had broke out into a general revolt over Germany and raised the War called The Rustick War and possessing themselves of Munster made one of their Teachers John of Leyden their King under the Title of the King of the new Jerusalem Some of them set up a fantastical unintelligible way of talking of Religion which they turned all into Allegories These being joyned in the common Name of Anabaptists with the other brought them also under an ill Character On the 12th of April there was a Complaint brought to the Council that with the Strangers that were come into England some of that Perswasion had come over and were disseminating their Errours and making Proselites Rot. Pat. Par. 6. ● R●g So a Commission was ordered for the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Ely Worcester Westminster Chichester Lincoln and Rochester Sir William Petre Sir Tho. Smith Dr. Cox Dr May and some others three of them being a Quorum to examine and search after all Anabaptists Hereticks or contemners of the Common-Prayer They were to endeavour to reclaim them to enjoyn them Penance and give them Absolution or if they were obstinate to excommunicate and imprison them and to deliver them over to the Secular Power to be farther proceeded against Some Tradesmen in London were brought before these Commissioners in May and were perswaded to abjure their former Opinions which were That a Man regenerate could not sin that though the outward Man sinned the inward Man sinned not That there was no Trinity of Persons That Christ was only a Holy Prophet and not at all God That all we had by Christ was that he taught us the way to Heaven That he took no Flesh of the Virgin and that the Baptism of Infants was not profitable One of those who thus abjured was commanded to carry a Faggot next Sunday at St. Pauls where there should be a Sermon setting forth his Heresie But there was another of these extream obstinate Joan Bocher commonly called Joan of Kent She denied that Christ was truly incarnate of the Virgin whose Flesh being sinful he could take none of it but the Word by the consent of the inward Man in the Virgin took Flesh of her these were her words They took much pains about her and had many Conferences with her but she was so extravagantly conceited of her own Notions that she rejected all they said with scorn whereupon she was adjudged an obstinate Heretick and so left to the Secular Power The Sentence against her will be found in the Collection Collection Number 3● This being returned to the Council the good King was moved to Sign a Warrant for burning her but could not be prevailed on to do it he thought it a piece of cruelty too like that which they had condemned in Papists to burn any for their Consciences And in a long Discourse he had with Sir Jo. Cheek he seemed much confirmed in that Opinion Cranmer was employed to perswade him to Sign the Warrant He argued from the Law of Moses by which Blasphemers were to be stoned He told the King he made a great difference between Errors in other Points of Divinity and those which were directly against the Apostles Creed that these were impieties against God which a Prince as being Gods Deputy ought to punish as the Kings Deputies were obliged to punish offences against the Kings Person These Reasons did rather silence than satisfie the young King who still thought it a hard thing as in truth it was to proceed so sev●rely in such Cases so he set his hand to the Warrant with Tears in his Eyes saying to Cranmer That if he did wrong since it was in submission to his Authority he should answer for it to God This struck the Arch-bishop with much horror so that he was very unwilling to have the Sentence executed And both he and Ridley took the Woman then in custody to their Houses to see if they could perswade her But she continued by Jeers and other Insolencies to carry her self so contemptuously that at last the Sentence was executed on her the second of May the next Year An Anabaptist burnt Bishop Scory preaching at her burning she carried her self then as she had done in the former parts of her Process very undecently and in the end was burnt This Action was much censured as being contrary to the clemency of the Gospel and was made oft use of by the Papists who said it was plain that the Reformers were only against Burning when they were in fear of it themselves The Womans carriage made her be look'd on as a frantick Person fitter for Bedlam than a Stake People had generally believed that all the Statutes for burning Hereticks had been repealed but now when the thing was better considered it was found that the burning of Hereticks was done by the Common Law so that the Statutes made about it were only for making the Conviction more easie and the Repealing the Statutes did not take away that which was grounded on a Writ at Common Law To end all this matter at once two years after this one George Van Pare a Dutch-man being accused for saying that God the Father was only God and that Christ was not very God he was dealt with long to abjure but would not so on the 6th of April 1551. he was condemned in the same manner that Joan of Kent was and on the 25th of April was burnt in Smithfield Another burnt He suffered with great constancy of mind and kissed the Stake and Faggots that were to burn him Of this Pare I find a Popish Writer saying That he was a Man of most wonderful strict Life that he used not to eat above once in two days and before he did eat would lie sometime in his devotion prostrate on the ground All this they made use of to
to emply his Money in the way of Trade or Manufacture for which they were sure to have vent since they lay near Tyre and Sidon that were then the chief Places of Traffick and Navigation of the World and without such Industry the Soil of Judea could not possibly have fed such vast numbers as lived on it So that it seemed clear that this Law in the Old Testament properly belonged to that policy Yet it came to be looked on by many Christians as a Law of perpetual obligation It came also to be made a part of the Canon Law and Absolution could not be given to the breakers of it without a special faculty from Rome But for avoiding the severity of the Law the invention of Mortgages was fallen on which at first were only Purchases made and let back to the owner for such Rent as the use of the Money came to so that the use was taken as the Rent of the Land thus bought And those who had no Land to sell thus fell upon another way The Borrower bought their Goods to be payed within a Year for instance an hundred and ten Pound and sold them back for a Sum to be presently laid down as they should agree it may be a hundred Pound by this means the one had a hundred Pound in hand and the other was to have ten Pound or more at a years end But this being in the way of Sale was not called Usury This Law was look'd on as impossible to be observed in a Country like England and it could not easily appear where the immorality lay of lending Money upon moderate gain such as held proportion to the value of Land provided that the perpetual Rule of Christian Equity and Charity were observed which is not to exact above the proportion duly limited by the Law and to be merciful in not exacting severely of Persons who by inevitable accidents have been disabled from making payment This digression I thought the more necessary because of the scruples that many good and strict Persons have still in that matter Another Act passed both Houses against all Simoniacal Pactions A Bill against Simony the reservation of Pensions out of Benefices and the granting Advowsons while the Incumbent was yet alive It was agreed to by the Lords the Earls of Derby Rutland and Sussex the Viscount Hereford and the Lords Mounteagle Sands Wharton and Evers dissenting But upon what reason I do not know the Bill was not assented to by the King who being then sick there was a Collection made of the Titles of the Bills which were to have the Royal Assent and those the King Signed and gave Commission to some Lords to pass them in his Name These abuses have been oft complained of but there have been still new contrivances found out to elude all Laws against Simony either bargains being made by the Friends of the Parties concerned without their express knowledge or Bonds of Resignation given by which Incumbents lie at the mercy of their Patrons and in these the faultiness of some Clergy-men is made the colour of imposing such hard terms upon others and of robbing the Church oftentimes by that means There was a private Bill put in about the Duke of Somersets Estate which had been by Act of Parliament entailed on his Son in the 23d Year of the last Kings Reign A Repeal of the Entail of the Duke of Somersets Estate On the third of March it was sent to the House of Commons Signed by the King it was for the Repeal of that Act. Whether the King was so alienated from his Unkle that this extraordinary thing was done by him for the utter ruine of his Family or not I cannot determine but I rather incline to think it was done in hatred to the Dutchess of Somerset and her Issue For the Estate was entailed on them by that Act of Parliament in prejudice of the Issue of the former Marriage of whom are descended the Seimours of Devon-shire who were disinherited and excluded from the Duke of Somersets Honours by his Patents and from his Estate by Act of Parliament partly upon some jealousies he had of his former Wife but chiefly by the power his second Wife had over him This Bill of Repeal was much opposed in the House though sent to them in so unusual a way by the King himself And though there was on the 8th of March a Message sent from the Lords that they should make hast towards an end of the Parliament yet still they stuck long upon it looking on the breaking of Entails that were made by Act of Parliament as a thing of such consequence that it dissolved the greatest security that the Law of England gives for property It was long argued by the Commons and was fifteen several days brought in At last a new Bill was devised and that was much altered too it was not quite ended till the day before the Parliament was dissolved But near the end of the Session a Proviso was sent from the Lords to be added to the Bill confirming the Attainder of the Duke and his Complices It seems his Enemies would not try this at first till they had by other things measured their strength in that House and finding their interest grew there they adventured on it but they mistook their measures for the Commons would not agree to it In conclusion the Bill of Repeal was agreed to But whereas there had been some Writings for a Marriage between the Earl of Oxfords Daughter and the Duke of Somersets Son and a Bill was put in for voiding these upon a division of the House the 28th of March there were sixty eight that agreed and sixty nine that rejected it so this Bill was cast out By this we see what a thin House of Commons there was at that time the whole being but 137 Members But this was a natural effect of a long Parliament many of those who were at first chosen being infirm and others not willing to put themselves to the charge and trouble of such constant and long attendance It is also from hence clear how great an interest the Duke of Somerset had in the affections of the Parliament The Commons refuse to attaint the Bishop of Duresme by Bill Another Bill gave a more evident discovery how hateful the Duke of Northumberland was to them The Bishop of Duresme was upon some complaint brought against him of misprision of Treason put into the Tower about the end of December last year What the Particulars were I do not find but it was visible that the secret reason was that he being Attainted the Duke of Northumberland intended to have had the Dignities and Jurisdiction of that Principality conferred on himself so that he should have been made Count Palatine of Duresme Tonstall had in all Points given obedience to every Law and to all the Injunctions that had been made but had always in Parliament protested against the changes in
