weaker and needed his Assistance most But tho hitherto Spain was an unequal Match to France yet all Spain being now united except Portugal and strengthned by the Accession of the Dominions of Burgundy and inriched by the discovery of the Indies and all this falling into the hands of so great a Prince as Charles afterwards the fifth Emperor of that Name the ballance between these Kingdoms grew as equal as the Qualities of the Princes themselves were which ingaged them in a Rivalry that made their Minds as divided as their Interests were opposite Charles being preferred to Francis in the Competition for the Empire that kindled the Animosity higher and seemed to encrease Charles's Party tho the extent and distance of his Dominion was such that one Soul tho his was one of the largest and most active in the World could not animate so vast a Body He is courted both by France and Spain Both these Princes saw how considerable an Ally or Enemy England might prove under a King so much esteemed and beloved so they spared no Arts that might engage him into their Interests they gained his Ministers by their Presents and himself by their Complements for it was soon found out that Vanity was his weak side May 1520 The Emperour came in Person to England without the distrustful Precaution of a Passport and did so prevail with him and his great Favourite Cardinal Wolsey by the promise of the Popedom that tho an Interview followed between Francis and him June yet he found the Scale of France was then the heavier so that upon the War which followed between those Princes he joyned with the Emperour Charles to assure himself of Cardinal Wolsey gave him hopes of the Popedom which perhaps he did the more easily because Pope Leo being so young a Man there was no great appearance of a Vacancy but the Pope dying sooner than perhaps was expected Adrian Decemb 1521 that had been the Emperour's Tutor was then chosen and Cardinal Wolsey had the promise of succeeding him But a second Vacancy following within two Years the Emperour broke his word the second time upon which the Cardnial was so offended that he resolved to take his Revenge so soon as a favourable Conjuncture should offer it self and tho he had laid the best Train he could at Rome for the Chair yet upon Clement the seventh's Advancement he dissembled the matter so with him as to protest that he was the very person whom he had wished to see raised to that Dignity The Battel of Pavia Francis the first is taken Prisoner in which Francis was taken Prisoner and his Army defeated turned the Scale mightily the Pope was nearest the danger and felt it soonest for he projected the Clementine League by which both He and the Republick of Venice and the Princes of Italy engaged in the Interests of France and the King of England was declared the Protector of it Both publick and private Interests wrought on the King and his own Resentments as well as the Cardinals animated him to it for the Emperour was so lifted up with his Success that he began to form the Project of an Universal Empire and tho he had come to England in Person a second time and had contracted a Marriage with the King's Daughter yet he preferred a Match with the Infanta of Portugal to it judging it to be of more Importance to him to keep all quiet in Spain Francis was now at liberty but had given his Sons as Hostages so he was slow in his Proceedings tho he was the Person most concerned in the League The Emperour was highly displeased with the Pope whom he look'd on as his own Creature but it was always observed that of what Faction soever a Cardinal might be yet upon the Advancement he became the Head of his own The Colonesi entred Rome with three thousand Men Septemb. and sack'd it the Pope retiring to the Castle of Saint Angelo and submitting to the Conditions that were offered but their Troops being drawn out of Rome the Pope gathered his together and fell on their Lands and by a Creation of fourteen Cardinals for Money which perhaps may be excused from Simony because they took no care of Souls he was enabled to prosecute the War but the Duke of Bourbon that upon a Discontent given him in France had gone over to the Emperour's Service came to Rome and took it by storm himself being killed in the Assault the Pope and seventeen Cardinals May And afterwards the Pope shut themselves in the Castle St. Angelo but he was forced to render and was kept Prisoner some Months This gave great Scandal to all Europe the Emperour himself seem'd ashamed of it for he would suffer no rejoycing to be in Spain for his Sons Birth but appointed publick Processions for the Pope's Liberty Wolsey had now the best opportunity he could wish to declare his Zeal for the Pope's Service and his Aversion to the Emperour so he went to France and made a new League for setting the Pope at liberty The Emperour prevented the Conjunction he saw like to follow and having brought the Pope to his own Terms he restored him again to his Freedom And thus both the Pope and the King of France that by very unususal Accidents had been taken Prisoners acknowledged that their Liberty was chiefly due to the Indeavours that King Henry had used for procuring it When he was thus firmly united to the Interests of France Scotland in disorder he had less to fear from Scotland which being a perpetual Ally to France gave him no Disturbance but as it was drawn into the War by that Court That Kingdom was also for many Years under a King not of Age and so was much distracted by Faction and those Broils at home being the surest way to keep them from making Inroads into England were kept up by the Mony which the King sent the Malecontents therefore both the Courts of France and England by the Pensions they gave kept the several Parties there in pay which Advantage that Kingdom lost when it was joyned to England As for Domestick Affairs in the Government of England the King left Matters much in the hands of his Council in which there were two different Parties Factions in the Council headed by the Bishop of Winchester and the Lord Treasurer that was Duke of Norfolk The former much complained of the Consumption of the Treasure the other justified himself that he only obeyed the King's Orders But the Treasurer's Party under a bountiful King must always be strongest both in the Court and Council In the first Parliament the Justice done upon Empson and Dudly gave so great Satisfaction that all things went as the Court desired In the second Parliament a Brief that Pope Julius writ complaining of Lewis the twelfth was first read in the House of Lords and then carried down by the L. Chancellor and some other Lords
Virgil and delighted much in those Returns which hungry Scholars use to make to liberal Princes for he loved Flattery out of measure His Learning and Vanity and particularly to be extolled for his Learning and great Understanding and he had enough of it to have surfeited a Man of any Modesty for all the World both at home and abroad contended who should exceed most indecently in setting out his Praises The Clergy carried it for as he had merited most at their hands both by his espousing the Interests of the Papacy and by his entering the Lists with Luther so those that hoped to be advanced by those Arts were as little ashamed in magnifying him out of measure as he was in receiving their gross Commendations The manner of promotion to Bishopricks and Abbies was then the same The manner of the promotion of Bishops that had taken place ever since the Investitures by the Ring and Staff were taken out of the hands of Princes Upon a Vacancy the King seized on all the Temporalities and granted a Licence for an Election with a special Recommendation of the Person which being returned the Royal Assent was given and it was sent to Rome that Bulls might be expeded and then the Bishop Elect was consecrated after that he came to the King and renounced every Clause in his Bulls that was contrary to the King's Prerogative or to the Law and swore Fealty and then were the Temporalities restored Nor could Bulls be sued out at Rome without a Licence under the Great Seal so that the Kings of Engl. had reserved the power to themselves of promoting to Ecclesiastical Benefices notwithstanding all the Invasions the Popes had made on the Temporal power of Princes A Contest concerning the Ecclesiastical Immunity The Immunity of Church-men for crimes committed by them till they were first degraded by the Spirituality occasioned the only Contest that was in the beginning of this Reign between the Secular and Ecclesiastical Courts King Henry the Seventh past a Law that Clerks convict should be burnt in the hand A temporary Law was also made in the beginning of this Reign That Murderers and Robbers not being Bishops Priests nor Deacons should be denied the benefit of Clergy but this was to last only till the next Parliament and so being not continued by it the Act determined The Abbot of Winchelcomb preached severely against it as being contrary to the Laws of God and the Liberties of the Holy Church and said that all who assented to it had faln under the Censures of the Church And afterwards he published a Book to prove that all Clerks even of the lower Orders were Sacred and could not be judged by the Temporal Courts This being done in Parliament-time the Temporal Lords with the Commons addressed to the King desiring him to repress the Insolence of the Clergy So a publick Hearing was appointed before the King and all the Judges Dr. Standish a Franciscan argued against the Immunity and proved that the judging Clerks had been in all times practised in England and that it was necessary for the peace and safety of Mankind that all Criminals should be punished The Abbot argued on the other side and said it was contrary to a Decree of the Church and was a Sin in it self Standish answered That all Decrees were not observed for notwithstanding the Decrees for Residence Bishops did not reside at their Cathedrals And since no Decree did bind till it was received this concerning Immunity which was never received in England did not bind After they had fully argued the matter the Laity were all of opinion that the Fryar was too hard for the Abbot and so moved the King that the Bishops might be ordered to make him preach a Recantation Sermon But they refused to do it and said they were bound by their Oaths to maintain his Opinion Standish was upon this much hated by the Clergy but the matter was let fall yet the Clergy carried the point for the Law was not continued Not long after this an Accident fell out that drew great Consequences after it One Richard Hun a Merchant in London was sued by his Parish-Priest for a Mortuary in the Legates Court so he was advised to sue the Priest in the temporal Court for a Premunire for bringing the King's Subjects before a forraign and illegal Court This incensed the Clergy so much that they contrived his Destruction So hearing that he had Wickclif's Bible he was upon that put in the Bishop's Prison for Heresy Hunn imprisoned for Heresy but being examined upon sundry Articles he confessed some things and submitted himself to Mercy upon which they ought according to Law to have injoyned him Penance and discharged him this being his first Crime but he could not be prevailed on by the terror of this to let his Suit fall in the Temporal Court Murdered so one Night his Neck was broken with an Iron Chain and he was wounded in other Parts of his Body and then knit up in his own Girdle and it was given out that he had hanged himself but the Coroners Inquest by examining the Body and by several other Evidences and particularly by the confession of the Sumner gave their Verdict that he was murdered by the Bishop's Chancellor Dr. Horsey and the Sumner and the Bel-ringer The Spiritual Court proceeded against the dead Body and charged Hun with all the Heresy in Wickliff's Preface to the Bible And condemned his Body burnt because that was found in his Possession so he was condemned as an Heretick and upon that his Body was burnt The Bishops of Duresm and Lincoln and many Doctors sitting with the Bishop of London when he gave Judgment so that it was looked upon as an Act of the whole Clergy but this produced very ill Effects for the Clergy lost the Affections of the City to such a degree that they could never recover them nor did any one thing dispose them more than this did to the entertaining the new Preachers and to every thing that tended to the reproach of the Church-men whom they esteemed no more their Pastors but accounted them barbarous Murderers The Rage went so high that the Bishop of London complained that he was not safe in his own House and there were many hearings before the Council for the Cardinal did all he could to stop the progress of the Matter but in vain for the Bishop's Chancellor and the Sumner were indicted as Principals in the Murder In Parliament an Act passed restoring Hun's Children but the Commons sent up a Bill concerning his Murder yet that was laid aside by the Lords where the Clergy were the Majority The Clergy look'd on the Opposition that Standish had made in the point of their Further Disputes about Immunity Immunities as that which gave the rise to Hun's first Suit so the Convocation cited him to answer for his Carriage in that Matter but he claimed the King's Protection since
the other Executors had treated with Ambassadours apart had made Bishops and Lord-Lieutenants without their knowledge had held a Court of Requests in his House had embased the Coin had neglected the Places the King had in France had encouraged the Commons in their late Insurrections and had given out Commissions and proclaimed a Pardon without their consent that he had animated the King against the rest of the Council and had proclaimed them Traitors had put his own Servants armed about the King's Person By these it appears the Crimes against him were the effects of his sudden exaltation that had made him too much forget that he was a subject but that he had carried his greatness with much Innocence since no acts of Cruelty Rapine or Bribery were objected to him for they were rather errours and weaknesses than Crimes His embasing the Coin was done upon a common mistake of weak Governments who flye to that as their last refuge in the necessity of their affairs In his Imprisonment he set himself to the study of Moral Philosophy and Divinity and writ a Preface to a Book of Patience which had made great Impressions on him His fall was a great affliction to all that loved the Reformation and that was increased because they had no reason to trust much to the two chief Men of the party against him Southampton and Warwick the one was a known Papist and the other was lookt on as a Man of no Religion and both at the Emperor's Court and in France it was expected that upon this revolution matters of Religion would be again set back into the posture in which King Henry had left them The Duke of Norfolk and Gardiner hoped to be discharged and Bonner lookt to be re-established in his Bishoprick again and all People began to fall off much from the new service but the Earl of Warwick finding the King was zealously addicted to the Reformation quickly forsook the Popish party and seemed to be a mighty promoter of that work A Court of Civilians was appointed to examine Bonner's Appeal and upon their report the Council rejected it and confirmed the Sentence that was past upon him But next The Emperor will not assist them foreign affairs come under their care They suspected that Paget had not dealt effectually with the Emperour to assist them in the preservation of Bulloign so they sent over Sir Tho. Cheyney to try what might be expected from him they took also care of the Garrison and both encreased it and supplied it well Cheyney found the same reception with the Emperour and had the same answer that Paget got The Emperor prest him much that matters of Religion might be again considered and confest that till that were done he could not assist them so effectually as otherwise he would do so now the Council found it necessary to apply to the Court of France for a Peace The Earl of Southampton left the Court in great discontent he was neither restored to his Office of Chancellour nor was he made one of the six Lords that were appointed to have the charge of the King's Person this touched him so much that he died not long after of grief as was believed In November A Session of Parliament a Session of Parliament met in which an Act was past declaring it Treason to call any to the number of Twelve together about any matter of State if being required they did not disperse themselves other Riotous Assemblies were also declared felonious the giving out of Prophecies concerning the King or Council was also made Penal Another Law was made against Vagabonds the former Statute was repealed as too severe and Provisions were made for the relief of the Sick and Impotent and Imploying such as could work The Bishops made a heavy complaint of the growth of Vice and Impiety and that their power was so much abridged that they could not repress it so a Bill was read enlarging their Authority but it was thought that it gave them too much power yet it was so moderated that the Lords past it But the Commons rejected it and instead of it sent up a Bill that impowered XXXII who were to be named by the King the one half of the Temporalty and the other of Spiritualty to compile a body of Ecclesiastical Laws within three years and that these not being contrary to the Common or Statute Law and approved of by the King should have the force of Ecclesiastical Laws of the 32. Four were to be Bishops and as many to be Common Lawyers Six Bishops and six Divines were impowered to prepare a new form of Ordination which being confirmed under the Great Seal should take place after April next Articles were also put in against the Duke of Somerset with a Confession signed by him But some objected that they ought not to proceed The Duke of Somerset fined but restored to favour till they knew whether he had signed it voluntarily or not and some were sent to examine him he acknowledged he had done it freely but protested that his errours had flowed rather from Indiscretion than Malice and denied all treasonable designs against the King or the Realm he was fined in 2000 l. a year in Land and in the loss of all his Goods and Offices He complained of the heaviness of this Censure and desired earnestly to be restored to the Kings favour and promised to carry himself so humbly and obediently that he should make amends for his past follies which was thought a sign of too abject a mind others excused it since the power and malice of his Enemies was such that he was not safe as long as he continued in Prison he was discharged in the beginning of February soon after he had his pardon and did so manage his interest in the King that he was again brought both to the Court and Council in April But if these submissions gained him some favour at Court they sunk him as much in the esteem of the World The Reformation was now A Progress in the Reformation after this confusion was over carried on again with vigour The Council sent Orders over England to require all to conform themselves to the new service and to call in all the Books of the old Offices An Act past in Parliament to the same effect one Earl six Bishops and four Lords only dissenting all the old Books and Images were appointed to be defaced and all prayers to Saints were to be struck out of the Primers published by the late King A Subsidy was granted and the King gave a General Pardon out of which all Prisoners on the account of the State and Anabaptists were excepted In this Session the Eldest Sons of Peers were first allowed to sit in the House of Commons The Committee appointed to prepare the Book of Ordination finished their work with common consent only Heath Bishop of Worcester refused to sign it for which he was called before the