afraid of burdening her Conscience by assuming that which belonged to them and that she was unwilling to enrich her self by the spoils of others But they told her all that had been done was according to the Law to which all the Judges and Counsellors had set their Hands This joined with their Persuasions and the Importunities of her Husband who had more of his Fathers temper than of her Philosophy in him at length prevailed with her to submit to it Of which her Father-in-Law did afterwards say in Council She was rather by enticement of the Counsellors and force made to accept of the Crown then came to it by her own seeking and request Upon this order was given for proclaiming her Queen the next day And an Answer was writ to Queen Mary signed by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Lord Chancellor the Dukes of Suffolk and Northumberland the Marquesses of Winchester and Northampton the Earls of Arundel Shrewsbury Huntington Bedford and Pembrook the Lords Cobham and Darcy Sir Thomas Cheyney Sir Robert Cotton Sir William Petre Sir William Cecil Sir John Cheek Sir John Mason Sir Edward North and Sir Robert Bowes in all one and twenty Council writes to Q. Mary letting her know That Queen Jane was now their Soveraign according to the Ancient Laws of the Land and the late King's Letters Patents to whom they were now bound by their Allegiance They told her That the Marriage between her Father and Mother was dissolved by the Ecclesiastical Courts according to the Laws of God and of the Land That many noble Universities in Christendom had consented to it That the Sentence had been confirmed in Parliaments and she had been declared illegitimate and uninheritable to the Crown They therefore required her to give over her Pretences and not to disturb the Government and promised that if she shewed her self Obedient she should find them all ready to do her any Service which in Duty they could The day following they proclaimed Queen Jane Lady Jane proclaimed Queen Collection Number 1. The Proclamation will be found in the Collection It sets forth That the late King had by his Letters Patents limited the Crown that it should not descend to his two Sisters since they were both illegitimated by Sentences in the Spiritual Courts and Acts of Parliament and were only his Sisters by the Half-Blood who though it were granted they had been legitimate are not inheritable by the Law of England It was added That there was also great cause to fear that the King's Sisters might marry Strangers and so change the Laws of the Kingdom and subject it to the Tyranny of the Bishops of Rome and other Forreign Laws For these Reasons they were excluded from the Succession and the Lady Frances Dutchess of Suffolk being next the Crown it was provided that if she had no Sons at the death of the King the Crown should devolve immediately on her eldest Daughter Jane and after her and her Issue to her Sisters since she was born within the Kingdom and already married in it Therefore she was proclaimed Queen promising to be most benign and gracious to all her People to maintain God's Holy Word and the Laws of the Land requiring all the Subjects to obey and acknowledg her When this was proclaimed great multitudes were gathered to hear it but there were very few that shouted with the Acclamations ordinary on such Occasions And whereas a Vintner's Boy did some-way express his scorn at that which was done it was ordered that he should be made an Example the next day by being set on a Pillory and having his Ears nail'd to it and cut off from his Head which was accordingly done a Herauld in his Coat reading to the multitude that was called together by sound of Trumpet the nature of his Offence Censures past upon it Upon this all People were in great distraction The Proclamation opening the new Queen's Title came to be variously descanted on Some who thought the Crown descended by right of Blood and that it could not be limited by Parliament argued that the King having his Power from God it was only to descend in the natural way of Inheritance therefore they thought the next Heir was to succeed And whereas the King 's two Sisters were both by several Sentences and Acts of Parliament declared Bastards and whether that was well judged or not they were to be reputed such as the Law declared them to be so long as it stood in force therefore they held that the Queen of Scotland was to succeed who though she pretended this upon Queen Mary's Death yet did not claim now because by the Papal Law the Sentence against Queen Mary was declared Null Others argued that though a Prince were named by an immediate appointment from Heaven yet he might change the course of Succession as David did preferring Solomon before Adonijah But this it was said did not belong to the King 's of England whose right to the Crown with the extent of their Prerogative did not come from any Divine Designation but from a long Possession and the Laws of the Land and that therefore the King might by Law limit the Succession as well as he and other Kings had in some Points limited the Prerogative which was clearly Sir Thomas More 's Opinion and that therefore the Act of Parliament for the Succession of the King's Sisters was still strong in Law It was also said That if the Kin●'● Sisters were to be excluded for Bastardy all Charles Brandon's Issue were in the same predicament since he was not lawfully married to the French Queen his former Wife Mortimer being then alive and his Marriage with her was never dissolved for though some English Writers say they were divorced yet those who wrote for the Queen of Scots Title in the next Reign denied it But in this the difference was great between them since the King's Sisters were declared Bastards in Law whereas this against Charles Brandon's Issue was only a Surmise Others objected That if the Blood gave an Indefeasible Title How came it that the L. Jane's Mother did not Reign It is true Maud the Empress and Margaret Countess of Richmond were satisfied that their Sons Henry the Second and Henry the Seventh should reign in their Rights but it had never been heard of that a Mother had resigned to her Daughter especially when she was yet under Age. But this was imputed to the Duke of Suffolk's weakness and the Ambition of the Duke of Northumberland That Objection concerning the Half-Blood being a Rule of Common Law in the Families of Subjects to cut off from Step-Mothers the Inclinations and Advantages of destroying their Husbands Children was not thought applicable to the Crown Nor was that of Ones being born out of the Kingdom which was hinted at to exclude the Queen of Scotland thought pertinent to this Case since there was an Exception made in the Law for the King's Children which was thought to
any Pardon or restitution in Blood he was still Duke of Norfolk This he had never mentioned all the last Reign lest that should have procured an Act to confirm his Attainder So he came now in upon his former Right by which all the Grants that had been given of his Estate were to be declared void by Common Law The Duke of Northumberland with the Marquess of Northampton and the Earl of Warwick were brought to their Trials The Duke desired two Points might be first answered by the Judges in matter of Law The one Whether a Man acting by the Authority of the Great Seal and the Order of the Privy Council could become thereby guilty of Treason The other was Whether those who had been equally guilty with him and by whose Direction and Commands he had acted could sit his Judges To these the Judges made answer That the Great Seal of one that was not lawful Queen could give no Authority nor Indempnity to those that acted on such a Warrant and that any Peer that was not by an Attainder upon Record convicted of such accession to his Crime might sit his Judg and was not to be challenged upon a Surmise or Report So these Points by which only he could hope to have defended himself And condemned being thus determined against him he confessed he was guilty and submitted to the Queen's Mercy So did the Marquess of Northampton and the Duke's Son the Earl of Warwick who it seems by this Trial had a Writ for sitting in the House of Peers they were all three found guilty Judgment also passed next day in a Jury of Commoners against St. John Gates and his Brother Sir Humphrey Sir Andrew Dudley and Sir Thomas Palmer confessing their Indictments But of all these it was resolved that only the Duke of Northumberlrnd and Sir John Gates and Sir Thomas Palmer should be made Examples Heath Bishop of Worcester was employed to instruct the Duke and to prepare him for his Death At his Death he professes he had been always a Papist Whether he had been always in heart what he then professed or whether he only pretended it hoping that it might procure him favour is variously reported but certain it is that he said he had been always a Catholick in his Heart yet this could not save him He was known to be a Man of that temper so given both to revenge and dissimulation that his Enemies saw it was necessary to put him out of the way lest if he had lived he might have insinuated himself into the Queen's favour and then turn'd the danger upon them So the Earl of Arundel now made Lord Steward of the Houshold with others easily obtained that his Head should be cut off together with Sir John Gates's and Sir Thomas Palmers On the 22d of August he was carried to the Place of Execution On the way there was some expostulation between Gates and him They as is ordinary for Complices in ill Actions laying the blame of their Miseries on one another Yet they professed they did mutually forgive and so died in Charity together It is said that he made a long Speech accusing his former ill Life and confessing his Treasons But that part of it which concerned Religion is only preseved In it he exhorted the People to stand to the Religion of their Ancestors and to reject that of latter date which had occasioned all the misery of the foregoing thirty Years and desired as they would prevent the like for the future that they would drive out of the Nation these Trumpets of Sedition the new Preachers that for himself what-ever he had otherwise pretended he believed no other Religion than that of his fore-fathers in which he appealed to his Ghostly Father the Bishop of Worcester then present with him but being blinded with Ambition he had made wreck of his Conscience by temporising for which he professed himself sincerely penitent So did he and the other two end their days Palmer was little pittied as being believed a treacherous Conspirator against his former Master and Friend the Duke of Somerset His Character Thus died the ambitious Duke of Northumberland He had been in the former parts of his Life a great Captain and had the reputation of a wise Man He was generally successful and they that are so are always esteemed wise He was an extraordinary Man in a lower size but had forgot himself much when he was raised higher in which his Mind seemed more exalted than his Fortunes But as he was transported by his Rage and Revenge out of measure so he was as servile and mean in his Submissions Fox it seems was informed that he had hopes given him of his Life if he should declare himself to be of the Popish Religion even though his Head were laid on the Block but which way soever he made that Declaration either to get his Life by it or that he had really been always what he now professed it argued that he regarded Religion very little either in his Life or at his Death But whether he did any thing to hasten the late King's Death I do not find it was at all enquired after Only those who considered how much Guilt disorders all People and that they have a black Cloud over their Minds which appears either in the violence of Rage or the abjectness of Fear did find so great a change in his deportment in these last Passages of his Life from what was in the former parts of it that they could not but think there was some extraordinary thing within him from whence it flowed King Edwards Funeral And for King Edward's Death those who had Affairs now in their Hands were so little careful of his Memory and indeed so glad of his Death that it is no wonder they made little search about it It is rather strange that they allowed him such Funeral Rites For the Queen kept a solemn Exequie with all the other Remembrances of the Dead and Masses for him used in the Roman Church at the Tower on the 8th of August the same day that he was buried at Westminster the Lord Treasurer who was the Marquess of Winchester still continued in that Trust the Earls of Shrewsbury and Pembrook being the principal Mourners Day that was now to be restored to his See of Chichester was appointed to preach the Funeral Sermon In which he commended and excused the King but loaded his Government severely and extolled the Queen much under vvhom he promised the People happy days It was intended that all the Burial Rites should have been according to the old Forms that were before the Reformation But Cranmer opposed this vigorously and insisted upon it That as the King himself had been a zealous promoter of that Reformation so the English Service was then established by Law upon this he stoutly hindred any other way of officiating and himself performed all the Offices of the Burial to which he joined the solemnity
of vertue and that it was an encouragement for sensual Persons to practise by false allegations that they might be separated from their Wives rather then a Precedent to induce People to live with their Wives in a godly sort thereupon the Act was repealed and declared void and of no effect In this it seems the Arguments that were against it in the House of Commons had so moderated the Stile of it that it was not repealed as an Act sinful in it self but it was only declared that in that particular case the Divorce was unlawfully made for it is reasonable to believe that the Bishops had pu● in the first draught of the Bill a simple repeal of it and of all such Divorces founded on the indissolubleness of the Marriage Bond. And the Duke of Norfolks Attainder The other Act was about the Duke of Norfolk for declaring his Attainder void The Patentees that had purchased some parts of his Estate from the Crown desired to be heard to plead against it But the Session of the Parliament being near at an end the Duke came down himself to the House of Commons on the 4th of December and desired them earnestly to pass his Bill and said that the difference between him and the Patentees was referred to Arbiters and if they could not agree it he would refer it to the Queen It was long argued after that but in the end it was agreed to It sets forth that the Act by which he was Attainted had no special matter in it but only Treasons in general and a pretence that out of the Parliaments care for the King and his Son the Prince it was necessary to attaint him That the Reasons they pretended were his using Coats of Arms which he and his Ancestors had and might lawfully use It further says That the King died the next night after the Commission was given for passing the Bill and that it did not appear that the King had given his Assent to it That the Commission was not signed by the King's hand but only by his Stamp and that was put to the neather end and not to the upper part of the Bill which shewed it was done in disorder and that it did not appear that these commissioned for it had given the Royal Assent to it Upon which Considerations that pretended Act is declared void and null by the common Laws of the Land And it is further declared That the Law was and ever hath been that the Royal Assent should be given either by the King being present or in his absence by a Commission under the Great Seal signed with his hand and publickly notified to the Lords and Commons The last Act of which I shall give an account was the Confirmation of the Attainders that had been made On the 3d of November Cranmer and others attainted Arch-Bishop Cranmer the Lord Guilford Dudley and the Lady Jane his Wife with two other Sons of the Duke of Northumberland which were all except the Lord Robert who was reserved for greater Fortunes were brought to their Trial. These all confessed their Endictments Only Cranmer appealed to those that judged him how unwillingly he had consented to the exclusion of the Queen that he had not done it till those whose profession it was to know the Law had signed it upon which he submitted himself to the Queen's Mercy But they were all attainted of High-Treason for levying War against the Queen and conspiring to set up another in her room So these Judgments with those that had passed before were now confirmed by Act of Parliament And now Cranmer was legally devested of his Arch-Bishoprick But the See of Canterbury is not declared void which was hereupon void in Law since a Man that is attainted can have no right to any Church-Benefice his Life was also at the Queen's Mercy But it being now designed to restore the Ecclesiastical Exemption and Dignity to what it had been anciently it was resolved that he should be still esteemed Archbishop till he were solemnly degraded according to the Canon Law The Queen was also inclined to give him his Life at this time reckoning that thereby she was acquitted of all the Obligations she had to him and was resolved to have him proceeded against for Heresy that so it might appear she did not act out of revenge or on any personal account So all that followed on this against Cranmer was a Sequestration of all the Fruits of his Arch-Bishoprick himself was still kept in Prison Nor were the other Prisoners proceeded against at this time The Queen was desirous to seem willing to pardon Injuries done against her self but was so heated in the Matters of Religion that she was always inexorable on that Head Having given this Account of Publick Transactions I must relate next what were more secretly carried on but breaking out at this time occasioned the sudden Dissolution of the Parliament Cardinal Dandino The Queen treats about a Reconciliation with Rome that was then the Pope's Legate at the Emperor's Court sent over Commendone afterwards a Cardinal to bring him a certain Account of the Queen's Intentions concerning Religion he gave him in charge to endeavour to speak with her in private and to persuade her to reconcile her Kingdom to the Apostolick See This was to be managed with great secrecy for they did not know whom to trust in so important a Negotiation It seems they neither confided in Gardiner nor in any of the other Bishops Commendone being thus instructed went to Newport where he gave himself out to be the Nephew of a Merchant that was lately dead at London and hired two Servants to whom he was unknown and so he came over unsuspected to London There he was so much a Stranger that he did not know to whom he should address himself By accident he met with one Lee a Servant of the Queen's that had fled beyond Sea during the former Reign and had been then known to him so he trusted him with the Secret of his Business in England He procured him a secret Audience of the Queen in which she freely owned to him her Resolution of reconciling her Kingdom to the See of Rome and so of bringing all things back to the state in which they had been before the Breach made by her Father but she said It was absolutely necessary to manage that Design with great Prudence and Secresy lest in that Confusion of Affairs the discovery of it might much disturb her Government and obstruct her Design She writ by him to the Pope giving him assurance of her filial Obedience and so sent Commendone to Rome She also writ by him to Cardinal Pool and ordered Commendone to move the Pope that he might be sent over with a Legatine Power Yet he that writ that Cardinal's Life insinuates that the Queen had another design in desiring that Pool might be sent over for she ask'd him Whether the Pope might not dispence with the
had yet received of him only 300000 Crowns but he had good security for the rest and the Merchants were bound to pay him 100000 lib. Sterling and therefore he demanded a little more time of them All this was printed soon after at Strasburgh by the English there in a Book which they sent over to England in which both the Address made by the Commons in Parliament and this Answer of the Emperour 's to the Towns is mentioned And that whole Discourse which is in the form of an Address to the Queen the Nobility and the Commons is written with such gravity and simplicity of Stile that as it is by much the best I have seen of this time so in these publick Transactions there is no reason to think it untrue For the things which it relates are credible of themselves and though the sum there mentioned was very great yet he that considers that England was to be bought with it will not think it an extraordinary price In that Discourse it is further said that as Gardiner corrupted many by Bribes so in the Court of Chancery Common Justice was denied to all but those who came into these Designs Having thus given an account of what was done in the Parliament I shall next shew how the Convocation proceeded The Proceedings of the Convocation Bonner being to preside in it as being the first Bishop of the Province of Canterbury appointed John Harpsfield his Chaplain to preach who took his Text out of the twentieth of the Acts verse 20 Feed the Flock He run out in his bidding Prayers most profusely on the Queens Praises comparing her to Deborah and Esther with all the servilest flatteries he could invent next he bid them pray for the Lady Elizabeth but when he came to mention the Clergy he enlarged in the praises of Bonner Gardiner Tonstal Heath and Day so grosly that it seems the strains of flattering Church-men at that time were very course and he run out so copiously in them as if he had been to deliver a Panegyrick and not to bid the Beads In his Sermon he inveighed against the late Preachers for not observing Fasts nor keeping Lent and for their Marriages which he severely condemned Weston Dean of Westminster was presented Prolocutor by the lower House Disputes concerning the Sacrament and approved of by Bonner Whether any of the Bishops that had been made in King Edwards time sat among them I do not know But in the lower House there was great opposition made There had been care taken that there should be none returned to the Convocation but such as would comply in all points But yet there came six Non-compliers who being Deans or Arch-Deacons had a right to sit in the Convocation These were Philpot Archdeacon of Winchester Philips Dean of Rochester Haddon Dean of Exeter Cheyney Arch-deacon of Hereford Ailmer Arch-deacon of Stow and Young Chanter of St. Davids Weston the Prolocuter proposed to them on the 18th of October that there had been a Catechism printed in the last year of King Edwards Reign in the name of that Synod and as he understood it was done without their consents which was a pestiferous Book and full of Heresies There was likewise a very abominable Book of Common Prayer set out it was therefore the Queens pleasure that they should prepare such Laws about Religion as she would ratifie with her Parliament So he proposed that they should begin with condemning those Books particularly the Articles in them contrary to the Sacrament of the Altar and he gave out two questions about it Whether in the Sacrament upon the Sanctification of the Bread and Wine all their substance did not vanish being changed into the Body and Blood of Christ and Whether the natural Body of Christ was not corporally present in the Eucharist either by the Transubstantiation of the Elements into his Body and Blood or by the Conjunction of Concomitance as some expressed it The House was adjourned till the 20th on which day every Man was appointed to give in his Answer to these Questions All answered and subscribed in the affirmative except the six before mentioned Philpot said whereas it was given out that the Catechism was was not approved by the Convocation though it was printed in their name it was a mistake for the Convocation had authorised a number of Persons to set forth Ecclesiastical Laws to whom they had committed their Synodal Authority So that they might well set out such Books in the name of the Convocation He also said that it was against all order to move Men to subscribe in such points before they were examined and since the number of these on the one side was so unequal to those on the other side he desired that Dr. Ridley Mr. Rogers and two or three more might be allowed to come to the Convocation This seemed very reasonable So the lower House proposed it to the Bishops They answered that these persons being Prisoners they could not bring them but they should move the Council about it A Message also was sent from some great Lords that they intended to hear the Disputation so the House adjourned till the 23d There was then a great appearance of Noblemen and others The Prolocutor began with a Protestation that by this Dispute they did not intend to call the Truth in doubt to which they had all subscribed but they did it only to satisfie the objections of those few who refused to concur wtih them But it was denied to let any Prisoners or others assist them for it was said that that being a Dispute among those of the Convocation none but Members were to be heard in it Haddon and Ailmer foreseeing they should be run down with clamour and noise refused to dispute Young went away Cheyney being next spoke to did propose his Objections that St. Paul calls the Sacrament Bread after the Consecration that Origen said it went into the Excrement and Theodoret said the Bread and Wine did not in the Sacrament depart from their former Substance Form and Shape Moreman was called on to answer him He said that St. Paul calling it Bread was to be understood thus the Sacrament or Form of Bread To Origens Authority he answered nothing but to Theodoret he said the word they render Substance stood in a more general signification and so might signifie accidental Substance Upon this Ailmer who had resolved not to Dispute could not contain himself but said the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not be so understood for the following words of Form and Shape belonged to the Accidents but that only belonged to the Substance of the Elements Upon this there followed a Contest about the signification of that word Then Philpot struck in and said the occasion of Theodorets writing plainly shewed that was a vain Cavil for the Dispute was with the Eutychians whether the Body and humane Nature of Christ had yet an Existence distinct from the Divine