the Council went no further only after this her Mass was said so secretly that she gave no publick scandal From Copthall where this was done she removed and lived at Hunsden and thither Ridley went to see her She received him very civilly and ordered her Officers to entertain him at dinner But when he begged leave to Preach before her she at first blusht but being further prest she said he might Preach in the Parish Church but neither she nor her Family would be there He asked her if she refused to hear the word of God She answered they did not call that Gods word now that they had called so in her Fathers days and that in his time they durst not have said the things which they then Preached And after some sharp and reproachful discourse she dismist him Wharton one of her Officers as he conducted him out made him drink a little but he reflecting on that blamed himself for it for he said when the Word of God was rejected he ought to have shaken off the dust of his Feet and gone away The Kings Sister Elizabeth did in all things conform to the Laws for her Mother at her death recommended her to Dr. Parker's care who instructed her well in the Principles of Christian Religion The Earl of Warwick began now to form great designs of bringing the Crown into his Family The Earl of Warwick's designs The King was alienated from his Sister Mary and the Privy Council had imbroiled themselves with her and so would be easily engaged against her The pretence against both the Sisters was the same that they stood illegitimated by two Sentences in the Spiritual Courts confirmed in Parliament So that it would be a disgrace to the Nation to let the Crown devolve on Bastards And since the fears of the Eldests revenge made the Council willing to exclude her the only reason on which they could ground that must take place against the second likewise And therefore though the Crown was provided to them both by Act of Parliament and the late Kings Will yet these being founded on an Errour that was indispensable which was the baseness of their descent they ought not to take place They being laid aside the Daughters of the French Queen by Charles Brandon stood next in the Act and yet it was generally believed that they were Bastards For it was given out that Brandon was secretly married to one Mortimer at the time that he married the French Queen and that Mortimer out-lived her so that the issue by her was Illegitimate The Sweating Sickness did this year break out in England with such Contagion that eight hundred died in one week of it in London those that were taken with it were inclined much to sleep and all that slept died but if they were kept awake a day they did sweat it out Charles Brandon's two Sons by his last Wife died within a day one of another His eldest Daughter by the French Queen was married to the Marquess of Dorset a good but weak man and so he was made Duke of Suffolk They had no Sons their eldest Daughter Jane Gray was thought the wonder of the age So the Earl of Warwick projected a Match between her and his fourth Son Guilford his three elder Sons being then married And because the Lady Elizabeth was like to stand most in the way care was taken to send her out of England and a Match was treated for her with the King of Denmark A splendid Message was sent to France A Treaty for a Marriage to the King with the Order of the Garter The Marquess of Northampton carried it three Earls the Bishop of Ely and five Lords were sent with him and above two hundred Gentlemen accompanied them They were to make a Proposition of Marriage for the King with a Daughter of France The Bishop of Ely made the first Speech and the Cardinal of Lorrain answered him it was soon agreed on yet neither Party was to be bound either in Honour or Conscience till the Lady should be of Years to give consent A noble Embassy was sent in return from France to England with the Order of Saint Michael They desired in their Master's name the continuance of the King's friendship and that he would not be moved by Rumors that might be raised to break their Alliance The young King answered on the sudden that Rumours were not always to be believed nor always to be rejected for it was no less vain to fear all things than to doubt of nothing if any differences hapned to arise he should be always ready to determine them rather by reason than by force so far as his Honour should not be thereby diminished This was thought a very extraordinary answer to be made by one of Fourteen on the sudden There was at this time a great Creation of Peers The Duke of Somerset's fall Warwick was made Duke of Northumberland the blood of the Piercies being then under an Attainder Pawlet was made Marquess of Winchester Herbert was made Earl of Pembroke and a little before this Russel had been made Earl of Bedford and Darcy was made a Lord. There was none so likely to take the King out of Northumberlands hands as the Duke of Somerset who was beginning to form a new Party about the King so upon some Informations both the Duke of Somerset his Dutchess Sir Ralph Vane Sir Tho. Palmer Sr Tho. Arundel several others of whom some were Gentlemen of Quality and others were the Dukes servants were all committed to the Tower The committing of Palmer was to delude the World for he had betrayed the Duke and was clapt up as a Complice and then pretended to discover a Plot He said the Duke intended to have raised the People and that Northumberland Northampton and Pembroke having been invited to dine at the Lord Pagets he intended to have set on them by the way or have killed them at Dinner that Vane was to have 2000. Men ready Arundel was to have seized on the Tower and all the Gendarmoury were to have been killed All these things were told the young King with such Circumstances that he too easily believed them and so was much alienated from his Uncle judging him guilty of so foul a Conspiracy It was added by others that the Duke intended to have raised the City of London one Crane confirmed Palmers testimony and both the Earl of Arundel and Paget were also committed as Complices On the first of December His Trial the Duke was brought to his Trial The Marquess of Winchester was Lord Steward and 27. Peers sat to judge him among whom were the Dukes of Suffolk and Northumberland and the Earl of Pembroke The particulars charged on him were a design to seize on the King's Person to imprison the Duke of Northumberland and to raise the City of London it seemed strange to see Northumberland sit a Judge when the crime objected was a design against his life
Conquerors time besides many other Acts that clearly imported a Supremacy over all Persons and in all Causes But they did at the same time so explain and limit this Power that it was visible they did not intend to subject Religion wholly to the Pleasure of the King for it was declared that his Power was only a Coercive Authority to defend the true Religion to abolish Heresies and Idolatries to cause Bishops and Pastors to do their Duties and in case they were negligent or would not amend their Faults to put others in their room Upon the whole matter they concluded that the Pope had no Power in England and that the King had an intire Dominion over all his Subjects which did extend even to the regulating of Ecclesiastical Matters These things being fully opened in many Disputes The Clergy submitted to it and published in several Books all the Bishops Abbots and Priors of England Fisher only excepted were so far satisfied with them or so much in love with their Preferments that they resolved to comply with the Changes which the King was resolved to make Fisher was in great esteem for Piety and strictness of Life and so much pains was taken on him A little before the Parliament met Cranmer proposed to him that he and any five Doctors he would choose and Stokesly with five on his side should confer on that point and examine he Authorities that were on both sides he accepted of it and Stokesly wrote to him to name time and place but Fisher's Sickness hindered the Progress of that motion The Parliament met the 15th of January A Session of Parliament there were but seven Bishops and twelve Abbots present the rest it seems were unwilling to concur in making this change tho they complied with it when it was made Every Sunday during the Session a Bishop preached at St. Paul's and declared that the Pope had no Authority in England Before this they had only said that a General Council was above him and that the Exactions of that Court and Appeals to it were unlawful but now they went a strain higher to prepare the People for receiving the Acts then in Agitation On the 9th of March The Pope's Power taken away the Commons began the Bill for taking away the Pope's Power and sent it to the Lords on the 14th who past it on the 20th without any dissent In it they set forth the Exactions of the Court of Rome grounded on the Pope's Power of dispensing and that as none could dispense with the Laws of God so the King and Parliament only had the Authority of dispensing with the Laws of the Land and that therefore such Licenses or Dispensations as were formerly in use should be for the future granted by the two Arch-bishops some of these were to be confirmed under the Great Seal and they appointed that thereafter all Commerce with Rome should cease They also declared that they did not intend to alter any Article of the Catholick Faith of Christendome or of that which was declared in the Scripture necessary to Salvation They confirmed all the Exemptions granted to Monasteries by the Popes but subjected them to the King's Visitation and gave the King and his Council power to examine and reform all Indulgences and Priviledges granted by the Pope The Offenders against this Law were to be punished according to the Statutes of Premunire This Act subjected the Monasteries entirely to the King's Authority and put them in no small Confusion Those that loved the Reformation rejoyced both to see the Pope's Power rooted out and to find the Scripture made the Standard of Religion After this Act The Act of the Succession another past in both Houses in six Days time without any Opposition Settling the Succession of the Crown confirming the Sentence of Divorce and the King's Marriage with Queen Anne and declaring all Marriages within the Degrees prohibited by Moses to be unlawful All that had married within them were appointed to be divorced and their Issue illegitimated and the Succession to the Crown was settled upon the King's Issue by the prefent Queen or in default of that to the King 's right Heirs for ever All were required to swear to maintain the Contents of this Act and if any refused to swear to it or should say any thing to the Slander of the King's Marriage he was to be judged guilty of misprision of Treason and to be punished accordingly The Oath is also set down in the Journals of the House of Lords by which they did not only swear Obedience to the King and his Heirs by his present Marriage but also to defend the Act of Succession and all the Effects and Contents in it against all manner of Persons whatsoever by which they were bound to maintain the Divorce both against the Pope's Censures and the Emperour if he went about to execute them At this time An Act regulating the proceedings against Hereticks one Philips complained to the House of Commons of the Bishop of London for using him cruelly in Prison upon Suspicion of Heresy the Commons sent up this to the Lords but received no Answer So they sent some of their Members to the Bishop desiring him to answer the Complaints put in against him But he acquainted the House of Lords with it and they all with one consent voted that none of their House ought to appear or answer to any Complaint at the Bar of the House of Commons So the Commons let this particular Case fall and sent up a Bill to which the Lords agreed regulating the Proceedings against Hereticks That whereas by the Statute made by King Henry the Fourth Bishops might commit Men upon Suspition of Heresy and Heresy was generally defined to be whatever was contrary to the Scriptures or Canonical Sanctions which was liable to great Ambiguity therefore that Statute was repealed and none were to be committed for Heresy but upon a Presentment made by two Witnesses None were to be accused for speaking against things that were grounded only upon the Pope's Canons Bail was to be taken for Hereticks and they were to be brought to their Trials in open Court and if upon Conviction they did not abjure or were Relapses they were to be burnt the King 's Writ being first obtained This was a great check to the Bishop's Tyrrany and gave no smal comfort to all that favoured the Reformation The Convocation sent in a Submission at the same time The Submission of the Clergy by which they acknowledged That all Convocations ought to be assembled by the King 's Writ and promised upon the Word of Priests never to make nor execute any Canons without the King's Assent They also desired That since many of the received Canons were found to be contrary to the King's Prerogative and the Laws of the Land there might be a Committee named by the King of 32 the one half out of both Houses of Parliament and the other
they did cruelly and treacherously murder him and laid out his Body in the same Window from which he had looked on Wisharts Execution Some few justified this Fact as the killing of a Robber and Murderer but it was more generally condemned by all sorts of People even by those who hated him most yet the Accomplishment of Wishart's Prediction made great Impressions on many On the other hand it was afterwards observed that scarce any of the Conspirators died an ordinary Death They kept out the Castle and about 140 came in to them and they held it near two Years being assisted both by Mony and Provisions that were sent from England They had also the Govenour at their Mercy for they kept his eldest Son whom the Cardinal had taken into his Care for his Education An Absolution was brought from Rome and a Pardon was offered them and at last being straitned both at Sea and Land they rendred the Place upon Assurance of Life This Infamous Action was a great Blemish upon the Reformers who tho they did not directly justify it yet extenuated it and gave it some Countenance for two of them went in and preached to the Garrison in the Castle In England a Parliament met Chantries given to the King in which as the Spiritualty gave a Subsidy of six Shillings in the Pound payable in two Years so the Temporalty not only gave a Subsidy for the War but confirmed all the Surrenders that had been made of Chantries Chappels Colledges Hospitals and other Foundations for saying Masses for departed Souls and they empowered the King during his Life to grant Commissions for seizing on the rest of them Yet the King found this was like to give new Discontent to the Gentry to whom these belonged so he made but a small Progress in it and many were reserved to his Sons Courtiers to feed on The King dismissed the Parliament with a long Speech In which after he had thanked them for their Bills he exhorted them to Charity and Concord in matters of Religion and to forbear all Terms of Reproach such as Papist and Heretick he complained much of the Stifness of some Church-men and of the Indiscretion of others who both gave ill Example and sowed the Seeds of Discord among the Laity He as God's Vicar thought himself bound to see these things corrected he reproved the Temporalty for the ill use they made of the Scripture for instead of being taught out of it to live better and to be more charitable to one another they only railed at one another and made Songs out of it to disgrace those that differed from them so he exhorted them to serve God and love one another which he would esteem the best Expression of their Duty and Obedience to him The King had appointed a Distribution of 550 l. a year in several Cathedrals for the Poor and about 400 l. for High-ways so this Year some Bishops were appointed to see whether those Payments were made as he had ordered or not The Universities were now in danger of having their Colledges supprest but upon their Applications to the King they were delivered from their Fears Now came on the last Year of this Reign A Peace with France the War with France was this Year unsuccesful but upon the Earl of Surrey's being recalled and the Earl of Hartford's being sent in his room things turned a little This raised such Animosity between those two Lords that they became fatal to the former The two Kings were at last brought to consent to a Peace the main Article of it was that within eight Years Bulloigne should be delivered up the taking and keeping of which cost England 1300000 l. Upon this Peace Annebault the French Admiral was sent over Ambassadour The Council of Trent was now sitting Pool was made a Legate to do the King the more Spite the Emperour and the Pope governed it as they pleased so the two Crowns resolved to unite more firmly particularly it was proposed that the Mass should be turned to a Communion and Cranmer was ordered to prepare the Office for it But this was too great a Design for two old Kings to accomplish There was at this time a new Prosecution of those that denied the Corporal Presence in the Sacrament Anne Aiscough and others burnt Shaxton was accused of some Words about it but he abjured and complied so entirely that soon after he preached the Sermon at the burning of Anne Aiscough he made no noise all King Edward's time yet in Queen Mary's Reign he was a Persecutor of Protestants but was so little esteemed that tho he had been Bishop of Salisbury he was raised no higher than to be Bishop Suffragan of Ely Several other Persons were at this time endicted upon the same Statute but most of them recanted Anne Aiscough stood firm she was descended from a good Family and had been well educated but was unhappily married for her Husband being a violent Papist drove her out of his House when he discovered her Inclinations to the Reformation she was put in Prison on the account of the Sacrament but signed a Recantation and so was set at Liberty yet not long after she was committed again upon a new Complaint and was examined before the Privy Council but answered with extraordinary Resolution yet it was thought by some that she was too forward in her manner of speaking she had been much at Court and it was believed she was supported by some Ladies there so in order to the Discovery of this she was carried to the Tower and rack'd yet she confess'd nothing Wriothesly was present and commanded the Lieutenant of the Tower to draw the Rack a little more but he refused to do it upon which the Chancellour laid aside his Gown and drew it himself with so much Force as if he had intended to rend her Body asunder and the Effects of this were so violent that she was not able to go to Smithfield but was carried thither in a Chair when she was burnt Two others were also condemned on the same account and Shaxton to compleat his Apostacy after he had in vain endeavoured to perswade them to abjure preached the Sermon at their Burning in which he inveighed severely against their Errors The Lord Chancellour came to Smithfield and offered them their Pardons if they would recant but they chose rather to glorify God by their Deaths than to dishonour him by so foul an Apostacy There were two burnt in Suffolk and one in Norfolk on the same account this Year But the Popish Party hoped to have greater Sacrifices offered up to their Revenge Designs against Cranmer They had laid a Train last Year for Cranmer and they had laid one now for the Queen They perswaded the King that Cranmer was the Source of all the Heresy that was in England but the King's Partiality to him was such that none would come in against him So they desired that he might be once