Recorder of London told the Earl of Leicester the secret of this in Queen Elizabeth's Time who writ down his Discourse and from thence I have copied it There was one that had been Cromwell's Servant and much employed by him in the suppression of Monasteries he was a Man of great Notions but very busy and factious so having been a great stickler for the Lady Jane he was put in the Fleet upon the Queen's first coming to the Crown yet within a month he was discharged but upon the last Rising was again put up and indicted of High Treason He had great Friends and made application to one of the Emperor's Ambassadors that was then the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Milan and by his means he obtained his Liberty Being brought to him he shewed him a new Plat-form of Government which he had contrived for the Queen She was to declare her self a Conqueror or that she having succeeded to the Crown by Common Law was not at all to be limited by the Statute Laws since those were only restrictions upon the Kings but not on the Queens of England and that therefore all those Limitations of the Prerogative were only binding in the Persons of Kings but she was free from them Upon this he shewed how she might establish Religion set up the Monasteries raise her Friends and ruin her Enemies and Rule according to her Pleasure The Ambassador carried this to the Queen and seemed much pleased with it but desired her to read it carefully and keep it as a great Secret As she read it she disliked it and judged it contrary to the Oath she had made at her Coronation and thereupon sent for Gardiner and charged him as he would answer before the Judgment-Seat of God at the general Day of the Holy Doom that he would consider the Book carefully and bring her his Opinion of it next day which fell to be Maundy Thursday So as the Queen came from her Maundy he waited on her into her Closet and said these words My good and most gracious Lady I intend not to pray your Highness with any humble Petitions to name the Devisers of this new invented Plat-form but here I say That it is pity that so noble and vertuous a Lady should be endangered with the pernicious Devices of such lewd and subtil Sycophants for the Book is naught and most horrible to be thought on Upon this the Queen thanked him and threw the Book into the Fire and charged the Ambassador that neither he nor any of his Company should receive more such Projects from any of her People This made Gardiner apprehended that if the Spaniards began so soon to put such Notions into the Queen's Head they might afterwards when she was in their Hands make somewhat of them and therefore to prevent such Designs for the future he drew the Act in which though he seemed to do it as an Advantage to the Queen for the putting of her Title beyond dispute yet he really intended nothing by it but that she should be restrained by all those Laws that the former Kings of England had consented to And because King Henry the Seventh though his best right to the Crown flowed from his Marriage to the Heir of the House of York had yet taken the Government wholly into his own hands he fearing lest the Spaniards should pretend to such a Power by the Authority which Marriage gives the Husband over the Wife got the Articles of the Marriage to be ratified in Parliament by which they not only confirmed those agreed on but made a more full explanation of that part of them which declared the entire Government of the Kingdom to belong only to the Queen To this the Spaniards gave too great an occasion Great Jealousies of the Spanish Power by publishing King Philip's Pedigree whom they derived from John of Gaunt They said this was only done to conciliate the favour of the Nation by representing him not a stranger but a Native But this gave great offence concerning which I have seen a little Book that vvas then printed It was there said That King Henry the Seventh came in pretending only to marry the Heir of the House of York But he was no sooner on the Throne than he declared his own Title and kept it his whole Life So it vvas said the Spaniard vvould call himself Heir of the House of Lancaster and upon that Pretension would easily wrest the Power out of the Queen's hands who seemed to mind nothing but her Devotions This made Gardiner look the better to the securing of the Liberties of the Crown and Nation so that it must be acknowledged that the preserving of England out of the hands of the Spaniards at that time seems to be almost vvholly owing to him In this Parliament the Marquess of Northampton vvas restored in Blood And the Act for restoring the Bishoprick of Duresm The Bishoprick of Duresm restored not having gone through the last Parliament vvhen it vvas dissolved vvas now brought in again The Town of Newcastle opposed it much vvhen it came down to the Commons But the Bishop of Duresm came to them on the 18th of April and gave them a long account of all his Troubles from the Duke of Northumberland and desired that they would dispatch his Bill There vvere many Proviso's put into it for some that vvere concerned in Gateside but it vvas carried in the House That instead of these Proviso's they should send a Desire to him recommending those Persons to his Favour So upon a Division there vvere 120 against it and 201 for it After this came the Bill confirming the Attainders of the Duke of Suffolk and fifty eight more vvho vvere attainted for the late Rebellion The Lords put in a Proviso excepting Entailed Lands out of their Forfeitures but the Commons rejected the Proviso and passed the Bill Then did the Commons send up a Bill for reviving the Statutes made against Lollardy vvhich being read twice by the Lords vvas laid aside The Commons intended next to have revived the Statute of the Six Articles but it did not agree vvith the Design at Court to take any notice of King Henry's Acts so this vvas let fall Then they brought in another Bill to extirpate Erroneous Opinions and Books but that vvas at the third reading laid aside After that they passed a particular Bill against Lollardy in some Points as the eating of flesh in Lent but that also being sent up to the Lords was at the third reading laid aside by the major part of the House so forward were the Commons to please the Queen or such Operation had the Spanish Gold on them that they contrived four Bills in one Session for the prosecution of those they called Hereticks But to give some content on the other hand they passed a Bill that neither the Bishop of Rome nor any other should have any Power to Convene or trouble any for possessing Abbey Lands This was sent up to
their Tongues immediatly so they to avoid that butchery promised to obey those cruel Orders The manner of Hooper's death Reflections made on Hooper's Death made those who judged too critically of Divine Providences reflect on the dissension that had been raised by him about the Vestments as if he who had kindled that fire had suffered now more than ordinary for that reason But all that difference was at an end before this for Ridley and he between whom there had been the greatest animosity becoming Partners in the same sufferings were perfectly reconciled to each other He writ twice to Ridley who writ him an answer as soon as he could convey it in which he declared how intirely he was knit to him tho in some circumstances of Religion they had formerly Jarred a little it was Hoopers wisdom and his own simplicity that had divided them every one following the abundance of his own sence but now he assured him that in the Bowels of Christ he loved him in the Truth and for the Truth He encouraged him to prepare for the day of his dissolution after which they should triumph together in eternal Glory he expressed great Joy for what he heard of Cranmers godly and fatherly constancy whose integrity and uprightness gravity and innocence was known to the whole Nation and he blessed God that had given in his reverend old age such a Man to be the witness of his Truth for miserable and hard-hearted was he whom the Godliness and constant confession of so worthy so grave and so innocent a man would not move to acknowledg and confess his Truth It had been happy if the fires that consumed those good Men had put an end to these Contests and if those that have been since engaged in the like will reflect more on the sense they had of them when they were now preparing for Eternity than on the heats they were put in concerning them when perhaps ease and plenty made their Passions keener they may from thence be reduced to have more moderate thoughts of such matters If the English Nation was dissatisfied with what was done since the beginning of this Reign These Burnings were disliked by the Nation it cannot be imagined but their discontent received a great encrease by what was now acted Those that favoured the Reformation were awakened to have more serious thoughts about it since they saw those that had preached it dyed so patiently and resolutly rather than they would deny it It begot in them greater tenderness to their memories and a more violent aversion to their Persecutors The rest of the Nation that neither knew nor valued Religion much yet were startled at the severity and strangeness of these proceedings and being naturally of relenting and compassionate Tempers were highly disaffected to the King from whom they believed that this flowed The Queen had before declared she would force no body in these points so they thought it not reasonable nor decent to charge her with it Gardiner with the other Bishops and Privy Councelours had openly in Court purged themselves of it and laid it on the Queen being therein more careful of their own credit than of her honour so now it could fall no where but on the King the sowreness of whose temper together with his bigotry for that Religion made it reasonable enough to impute it to him besides he had been bred in Spain where the Inquisition was let loose on all that were suspected of Heresie without any restraint and his Father had during his whole Reign been always as far as he safely could be a persecutor of Protestants Philip could not but see that all was cast on him The King purges himself of them and understanding that thereby he should become unacceptable to the Nation and so not be able to carry on his Design of making himself Master of England he was something concerned to clear himself of these Imp●●ations Therefore Alphonsus a Franciscan Friar that was his Confessor in a Sermon before him on the 10th of February preached largely against the taking away of Peoples lives for Religion and in plain terms inveighed against the Bishops for doing it he said they had not learned it in Scripture which taught Bishops in the spirit of meekness to instruct those that opposed them and not to burn them for their Consciences This startled the Bishops since it was novv plain But they are prosecuted by the Clergy that the Spaniards disovvned these extream courses and hereupon there vvas a stop for several weeks put to any further severities But the Popish Clergy being once engaged in blood have been always observed to become the most brutally cruel of any sort of men so that it was not easie to restrain them and therefore they resolved rather than the Hereticks should not be prosecuted any further to take the blame of it avowedly on themselves There was at this time a Petition Printed A Petition against Persecution and sent over from some beyond Sea to the Queen in which they set before her the danger of her being carried away by a blind zeal to persecute the members of Christ as St. Paul was before his conversion They put her in mind how Cranmer had preserved her in her Fathers time so that she had more reason to believe he loved her and would speak truth to her than all the rest of her Clergy whom they compared to be Jezabel's Prophets They gathered many Passages out of Gardiner's Bonner's and Tonstal's Writings against the Pope's Supremacy and her Mother's Marriage and shewed that they were Men that by their own confession had no conscience in them but measured their Actions and Professions by their Fears and Interests and averred that it was known that many of that Faction did openly profess that if they lived in Turkey they would comply with the Religion of the Country They said that the Turks did tolerate Christians and the Christians did in most places suffer Jews but the Persecution now set on foot was like that which the Scribes and Pharisees raised against the Apostles for they then pretended that they had been once of their Religion and so were Apostates and Hereticks They also said but by a common mistak● That the first Law for Burning in England was made by Henry t●● Fourth who to gratify the Bishops that had helped him to depose Ki●● Richard the Second and to advance himself to the Throne 〈◊〉 were in recompence of that Service had granted them that Law● which was both against all humanity and more particularly against the mercifulness of the Christian Religion They remembred her that in King Edward's Time none of the Papists had been so used and in conclusion they told her She was trusted by God with the Sword for the protection of her People as long as they did well and was to answer to him for their Blood if she thus delivered them to the Mercy of such Wolves From the Queen the
Reformation from its first and small beginnings in England till it came to a compleat settlement in the time of this Queen Of whose Reign if I have adventured to give any Account it was not intended so much for a full Character of Her and her Councils as to set out the great and vissible Blessings of God that attended on her the many Preservations she had and that by such signal Discoveries as both sav'd her Life and secured her Government and the unusual happiness of her whole Reign which raised her to the Esteem and Envy of that Age and the Wonder of all Posterity It was wonderful indeed that a Virgin Queen could rule such a Kingdom for above 44 Years with such constant success in so great tranquility at Home with a vast encrease of Wealth and with such Glory abroad All which may justly be esteem-to have been the Rewards of Heaven crowning that Reign with so much Honour and Triumph that was begun with the Reformation of Religion The end of the third Book and of the History of the Reformation of the Church of England THE TABLE OF THE CONTENTS Of the Second Part of the History of the Reformation of the CHURCH of England BOOK I. Of the Life and Reign of King Edward the Sixth 1547. K. Edward's Birth and Baptism pag. 1 His Education and Temper pag. 2 Cardan's Character of him ibid. A design to create him Prince of Wales pag. 3 King Henry dies and he succeeds ibid. King Henry's Will ibid. Debate about choosing a Protector pag. 4 The Earl of Hartford is chosen pag. 5 It is declared in Council ibid. The Bishops take out Commissions pag. 6 Reasons for a Creation of Peers ibid. Affairs of Scotland pag. 8 Lay men in Ecclesiastical Dignities ibid. Images taken away in a Church in London pag. 9 The progress of Image-Worship ibid. Many pull down Images pag. 11 Gardiner is offended at it ibid. The Protector writes about it ibid. Gardiner writes to Ridley about them pag. 12 Commissions to the Justices of Peace pag. 13 The form of Coronation changed ibid. King Henry's Burial ibid. Soul-Masses examined pag. 14 A Creation of Peers pag. 15 The King is crowned ibid. The Lord Chancellor is turned out ibid. The Protector made by Patent pag. 17 The Affairs of Germany pag. 19 Ferdinand made K. of the Romans ibid. The Diet at Spire ibid Emperor makes Peace with France and with the Turk pag. 20 And sets about the ruin of the Protest ibid. Protestant Princes meet at Frankfort pag. 21 D. of Sax and Land of Hesse Arm pag. 22 Peace between England and France pag. 23 Francis the first dies ibid. A Reformation set about in England pag. 24 A Visitation resolved on pag. 26 Some Homilies compiled pag. 27 Injunctions for the Visitation pag. 28 Injunctions for the Bishops pag. 29 Censures passed upon them ibid. Protector goes into Scotland pag. 31 Scotland said to be Subject to England ib. Protector enters Scotland pag. 33 Makes Offers to the Scots ibid. The Scots Defeat at Musselburgh pag. 34 Protector returns to England pag. 35 The Visitors execute the Injunctions pag. 36 Bonner Protests and Recants ibid. Gardiner would not obey ibid. His Reasons against them ibid. He complains to the Protector pag. 38 The Lady Mary complains also pag. 39 The Protector writes to her ibid. The Parliament meets ibid. An Act repealing severe Laws pag. 40 An Act about the Communion pag. 41 Communion in both kinds ibid. Private Masses put down pag. 42 An Act about the admission of Bishops pag. 43 Ancient ways of electing Bishops ibid. An Act against Vagabonds pag. 45 Chauntries given to the King ibid. Acts proposed but not passed pag. 46 The Convocation meets pag. 47 And makes some Petitions ibid. The Clergie desire to have Representatives in the House of Commons ibid. The Grounds of that pag. 48 The Affairs of Germany pag. 50 Duke of Saxe taken ibid. The Archbishop of Colen resigns pag. 51 A Decree made in the Diet pag. 52 Proceedings at Trent ibid. The Council removed to Boloign pag. 53 The French quarrel about Buloign ibid. The Protector and the Admiral fall out pag. 54 1548. Gardiner is set at liberty pag. 55 M●rq of Northampton sues a Divorce pag. 56 The Arguments for it pag. 57 A Progress in the Reformation pag. 58 Proclamation against Innovation pag. 59 All Images taken away pag. 60 Restraints put on Preachers pag. 61 Some Bishops and Doctors examine the Publick Offices and Prayers ibid. Corruptions in the Office of the Commun pag. 62 A new Office for the Communion pag. 64 It is variously censured pag. 65 Auricular Confession left indifferent ibid. Chauntry Lands sold pag. 67 Gardiner falls into new Troubles pag. 68 He is ordered to preach pag. 69 But gives offence and is imprisoned pag. 70 A Catechism set out by Cranmer pag. 71 A further reformation of public Offices ibid. A new Liturgie resolved upon pag. 72 The Changes made in it pag. 73 Preface to it pag. 79 Reflections made on it ibid. All preaching forbid for a time pag. 81 Affairs of Scotland ibid. The Queen of Scots sent to France pag. 82 The Siege of Hadingtoun ibid. A Fleet sent against Scotland pag. 83 But without success ibid. The Siege of Hadingtoun raised pag. 84 Discontents in Scotland pag. 85 The Affairs of Germany ibid. The Book of the Interim pag. 86 Both sides offended at it ibid. Calvin writes to the Protector pag. 88 Bucer writes against Gardiner ibid. A Session of Parliament ibid. Act for the Marriage of the Clergie pag. 89 Which was much debated ibid. Arguments for it from Scripture ibid. And from the Fathers pag. 90 The Reasons against it examined pag. 91 An Act confirming the Liturgie pag. 93 Censures passed upon it pag. 94 The singing of Psalms set up ibid. 1549. An Act about Fasts pag. 95 Some Bills that did not pass pag. 96 A design of digesting the Common Law into a Body ibid. The Admiral 's Attainder pag. 97 He was sent to the Tower ibid. The Matter referred to the Parliament pag. 99 The Bill against him passed ibid. The Warrant for his Execution pag. 100 It is signed by Cranmer ibid. Censures upon that ibid. Subsidies granted pag. 101 A New Visitation ibid. All obey the Laws except Lady Mary pag. 103 A Treaty of Marriage for her ibid. The Council required her to obey pag. 104 Christ's Presence in the Sacrament examined ibid. Publick Disputations about it pag. 105 The manner of the Presence explained pag. 107 Proceedings against Anabaptists pag. 110 Of these there were two sorts ibid. Two of them burnt pag. 112 Which was much censured ibid. Disputes concerning Infant Baptism ibid. Predestination much abused pag. 113 Tumults in England ibid. Some are soon quieted pag. 114 The Devonshire Rebellion pag. 115 Their Demands ibid. An Answer sent to them pag. 116 They make new Demands pag. 117 Which are rejected ibid. The Norfolk Rebellion ibid. The Yorkshire Rebellion pag. 118
the Arch-Bishop begin Te Deum Laudamus which done the Arch-Bishop shall say unto the King Sta retine a modo locum And the King being thus set all the Peers of the Realm and Bishops holding up their Hands shall make unto him Homage as followeth first the Lord Protector alone then the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor so two and two as they be placed J. N. become your Liege Man of Life and Limb and of earthly Worship and Faith and Truth I shall bear unto you against all manner of Folks as I am bound by my Allegiance and by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm So help us God and Allhallowes And then every one shall kiss the King 's left Cheek which done all they holding up their hands together in token of their Fidelity shall with one Voice on their knees say We offer to sustain and defend you and your Crown with our Lives and Lands and Goods against all the World And then with one Voice to cry God save King Edward which the People shall cry accordingly Then shall the King be led to his Travers to hear the High Mass and so depart home crowned in Order as he set forth accordingly E. Hertford T. Cantuarien Tho. Wriothesley Cancel W. St. John J. Russel John Lisle Cuth Duresme Anthony Brown W. Paget Anthony Denny W. Herbert Number 5. The Commission for which the Lord Chancellor was deprived of his Office with the Opinion of the Judges concerning it Ex Libro Concilii Fol. 49. EDwardus sextus Dei Gratia Angliae Franciae Hiberniae Rex Fidei Defensor in terra Ecclesiae Anglicanae Hiberniae supremum Caput dilectis fidelibus Consiliariis suis Roberto Southwell Militi custodi ac Magistro Rotulorum Cancellariae nostrae Johanni Tregonwell Armigero uni Magistrorum Cancellariae nostrae praedictae dilectis sibi Johanni Olyver Clerico Antonio Bellasis Clerico Magistris ejusdem Cancellariae nostrae salutem Quia praedilectus fidelis consanguineus noster Thomas Comes Southampton Cancellarius noster Angliae nostris arduis negotiis ex mandato nostro continuo intendens in eisdem adeo versatur quod ad ea quae in Curia Cancellariae nostrae in causis materiis inter diversos ligeos subditos nostros ibidem pendentibus tractand audiend discutiend terminand Sicut ut fieri debeant ad presens non sufficiat volentes proinde in ejusdem Cancellarii nostri absentia omnibus ligeis subditis nostris quibuscunque quascunque materias suas in Curia Cancellariae nostrae praedictae prosequentibus plenam celerem justitiam exhiberi ac de fidelitatibus providis circumspectionibus vestris plenius confidentes assignavimus vos tres duos vestrum ac tenore praesentium damus vobis tribus duobus plenam potestatem autoritatem audiendi examinandi quascunque materias causas Petitiones coram nobis in Cancellaria nostra inter quoscunque ligeos subditos nostros nunc pendentes in posterum ibidem exhibend pendend easdem materias causas Petitiones juxta sanas vestras discretiones finaliter terminand debitae executioni demandand partesque in materiis sive causis vel Petitionibus illis nominatis specificatis ad testes alios quoscunque quos vobis fore videbitur evocandos quoties expedire videbitis coram vobis tribus vel duobus vestrum evocandos ipsos eorum quemlibet debite examinari compellend diesque productorios imponend assignand processusque quoscunque in ea parte necessarios concedend fieri faciend contemptus etiam quoscunque ibidem commissos sive perpetratos debite castigand puniend caeteraque omnia singula faciend exequend quae circa praemissa necessaria fuerint seu quomodolibet opportuna Et ideo vobis mandamus quod circa promissa diligenter attendatis ac ea faciatis exequamini cum effectu Mandamus etiam tenore praesentium omnibus singulis Officiariis Ministris nostris curiae nostrae praedictae quod vobis tribus duobus vostrum in executione praemissorum diligenter intendant prout decet Volumus enim per praesentes concedimus quod omnia singula judicia sive finalia decreta per vos tres vel duos vestrū super hujusmodi causis sive materiis reddend seu fiend sicut esse debeant tanti consimilis valoris effectus efficaciae roboris virtutis ac si per Dominum Cancellarium Angliae Curiae Cancellariae praedictae reddita seu reddenda forent proviso semper quod omnia singula hujusmodi judicia seu finalia decreta per vos tres vel duos vestrum virtute praesentium reddend seu fiend manibus vestris trium vel duorum vestrum subscribantur consignentur superinde eadem judicia sive decreta praefato Cancellario nostro praesententur liberentur ut idem Cancellarius noster antequam irrotulentur eadem similiter manu sua consignet In cujus rei testimonium has literas nostras fieri fecimus Patentes Teste meipso apud Westmonast 18 die Feb. Anno Regni nostri primo THE said Students referring to the consideration of the said Protector and Council what the granting out of the said Commission without warrant did weigh Forasmuch as the said Protector and Council minding the surety of the King's Majesty and a direct and upright proceeding in his Affairs and the observation of their Duties in all things as near as they can to his Majesty with a desire to avoid all things which might offend his Majesty or his Laws and considering that the said Commission was none of the things which they in their Assemblies in Council at any time since the Death of the King's Majesty late deceased did accord to be passed under the Great Seal have for their own Discharges required us whose Names be under-written for the Opinion they have of our knowledge and experience in the Laws of this Realm to consider the said Case of making of the said Commission without warrant and after due consideration thereof to declare in writing to what the said Case doth weigh in Law We therefore whose Names be under-written after mature and advised consultation and deliberation thereupon do affirm and say for our Knowledges and Determinations That the said Chancellor of England having made forth under the Great Seal of England without any Warrant the Commission aforesaid hath done and doth by his so doing offend the King's Majesty hath and doth by the Common Law forfeit his Office of Chancellor and incurreth the Danger Penalty and Paiment of such Fine as it shall please the King's Majesty with the advise of the said Lord Protector and Council to set upon him for the same with also Imprisonment of his Body at the King's Will In Witness whereof we have set our Names to this Present the last day of February in the first Year of the Reign of our
never defame them so much to be seen to fear it And of what strength an Act of Parliament is the Realm was taught in the case of her that we called Queen Ann where all such as spake against her in the Parliament-House although they did it by special Commandment of the King and spake that was truth yet they were fain to have a Pardon because that speaking was against an Act of Parliament Did you never know or here tell of any Man that for doing that the King our late Soveraign Lord willed devised and required to be done He that took pains and was commanded to do it was fain to sue for his Pardon and such other also as were doers in it and I could tell who it were Sure there hath been such a Case and I have been present when it hath been reasoned That the doing against an Act of Parliament excuseth not a Man even from the Case of Treason although a Man did it by the King's Commandment You can tell this to your remembrance when you think further of it and when it cometh to your remembrance you will not be best content with your self I believe to have advised me to enter the breach of an Act of Parliament without surety of Pardon although the King command it and were such indeed as it were no matter to do it at all And thus I answer the Letters with worldly civil Reasons and take your Mind and Zeal towards me to be as tender as may be and yet you see that the following of your Advice might make me lose my Bishoprick by mine own Act which I am sure you would I should keep and so would I as might stand with my Truth and Honesty and none otherwise as knoweth God who send you heartily well to fare Number 14. The Conclusion of Gardiner's Letter to the Protector against the lawfulness of the Injunctions Cotton Libr. Vesp D. 18. VVHether the King may command against the Common Law or an Act of Parliament there is never a Judg or other Man in the Realm ought to know more by experience of that the Lawyers have said than I. First My Lord Cardinal had obtained his Legacy by our late Soveraign Lord's Request at Rome yet being it was against the Laws of the Realm the Judges censured the Offence of Premunire which Matter I bore away and take it for a Law of the Realm because the Lawyers said so but my Reason digested it not The Lawyers for