against those who had raised such a Storm in the Kingdom and in particular against those Abbots and Monks who had sworn to maintain his Supremacy and yet were the chief Incendiaries that had set the Kingdom on Fire One Forrest an Observant Friar Forrest was burnt had been Queen Katherin's Confessor but forsook her Interests and not only swore to the King's Supremacy but used such Insinuations that he had a large share of the King's Favour and Confidence He was look'd on as a Reproach to his Order and used great Cruelties in their House at Greenwich He shut up one that he believed gave Intelligence of all they did to the Court and used him so ill that he died in their hands It was also found that in secret Confession he had alienated many from the King's Supremacy and being questioned for it he said he had taken the Oath for it only with his outward Man but his inward Man had never consented to it But he offered to recant and abjure this Opinion yet being afterwards diverted from that he was condemned as an Heretick and was burnt in Smithfield A Pardon was offered him at the Stake if he would recant but he refused it A great Image that was brought out of Wales was hewed in pieces and served for Fewel to burn him The Writers of that time say he denied the Gospel and that he had little Knowledge of God in his Life and shewed less Trust in him at his Death The Winter after this a Correspondence was discovered between Cardinal Pool The Attainders of Cardinal Pool's Friends and Courtney Marquess of Exeter and Pool's Brother the Lord Mountacute and several others It was believed that Sir Geoffrey Pool another of the Brothers betrayed the rest They had expressed some Kindness for the Cardinal and his Proceedings and had said that they looked to see a Change in England and that they hoped the King would die ere long and then all would go well with several other Words to that purpose for which they were Attainted and Executed Others were also condemned for calling the King a Beast and worse than a Beast and that he would be certainly damned for plucking down the Abbies Cardinal Pool and several others that had fled out of the Kingdom and had Confederated themselves with the Pope against the King were also Attainted Sir Nicholas Carew Master of the Horse and Knight of the Garter was likewise condemned for having said that the Attainder of the Marquis of Exeter was cruel and unjust He renounced the Superstitions of Popery and embraced the Reformation before he suffered Attainders in Parliament without hearing the Parties After these Judgments and Executions were over a new and unheard of Precedent was made of Attainting some without bringing them to make their Answers which is a Blemish on this Reign that can never be washed off and was a Breach of the most sacred and unalterable Rules of Justice The first that were so condemned were the Marchioness of Exeter and the Countess of Sarum Mother to Card. Pool The special Matter charged on the former was her Confederating her self with Sir Nicholas Carew and that against the other was the Confederating with her Son Cardinal Pool No Witnesses were examined to prove these things against them perhaps some Depositions might have been read in Parliament Cromwell shewed a Coat which was found among the Countess of Sarum's Cloaths on which the Standard used by the Yorkshire Rebels was wrought from which it was inferred that she approved of them Fourteen others were Attainted by the same Act six of them were Priests one was a Knight Hospitaller four were Gentlemen one was a Merchant and two were Yeomen all were condemned for Confederating with the Pope or Cardinal Pool or asserting the Pope's Supremacy or endeavouring to raise Rebellion But against four of them there is nothing but Treason in General Words alledged This Bill was past in two days by the Lords and in five by the Commons But of all these only three were executed these were the Countess of Sarum tho not till two Years after this and Sir Adrian Fortescue and Dingley the Knight of St. John of Jerusalem In the Countess of Sarum did the Name of Plantagenet end She was about 70 Years old but shewed that in that Age she had a Vigorous and Masculine Mind In the Parliament that sate in the Year 1540 several others were Attainted in the same manner without being heard and for the same Crimes Fetherston Abel and Powel and six more were so condemned but those three only suffered By another Act of the same Parliament the Lord Hungerford and his Chaplain Bird were Attainted His Chaplain had often Perswaded him to rebel and had said that the King was the greatest Heretick in the World Hungerford had also ordered some of his other Chaplains to use Conjuring that they might know how long the King would live and whether he would be Victorious over his Enemies He was also charged for having lived in Sodomy with several of his Servants three Years together He was soon after executed and died in great disorder In the Year 1541 Five Priests and ten Laymen were stirring up the People in the North to a new Rebellion but it was prevented and they suffered for it In the Year 1543 Gardiner that was the Bishop of Winchester's Secretary and three other Priests were condemned and executed for denying the King's Supremacy and this was the last Occasion that was given to the King to shew his Severity on that account In all these Executions it cannot be denied but the Laws were excessively severe and the Proceedings upon them were never tempered with that Mildness which ought to be often applied for the mitigating the rigour of Penal Laws But tho they are much aggravated by Popish Writers they were far short of the Cruelties used in Queen Mary's Reign To conclude We have now gone through the Reign of King Henry the Eighth who is rather to be reckoned among the Great than the Good Princes He exercised so much Severity on Men of both Perswasions that the Writers of both sides have laid open his Faults and taxed his Cruelty But as neither of them were much obliged to him so none have taken so much care to set forth his good Qualities as his Enemies have done to enlarge on his Vices I do not deny that he is to be numbered among the ill Princes yet I cannot rank him with the worst BOOK II. Book II. Of the Life and Reign of King EDWARD the VI. EDWARD was the only Son of King Henry K. Edwards Birth and education by his best beloved Wife Jane Seimour born the 12th of October 1537. His Mother died the day after he was born of a Distemper incident to Women in her condition and was not ripped up by Chirurgeons as some Writers have reported on design to represent King Henry as barbarous and cruel to all his Wives At six years
enacted the same Penalties against offendors that were in the Act for the former Book three years before The Papists took occasion on the changes now made in the Book to say that the new Doctrines and ways of Worship changed as fast as the fashions did It was answered That it was no wonder if corruptions which had been creeping in for a thousand years were not all discovered and thrown out at once and since they had been every age making additions of new Ceremonies it might be excused if the Purging them out was done by such easie degrees The Book was not to be received till All-hallows because it was hoped that between and then the Reformation of the Ecclesiastical Laws would have been finished A Bill concerning Treasons past with only one dissent it was much opposed in the H. of Commons for the multiplying of Treasons is always lookt on as a severity in the Government One Bill was rejected but another was agreed on If any called the King or his Successors named in the Statute of 35 Hen. 8. Heretick Tyrant or other opprobrious words he was for the first offence to be punished with a forfeiture of Goods and Chattels for the second with a Praemunire and the third offence was made Treason but if it was done in printing or writing the first offence was Treason None were to be prosecuted for words but within three Months and two Witnesses were made necessary who should aver their Depositions to the Parties face This seems to relate to the proceedings against the Duke of Somerset in which the Witnesses did not appear so that he lost the advantage of cross examining them and many times Innocence and guilt discover themselves when the Parties are confronted Another Law past for Holy-days and Fasts No days were to be esteemed Holy in their own nature but by reason of those Holy duties which ought to be done in them for which they were dedicated to the service of God Days were esteemed to be dedicated only to the honour of God even those in which the Saints were commemorated Sundays and the other Holy-days were to be religiously observed and the Bishops were to proceed to Censures against offenders only Labourers or Fisher-men in case of necessity might work on them The Eves before them were to be Fasts and abstinence from Flesh was enacted both in Lent and on Fridays and Saturdays This liberty to Tradesmen to work on these days was abused to a publick profanation of them but the stricter clauses in the Act were little regarded An Act past empowering Church-wardens to gather Collections for the poor and the Bishops to proceed against such as refused to contribute which though it was a Bill that taxed the people yet had its first rise in the House of Lords A Bill was past by the Lords but rejected by the Commons for securing the Clergy from falling under the lash of a Praemunire by Ignorance and that they ought to be first prohibited by the Kings Writ and not be sued unless they continued after that stiff in their disobedience An Act past for the Marriage of the Clergy four Earls and six Lords dissenting from it That whereas the former Act about it was thought only a permission of it as some other unlawful things were connived at upon which the Wives and Children of the Clergy were reproachfully used and the Word of God was not heard with due reverence therefore their Marriages were declared good and valid The Marquess of Northampton procured an Act confirming his second Marriage and that occasioned another to be proposed in the House of Lords that no man might put away his Wife and marry another unless he were first Divorced but it was laid aside by the Commons The Bishoprick of Westminster was re-united to London only the Collegiate Church was still continued An Act past concerning Usury An Act against Usury repealing a Law made 37 Hen. 8. That none might take above 20 per Cent. All Usury or profit for Money lent was condemned as contrary to the Word of God and transgressors were to be imprisoned and fined at pleasure This has been since that time repealed and several regulations have been made of the gain by lent Money which is now reduced to 6 per Cent. The prohibitions of Usury by Moses have been thought Moral others have believed that they were founded only on the equal division of the Land and since it was then lawful to take Usury of a stranger they have inferred that the Law was not Moral otherwise it must be of perpetual obligation It was also a great incitement to industry not to lend upon profit and it made every man lay out his Money in some way of advantage and their neighbourhood to Tyre and Sidon gave them a quick vent of their Manufacture without which it is not easie to imagine how such vast numbers could have lived in so narrow a Countrey So that these Laws seem'd to be only judiciary It was thought at first suitable to the Brotherly kindness that ought to be among Christians to lend without gain but at last Canons were made against taking Usury and it was put among the reserved Cases Mortgages were an invention to avoid that for the use was paid as the Rent of the Land mortgaged and not of the Money lent Inventions also were found for those who had no Land to mortgage to make such bargains that gain was made of the Money and yet not in the way of Usury These were tricks only to deceive people and it is not easie to shew how the making such a gain as holds proportion to the value of Land is immoral in it self if the rule setled by Law is not exceeded and men deal not unmercifully with those who by inevitable accidents are disabled from making payment Another Bill was past against Simony the reserving pensions out of Benefices and granting Advowsons while the Incumbent was yet alive but it had not the Royal Assent Simony has been oft complained of and many Laws and Canons have been made against it but new contrivances are still found out to elude them all And it is a disease that will still hang on the Church as long as Covetousness and Ambition ferment so strongly in the minds of Church-men A Bill was sent to the House of Commons signed by the King A Repeal of the settlement of the Duke of Somerset's estate repealing the settlement of the Duke of Somerset's Estate 23 Hen. 8. made in favour of his Children by his second Wife to exclude the Children by his first of whom are descended the Seimours of Devonshire which some imputed to a Jealousie he had of his first Wife and others ascribed it to the power his second Wife had over him But the Commons were very unwilling to void a settlement confirmed in Parliament and so for Fifteen days it was debated A new Bill was devised and that was much altered and the Bill was not finished till the
Crowned Gardiner with ten other Bishops performing that Ceremony with the ordinary solemnity Day being esteemed the best Preacher among them preached the Sermon There was a General Pardon proclaimed and with that the Queen discharged the Subjects of the two Tenths two Fifteenths and a Subsidy that had been granted by the last Parliament and she also declared that she would pay both her Fathers Debts and her Brothers and though her Treasure was much exhausted yet she esteeming the love of her People her best Treasure forgave those Taxes in lieu of which she desired only the hearts of her Subjects and that they would serve God sincerely and pray earnestly for her On the 20th A Parliament meets and repeals several Laws of October a Parliament met There had been great violences used in many Elections and many false Returns were made some that were known to be zealous for the Reformation were forcibly turned out of the House of Commons which was afterwards offered as a ground upon which that Parliament and all Acts made in it might have been annulled There came only two of the Reformed Bishops to the House of Lords The two Arch-bishops and three Bishops were in Prison Two others were turned out the rest stayed at home so only Taylor and Harley the Bishops of Lincoln and Hereford came When Mass began to be said they went out as some report it but were never suffered to come to their places again others say they refused to joyn in that Worship and so were violently thrust out In the House of Commons some of the more forward moved that King Edward's Laws might be reviewed but things were not ripe enough for that Nowell a Prebendary of Westminster was returned Burgess for a Town but the House voted That the Clergy being represented in the lower House of Convocation could not be admitted to sit among the Laity The Commons sent up a Bill of Tonnage and Poundage which the Lords sent down amended in two Proviso's and the Commons did not then insist on their Priviledge that the Lords could not alter a Bill of Money The only publick Bill that was finished this Session was a Repeal of all late Statutes making any Crime Treason that was not so by the 25. of Edward the Third or Felony that was not so before King Henry the Eighth excepting from the benefit of this Act all that were put in Prison before the end of September last who were also excepted out of the General Pardon The Marchioness of Exeter and the Earl of Devonshire her Son were restored in blood by two private Acts and then the Parliament was prorogued for three days that it might be said the first Session under the Queen was meerly for Acts of Mercy At their next Meeting The Qu.'s Mother's marriage confirm'd after the Bill of Tonnage and Poundage was past a Bill past through both Houses in Four days repealing the Divorce of the Queens Mother In which they declared the Marriage to have been lawful and that malicious Persons had possessed the King with scruples concerning it and had by Corruption procured the Seals of Foreign Universities condemning it and had by threatnings and sinistrous Arts obtained the like in England Upon which Cranmer had pronounced the Sentence of Divorce which had been confirmed in Parliament They therefore looking on the miseries that had fallen on the Nation since that time as Judgments from God for that sentence condemn it and repeal the Acts confirming it Gardiner in this performed his promise to the Queen of getting her to be declared Legitimate without taking notice of the Pope's authority but he shewed that he was past shame when he procured such a Repeal of a Sentence which he had so servilely promoted and he particularly knew the falshood of this pretence that the foreign Universities were corrupted He had also set it on long before Cranmer engaged in it and sat in Court with him when it was pronounced By this Act the Lady Elizabeth was upon the matter again illegitimated since the ground upon which her Mothers marriage subsisted was the Divorce of the first Marriage and it was either upon this pretence or on old scores that the Queen who had hitherto treated her as a Sister began now to use her more severely Others suggest that a secret rivalry was the true spring of it It was thought the Earl of Devonshire was much in the Queens favour but he either not presuming so high or liking Lady Elizabeth better who was both more beautiful and was XIX Years younger than the Queen made his addresses to her which provoked the Queen so much that it drew a great deal of trouble on them both The next Bill was a Repeal of all the Laws made in King Edward's reign King Edward's Laws about Religion repealed concerning Religion it was argued six days in the House of Commons and carried without a Division by this Religion was again put back into the state in which King Henry had left it and this was to take place after the 20th of December next but till then it was left free to all either to use the old or the new Service as they pleased Another Act past against all that should disquiet any Preacher for his Sermons or interrupt Divine Offices either such as had been in the last year of King Henry or such as the Queen should set out by which she was empowered to restore the service in all things as it had been before her Father made the breach with Rome Offenders were either to be punished by Ecclesiastical Censures or by an Imprisonment for three Months And the House of Commons was now so forward that they sent up a Bill for the Punishing of all such as would not come to Church or Sacraments after the Old Service should be again set up yet the Lords fearing this might alarm the Nation too much let it fall Another Law was made that if any to the number of Twelve should meet to alter any thing in Religion or for any Riot or should by any publick notice such as Bells or Beacons gather the People together and upon Proclamation made should not disperse themselves they and all that assisted them were declared guilty of Felony and if any more than two met for these ends they should lye a Year in Prison and all People were required under severe Penalties to assist the Justices for repressing such Assemblies So the favour of the former Act of Repeal appeared to be a mockery when so soon after it so severe a Law made by which disorders that might arise upon sudden heats were declared to be Felonies The Marquess of Northampton's second Marriage was also annulled but no Declaration was made against Divorces in general grounded on the Indissolubleness of the Marriage bond only that particular sentence was condemned as pronounced upon false surmises An Act also passed The Duke of Norfolks Attainder repealed annulling the Attainder of the Duke of