the confirmation of their Doings brought in a Case of my Lord Typtest an Earl he was and learned in Civil Laws who being Chancellor because in execution of the King's Commission he offended the Laws of the Realm he suffered on Tower-Hill they brought in the Examples of many Judges that had Fines set on their Heads in like case for transgression of the Laws by the King's Commandment and this I learned in this Case Since that time being of the Council when many Proclamations were devised against the Carriers out of Corn when it came to punishing the Offenders the Judges would answer it might not be by the Laws because the Act of Parliament gave liberty Wheat being under a price Whereupon at the last followed the Act of Proclamations in the passing whereof were many large words When the Bishop of Exeter and his Chancellor were by one Body brought into a Premunire I reasoned with the Lord Audley then Chancellor so far as he bad me hold my peace for fear of entring a Premunire my self But I concluded that although I must take it as of their Authority that it is Common Law yet I could not see how a Man authorised by the King as since the King's Majesty hath taken upon him the Supremacy every Bishop is that Man could fall in a Premunire I reasoned once in the Parliament House where was free Speech without danger and there the Lord Audley Chancellor then to satisfie me because I was in some secret estimation as he knew Thou art a good Fellow Bishop quoth he look the Act of the Supremacy and there the King's doings be restrained to Spiritual Jurisdiction And in an other Act No Spiritual Law shall have place contrary to a Common Law or an Act of Parliament And if this were not quoth he the Bishops would enter in with the King and by means of his Supremacy order the Law as you listed but we will provide quoth he that the Premunire shall never go off your Heads This I bare away there and held my peace Since that time in a Case of Jewels I was fain with the Emperor's Ambassador Chapinius when he was here and in the Emperor's Court also to defend and maintain by Commandment that the King's Majesty was not above his Laws and therefore the Jeweller although he had the King's Bill signed yet it would not serve because it was not obtained after the Order of the Law in which Matter I was very much troubled Even this time twelve-month when I was in Commission with my Lord great Master and the Earl of Southampton for the altering of the Court of Augmentations there was my Lord Montague and other of the King 's Learned Council of whom I learned what the King might do against an Act of Parliament and what danger it was to them that medled It is fresh in my Memory and they can tell whether I say true or no and therefore being learned in so notable Causes I wrote in your absence therein as I had learned by hearing the Common Lawyers speak whose Judgments rule these Matters howsoever my reason can digest them When I wrote thereof the Matter was so reasonable as I have been learned by the Lawyers of the Realm that I trusted my Lords would have staied till your Graces return Number 15. A Letter from the Duke of Somerset to the Lady Mary in the beginning of King Edward's Reign Madam my humble Commendations to your Grace premised THese may be to signify unto the same Cotton Libr. Faustin C. 2. that I have received your Letters of the second of this present by Jane your Servant reknowledging my self thereby much bound unto your Grace nevertheless I am very sorry to perceive that your Grace should have or conceive any sinister or wrong Opinion in me and others which were by the King your late Father and our most gracious Master put in trust as Executors of his Will albeit the truth of our doings being known to your Grace as it seemeth by your said Letter not to be I trust there shall be no such fault found in us as in the same your Grace hath alleadged and for my part I know none of us that will willingly neglect the full execution of every Jot of his said Will as far as shall and may stand with the King our Master's Honour and Surety that now is otherwise I am sure that your Grace nor none other his Faithful Subjects would have it take place not doubting but our Doings and
Majesty's Affairs whereunto he making large Offers I began to enter with him how much your Grace and all the rest reposed themselves in the friendship of the Emperor and the good Ministry of his Father and him to the furtherance of the King's Majesty's Affairs to whom as in that behalf they shewed themselves great Friends so did they like good Servants to their Master for the prosperous success of the Affairs of the one served the turn of the other and the contrary Whereupon I discoursed largely as far as my poor Capacity would extend how necessary it was for the Emperor to aid and assist us in all things so as we are not oppressed by force or driven for want of Friendship to take such ways to keep us in quiet as both we our selves would be loath and our Friends should afterwards have peradventure cause to forethink I repeated first how we entred the Wars for your sake for the King might have made his Bargain honourable with France which no Man knew better than I how long we have endured the War and how long alone how favourable they are to our common Enemies the Scots how ungentle the French be to us and by indirect means think to consume us to make the Emperor the weaker I recited the practices of the French with the Turk with the Pope with the Germans with Denmark his Aid of the Scots and all upon intent to impeach the Emperor when he seeth time or at the least attending a good hour upon hope of the Emperor's Death the weaker that we be the easilier shall he do it if we forgoe any our Pieces on this side we must needs be the weaker and that so we had rather do than alone to keep War against Scotland and France Wherefore if they will both provide for their own Strength and give us courage to keep still that which we have the Emperor must be content to take * This is a Cipher and stands I suppose for Bulloign 13 into defence as well as other places comprehended in the Treaty which I said we meant not but upon a reasonable Reciproque What Reciproqe quoth he roundly Thereupon advise you reasonably quoth I. O quoth he I cannot see how the Emperor can honourably make a true Treaty for that Point without offence of his Treaty with France and we mean to proceed directly and plain with all Men quoth he Why quoth I we may bring you justly by and by with us if we will advertise you as I did even now put my Case Yea if your Case be true quoth he but herein we will charge your Honours and Consciences whether the Fact be so or no for your Grace shall understand that I talked in the Matter so suspiciously as though such an Invasion had been made and that you would require common Enmity In fine Sir after many Motions and Perswasions and long Discourses used on my behalf to induce them to take 13 into defence His refuge was only That they would fain learn how they might honestly answer the French albeit I shewed him some forms of Answers which he seemed not to l●ke yet in the end I said He was a great Doctor and as he had put the Doubt so he was learned sufficiently if he listed to assoil the same He said he would open these Matters to the Emperor and trusted to bring me such an Answer as I should have reason to be satisfied and so departed whereof as soon as we have knowledg your Grace shall be advertised accordingly And thus we beseech God to send your Grace well to do all your Proceedings Number 40. A Letter from Sir William Paget and Sir Philip Hobbey concerning their Negotiation with the Emperor's Ministers An Original IT may like your Grace be advertised That yesterday at Afternoon Cotton Libr. Galba B. 12. Monsieur d' Arras accompanied with two Presidents of the Council St. Maurice and Viglius came unto the Lodging of me the Comptroller and after some words of Office passed on either part d' Arras began to set forth the cause of their coming saying That the Emperor having at good length considered and debated the things proponed and communed of between us since my coming hither had sent them to report unto me his final Answer and Resolution to the same And first quoth he to your Case That at our being together for the revisitation of the Treaty ye put forth upon the sixth Article for the common Enmity in case of Invasion his Majesty museth much what ye should mean thereby for seeing the Case is not in ure he thinketh that doubting of his Friendship ye go about by these means to grope and feel his Mind which ye need not do he having hitherto shewed himself ready in all things to shew the King his good Brother pleasure and to observe the Treaty in all Points to the uttermost and if this Case should happen to come in ure then will he not fail to do whatsoever the Treaty bindeth him unto till when he can make no other answer therein As to your Question moved upon the sixth Article of the Treaty viz. Whether Mony be not meant as well as Men by these words Subsidiis Auxiliaribus His Majesty taketh the words to be plain enough and thinketh they cannot be otherwise interpreted than to be meant as well for Mony as Men for so doth he understand them Unto the Order that was communed upon for the Administration of Justice on both sides for matter of Spoil or Piracy upon the Sea his Majesty having weighed what is best to be done therein further he hath good cause first to complain of the over many Spoils that your Men have made on his poor Subjects and the small Justice that hath been hitherto ministred unto them herein whereof he hath continual Complaints and therefore he thinketh it were meeter e're ever any further Order shall be concluded upon that his Subjects were first recompenced of these wrongs they have sustained and the Matter brought to some equality and his People put in as much good case as yours are for I assure you quoth he the Wrongs our Men have sustained are many among the rest a poor Jeweler having gotten a safe conduct of the King that dead is to bring into England certain Jewels because after he had the King's Hand and Seal to the License he had not the same sealed also with the Great Seal of England his Jewels were taken from him and he being not present although it were so named in the Sentence condemned to lose them by the order of your Law contrary to all Equity and Justice Which seemeth strange that the King's Hand and Seal should appear to be sufficient for a greater Matter than this The Treaties also provide That the Subjects of the one Prince may frankly without impediment traffique and occupy into the other Princes Country but to shadow the Matter with all one I cannot tell who hath been agreed withal and so
therefore I need not grope his mind herein neither did I mean any such thing hereby As to your Answer to the order of Justice I see not that the Emperor hath so much cause to complain of lack of Justice in his Subjects Cases as ye seem to set forth for hitherto there hath not any Man complained in our Country and required Justice unto whom the same hath been denied And although some Man abiding the order of our Law or having had some Sentence that pleased him not hath complained hither of delay or lack of Justice ye must not therefore by and by judg that he saith true or that there is not uprightness or equity used in our Country for we have there as ye have here and else-where Ministers that are wise and well-learned in our Law and Men of honesty and good Conscience who deal and proceed justly as the order of the Law leadeth them without respect to favour or friendship to any Man And as for the Jewellers Case that ye moved ye must understand that as ye have Laws here in your Country for the direction of your Common-Wealth so have we also in ours whereby amongst the rest we do forbid for good respect the bringing in or transporting forth of certain Things without the King 's safe conduct or License And although as ye alleadged before the Treaty giveth liberty to the Subjects of either Prince to traffique into the others Country it is not for all that meant hereby that they shall not be bound to observe the Law and Order of the Country whereunto they Traffique for this liberty is only granted for the security of their Persons to go and come without impeachment and maketh them not for all that Lawless And whereas further it is provided by our Law that in certain things to be granted by the King the same Grant must pass under the Great Seal Then if any of those things pass under any other Seal they be not of due force until they have also passed the Great Seal of England wherefore if the Jeweller either by negligence or covetousness of himself or of those he put in trust did not observe this Order but thereto contrary for sparing a little Cost did presume to bring in his Jewels before his License came to the Great Seal me thinketh neither he nor any other can have just cause to say that he was wronged if according to our Laws he were sentenced to lose the same and yet after he was thus condemned more to gratify the Emperor than for that I took it to be so reasonable I my self was a Suitor to my Lord Protector 's Grace for some Recompence to be made to the Jeweller's Wife whom we knew and none other to be Party for she followed the Suit she presented the Petitions in her Name were they made and finally she and none others was by the Emperor's Ambassador commended unto us I have seen the Sentence quoth he and do mislike nothing so much therein as that the Man is condemned and named to have been present at the time of his Condemnation when indeed he was dead a good while before He was present quoth I in the Person of his Wife who was his Procurator and represented himself and I know that those before whom this Matter passed are Men both Learned and of good Conscience and such as would not have done herein any thing against Right and Order of Law The Sentences that are given in our Country by the Justices and Ministers they are just and true and therefore neither can we nor will we revoke them for any Man's pleasure after they have once passed the Higher Court from whence there is no further appellation no more than you will here call back such final Order as hath been in any case taken by your High Court of Brabant And the cause why we for our part misliked not this order of Justice was for the better establishment of the Amity and to avoid the continual Arrests that are made on our poor Men to the end also that this sort of Suiters might be the sooner dispatched without troubling either my Lord Protector in England or you here when you are busied in other Affairs of more importance And as concerning the Comprehension of Bulloign in good Faith because we thought that if the same should happen to be taken from the King's Majesty by force as I trust it shall not the loss should be common and touch the Emperor almost as near as us We thought good for the better security thereof to move this Comprehension which we take to be as necessary for the Emperor as us And though we are not so wise and well seen in your things as your selves are yet do we look towards you and guess of your Affairs afar off and perhaps do somewhat understand the state of the same whereof I could say more than I now intend But ye say this is the Emperor's Resolution herein We take it as an Answer and shall do accordingly Marry whereas you stick so much upon your Honour in breaking your Treaties with the French I remember Monsieur Granvela your Father at my being with him did not let to say That he had his Sleeve full of Quarrels against the French whensoever the Emperor list to break with them Yea so have we indeed quoth he but the time is not yet come we must temporize our things in this case as the rest of our Affairs lead us Ye say well quoth I ye have reason to regard chiefly the well-guiding of your own things and yet me thinketh some respect ought to be given to Friends But seeing this is your Answer I will reply no more thereto Yet one thing Monsieur d' Arras quoth I I moved to your Father which ye make no mention of and I would gladly know your mind in which is the granting of safe Conducts to the common Enemy which the Treaty by plain and express words forbideth either Prince to do Indeed Monsieur Ambassadeur quoth he the words of the Treaty are as ye say plain enough and yet the Matter were very strait if it should be taken in such extremity for hereafter in time of War ye might happen to have need of Wood Canvas or Wine and we of the like and other necessaries and if in such Cases the Princes should not have Prerogative to grant safe Conducts it shall be a great inconvenience and a thing not hereafter seen howbeit the Emperor for his part will not I think stick much hereupon but observe the plain meaning of the Treaty Nevertheless I cannot say any thing expresly on his behalf herein because Monsieur Granvela spake nothing thereof And yet did we move him of it quoth I and he bad us grant none and the Emperor for his part would not grant any No more hath he done quoth he sithence his coming into this Country nor intendeth not hereafter He needeth not quoth I for those that have been
be Baptized in time of necessity and they the said Parishioners reverently and devoutly to prepare themselves to receive and use the Sacraments especially the Sacrament of the Altar or to be confessed and receive at the Priest's hand the benefit of Absolution according to the laudable custom of this Realm Article 21. Item Whether they and every each of them hath diligently visited his and their Parishioners in the time of Sickness and Need and ministred Sacraments and Sacramentals to them accordingly and whether they have exhorted and monished them to have due respect to their Souls Health and also to set an Order in their Temporal Lands and Goods declaring their Debts perfectly and what is owing unto them and they so to make their Testaments and last Wills that as much as may be all trouble and business may be excluded their Wives and Children with their Friends may be holpen and succoured and themselves decently buried and prayed for and to have an honest memory and commendations for their so doing Article 22. Item Whether they and every of them have solemnized Matrimony between and his Parishioners or any other Persons the Banes not before asked three several Sundays or Holy-days or without Certificate of the said Banes from the Curat of any other Parish if any of them be of another Parish And whether touching the Solemnization and use of this Sacrament of Matrimony and also of all other the Sacraments of the Church they have kept and observed the old and laudable Custom of the Church without any innovation or alteration in any of the same Article 23. Item Whether they or every each of them upon the Sunday at the Service-time doth use to set forth and to declare unto the People all such Holy-days and Fasting-days as of Godly usage and custom hath heretofore laudably been accustomed to be kept and observed in the week following and ensuing and whether they and every of them doth observe and keep themselves the said Holy-days and Fasting-days Article 24. Item Whether the Parson or Vicar doth repair and maintain his Chancel and Mansion-house in sufficient reparation and the same being in decay whether he doth bestow yearly the fifth part of his Benefice till such time the same be sufficiently repaired doing also further his Duty therein and otherwise as by the Law he is charged and bound in that behalf distributing and doing as he is bound by the Law Article 25. Item Whether there be any Person that doth serve any Cure or minister any Sacraments not being Priest or if any do take upon them to use the Room and Office of the Parson or Vicar or Curat of any Benefice or Spiritual Promotion receiving the Fruits thereof not being admitted thereunto by the Ordinary Article 26. Item Whether they and every each of them doth go in Priestly Apparel and Habit having their Beards and Crowns shaven or whether any of them doth go in Lay-mens Habits and Apparel or otherwise disguise themselves that they cannot easily be discovered or known from Lay-men Article 27. Item Whether they or any of them have many Promotions and Benefices Ecclesiastical Cures Secular Services Yearly Pensions Annuities Farms or other Revenues now in Title or Possession and what the Names of them be and where they lie giving all good instruction and perfect information therein Article 28. Item Whether such as have Churches or Chappels appropriated or Mansions or Houses thereto appertaining do keep their Chancels and Houses in good and sufficient reparations and whether they do all things in Distributions and Alms or otherwise as by Law and good Order they ought to do Article 29. Item Whether any such as were ordered Schismatically and contrary to the old Order and Custom of the Catholick Church or being unlawfully and schismatically married after the late innovation and manner being not yet reconciled nor admitted by the Ordinary have celebrated or said either Mass or Divine Service within any Cure or Place of this City or Diocess Article 30. Item Whether any Parson or Vicar or other having Ecclesiastical Promotion doth set out the same to Farm without consent knowledg and license of his Ordinary especially for an unreasonable number of Years or with such Conditions Qualities or Manners that the same is to the great prejudice of the Church and the incumbent of the same and especially of him that shall succeed therein Article 31. Item Whether there be any Parson or Vicar Curat or Priest that occupieth buying and selling as a Merchant or occupieth Usury or layeth out his Mony for filthy Lucres-sake and Gain to the slander of the Priesthood Article 32. Item Whether they or any of them do wear Swords Daggers or other Weapons in times or places not convenient or seemly Article 33. Item Whether any Priest or Ecclesiastical Person have reiterated or renewed Baptism which was lawfully done before or invented or followed any new Fashion or Forms contrary to the Order of the Catholick Church Article 34. Item Whether the Parson Vicar or Curat do according to the Law every quarter in the Year upon one solemn Day or more that is to wit upon the Sunday or Solemn Feast when the Parishioners by the Order of the Church do come together expound and declare by himself or some other sufficient Person unto the People in the Vulgar or Common Tongue plainly truly and fruitfully the Articles of the Catholick Faith the Ten Commandments expressed in the Old Law the Two Commandments of the Gospel or New Law that is of earnest Love to God and to our Neighbour the seven Works of Mercy the seven deadly Sins with their Off-spring Progeny and Issue the seven principal Vertues and the seven Sacraments of the Church Article 35. Item Whether that every Priest having Cure do admonish the Women that are with Child within his Cure to come to Confession and to receive the Sacrament especially when their time draweth nigh and to have Water in readiness to christen the Child if necessity so require it Article 36. Item Whether Stipendiary Priests do behave themselves discreetly and honestly in all Points towards their Parson or Vicar giving an Oath and doing according to the Law and Ecclesiastical Constitutions Ordinances and laudable Customs in that behalf Article 37. Item Whether any Parson Vicar or other having any Ecclesiastical Promotion have made any alienation of any thing pertaining to their Church Benefice or Promotion what it is and what warrant they had so to do Number 16. An Address made by the Lower House of Convocation to the Upper House Ex MS. Col. Cor. C. Cant. RIght Reverend Fathers in God We the Clergy of the Province of Canterbury of the Lower House do most humbly pray your good Lordships That toughing the Submission and Order of the Lands and Possessions which sometimes did appertain to divers Bishops Cathedral Churches and to the late suppressed Monasteries Priories Colleges Chauntries and free Chappels and other Churches within this Realm and be now
Jurisdiction against Hereticks Schismaticks and their Fautors in as large and ample manner as they were in the first Year of King Henry the Eighth 5. And that the Premises may be the better executed by the presence of Beneficed Men in their Cures the Statutes made Anno 21. of Henry the Eighth concerning Pluralities of Benefices and Non-residence of Beneficed Men by reason whereof a larger Liberty or License is given to a great multitude of Priests and Chaplains to be absent from their Benefices with Cure than was ever permitted by the Canon Laws and all other Statutes touching the same may be repealed void and abolished and that the Bishops and other Ordinaries may call all Beneficed Men to be resident upon their Cures as before the making of that Act they might have done 6. Item That the Ordinaries do from time to time make Process for punishment of all Simoniacal Persons of whom it is thought there were never so many within this Realm And that not only the Clerks but also the Patrons and all the Mediators of such Pactions may be punish'd Wherein we think good that Order were taken that the Patrons should lose their Patronage during their natural Lives according to the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of this Realm 7. Item That the ancient Liberty Authority and Jurisdiction be restored to the Church of England according to the Article of the great Charter called Magna Charta at the least wise in such sort as it was in the first Year of Henry the Eighth and touching this Article we shall desire your Lordships to be with us most humble Suitors to the King 's and Queen's Majesty and to the Lord Legat for the remission of the importable Burdens of the First-Fruits Tenths and Subsidies In which Suit whatsoever advancement your Lordships shall think good to be offered unto their Majesties for the same we shall therein be always glad to do as shall be thought good 8. Item That no Attachment of Premunire be awarded against any Bishop or other Ordinary Ecclesiastical from henceforth in any Matter but that a Prohibition be first brought to the same and that it may please the King 's and Queen's Majesty to command the Temporal Judges of this Realm to explicate and declare plainly all and singular Articles of the Premunire and to make a certain Doctrine thereof 9. Item That the Statutes of the Provisors be not drawn by unjust Interpretation out of their proper Cases nor from the proper sense of the words of the same Statutes 10. Item That the Statute of Submission of the Clergy made Anno 25. of Henry the Eighth and all other Statutes made during the time of the late Schism in derogation of the Liberties and Jurisdictions of the Church from the first Year of King Henry the Eighth may be repealed and the Church restored in integrum 11. Item That the Statute made for finding of great Horses by Ecclesiastical Per●●ns may likewise be repealed 12. Item That Usurers