that could be obtained It was agreed that at the end of eight Years Calais should either be restored or 500000. Crowns should be payed the Queen yet if during that time she made War either on France or Scotland she was to forfeit her right to Calais Aymouth in Scotland was to be rased and all differences on the Borders there were to be determined by some deputed on both sides this being adjusted a General Peace between the Crowns of England France and Spain was concluded and thus the Queen being freed from the dangerous consultations that the continuance of a War might have involved her in was the more at liberty to settle matters at home The first Bill Acts past in Parliament that was brought to try the Temper of the Parliament was for the Restitution of the Tenths and First-fruits to the Crown against this all the Bishops protested but that was all the opposition made to it By it not only that Tax was of new laid on the Clergy but all the Impropriated Benefices which Queen Mary had surrendred were restored to the Crown After this The Commons pray the Queen to marry the Commons made an Address to the Queen desiring her to choose such a Husband as might make both her self and the Nation happy She received this very kindly since they had neither limited her to time nor Nation but declared that as hitherto she had lived with great satisfaction in a single state and had refused the Propositions that had been made her both in her Brothers and Sisters reign so she had no Inclination to change her course of life If ever she did it she would take care that it should be for the good and to the satisfaction of her People She thought she was married to the Nation at her Coronation and looked on her People as her Children and she would be well contented if her Tombstone might tell Posterity Here lies a Queen that reigned so long and lived and dyed a Virgin There was little more progress made in this matter save that a Committee was appointed by both Houses to consider what should be the Authority of the Person whom the Queen might happen to marry but she sent them a Message to proceed to other affairs and let that alone A Bill for the Recognition of her Title to the Crown was put in Her Title to the Crown acknowledged It was not thought necessary to Repeal the Sentence of her Mothers Divorce for the Crown purged all defects and it was thought needless to look back unto a thing which could not be done without at least casting some reproach on her Father so it was in general words Enacted That they did assuredly believe and declare that by the Laws of God and the Realm she was their lawful Queen and was rightly and lineally descended This was thought a much wiser way than if they examined the Sentence of Divorce that past upon the Confession of a Precontract which must have revived the remembrance of things that were better left in silence Bills were put in for the English Service Acts concerning Religion for reviving King Edward's Laws and for annexing the Supremacy again to the Crown To that concerning the Supremacy two Temporal Lords and nine Bishops with the Abbot of Westminster dissented It was proposed to revive the Law for making the Bishops by Letters-Patents as was in King Edward's time but they choosed rather to revive the Act for Electing them made in the 25. Hen. 8. They revived all Acts made against the Pope's power in King Henry's time and repealed those made by Queen Mary They enacted an Oath for acknowledging the Queen Supream Governour in all causes and over all Persons Those that refused it were to forfeit all Offices that they held either in Church or State and to be under a disability during life If any should advance the authority of a Foreign Power for the first offence they were to be fined or imprisoned for the second to be in a Praemunire and the third was made Treason The Queen was also impowered to give Commissions for Judging and Reforming Ecclesiastical matters who were limited to judge nothing to be Heresie but what had been already so judged by the authority of the Scriptures or the first four General Councils All Points that were not decided either by express words of Scripture or by those Councils were to be referred to the Parliament and Convocation The Title of Supream Head was changed partly because the Queen had some scruples about it and partly to moderate the opposition which the Popish party might otherwise make to it and the refusing the Oath was made no other way Penal but that all Offices or Benefices were forfeited upon it which was a great mitigation of the severity in King Henry's time The Bishops are said to have made several Speeches against this in the House of Lords but that which goes under the name of Heath's Speech must be a forgery for in it the Supremacy is called a new and unheard of thing which could not have flowed from one that had sworn it so often both under King Henry and King Edward Tonstall came not to this Parliament and he was so offended with the Cruelties of the last Reign that he had withdrawn himself into his Diocess where he burnt none himself upon that it was now thought that he was so much alienated from those Methods that some had great hopes of his declaring for the Reformation Heath had been likewise very moderate nor were any burnt under him Upon the power given the Queen to appoint some to Reform and direct all Ecclesiastical matters was the Court called the High Commission Court founded which indeed was nothing but the sharing that authority which was in one Person in King Henry's time into many hands for that Court had no other authority but that which was lodged formerly in Cromwell as the King's Vicegerent and was now thought too great to be trusted to one Man Great complaints were made of seditious Sermons preached by the Popish Clergy Preaching without Licence forbidden upon which the Queen followed the Precedent that her Sister had made and forbid all Preaching excepting only by such as obtained a Licence under the Great Seal for it She likewise sent an Order to the Convocation requiring them under the pains of a Praemunire to make no Canons Yet the lower House in an Address to the upper House declared for the Corporal Presence and that the Mass was a Propitiatory Sacrifice and for the Supremacy and that matters of Religion fell only under the Cognisance of the Pastors of the Church The greatest part of both Universities had also set their hands to all these Points except the last This it seems A publick Conference about Religion was the rather added by the Clerks of Convocation to hinder a publick Conference which the Queen had appointed between the Bishops and the Reformed Divines It was first
proposed to Heath who was still a Privy Councellour and he after some Conference about it with his Brethren accepted of it Nine of a side were to dispute about three Points Worship in an Unknown Tongue the power that every particular Church had to alter Rites and Ceremonies and the Masse's being a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living All was to be given in in Writing The Bishops were to begin in every Point and they were to interchange their Papers and answer them The last of March was the first day of Conference which held in Westminster Abby in the presence of the Privy Council and both Houses of Parliament The Bishop of Winchester pretended there had been some mistake in the Order and that their Paper was not quite finished but that Dr. Cole should deliver in discourse what they had prepared though it was not yet in that order that it could be Copied out The secret of this was The Bishops had resolved openly to Vindicate their Doctrine but not to give any Papers or enter into dispute with Hereticks or so far to acknowledge the Queen's Supremacy as to engage in Conferences at her command Cole was observed to read almost all he said though he affected to be thought only to deliver a discourse so as if most part of it had been Extemporary The substance of it was Arguments for against the Worship in an unknown Tongue that though the Worship in a known Tongue had been appointed in the Scriptures yet the Church had power to change it as she changed the Sabbath and had appointed the Sacrament to be received fasting though it was Instituted after Supper to eat blood was forbid and a Community of goods was set up by the Apostles yet it was in the power of the Church to alter these things he enlarged on the evil of Schism and the necessity of adhering to the Church of Rome Vulgar Tongues changed daily but the Latine was the same was spread over many Countries The People might reap profit from Prayers which they understood not as well as absent Persons The Queen of Ethiopia's Eunuch read Isaiah though he understood him not and Philip was sent to explain that Prophecy to him Horn when this was ended read the Paper drawn by the Reformers he began it with a Prayer and a Protestation of their sincerity They founded their Assertion on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians in which he enjoyned them to pray with understanding that so the Unlearned might say Amen and that nothing should be spoken that might give an uncertain sound but that all things should be done to edification and though the speaking with strange Tongues was then an extraordinary gift of the Holy Ghost yet he forbids the using it where there was not an Interpreter Things so expresly enjoyned could not be indifferent or fall under the power of the Church The Jews had their Worship in the Vulgar Tongue so had also the most barbarous Nations when converted to Christianity The natural use of Speech was that every thing which was said might be understood Quotations were brought to shew that Psalms were daily sung in the Vulgar Tongue among all Nations When they ended their Paper it was received with a shout of applause and was put in the Lord Keeper's hands signed by them all But the Bishops refused to deliver theirs The next day was appointed for considering the second Point but the Bishops resolved to go no further in the Conference for they saw by the applause of the People that the Audience was more favourable to the other side so the next day of Meeting they offered an answer to the Paper given in the former day by the Reformers The Lord Keeper told them that according to the Order laid down they were first to go through the three Points before they might be suffered to reply but they said Cole had the former day only given his own sense in an Extemporary discourse Their foul dealing in this was condemned by the whole Audience so the Lord Keeper required them to go to the second Point but they refused to begin and moved that the other side should be made to begin and though the Lord Keeper shewed them that this was contrary to the Order agreed on before-hand yet they continued all resolute and would not proceed any further Ferknam only excepted but he said he could do nothing alone since the rest would not joyn with him The Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln said the Faith of the Church ought not to be examined except in a Synod of Divines and it gave too great an encouragement to Hereticks to dispute with them and that both the Queen and her Council deserved to be excommunicated for suffering them to argue against the Catholick Faith before an Unlearned Multitude Upon this they were sent to the Tower and the Conference broke up but the Reformers thought the advantage was much on their side and that things were now carried much more fairly than had been in those Conferences and Disputes that were in the beginning of the former Reign The Papists on the other hand said it was visible the Audience was prepossessed and that the Conference was appointed only to make way for the changes that the Parliament was then about with the Pomp of a Victory and therefore as they blamed the Bishops for undertaking it so they justified them for breaking it off The Book of Common-Prayer was now revised The English Service is again set up the most considerable alteration was that the express Declaration which was made in the second Book set out by King Edward against the Corporal Presence was left out that so none might be driven out of the Communion of the Church upon that account The matter was left undetermined as a speculative Point in which People were left at liberty The Book of Ordination was not specially mentioned in the Act which gave occasion to Bonner afterwards to question the Legality of Ordinations made by it But it had been made a part of the Common-Prayer-Book in the 5th year of King Edward and the whole Book then set out was now confirmed so that by a special Act made some years after this it was declared that that Office was understood to be a part of it When the Bill for the English Service was put in to the House of Lords Speeches made against it by some Bishops Heath and Scot Bishop of Chester and Ferknam made long Speeches against it grounded chiefly on the Authority of the Church the Antiquity of the established Religion and Novelty of the other which was changed every day as appeared in King Edward's time They said the consent of the Catholick Church and the perpetual succession in St. Peter's Chair ought to have more autherity than a few Preachers risen up of late They also enlarged much against the Sacriledge the robbing of Churches and the breaking of Images that had been committed by the
to the House of Commons and read there upon which Mony was granted for a War with France At this time Fox to support his Party against the Lord Treasurer endeavoured to bring Thomas Wolsey into favour Car. Wolfey's Rise he was of mean Extraction but had great Parts and a wonderful Dexterity in insinuating himself into Men's Favours so he being brought into Business did so manage the King that he became very quickly the Master of his Spirit and of all his Affairs and for fifteen Years continued to be the most absolute Favourite that had ever been seen in England He saw the King was much set on his Pleasures and had a great Aversion to business and the other Counsellours being unwilling to bear the load of Affairs were uneasy to him by pressing him to govern by his own Counsels but he knew the methods of Favourites better and so was not only easy but assistant to the King in his Pleasures and undertook to free him from the Trouble of Government and to give him leisure to follow his Appetites He was Master of all the Offices at home And Greatness and Treaties abroad so that all Affairs went as he directed them He it seems became soon obnoxious to Parliaments and therefore he tried but one during his Ministry where the Supply was granted so scantily that afterwards he chused rather to raise Mony by Loans and Benevolences than by the free gift of the People in Parliament He became so scandalous for his ill Life that he grew to be a Disgrace to his Profession for he not only served the King but also shared with him in his Pleasures which were unhappy to him for he was spoiled with Venerial Distempers He was first made Bishop of Tournay in Flanders then of Lincoln after that he was promoted to the See of York and had both the Abby of St. Albans and the Bishoprick of Bath and Wells in Commendam the last he afterwards exchanged for Duresm and upon Foxes death he quitted Duresm that he might take Winchester and besides all this the King by a special Grant gave him power to dispose of all the Ecclesiastical Preferments in England so that in effect he was the Pope of this other World as was said antiently of an Arch-bishop of Canterbury and no doubt but he copied skilfully enough after those Patterns that were set him at Rome Being made a Cardinal and setting up a Legatine Court he found it fit for his Ambition to have the Great Seal likewise that there might be no clashing between those two Jurisdictions He had in one word all the Qualities necessary for a Great Minister and all the Vices ordinary in a Great Favourite During this whole Raign the Duke 's of Norfolk Father and Son were Treasurers but that long and strange course of Favour in so ticklish a Time turn'd fatally upon the Son near the end of the King's Life But he that was the longest and greatest sharer in the King's Favour Charles Brandon's Advancément was Charles Brandon who from the degree of a private Gentleman was advanced to the highest Honors The strength of his Body and the gracefulness of his Person contributed more to his Rise than his Dexterity in Affairs or the Endowments of his Mind for the greatest Evidence he gave of his Understanding was that knowing he was not made for Business he did not pretend to it a Temper seldom observed by the Creatures of Favour The frame and strength of his Body made him a great Master in the Diversions of that Age Justs and Tiltings and a fit Match for the King or rather a Second to him who delighted mightily in them His Person was so acceptable to the Ladies that the King's Sister the Queen Dowager of France liked him and by a strange sort of making Love prefixed him a time for gaining her Consent to marry him and assured him if that he did not prevail within that time he might for ever despair She married him in France and the King after a shew of some Displeasure was pacified and continued his Favours to him not only during his Sister's Life but to the last and in all the Revolutions of the Court that followed in which every Minister fell by turns he still enjoyed his share in the King's Bounty and Affection so much happier it proved to be loved than trusted by him The King denied himself none of those Pleasures that are as much legitimated in Courts as they are condemned elsewhere but yet he declared no Mistriss but Elizabeth Blunt and owned no Issue but a Son he had by her whom he afterwards made Duke of Richmond The King's usage of his Parliaments He took great care never to imbroil himself with his Parliaments and he met with no Opposition in any except in that one which was during Cardinal Woolsey's Ministry in which 800000 l. being demanded for a War with France to be paid in four Years the debate about it rose very high and not above the half of it was offered so the Cardinal came into the House of Commons and desired to hear the Reasons of those who were against the Supply but he was told that it was against their Orders to speak to a Debate before any that was not of the House he was much disatisfied at this and cast the blame of it upon Sir Thomas Moor that was Speaker and after that he found out other means of supplying the King without Parliaments The King had been educated with more than ordinary Care The King's Education and Learning being then in its dawning after a night of long and gross Ignorance his Father had given Orders that both his elder Brother and he should be well instructed in matters of Knowledg not with any design to make him Arch-bishop of Canterbury for he had made small progress when his Brother Prince Arthur died being then but eleven Years old perhaps Henry the seventh felt the Prejudices of his own Education so much that he was more careful to have his Son better taught or may be he did it to amuze him and keep him from looking too early into matters of State The Learning then most in credit among the Clergy was the Scholastical Divinity which by a shew of Subtilty did recommend it self to curious Persons and being very sutable to a vain and contentious Temper was that which agreed best with his Disposition and it being likely to draw the most Flattery from Divines became the chief Subject of his Studies in which he grew not only to be Eminent for a Prince whose Knowledg tho ever so moderate will be admired by Flatterers as a Prodigy but he might really have past for a Learned Man had his Quality been ever so mean He delighted in the purity of the Latin Tongue and understood Philosophy and was so great a Master in Musick that he composed well He was a bountiful Patron to all Learned Men more particularly to Erasmus and Polidore