may be punish'd by the Common Laws as in times past hath been used 13. Item That those which lay violent Hands upon any Priest or other Ecclesiastical Minister being in Orders may be punish'd by the Canon Laws as in times past hath been used 14. Item That all Priests Deacons and Sub-Deacons and all other having Prebends or other Ecclesiastical Promotions or Benefices from henceforth use such Priest-like Habit as the quality of his State and Benefice requireth 15. Item That Married Priests may be compelled to forsake their Women whom they took as their Wives 16. Item That an Order may be taken for the bringing up of Youth in good Learning and Vertue and that the School-Masters of this Realm may be Catholick Men and all other to be removed that are either Sacramentaries or Hereticks or otherwise notable Criminous Persons 17. Item That all exempt and peculiar Places may from henceforth be immediately under the Jurisdiction of that Arch-Bishop or Bishop and Arch-Deacon within whose several Diocess and Arch-deaconry the same are presently constitute and scituate And whereas divers Temporal Men by reason of late Purchases of certain Abbies and exempt Places have by their Letters Patents or otherwise granted unto them Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the said Places That from henceforth the said Jurisdiction be devolv'd to the Arch-Bishop or Bishop and Arch-Deacon within whose Diocess and Arch-deaconry the same now be 18. Item Where the Mayor of London by force of a Decree made Anno of Henry the Eighth hath attributed unto him the Cognition of Causes of Tythes in London that from henceforth the same Cognition and Jurisdiction may utterly cease and be reduced immediately to the Bishop of London Ordinary there 19. Item That Tythes may be henceforth paid according to the Canon Laws 20. Item That Lands and Places impropriated to Monasteries which at the time of Dissolution and Suppression thereof were exempt from payment of Tythes may be now allotted to certain Parishes and there chargeable to pay like Tythes as other Parishoners do 21. Item That there be a streight Law made whereby the reparations of Chancels which are notoriously decay'd through the Realm may be duly repaired from time to time by such as by the Law ought to do the same and namely such as be in the King 's and Queen's Hands and that the Ordinaries may lawfully proceed in Causes of Dilapidations as well of them as of all other Parsonages Vicarages and other Ecclesiastical Benefices and Promotions 22. Item That Order be taken for the more speedy payment of Pensions to all Priests Pentionaries and that they may have the same without long Suits or Charges 23. Item That an Order be taken for payment of Personal Tythes in Cities and Towns and elsewhere as was ●sed in Anno 21. of Henry the Eighth 24. Item That such Priests as were lately married and refuse to reconcile themselves to their Order and to be restored to Ministration may have some special Animadversion whereby as Apostates they may be discern'd from other 25. Item That Religious Women which be married may be divorced 26. Item That in Divorces which are made from Bed and Board Provision may be made that the Innocent Woman may enjoy such Lands and Goods as were hers before the Marriage or that happened to come to her use at any time during the Marriage and that it may not be lawful for the Husband being for his Offence divorced from the said Woman to intermeddle himself with the said Lands or Goods unless his Wife be to him reconciled 27. Item That Wardens of Churches and Chappels may render their Accounts before the Ordinaries and may be by them compell'd to do the same 28. Item That all such Ecclesiastical Persons as lately have spoiled Cathedral Collegiat and other Churches of their own heads and temerity may be compelled to restore all and singular things so by them taken away or the true value thereof and farther to re-edify such things as by them are destroy'd and defac'd
not edify the Congregation Therefore the use of an unknown Tongue in Publick Prayer or Administration of the Sacraments is not to be had in the Church The first part of this Reason is grounded upon St. Paul's words commanding all things to be done to Edification The second part is also proved by St. Paul's plain words First By this Similitude If the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall be prepared to Battel Even so likewise when ye speak with Tongues except ye speak words that have signification how shall it be understood what is spoken for ye shall but speak in the Air that is to say in vain and consequently without edifying And afterward in the same Chapter he saith How can he that occupieth the place of the Vnlearned say Amen at thy giving of Thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest For thou verily givest Thanks well but the other is not edified These be St. Paul's words plainly proving That a Tongue not understood doth not edify And therefore both the parts of the Reason thus prov'd by St. Paul the Conclusion followeth necessarily 2. Secondly Nothing is to be spoken in the Congregation in an Unknown Tongue except it be interpreted to the People that it may be understood For saith Paul if there be no Interpreter to him that speaketh in an unknown Tongue taceat in Ecclesiâ let him hold his peace in the Church And therefore the Common Prayers and Administration of Sacraments neither done in a known Tongue nor interpreted are against this Commandment of Paul and not to be used 3. The Minister in Praying or Administration of the Sacraments using Language not understood of the Hearers is to them barbarous an Alien which of St. Paul is accounted a great Absurdity 4. It is not to be counted a Christian Common-Prayer where the People present declare not their Assent unto it by saying Amen wherein is implyed all other words of Assent But St. Paul affirmeth That the People cannot declare their Assent in saying Amen except they understand what is said as afore Therefore it is no Christian Common-Prayer where the People understandeth not what is said 5. Paul would not suffer in his time a strange Tongue to be heard in the Common-Prayer in the Church notwithstanding that such a kind of Speech was then a Miracle and a singular Gift of the Holy Ghost whereby Infidels might be persuaded and brought to the Faith much less is it to be suffered now among Christian and Faithful Men especially being no Miracle nor especial Gift of the Holy Ghost 6. Some will peradventure answer That to use any kind of Tongue in Common-Prayer or Administration of Sacraments is a thing indifferent But St. Paul is to the contrary for he commandeth all things to be done to Edification He commandeth to keep silence if there be no Interpreter And in the end of the Chapter he concludeth thus If any Man be Spiritual or a Prophet let him know that the things which I write are the Commandment of the Lord. And so shortly to conclude the use of a strange Tongue in Prayer and Administration is against the Word and Commandment of God To these Reasons grounded upon St. Paul's words which are the most firm Foundation of this Assertion divers other Reasons may be joined gathered out of the Scriptures and otherwise 1. In the Old Testamenc all things pertaining to the Publick Prayer Benediction Thanksgiving or Sacrifice were always in their Vulgar and Natural Tongue In the second Book of Paraleipomenon Cap. 29. it is written That Ezechias commanded the Levites to praise God with the Psalms of David and Asaph the Prophet which doubtless were written in the Hebrew their Vulgar Tongue If they did so in the shadows of the Law much more ought we to do the like who as Christ saith must pray in Spiritu Veritate 2. The final end of our Prayer is as David saith Vt populi conveniant in unum annuncient nomen Domini in Sion laudes ejus in Hierusalem But the Name and Praises of God cannot be set forth to the People unless it be done in such a Tongue as they may understand Therefore Common-Prayer must be had in the Vulgar Tongue 3. The definition of Publick Prayer out of the words of St. Paul Orabo Spiritu Orabo Mente Publicè orare est vota communia mente ad Deum effundere ea Spiritu hoc est Lingua testari Common Prayer is to lift up our Common Desires to God with our Minds and to testify the same outwardly with our Tongues Which Definition is approved of by St. Augustine de Magist. C. 1. Nihil opus est inquit loqutione nisi forte ut Sacerdotes faciunt significandae mentis Causâ ut populus intelligat 4. The Ministrations of the Lord's last Supper and Baptism are as it were Sermons of the Death and Resurrection of Christ But Sermons to the People must be had in such Language as the People may perceive otherwise they should be had in vain 5. It is not lawful for a Christian Man to abuse the Gifts of God But he that prayeth in the Church in a strange Tongue abuseth the Gift of God for the Tongue serveth only to express the mind of the Speaker to the Hearer And Augustine saith de Doct. Christ. lib. 4. cap. 10. Loquendi omnino nulla est causa si quod loquimur non intelligunt propter quos ut intelligant loquimur There is no cause why we should speak if they for whose cause we speak understand not our speaking 6. The Heathen and Barbarous Nations of all Countries and sorts of Men were they never so wild evermore made their Prayers and Sacrifice to their Gods in their own Mother Tongue which is a manifest Declaration that it is the very Light and Voice of Nature Thus much upon the ground of St. Paul and other Reasons out of the Scriptures joining therewith the common Usage of all Nations as a Testimony of the Law of Nature Now for the second part of the Assertion which is That the use of a strange Tongue in publick Prayer and Administration of Sacraments is against the Custom of the Primitive Church Which is a Matter so clear that the denial of it must needs proceed either of great Ignorance or of wilful Malice Justinus Apol. 2. For first of all Justinus Martyr describing the Order of the Communion in his time saith thus Die Solis urbanorum rusticorum caetus fiunt ubi Apostolorum Prophetarumque literae quoad fieri potest praeleguntur Deinde cessante Lectore Praepositus verba facit adhortatoria ad imitationem tam honestarum rerum invitans Post haec consurgimus omnes preces offerimus quibus finitis profertur ut diximus Panis Vinum Aqua tum praepositus quantum potest preces offert gratiarum Actiones plebs vero Amen accinit Upon the Sunday Assemblies are made both of the Citizens and Country-men where as
to the Justices in Peace of Norfolk 283 ibid 20. A Letter from the King and Queen requiring Bonner to go on in the prosecution of Hereticks 285 312 21. Sir T. Mores Letter to Cromwel concerning the Nun of Kent 286 316 22. Directions of the Queen 's to the Council touching the Reformation of the Church 292 317 23. Injunctions given by Latimer to the Prior of St. Maries 293 319 24. A Letter of Ann Boleyn's to Gardiner 294 321 25. The Office of Consecrating the Cramp-Rings 295 ibid 26. Letter of Gardiner's to K. Henry concerning his Divorce 297 ibid 27. The Writ for the burning of Cranmer 300 334 28. A Commission to Bonner and others to raze Records 301 341 29. Cromwel's Commission to be the King's Vice-gerent 303 ibid 30. A Letter of the Monks of Glassenbury for raising that Abbey 306 342 31. A Letter of Carne's from Rome 307 344 32. A Commission for a severe way of proceeding against all suspect of Heresy 311 347 33. A Letter of the Councils expressing their Jealousies of the Lady Elizabeth 314 351 34. Letter from Carn concerning the suspension of Pool's Legation 315 353 35. The Appeal of Archbishop Chichely to a General Council from the Pope's Sentence 321 ibid 36. Instructions representing the State of the Nation to King Philip after the loss of Calais 324 360 37. Sir T. Pope's Letter concerning the L. Elizabeth's Answer to the Proposition of Marriage sent her by the K. of Sweden 325 361 BOOK III. 1. THe Device for alteration of Religion in the first Year of Q. Elizabeth's Reign offered to Secretary Cecil 327 377 2. Dr. Sandys's Letter to Dr. Parker concerning the Proceedings in Parliament 332 386 3. The first Proposition upon which the Papists and Protestants disputed in Westminster Abbey with the Arguments which the Reformed Divines made upon it 333 390 4. The Answer which D. Cole made to the former Proposition 338 389 5. A Declaration made by the Council concerning the Conference 345 392 6. An Address made by some Bishops and Divines to the Queen against the use of Images 348 397 7. The High Commission for the Province of York 350 400 8. Ten Letters written to and by Dr. Parker concerning his Promotion to the See of Canterbury 353 401 9. The Instrument of his Consecration 363 404 10. An Order for the Translating of the Bible 366 406 11. A Profession of Religion made in all Churches by the Clergie 365 405 12. Sir Walter Mildmay's Opinion concerning the keeping of the Queen of Scots 369 417 12. A Letter of the E. of Leicester's touching the same thing 373 ibid 13. The Bull of P. Pius the 5th deposing Q. Elizabeth 377 418 An Appendix concerning some of the Errors and Falshoods in Sanders's Book of the English Schism 383   Some Mistakes in the former Volume 410   ERRATA PAge 9. line penult after be read not P. 13. l. 17. ever 1. every P. 15. l. 42. M●●b●●gs r. Marbridge P. 72. l. 42. muta r. imbuta P. 74. l. 32. tenetis r. tenentem P. 75. l. 8. ●●im qui r. eum qui. 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