he had done nothing but only pleaded in the King's Name The Clergy pretended they did not prosecute him for his pleading but for some of his Divinity Lectures contrary to the Liberty of the Church which the King was bound to maintain by his Coronation-Oath but the Temporal Lords the Judges and the Commons prayed the King also to maintain the Laws according to his Coronation-Oath and to give Standish his Protection The King upon this being in great perplexity required Veysy afterwards Bishop of Exeter to declare upon his Conscience and Allegiance the truth in that matter His Opinion was against the Immunity so another publick Hearing being appointed Standish was accused for teaching That the Inferiour Orders were not sacred That their Exemption was not founded on a Divine Right but that the Laity might punish them That the Canons of the Church did not bind till they were received and that the study of the Canon Law was useless Of these he denied some and justified other particulars Veysy being required to give his Opinion alledged That the Laws of the Church did only oblige where they were received As the Law of the Celibate of the Clergy received in the West did not bind the Greek Churches that never received it So the exemption of the Clerks not being received did not bind in England The Judges gave their Opinion next which was That those who prosecuted Standish were all in a Premunire So the Court broke up But in another Hearing in the presence of the greatest part of both Houses of Parliament the Cardinal said in the name of the Clergy That tho they intended to do nothing against the King's Prerogative yet the trying of Clerks seemed to be contrary to the Liberty of the Church which they were bound by their Oaths to maintain So they prayed that the matter might be referred to the Pope The King answered that he thought Standish had answered them fully The Bishop of Winchester said he would not stand to his Opinion at his Peril Standish upon that said What can one poor Friar do against all the Clergy of England The Arch-bishop of Canterbury said Some of the Fathers of the Church had suffered Martyrdom upon that account but the Chief-Justice replied That many holy Kings had maintained that Law and many holy Bishops had obeyed it In conclusion the King declared that he would maintain his Rights and would not submit them to the Decrees of the Church otherwise than as his Ancestors had done Warham Arch-bishop of Canterbury desired so long time might be given that they might have an Answer returned from Rome but that was not granted yet a Temper was found Horsey was appointed to be brought to his Trial for Hun's Murder and upon his pleading not guilty no Evidence was to be brought and so he was to be discharged But upon this it was said The Judges were more concerned to maintain their Jurisdiction than to do Justice upon so horrid a Murder so the discontent given by it was raised so much higher and the Crime of a few Murderers was now transferred upon the whole Clergy who had concerned themselves so much in their Preservation and this did very much dispose the Laity to all that was done afterwards for pulling down the Ecclesiastical Tyranny This was the only uneasy stop in this King's Raign The King is much addicted to the Papacy till the suit for his Divorce was commenced In all other points he was constantly in the Pope's Interests who sent him the common Complements of Roses and such other Triffles by which that See had treated Princes so long as Children The King made the Defence of the Popedom an Article in his Leagues with other Princes and Pope Julius having called a General Council to the Lateran in opposition to that which by Lewis the Twelfth's means was held at Pisa The King sent the Bishops of Worcester and Rochester the Prior of St. John's and the Abbot of Winchelcomb to represent the Church of England thereby to give the greater Authority to a pack'd meeting of Italian Bishops and Abbots who assumed to themselves the Title of a Holy and Oecumenical Council But no Complement wrought so much on the King's Vanity as the Title of Defender of Faith sent him by Pope Leo upon the Book which he writ against Luther concerning the Sacraments The Cardinal drew upon himself the hatred of the Clergy Crrdinal Wolsey intends to reform the Clergy by a Bull which impowered him to visit all the Monasteries of England and to dispence with all the Laws of the Church for a Year He also gave out that he intended to reform the Clergy though he forgot that which ought to be the first step of all who pretend to reform others for none could be worse than himself was He lived in great Luxury and in an insolent Affectation of the highest Statepossible many of his Domesticks being men of the first Rank He intended to suppress many Monasteries and thought the best way for doing it with the least Scandal was first to visit them and so to expose their Corruptions But he was afterwards diverted from this yet the design which he laid being communicated to Cromwel that was then his Secretary it was put in Practice toward the end of this Reign when the Monasteries were all suppressed The Convocations were of two sorts The summoning of Convocations some were summoned by the King when Parliaments were called as is in use to this Day only the King did not then prefix a Day but left that to the Arch-bishops Others were called by the Archbishops and were Provincial Synods of which there were but few The Cardinal pretended that the summoning all Convocations belonged to him as Legate so that when Warham had called one he dissolved it after it was met and summoned it of new In that Convocation a great Supply was granted to the King of half a Years Rent of all Benefices payable in five Years for assisting him in his Wars with France and Scotland This was much opposed by the Cardinal's Enemies but it was agreed to at last a Proviso being made that such a heavy tax should never be made a Precedent for the future tho the Grant they made was more likely to become a Precedent than this Proviso to be a Security for the time to come This encreased the Aversion the Clergy had for the Cardinal the Monks were more particularly incensed for they saw he was resolved to suppress their Foundations and convert them to other uses In the days of King Edgar most of the Cathedrals of England were possessed by Secular Priests The State of the Monasteries who were generally married but Dunstan and some other Monks took advantage from the Vices of that Prince to perswade him to make Compensation for them and as he made Laws in which he declared what Compensations were to be made for Sins both by the Rich and Poor so it seems he thought the
founding of Monasteries was the fittest Compensation for a King and he turned out all the married Priests and put Monks in their stead From that time the Credit and Wealth of Monastick Orders continued to encrease for several Ages till the Begging Orders succeeded in the esteem of the World to the place which the Monks formerly had for they decreased as much in true worth as the false appearances of it had now raised their Revenues They were not only ignorant themselves but very jealous of the progress Learning was making for Erasmus and the other Restorers of it treating them with much scorn they look'd on the encrease of it as that which would much lessen them and so not only did not contribute to it but rather detracted from it as that which would make way for Heresy The Cardinal designed two noble Foundations the one at Oxford Cardinal Wolsy suppresses many and the other at Ipswich the place of his Birth both for the encouragement of the Learned and the instruction of Youth and for that end he procured a Bull for suppressing divers Monasteries which being executed their Lands by Law fell to the King and thereupon the Cardinal took out Grants of them and endowed his Colledges with them But we shall next consider the state of Religion in England From the dayes of Wickliff there were many that differed from the Doctrines commonly received The growth of Wickliff's Doctrine He writ many Books that gave great Offence to the Clergy yet being powerfully supported by the Duke of Lancaster they could not have their revenge during his Life but he was after his Death condemned and his Body was raised and burnt The Bible which he translated into English with the Preface which he set before it produced the greatest Effects In it he reflected on the ill Lives of the Clergy and condemned the Worship of Saints and Images and the corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament but the most criminal part was the exhorting all People to read the Scriptures where the Testimonies against those Corruptions were such that there was no way to deal with them but to silence them His Followers were not Men of Letters but being wrought on by the easy Conviction of plain Sense were by them determined in their Persuasions They did not form themselves into Body but were contented to hold their Opinions secretly and did not spread them but to their particular Confidents The Clergy sought them out every where and did deliver them after Conviction to the Secular Arm that is to the Fire In the Primitive Church The Cruelty of the Clergy all cruel Proceedings upon the account of Heresy were condemned so that the Bishops who accused some Hereticks upon which they were put to death were excommunicated for it Banishment and Fines with some Incapacities were the highest Severities even upon the greatest Provocations But as the Church grew corrupted in other things so a cruel Spirit being generally the mark of all ill Priests of whatsoever Religion they are they fell under the Influences of it and from the days of the rise of the Albigenses the severities of the Inquisition and Burnings with many other Cruelties were by the means of the Dominicans set up first in France and then in the other parts of Europe A Decree was also made in the Council of the Lateran requiring all Magistrates under the pains of forfeiture and deposition to extirpate Hereticks Burning agreed best with their Cruelty as being the most terrible sort of Death and bearing some resemblance to everlasting Burnings in Hell so they damned the Souls of the Hereticks and burnt their Bodies but the Execution of the former part of the Sentence was not in their power as the latter part was The Canons of that Council being received in England the Proceedings against Hereticks grew to be a part of the Common Law and a Writ for burning them was issued out upon their Conviction But special Statutes were afterwards made The first under Richard the second Laws made in England against Hereticks was only agreed to by the Lords and without its being consented to by the Commons the King assented to it yet all the Severity in it was no more than that Writs should go out to the Sheriffs to hold Hereticks in Prison till they should be judged by the Laws of the Church The Preamble of the Law says They were very numerous that they had a peculiar Habit that they preached in many Churches other Places against the Faith and refused to submit to the Censures of the Church This was sent with the other Acts according to the custom of that Time to all the Sheriffs of England to be proclaimed by them but the Year following in the next Parliament the Commons complained that that Act was published to which they had never consented so an Act passed declaring the former null yet this was suppressed and the former was still esteemed a good Law When Henry the fourth came to the Crown he owing it in great measure to the help of the Clergy passed an Act against all that preached without the Bishop's Licence or against the Faith and it was enacted That all Transgressors of that sort should be imprisoned and within three Months be brought to a Trial If upon Conviction they offered to abjure and were not Relapses they were to be imprisoned and fined at pleasure and if they refused to abjure or were Relapses they were to be delivered to the secular Arm and the Magistrates were to burn them in some publick Place But tho by this Statute no mention is made of sending out a Writ for Execution yet that continued still to be practised And that same Year Sautre a Priest being condemned as a Relapse and degraded by Arundell Arch-bishop of Canterbury a Writ was issued out for it in which Burning is called the Common Punishment which related to the customs of other Nations For this was the first Instance of that kind in England In the beginning of Henry the fifth's Reign there was a Conspiracy against the King discovered tho others that lived not long after say it was only pretended and contrived by the Clergy of Old-Castle and some others of Wickliff's Followers then called Lollards upon which many were condemned both for Treason and Heresy who were first hanged and then burnt and a Law followed that the Lollards should forfeit all that they held in Fee-simple as well as their Goods and Chattels to the King and all Sheriffs and Magistrates were required to take an Oath to destroy all Heresies and Lollardies and to assist the Ordinaries in their proceedings against them Yet the Clergy making ill use of these Laws and vexing all People that gave them any Offence with long Imprisonments the Judges interposed and examined the Grounds of their Commitments and as they saw cause Bailed or Discharged the Prisoners and took upon them to declare what Opinions were Heresies by Law and what were
not Thus the People sought for Shelter under their Protection and found more Mercy at the hands of Common Lawyers than from them who ought to have been the Pastors of their Souls and the Publishers of the most merciful Religion that ever was In the beginnings of this Reign The Prosecution of Lollards before Warham there were several Persons brought into the Bishops Courts for Heresy before Warham Forty eight were accused But of these forty three abjured twenty seven Men and sixteen Women most of them being of Tenterden and five of them four Men and one Woman were condemned some as obstinate Hereticks and others as Relapses and against the common Ties of Nature the Woman's Husband and her two Sons were brought Witnesses against her Upon their Conviction a Certificate was made by the Archbishop to the Chancery upon which since there is no Pardon upon Record the Writs for burning them must have gone out in Course and the Execution of them is little to be doubted for the Clergy were seldom guilty of much Mercy in such Cases having devested themselves of all Bowels as the Dregs of unmortified Nature The Articles objected to them were That they believed that in the Eucharist there was nothing but material Bread That the Sacraments of Baptism Confirmation Confession Matrimony and Extream Unction were neither necessary nor profitable That Priests had no more Power than Laymen That Pilgrimages were not meritorious and that the Mony and Labour spent in them were spent in vain That Images ought not to be worshipped and that they were only Stocks and Stones That Prayers ought not to be made to Saints but only to God That there was no vertue in Holy-water or Holy-bread Those who abjured did swear to discover all that held those Errours or were suspected of them and they were enjoyned to carry a Faggot in Procession and to wear on their Cloaths the Representation of one in Flames as a publick Confession that they had deserved to be burnt There were also four in London that abjured almost the same Opinions and Fox says that six were burnt in Smithfield who might be perhaps those whom Warham had condemned for there is no mention of any that were condemned in the Registers of London By all this it will appear that many in this Nation were prepared to receive those Doctrines which were afterwards preached by the Reformers even before Luther began first to oppose Indulgences The Rise and Progress of his Doctrine are well known The Progress of Luthet's Doctrine the Scandalous extolling of Indulgences gave the first occasion to all that Contradiction that followed between him and his followers and the Church of Rome in which if the Corruptions and Cruelties of the Clergy had not been so visible and scandalous so small a matter could not have produced such a Revolution but any Crisis will put ill humours in Fermentation The Bishops were grosly ignorant they seldom resided in their Diocesses except it had been to riot it at high Festivals and all the Effect their Residence could have was to corrupt others by their ill Example They followed the Courts of Princes and aspired to the greatest Offices The Abbots and Monks were wholly given up to Luxury and Idleness and the unmarried State both of the Seculars Regulars gave infinite Scandal to the World for it appeared that the restraining them from having Wives of their own made them conclude that they had a right to all other Mens The Inferiour Clergy were no better and not having places of retreat to conceal their vices in as the Monks had they became more publick In sum all Ranks of Church-men were so universally despised and hated that the World was very apt to be possessed with prejudice against their Doctrines for the sake of the Men whose Interest it was to support them and the Worship of God was so defiled with much gross Superstition that without great enquiries all Men were easily convinced that the Church stood in great need of a Reformation This was much encreased when the Books of the Fathers began to be read in which the difference between the former and latter Ages of the Church did very evidently appear They found that a blind Superstition came first in the room of true Piety and when by its means the Wealth and Interest of the Clergy was highly advanced the Popes had upon that established their Tyranny under which not only the meaner People but even the crowned Heads had long groaned All these things concurred to make way for the Advancement of the Reformation And so the Books of the Germans being brought into England and Translated many were prevailed on by them Upon this a hot Persecution which is alwayes the Foundation on which a vitious Clergy set up their Rest was vigorously set on foot to such a Degree that six Men and Women were burnt in Coventry in Passion-week only for teaching their Children the Creed the Lord's Prayer and the ten Commandments in English Great Numbers were every where brought into the Bishop's Courts of whom some were burnt but the greater part abjured The King laid hold on this Occasion to become the Church's Champion and wrote against Luther as was formerly told His Book besides the Title of Defender of the Faith drew upon him all that Flattery could invent to extol it yet Luther not daunted with such an Antagonist but rather proud of it answered it and treated him as much below the Respect that was due to a King as his Flatterers had raised him above it Tindal's Translation of the New Testament with some Notes added to it drew a severe Condemnation from the Clergy there being nothing in which they were more concerned then to keep the People unacquainted with that Book Sir Thomas More seconded the King and imployed his Pen in the Service of the Clergy but mixed too much Gall with his Ink. The Cardinal's Behaviour in this matter was unaccountable for he not only acted nothing against the new Preachers but when some Bishops moved for a Visitation of the Universities upon a report of the spreading of Heresy in them he stop'd it yet afterwards he called a Meeting of several Bishops Abbots and Divines before whom two Preachers Bilney and Arthur were brought and Articles of Heresy being objected to them and proved by Witnesses they for a while seemed resolved to seal their Doctrines with their Blood but what through Fear what through Perswasion they were prevailed on first Arthur and Bilney five days after to abjure but tho Bilney was a Relapse yet the Cardinal was gentle to him and Tonstall Bishop of London injoyned him Penance and discharged him So much may suffice to shew the condition of Affairs in England both in Church and State when the Process of the King's Divorce was first set on foot Henry the seventh entered into a firm Alliance with Ferdinand of Spain The King's Marriage and agreed a Match between his Son Prince
of the Temporal Authority the World was then so over-mastered by Superstition and Credulity that not only the whole Spiritual Power but even the Temporal Power of Princes was likely to have fallen into the Pope's hands But the discontented Clergy supported the Secular Power as much as they had before advanced the Papal Tyranny Boniface the 8th had raised his Pretentions to that impudent pitch that he declared all Power both Ecclesiastical and Civil was derived from him and established that as an Article of Faith necessary to Salvation and he and his Successors took upon them to dispose of all Ecclesiastical Benefices by their Bulls and Provisions Upon which Laws were made in England restraining those Invasions on the Crown since those Endowments were made for informing the People of the Law of God and for Hospitality and Acts of Charity which were defeated 25. Ed. 1 as well as the Crown was disinherited by the Provisions which the Popes granted Therefore they condemned them for the future but no Punishment being declared for the Transgressors of that Fact the Courtiers at Rome were not frighted at so general a Law so these Abuses were still continued But in Edward the Third's time 25. Ed. 3 a more severe Law was made by which all that transgressed were to be imprisoned to be fined at pleasure and to forfeit all their Benefices By an other Act they were put out of the King's Protection Several other Confirmations of this were made both in that Reign and under Richard the Second and the former Punishments were extended not only to the Provisors themselves but to all that were imployed by them or took Farms of them and because Licences might be granted by the King for Aliens to hold Benefices in England he did bind himself to grant none Others took both Presentations in England and obtained Provisions from Rome which was likewise condemned The Right of Prefentations was tried only in the King's Courts but the Popes had a mind to take the Cognizance of that to their own Courts upon which the Parliament considering the great Prejudice the Nation was like to suffer and the Subjection that the Crown would fall under resolved to provide effectual Remedies so all the Commons declared they would live and die with the King 16. Ric. 2. and desired him to examine all the Lords whether they would uphold the Regality of the Crown The Temporal Lords declared they would do it But the Spiritual Lords made some difficulty yet in Conclusion they also promised they would adhere to the Crown So a Law passed that if any purchased Translations Excommunications or Bulls from Rome that were contrary to the King or his Crown they and all that brought them over or that received or executed them were declared to be out of the King's Protection and that their Goods and Chattels should be forfeited to the King and their Persons imprisoned And because the Proceedings upon this were by a Writ called from the most material Words of it Premunire facias this Statute carried the name of the Statute of Premunire There was also a Law passed in Henry the Fourth's Reign against some Bulls which the Cistertians had procured and against the high Rates set on Bulls in the Apostolick Chamber and whereas the King had been prevailed with to give Licences for some Bulls by which the Provisors put the Incumbents out of their Benefices these were all declared to be of no force when done in prejudice of the Subjects Rights The Invasions that both the Popes and Kings made upon Elections were by another Law condemned and the Liberty of Elections was again set up But those Kings being more concerned to preserve their own Prerogative than the Rights of their People were often prevailed with to grant Pardons and Licences to those who obtained Provisions at Rome so these were all again condemned in Henry the Fifth's time In all this time 4. Hen. 5. the weakness of the Papacy gave Princes some Advantages which they had not in former Ages for a great while the Popes sate at Avignion where they were much eclipsed of their former Greatness After that a Schism followed between the Popes that sate at Rome and those that still sate at Avignion and the Princes of Christendom being then at liberty to choose which of those they would acknowledg the Popes durst not thunder against those Laws as they had done in former times upon much less Provocation And indeed all the use that the Kings made of them was to oblige the Provisors to come and depend on them for their Licence to execute their Bulls and the King's Authority being joyned with the Popes it was hard for those who were oppressed to resist that double force Nor was there any vigorous Execution made of those Laws otherwayes than to draw Mony from the Provisors For it fell out in this case what is ordinary on all such occasions that Favourites make use of good Laws by which Power is trusted to the Prince for the Protection and Security of the Subjects only for their own ends It was a strange weakness in the Princes of Christendom to take such pains as was done at Constance for healing the Breach in the Papacy for while that continued they reigned in peace and the Clergy was less oppressed than formerly But that being once made up the Popes were beginning again to raise their old Pretentions And Pope Martin the 5th not being willing to engage with so high spirited a King as Henry the 5th was he took Advantage in the Minority of Henry the Sixth's Reign 6. Hen. 6. to propose a Repeal of those Laws and first wrote very severely to Chichely then Archbishop of Canterbury for not opposing the Statute of Provisors that had passed in the former Reign nor standing up for the Rights of St. Peter He therefore exhorted him to imitate his Predecessor Thomas Becket and required him to declare at the next Parliament the unlawfulness of it and that all who obeyed it were under Excommunication He also required him to order the Clergy to preach every where against it Yet Chichely did not proceed so zealously as the Pope expected and therefore he suspended his Legatine Power The Archbishop appealed upon this from the Pope to the next General Council or if none met to the Tribunal of God But the Pope wrote also to the Clergy requiring them to do what in them lay for the repeal of the Statute And in another Letter to the two Archbishops in which in spite to Chicheley York is first named he annulled the Statutes made by Edward the Third and Richard the Second and declared all to be excommunicated that executed them reserving the absolution of them to himself unless they were at the point of death And he required them to publish and affix this his Monitory Brief The Archbishop humbled himself to the Pope and got the other Bishops and the University of Oxford to write in his
to his Son Henry which was like to draw in other Princes to a League with him who would have been much better pleased to see a King's younger Son among them than either the Emperour or the King of France The King's Matter was now in a fairer way of being adjusted for the Pope's Conscience being directed by his Interests since he had now broken with the Emperour it was probable he would give the King content He saw the danger of losing England The Interest of the Clergy was much sunk and they were in a great measure subjected to the Crown Lutheranism was also making a great Progress and the Pope was out of any danger from the Emperour on whom the whole Power of the Turkish Empire was now fallen drawn in as was believed by the Practices of Francis at the Port tho that did not well agree with his Title of Most Christian King The Princes of Germany took Advantage from this to make the Emperour consent to some further liberty in matters of Religion and to secure themselves they were then also entered into a League with Francis for preserving the Rights of the Empire unto which King Henry was invited All this raised Francis again very high so he was the fittest Person to mediate an Agreement between the King and the Pope and being himself a Lover of Pleasure he was the more easily engaged to serve the King in the accomplishment of his Amours A new Session of Parliament was held A misunderstanding between the House of Commons in which the Laity complained of the spiritual Courts of their way of proceeding ex Officio and not admitting Persons accused to their Purgation But this was not much considered by reason of an ill understanding that fell in between the King and the House of Commons There was a Custom brought in of making such Settlements of Estates that the Heir was not liable to Wards and the other Advantages to which the King or the Great Lords had otherwise a Right by their Tenures So a Bill for regulating that was sent down by the Lords but the Commons rejected it which gave the King great Offence upon that they addressed to the King for a Dissolution since they had been now obliged to a long Attendance The King answered them sharply He said they had rejected a Bill in which he had offered a great Abatement of that which he might claim by Law and therefore he would execute the Law in its utmost severity He told them he had Patience while his Suit was in dependence and so they must have likewise For this Parliament was made up of Men very ill affected to the Clergy so the King kept it still in being to terrify the Court of Rome so much the more All that was remarkable that past in this Session was an Act against Annats An Act against Annats it sets forth that they were founded on no Law they were first enacted to defend Christendom against Infidels and were now kept up as a Revenue to the Papacy and Bulls were not granted till they were compounded for for 800000 Ducats had bin carried out of England to Rome on that account since the beginning of the former Reign The King was bound by his Royal Care of his Subjects to hinder such Oppressions and therefore all that were provided to great Benefices were required not to pay First Fruits for the future under the pain of forfeiting all their Goods and the profits of their Benefices and those that were presented to Bishopricks were appointed to be consecrated tho their Bulls were denied at Rome and they were required to pay no more but 5 per Cent. of the clear Profits of their Sees If the Pope should upon this proceed to censures they required all the Clergy to perform Divine Offices these notwithstanding But by an extraordinary Proviso they referred it to the King to declare at any time between that and Easter next whether this Act should take place or not and the King by his Letters Patents declared that it should take place being provoked by the Pope In January the Pope The Pope writes to the King upon the motion of the Imperialists wrote to the King complaining that notwithstanding a Suit was depending concerning his Marriage yet he had put away his Queen and kept one Anne as his Wife contrary to a Prohibition served on him therefore he exhorted him to live with his Queen again and to put Anne away Upon this the King sent Dr. Bennet to Rome with a large Dispatch The King's Answer in it he complained that the Pope proceeded in that matter upon the Suggestion of others who were ignorant and rash Men the Pope had carried himself inconstantly and deceitfully in it and not as became Christ's Vicar and the King had now for several Years expected a Remedy from him in vain The Pope had granted a Commission had promised never to recal it and had sent over a Decretal Bull defining the Cause Either these were unjustly granted or unjustly recalled If he had Authority to grant these things where was the Faith which became a Friend much more a Pope since he had recalled them If he had not Authority to grant them he did not know how far he could consider any thing he did It was plain that he acted more with regard to his Interests than according to Conscience and that as the Pope had often confessed his own Ignorance in these matters so he was not furnished with Learned Men to advise him otherwise he would not maintain a Marriage which almost all the Learned Men and Universities in England France and Italy had condemned as unlawful He desired the Pope would excuse the Freedom he used to which his Carriage had forced him He would not question his Authority unless he were compelled to it and would do nothing but reduce it to its first and ancient Limits which was much better than to let high it run on headlong and still do amiss This high Letter made the Pope resolve to proceed and end this matter either by a Sentence or a Treaty The King was cited to answer to the Queen's Appeal at Rome in Person or by Proxy so Sir Edward Karme was sent thither in the new Character of the King 's Excusator to excuse the King's Appearance upon such grounds as could be founded on the Canon Law The King cited to Rome excuses himself and upon the Privileges of the Crown of England Bonner that was a forwad and ambitious Man and would stick at nothing that might contribute to his Preferment was sent over with him The Imperialists pressed the Pope much to give Sentence but all the wise Cardinals who observed by the Proceedings of the Parliament that the Nation would adhere to the King if he should be provoked to shake off the Pope's Yoke were very apprehensive of a Breach and suggested milder Counsels to the Pope and the King's Agents assured him that if he
gave the King content the late Act against Annats should not be put in Execution The Cardinal of Ravenna was then considered as an Oracle for Learning in the Consistory Some Cardinals corrupted so the King's Agents resolved to gain him with great Promises but he said Princes were liberal of their Promises till their turn was served and then forgot them so he resolved to make sure work therefore he made Bennet give him a Promise in writing of the Bishoprick of Ely or the first Bishoprick that fell till that was vacant and he also engaged that the King should procure him Benefices in France to the value of 6000 Ducats a Year for the Service he should do him in his Divorce This was an Argument of so great Efficacy with the Cardinal that it absolutely turned him from being a great Enemy to be as great a Promoter of the King's Cause tho very artificially Several other Cardinals were also prevailed with by the same Topicks The King's Agents put in his Plea of Excuse in 28 Articles and it was ordered that three of them should be discussed at a hearing before the Consistory till they should be all examined But that Court sitting once a Week the Imperialists after some of them were heard procured an Order that the rest should be heard in a Congregation or Committee of Cardinals before the Pope for greater Dispatch but Karn refused to obey this and so it was referred back to the Consistory But against this the Imperialists protested and refused to appear any more News were brought to Rome from England that a Priest that had preached up the Pope's Power was cast into Prison and that one committed by the Archbishop for Heresy appealed to the King as supream Head which was received and judged in the King's Courts The Pope made great Complaints upon this but the King's Agents said the best way to prevent the like for the future was to do the King Justice At this time a Bull was granted for suppressing some Monasteries and erecting new Bishopricks out of them Chester was to be one and the Cardinal of Revenna was so pleased with the Revenue designed for it that he laid his hand upon it till Ely should happen to fall vacant In conclusion the Pope seemed to favour the King's Plea Excusatory upon which the Imperialists made great Complaints But this amounted to no more save that the King was not bound to appear in Person Therefore the Cardinals that were gained advised the King to send over a Proxy for answering to the merits of the Cause and not to lose more time in that Dilatory Plea and they having declared themselves against the King in that Plea before the bargain had been made with them could with the better credit serve him in the other So the Vacation coming on it was resolved by the Cardinals neither to admit nor reject the Plea But both the Pope and the Colledg wrote to the King to send over a Proxy for determining the matter next Winter Bonner was also sent to England to assure the King that the Pope was now so much in the French Interest that he might confidently refer his matter to him but whereas the King desired a Commission to judg in partibus upon the place it was said that the Point to be judged being the Pope's Authority to dispense with the King's Marriage that could not be referred to Legates but must needs be judged in the Consistory At this time a new Session of Parliament was called in England The Clergy gave in an Answer to the Complaints made of them by the Commons in the former Sessions A Session of Parliament But when the King gave it to the Speaker he complained that one Temse a Member of their House had moved for an Address to the King that the Queen might be again brought back to the Court The King said it touched his Conscience and was not a thing that could be determined in that House He wished his Marriage were good but many Divines had declared it unlawful He did not make his Suit out of Lust or foolish Appetite being then past the Heats of Youth he assured them his Conscience was troubled and desired them to report that to the House Many of the Lords came down to the House of Commons and told them the King intended to build some Forts on the Borders of Scotland to secure the Nation from the Inroads of the Scots and the Lords approving of this sent them to propose it to the Commons upon which a Subsidy was voted but upon the breaking out of the Plague the Parliament was prorogued before the Act was finished The Oaths which the Bishops swore both to the Pope and the King At that time the King sent for the Speaker of the House of Commons and told him he found that the Prelates were but half Subjects for they swore at their Consecration an Oath to the Pope that was inconsistent with their Allegiance and Oath to the King By their Oath to the Pope they swore to be in no Council against him nor to disclose his Secrets but to maintain the Papacy and the Regalities of S. Peter against all Men together with the Rights and Authorities of the Church of Rome and that they should honourably entreat the Legats of the Apostolick See and observe all the Decrees Sentences Provisions and Commandments of that See and yearly either in Person or by Proxy visit the Thresholds of the Apostles In their Oath to the King they renounced all Clauses in their Bulls contrary to the King 's Royal Dignity and did swear to be faithful to him and to live and die with him against all others and to keep his Counsel acknowledging that they held their Bishopricks only of him By these it appeared that they could not keep both those Oaths in case a Breach should fall out between the King and the Pope But the Plague broke off the Consultations of Parliament at this time Soon after Sir Thomas More seeing a Rupture with Rome coming on so fast More quits his Office desired leave to lay down his Office which was upon that conferred on Sir Tho. Audley He was satisfied with the King 's keeping up the Laws formerly made in Opposition to the Papal Incroachments and so had concured in the Suit of the Premunire but now the matter went further and so he not being able to keep pace with the Counsels returned to a private Life with a Greatness of Mind equal to what the ancient Greeks or Romans had expressed on such Occasions Endeavours were used to fasten some Imputations on him in the Distribution of Justice but nothing could be brought against him to blemish his Integrity An Enterveiw followed between the Kings of France and England to which An Interview between the King of France England Ann Bolleyn now Marchioness of Pembrook was carried In which after the first Ceremonies and Magnificence was over Francis promised Henry to
of the Clergy empowered to abrogate or regulate them as they should see Cause This was confirmed in Parliament and the Act against Appeals to Rome was renewed and an Appeal was allowed from the Archbishop to the King upon which the Lord Chancellor was to grant a Commission for a Court of Delegates A Proviso was added that till the Committee of 32 should settle a Regulation of the Canons those then in force should still take place except such as were contrary to the King's Prerogative or the Laws But this last Proviso tho it seemed reasonable to give the Spiritual Courts some Rules till the 32 should finish their Work made that it came to nothing for it was thought more for the Greatness of the King's Authority and it subjected the Bishop's Courts more to the Prohibitions of the Temporal Courts to keep this whole matter in such General Terms than to have brought it to a Regulation that should be fixed and constant Another Act past An Act for the Election of Bishops for regulating the Elections and Consecrations of Bishops condemning all Bulls from Rome and appointing that upon a Vacancy the King should grant a Licence for an Election and should by a missive Letter signify the Person 's Name whom he would have chosen And within twelve Days after these were delivered the Dean and Chapter or Prior and Convent were required to return an Election of the Person named by the King under their Seals The Bishop Elect was upon that to swear Fealty and a Writ was to be issued out for his Consecration in the usual manner After that he was to do Homage to the King upon which both the Temporalities and Spiritualities were to be restored and Bishops were to exercise their Jurisdiction as they had done before All that transgressed this Act were made guilty of a premunire A private Act past depriving Cardinal Campegio and Jerome de Ghinuccii of the Bishopricks of Salisbury and Worcester the Reasons given for it are because they did not reside in their Diocesses for Preaching the Laws of God and keeping Hospitality but lived at the Court of Rome and carried 3000 l. a Year out of the Kingdom The last Act of a publick Nature The Attaindor of the Nun of Kent tho relating only to private Persons of which I shall give an account was concerning the Nun of Kent and her Complices It was the first occasion of shedding any Blood in this Quarrel and it was much cherished by all the Superstitious Clergy that adhered to the Queen's Interests and the Pope's The Nun and many of her Complices came to the Lord's Bar and confessed the whole matter Among the Concealers of this Treason Sir Thomas More and Fisher were named the former wrote upon that a long Letter to Cromwel giving him a particular account of all the Conversation he had at any time with the Nun He acknowledged he had esteemed her highly not so much out of any regard he had to her Prophesies but for the Opinion he conceived of her Holiness and Humility But he adds that he was then convinced That she was the most false dissembling Hypocrite that had been known and guilty of most detestable Hypocrisy and divellish dissembled Falshood He also believed that she had Communication with an evil Spirit Concerning this Letter a curious Discovery has been made In Queen Mary's time More 's Works were published and among them other Letters of his to Cromwel relating to that long one which he wrote concerning the Nun were printed but that was left out of which More kept a Copy and gave it to his Daughter Roper that Copy was in the MS. out of which the rest were published and out of that I have transcribed it The design of suppressing it seems to be this It is probable there might have been some thoughts in Queen Mary's time to Canonize the Nun since she was called a Martyr for her Mother's Marriage and there was no want of Miracles to justify it Therefore a Letter so plain and full against her was thought fit to be kept out of the way This Justification of Mores prevailed so far that his Name was struck out of the Bill The Act contains a Narrative of that whole Story which is in short this Elizabeth Barton of Kent fell in some Trances it seems they were Hysterical Fits and spake such things as made those about her think she was inspired of God The Parson of the Parish Master hoping to draw Advantages from this gave Archbishop Warham notice of it who ordered him to observe her carefully and bring him an account of what should follow But she had forgot all that she said in her Fitts when they were over Yet the Priest would not let it go so but perswaded her that she was inspired and taught her so to counterfeit those Trances that she became very ready at it The matter was much noised about and the Priest intended to raise the credit of an Image of the B. Virgins that was in his Church that so Pilgrimages and Offerings might be made to it by her means He associated to himself one Bocking a Monk of Canterbury and they taught her to say in her Fits that the B. Virgin appeared to her and told her she could not be well till she visited that Image She spake many good Words against ill Life and spake also against Heresy and the King's Suit of Divorce then depending and by many strange motions of her Body she seemed to be inwardly possessed A day was set for her cure and before an Assembly of 2000 People she was carried to that Image and after she had acted her Fitts all over she seemed of a sudden quite recovered which was ascribed to the Intercession of the Virgin and the Virtue of that Image She entered into a Religious Life and Bocking was her Ghostly Father There were wiolent Suspicions of Incontinence between them but the esteem she was in bore them down Many thought her a Prophetess and Warham among the rest A Book was also written of her Revelations and a Letter was shewed all in Letters of Gold pretended to be writ to her from Heaven by Mary Magdalene She pretended that when the King was last at Calais she was carried invisibly beyond Sea and brought back again and that an Angel gave her the Sacrament and that God revealed to her that if the King went on in his Divorce and married another Wife he should fall from his Crown and not live a Month longer but should die a Villain 's Death Many of the Monks of the Charter-House and the Observant Friers with many Nuns and B. Fisher came to give credit to this and set a great value on her and grew very insolent upon it for Frier Peyto preaching in the King's Chappel at Greenwich denounced the Judgments of God upon him and said tho others as lying Prophets deceived him yet he in the name of God told him that Dogs should lick
shake him a little but he said he thought in his Conscience that it would be a Sin in him and offered to take his Oath upon that and that he was not led by any other Consideration The Abbot of Westminster told him he ought to think his Conscience was misled since the Parliament was of another Mind an Argument well becoming a rich ignorant Abbot But More said if the Parliament of England was against him yet he believed all the rest of Christendom was on his side In conclusion both he and Fisher declared that they thought it was in the Power of the Parliament to settle the Succession to the Crown and so were ready to swear to that but they could not take the Oath that was tendred to them for by it they must swear to maintain all the Contents in the Act of Succession and in it the King 's former Marriage was declared unlawful to which they could not assent Cranmer press'd that this might be accepted for if they once swore to maintain the Succession it would conduce much to the Quiet of the Nation but sharper Counsels were more acceptable so they were both committed to the Tower and Pen Ink and Paper was kept from them The old Bishop was also hardly used both in his Cloaths and Diet he had only Rags to cover him and Fire was often denied him which was a Cruelty not capable of any Excuse and was as barbarous as it was imprudent In Winter another Session of Parliament was held the first Act that pass'd Another Session of Parliament declared the King to be the Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England and appointed that to be added to his other Titles and it was enacted that he and his Successors should have full Authority to reform all Heresies and Abuses in the Spiritual Jurisdiction By an other Act they confirmed the Oath of Succession which had not been specified in the former Act tho agreed to by the Lords They also gave the King the first Fruits and Tenthes of Ecclesiastical Benefices as being the Supream Head of the Church for the King being put in the Pope's room it was thought reasonable to give him the Annats which the Popes had formerly exacted The Temporalty were now willing to revenge themselves on the Spiritualty and to tax them as heavily as they had formerly tyrannized over them Another Act past declaring some things Treason one of these was the denying the King any of his Titles or the calling him Heretick Schismatick or Usurper of the Crown By another Act Provision was made for setting up 26 Suffragan Bishops over England for the more speedy Administration of the Sacraments and the better Service of God It is also said they had been formerly accustomed to be in the Kingdom The Bishop of the Diocess was to present two to the King and upon the King 's declaring his choice the Archbishop was to consecrate the Person and then the Bishop was to delegate such parts of his Charge to his Care as he thought fitting which was to last during his Pleasure These were the same that the Ancients called the Chorepiscopi who were at first the Bishops of some Villages but were afterwards put under the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of the next City They were set up before the Council of Nice and continued to be in the Church for many Ages but the Bishops devolving their whole Spiritual Power to them they were put down and a Decretal Epistle was forged in the name of P. Damasus condemning them The great Extent of the Diocesses in England made it hard for one Bishop to govern them with that Exactness that was necessary these were therefore appointed to assist them in the discharge of the Pastoral Care In this Parliament Subsidies were granted payable in three Years with the highest Preamble of their Happiness under the King's Government all those 24 Years in which he had reigned that Flattery could dictate Fisher and More by two special Acts were attainted of Misprision of Treason five other Clerks were in like manner condemned all for refusing to swear the Oath of Succession The See of Rochester was declared void yet it seems few were willing to succeed such a Man for it continued vacant two Years This Severity against them was censured by some as Extream since they were willing to swear to the Succession in other Terms so that it was merely a point of Conscience in which the common Safety was not concerned at which they stuck and it was thought the prosecuting them in this manner would so raise their Credit that it might endanger the Government more than any Opposition which they could make But now that the King entered upon a new Scene The Progress the New Doctrines made in England it will be necessary to open the Progress that the new Opinions had made in England all the time of the King's Suit of Divorce During Wolsey's Ministry those Preachers were gently used and it is probable the King ordered the Bishops to give over their enquiring after them when the Pope began to use him ill for the Progress of Heresy was always reckoned up at Rome among the Mischiefs that would follow upon the Pope's denying the King's Desires But More coming into Favour he offered new Counsels he thought the King 's proceeding severely against Hereticks would be so meritorious at Rome that it would work more effectually than all his Treatnings had done so a severe Proclamation was issued out both against their Books and Persons ordering all the Laws against them to be put in Execution Tindall and some others at Antwerp were every Year either translating or writing Books against some of the received Errors and sending them over to England But his Translation of the New Testament gave the greatest Wound and was much complained of by the Clergy as full of Errors Tonstall then Bp of London being a Man of great Learning and Vertue which is generally accompanied with much Moderation returning from the Treaty of Cambray to which More and he were sent in the King's Name as he came through Antwerp dealt with an English Merchant that was secretly a Friend of Tindall's to procure him as many of his New Testaments as could be had for Mony Tindall was glad of this for being about a more correct Edition he found he would be better enabled to set about it if the Copies of the Old were sold off so he gave the Merchant all he had and Tonstall paying the Price of them got them in his hands and burnt them publickly in Cheapside This was called a burning of the Word of God and it was said the Clergy had reason to revenge themselves on it for it had done them more Mischief than all other Books whatsoever But a Year after this the second Edition being sinished great Numbers were sent over to England and Constantine one of Tindall's Partners hapned to be taken so More believing that some of the
and Industry and so was on all accounts well prepared for that Work to which the Providence of God did now call him And tho he was in some things too much subject to the King 's Imperious Temper yet in the matter of the six Articles he shewed that he wanted not the Courage that became a Bishop in so Critical an Affair as that was Cromwel was his great and constant Friend a man of mean Birth but of excellent Qualities as appeared in his adhering to his Master Wolsey after his fall a rare Demonstration of Gratitude in a Court to a disgraced Favourite And in his greatest height he happening to see a Merchant of Lucca who had pitied and relieved him when he was in Italy but did not so much as know him or pretend to any returns for the small Favours he had formerly shewed him and was then reduced to a low condition treated him with such acknowledgments that it became the Subjects of several Pens which strove who should celebrate it most As these set themselves to carry on a Reformation Others oppose it much there was another Party formed that as vigourously opposed it headed by the Duke of Norfolk and Gardiner and almost all the Clergy went into it They perswaded the King that nothing would give the Pope or the Emperour such Advantages as his making any Changes in Religion and it would reflect much on him if he who had writ so learnedly for the Faith should in spite to the Pope make any Changes in it Nothing would encourage other Princes so much to follow his Example nor keep his Subjects so much in their Duty to him as his continuing stedfast in the Antient Religion These things made great Impressions on him But on the other hand Cranmer represented to him that if he rejected the Pope's Authority it was very absurd to let such Opinions or Practices continue in the Church that had no other Foundation but Papal Decrees and therefore he desired that this might be put to the Trial he ought to depend on God and hope for good Success if he proceeded in this matter according to the Duty of a Christian Prince England was a compleat Body within its self and tho in the Roman Empire when united under one Prince General Councils were easily assembled yet now that was not to be so much depended on but every Prince ought to reform the Church in his Dominions by a National Synod and if in the Antient Church such Synods condemned Heresies and reformed Abuses that might be much more done when Europe was divided into so many Kingdoms It was visible that tho both the Emperour and the Princes of Germany had for 20 Years desired a Ceneral Council it could not be obtained of the Pope he had indeed offered one at Mantua but that was only an Illusion Upon that the Kiug desired some of his Bishops to give their Opinion concerning the Emperour's Power of calling Councils The Opinion of some Bishops of a General Council So Cranmer Tonstall Clark of Bath and Wells and Goodrick of Ely made answer That tho Ancient Councils were called by the Roman Emperours yet that was done by reason of the Extent of their Monarchy that was now ceased but since other Princes had an entire Monarchy within their Dominions Yet if one or more of those Princes should agree to call a Council to a good Intent and desire the Concurrence of the rest they were bound by the Rule of Charity to agree to it They were also of Opinion that none but Bishops and Priests had Right to a definitive Voice in matters of Doctrine Cranmer also made a long Speech at that time Heads of a Speech of Cranmers setting forth the necessity of a Reformation It is probable it was in the House of Peers for it begins My Lords He begun with the Impostures and Deceit used by the Canonists and other Courtiers at Rome Then he speak to the Authority of a General Councils he shewed that it flowed not from the Number of the Bishops but from the matter of their Decisions which were received with an Universal Consent for there were many more Bishops at the Council of Arimini which was condemned than either at Nice or Constantinople which were received Christ had named no Head of the whole Church as God had named no Head of the World but that grew up for Orders sake as there were Arch-bishops set over Provinces yet some Popes were condemned for Heresy as Liberius and others If Faith must be shewed by Works the ill Lives of most Popes of late shewed that their Faith was to be suspected and all the Priviledges which Princes or Synods granted to that See might be recalled Popes ought to submit themselves to General Councils and were be tried by them he shewed what were the present Corruptions of the Pope and his Court which needed Reformation The Pope according to the Decree of the Council of Basil was the Churches Vicar and not Christ's and so was accountable to it The Churches of France declared the Council to be above the Pope which had been acknowledged by many Popes themselves The Power of Councils had also Bounds nor could they judg of the Rights of Princes or proceed to a Sentence against a King nor were their Canons of any force till Princes added their Sanctions to them Councils ought also to proceed moderately even against those that held Errors and ought not to impose things indifferent too severely The Scriptures and not Men's Traditions ought to be the Standards of their Definitions The Divines of Paris held That a Council could not make a new Article of Faith that was not in the Scriptures and all Christ's Promises to the Church were to be understood with this condition if they kept the Faith therefore there was great reason to doubt concerning the Authority of a Council some of them had contradicted others and many others were never received The Fathers had always appealed to the Scriptures as Superiour in Authority to Councils by which only all Controversies ought to be decided yet on the other hand it was dangerous to be wise in ones own Conceit and he thought when the Fathers all agreed in the Exposition of any place of Scripture that ought to be look'd on as flowing from the Spirit of God He shewed how little Regard was to be had to a Council in which the Pope presided and that if any common Error had past upon the World when that came to be discovered every one was at liberty to shake it off even tho they had sworn to maintain that Error this he applied to the Pope's Authority In conclusion he promised to entertain them with another Discourse of the Authority that all Bishops had in their Sees and that Princes had within their Dominions But I could never recover that and probably it is lost This was the state of the Court after King Henry had shaken off the Pope's Power
before the Act of Parliament past for suppressing the lesser Monasteries Q. Katherine was put to much trouble for keeping the Title Queen Queen Katherin's Death but bore it resolutely and said That since the Pope had judged that her Marriage was good she would die rather than do any thing in prejudice of it Her Sufferings begot Compassion in the People and all the Superstitious Clergy supported her Interests zealously But now her Troubles ended with her Life She desired to be buried among the Observant Friers for they had suffered most for her She ordered 500 Masses to be said for her Soul and that one of her Women should go a Pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham and give 200 Nobles on her way to the Poor When she found Death coming on her as she writ to the Emperour recommending her Daughter to his care So she writ to the King with this Inscription My dear Lord King and Husband She forgave him all the Injuries he had done her and wish'd him to have regard to his Soul She recommended her Daughter to his Care and desired him to be kind to her three Maids and to pay her Servants a Years Wages and ended thus mine Eyes desire you above all things She died on the Eighth of January at Kimbolt on in the 50th Year of her Age 33 years after she came to England She shas a Devout and Exemplary Woman She used to work with her own hands and kept her Women at work with her The Severities and Devotions that were known to her Priests and her Alms-Deeds joined to the Troubles she fell in begat a high Esteem of her in all sorts of People The King complained often of her Peevishness but that was perhaps to be imputed as much to the Provocations he gave her as to the Sowrness of her Temper He ordered her to be buried in the Abbey of Peterborough and was somewhat touched with her Death But Q. Ann did not carry this so decently as became a happy Rival In February a Parliament met In Parliament the lesser Monasteries suppressed after a Prorogation of 14 Months The Act impowering 32 to revise the Ecclesiastical Laws was confirmed but no time was limited for finishing it so it had no effect The chief business of this Session was the suppressing of the Monasteries under 200 l. a Year The Report the Visitors made was read in the two Houses and disposed them to great easiness in this matter The Act sets forth the great disorders of those Houses and the many unsuccessful Attempts that had been made to reform them so the Religious that were in them were ordered to be put in the greater Houses where Religion was better observed and the Revenues of them were given to the King Those Houses were much richer than they seemed to be for an abuse that had run over Europe of keeping the Rents of the Church at their first Rates and instead of raising them the exacting great Fines for the Incumbent when the Leases were renewed was so gross in those Houses that some rated but at 200 l. were in real value worth many Thousands By another Act a new Court was erected with the Title of the Court of the Augmentations of the King's Revenue consisting of a Chancellor a Treasurer 10 Auditors 17 Receivers besides ofther Officers The King was also empowered to make new Foundations of such of those Houses now suppressed as he pleased which were in all 370 and so this Parliament after six Years Continuance was now dissolved A Convocation sate at this time A Translation of the Bille designed in which a motion was made for Translating the Bible into English which had been promised when Tindal's Translation was condemned but was afterwards laid aside by the Clergy as neither necessary nor expedient So it was said that those whose Office it was to teach People the Word of God did all they could to suppress it Moses the Prophets and the Apostles wrote in the Vulgar Tongue Christ directed the People to search the Scriptures and as soon as any Nation was converted to the Christian Religion the Bible was translated into their Language nor was it ever taken out of the hands of the People till the Christian Religion was so corrupted that it was not safe to trust them with such a Book which would have so manifestly discovered those Errours and the Legends as agreeing better with those Abuses were read instead of the Word of God So Cranmer look'd on the putting the Bible in the People's hands as the most effectual means for promoting the Reformation and therefore moved that the King might be prayed to give order for it But Gardiner and all the other Party opposed this vehemently They said All the extravagant Opinions then in Germanny rose from the indiscreet use of the Scriptures Some of those Opinions were at this time disseminated in England both against the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ and the usefulness of the Sacraments for which 19 Hollanders had been burnt in England the former Year It was therefore said That during these Distractions the use of the Scriptures would prove a great Snare So it was proposed that instead of them their might be some short Exposition of the Christian Religion put in the Peoples hands which might keep them in a certain Subjection to the King and the Church But it was carried in the Convocation for the Affirmative At Court Men were much divided in this Point some said if the King gave way to it he would never be able after that to govern his People and that they would break into many Divisions But on the other hand it was said That nothing would make the Difference between the Pope's Power and the King's Supremacy appear more eminently than if the one gave the People the free use of the Word of God whereas the other had kept them in Darkness and ruled them by a blind Obedience It would be also a great mean to extinguish the Interest that either the Pope or the Monks had in England to put the Bible in the People's hands in which it would appear that the World had been long deceived by their Impostures which had no Foundation in the Scriptures These Reasons joyned with the Interest that the Queen had in the King prevailed so far with him that he gave order for setting about this with all possible hast and within three Years the Impression of it was finished At this time the King was in some Treaty with the German Princes not only for a League in Temporal Concerns but likewise in matters of Religion The King thought the Germans should have in all things submitted to him and the Opinion he had of his own Learning which was perhaps heightned a little with his new Title of Head of the Church made him expect that they should in all points comply with him Gardiner was then his Ambassadour in France and diswaded him much from any Religious League with them
Corrections are to be seen made with his own Hand which shew both his great Judgment in those Matters and his extraordinary Application to Business but as he was fond of his two accquired Titles of Defender of the Faith and Supream Head of the Church and loved to shew that he did not carry them in vain so there was nothing which he affected more then to discover his Learning and Understanding in matters of Religion He writ also a List of all the new Sees which he intended to found which were Waltham for Essex St. Albans for Hartford another for Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire out of the Monasteries of Dunstable Newenham and Clowstown another for Oxfordshire and Berkshire out of the Rents of Osney and Tame one for Northampton and Huntington out of Peterborough one for Midlesex out of Westminster one for Leicester and Rutland out of Leicester one for Glocestershire out of St. Peters in Glocester one for Lancashire out of Fountain and the Arch-Deaconry of Richmond one for Suffolk out of Edmundsbury one for Stafford and Salop out of Shrewsbury one for Nottingham and Darby out of Welbeck Wersop and Thurgarton and one for Cornwall out of the Rents of Lanceston Bodmyn and Wardreth Over these he writ Bishopricks to be made and in another part of the same Paper he writ Places to be altered which have Sees in them and names Christ-Church in Canterbury St. Swithins and several others a little under that he writ Places to be altered into Colledges and Schools but mentions only Burton upon Trent Neither Chester nor Bristol are named here tho Episcopal Sees were afterwards erected in them The King had formed a great Design of endowing many Sees and making many other noble Foundations yet the great Change that was made in the Councils and Ministry before this took Effect made that only a small part of that which he now intended was accomplished An Act for Proclamations Another Act was brought in concerning the Obedience due to the King's Proclamations which set forth That great Exceptions had been made to the Legality of the King's Proclamations by some who did not consider what a King might do by his Royal Power which the King took very ill and since many Occasions called for speedy Remedies and could not admit of Delays till a Parliament might be called therefore it was enacted that such Proclamations as the King set out by Advice of his Council with Pains upon Offenders should be obeyed as if they were Acts of Parliaments yet it was provided that no Laws nor Customs might be taken away by them and that the Subjects should not suffer in their Estates Liberties or Persons by them If any offended against them and fled out of the Kingdom that was made Treason It was also provided that if the King's Heirs should reign before they were of Age the Proclamations set out by the Privy Council should have the like force in Law By this the Injunctions that had been given or should be thereafter given were now legally authorized The Statute of Precedence past in this Parliament The King's Vicegerent was to take place of all after the Royal Family and next him among the Clergy came the two Arch-bishops then the Bishops of London and Duresme after them the Bishop of Winchester as Prelate of the Garter and all the other Bishops were to take place according to the Date of their Consecrations A Bill of Attainder past Some attainted without being heard not only confirming the Sentences that had been given against the Marquess of Exeter the Lord Mounticute and others that had been condemned at common Law but of some that were of new attainted without a Trial of these some were absent and others were in Prison but it was not thought fit to bring them to make their Answers The chief of these were the Marchionses of Exeter and the Countess of Sarum Mother to Cardinal Pool It was questioned whether this could be done in Law or not The Judges delivered their Opinion that it was against natural Justice to condemn any without hearing them and that when the Parliament proceeded as a Court they were obliged to follow the common Rules of Equity but if they did otherwise yet since they were the Supream Court of the Nation whatsoever they did could not be reversed The latter part of this was laid hold on and the former was neglected so that Act past This Council was ascribed to Cromwell and he being the first that was executed upon such a Sentence gave occasion to many to observe the Justice of God in making ill Councils turn upon those that gave them When the Parliament was prorogued The King 's Kindnesss to Cranmer the King ordered Cranmer to put in writing all the Arguments he had used against the six Articles and bring them to him He sent also both Cromwell and the Duke of Norfolk to dine with him and to assure him of the Constancy of his Kindness to him At Table they expressed great Esteem for him and acknowledged that he had opposed the six Articles with so much Learning and Gravity that those who differed most from him could not but value him highly for it and that he needed not to fear any thing from the King Cromwell said the King made that difference between him and the rest of his Council that he would not so much as hearken to any Complaints that were made of him and made a Parallel between him and Cardinal Wolsey the one lost his Friends by his Pride and the other gained on his Enemies by his Humility and Mildness the Duke of Norfolk said he could speak best of the Cardinal having been his Man so long this heated Cromwell who answered that he never liked his Manners and tho Wolsey had intended if he had been chosen Pope to have carried him with him to Italy yet he was resolved not to have gone tho he knew the Duke intended to have gone with him Upon this the Duke of Norfolk swore he lied and gave him foul Language This put all the Company in great Disorder They were in some sort reconciled but were never hearty Friends after this Cranmer put his Reasons against the six Articles together and gave them to his Secretary to be written out in a fair Hand for the King's use but he crossing the Thames with the Book in his Bosom met with such an Adventure on the Water as might have at another time sent the Author to the Fire There was a Bear baited near the River which breaking loose run into it and happened to overturn the Boat in which Cranmer's Secretary was and he being in danger of his Life took no care of the Book which falling from him floated on the River and was taken up by the Bear-Ward and put in the hand of a Priest that stood by to see what it might contain he presently found it was a Confutation of the six Articles and so told the Bear-ward that the
the Duke of Lorrain for the Prince of Lorrain and her but it had gone no farther then a Contract between the Fathers Hans Holbin A Treaty for a Match with Ann of Cleve the Famous Painter of that Age took her Picture very much to her Advantage for the King never liked the Original so well as he had done the Picture The Duke of Saxe diswaded the Match because the King was going backward in the matter of the Reformation but Cromwell set it on vigorously It was said the Lady had great Charms in her Person but she could speak no Language but Dutch which the King understood not nor was she bred to Musick And she had a stifness in her Breeding which was not at all accommodated to the King's Inclinations The Match was at last agreed on and in the end of December she was brought over The King was impatient and so went incognito to Rochester but was struck when he saw her There was a Rudeness in her which did not at all please him He swore they had brought over a Flanders Mare to him and took up an incurable Aversion to her He resolved to break the Match if it were possible but his Affairs made the Friendship of the German Princes to be then very necessary to him so that he did not think it advisable to put any Affront on the Dukes of Saxe and Cleve her Brother and her Brother in Law The Emperour had at this time made a hasty Journey through France and Francis and he had an Interview where as the King was informed a Project was laid down against him which was chiefly set on by the Pope Francis was thinking how to take Calais and the other places the King had in France from him it had been also easy for him to have engaged the King of Scotland against him And the People in the North were thought to retain their former Disposition to rise still so that a War made on the King in such Circumstances was like to find him at a great Disadvantage This made the King more tender of offending the Germans But he tried if that Precontract with the Duke of Lorrains's Son could furnish him with a fair Excuse to break the Match The King expressed the great Trouble he was in both to Cromwel and many of his other Servants and one of them pleasantly told him that Subjects had this Advantage over Princes that they chose Wives for themselves whereas Princes were obliged to take such as were brought them But nothing could be built on that Precontract which was only an Agreement between the Fathers their Children being under Age and that was afterwards annulled and broken by the Parents So Cranmer and Tonstall beiug required to give their Opinions as Divines said there was nothing in it to hinder the King 's Marrying the Lady The King marries her but never liked her On the the 6th of January the King Married her but expressed his dislike of her so visibly that all about him took notice of it And the day after that he told Cromwell that he had not consummated his Marriage and he believed he should never do it He suspected she was not a Virgin and she had ill Smells about her so that his Aversion to her was encreased to such a Degree that he believed he should never be able to change it Cromwell did what he could to overcome these Inclinations but that was not to be done And tho the King lived five Months with her and lay often in the Bed with her yet his Aversion to her rather encreased than abated She seemed little concerned at it and expressed a great readiness to concur in every thing that might disengage him from a Marriage that was so unacceptable to him Instruments were brought over to shew that the Contract between her and the Prince of Lorrain was void But they took some Advantage because it was not declared whether the Contract was in the Words of the Present or of the Future Tense In April there was a Session of Parliament A New Parliament and at the opening of it as the Lord Chancellour declared the matters relating to the State for which the King had called them So the Vicegerent spake to them concerning the matters of Religion He told them there was nothing which the King desired so much as an entire Union among all his Subjects but some Incendiaries opposed it as much as he promoted it and between the rashness on the one hand and Inveterare Superstition on the other great Dissentions had arisen These were inflamed by the reproachful names of Papist and Heretick And tho they had now the Word of God in all their hands yet they studied rather to justify their Passions out of it than to govern their Lives by it In order to the removing this the King resolved to set forth an Exposition of the Doctrine of Christ without any corrupt Mixtures and to retain such Ceremonies as might be of good use and that being done he was resolved to punish all Transgressours of what side soever they might be For that end he had appointed the two Archbishops and the Bishops of London Duresm Winchester Rochester Hereford and St. Davids and 11 Divines Thirleby Robertson Cox Day Oglethorp Redmayn Edgeworth Crayford Symons Robins and Tresham for setling the Doctrine And the Bishops of Bath and Walls Ely Sarum Chichester Worcester and Landaff for the Ceremonies These Committees for Religion sat as often as the Affairs of the Parliament could allow of Two days after the Parliament met Cromwell was made Earl of Essex which shews it was not the King's Dislike of the Queen that wrought his Ruine otherwise he had not now raised his Title The Knights of St. John suppressed A Bill was brought in to the Parliament for suppressing the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem These were at first only an Hospital for entertaining the Pilgrims that went to visit the Holy Grave And after that they became an Order of Knights and they and the Knights-Templars conducted and guarded the Pilgrims It was thought for some Ages one of the highest Expression of Devotion to Christ to go and visit the places where he was crucified buried and ascended to Heaven And it was look'd on as highly Meritorious to go and fight for recovering the Holy-Land out of the hands of Infidels so that almost every one that died either vowed to go to the Holy War or left somewhat to such as should go If they recovered they bought off their Vow by giving some Lands for the Entertainment of those Knights There were great Complaints made of the Templars but whether it was their Wealth that made them a desirable Prey or their Guilt that drew Ruine on them is not certain They were condemned in a Council and all of them that could be found were cruelly put to Death But the other Order was still continued and being beaten out of Judea they setled at Rhodes out
of which they were lately driven and were now setled in Malta They were under a great Master who depended on the Pope and the Emperour But some they could not be brought to surrender of their own accord as others had done it was necessary to suppress them by Act of Parliament Another House which they had in Ireland was also suppressed and Pensions were reserved for the Priors and Knights On the 14th of May the Parliament was Prorogued to the 25th a Vote having past that the Bills should continue in the State they were in On the 12th of June Cromwel's Fall there was a sudden turn at Court for the Duke of Norfolk arrested Cromwel of High Treason and sent him Prisoner to the Tower He had many Enemies The meanness of his Birth made the Nobility take it ill to see the Son of a Black-Smith made an Earl and have the Garter given him besides his being Lord Privy Seal Lord Chamberlain of England Lord Vicegerent and a little while before he had also the Mastership of the Rolls All the Popish Clergy hated him violently They imputed the Suppression of Monasteries and the Injunctions that were laid on them chiefly to his Counsels And it was thought that it was mainly by his means that the King and the Emperour continued to be in such ill Terms The King did now understand that there was no agreement like to be made between the Emperour and Francis for it stuck at the matter of the Dutchy of Milan in which neither of them would yield to the other and the King was sure they would both court his Friendship in case of a War and this made him less concerned for the Favour of the German Princes So now Cromwel's Counsels became unacceptable With this a secret Reason concurred The King did not only hate the Queen but was now come to be in Love with Katherine Howard Neece to the Duke of Norfolk which both raised his Interest and deprest Cromwel who had made the former Match The King was also willing to cast upon him all the Errours that had been committed of late and by making him a Sacrifice he hoped he should regain the Affections of his People The King had also Informations brought him That he secretly encouraged those that opposed the six Articles and discouraged those who went about the Execution of it His Fall came so suddenly that he had not the least Apprehension of it before the Storm brake on him He had the common Fate of all disgraced Ministers his Friends forsook him and his Enemies insulted over him only Cranmer stuck to him and wrote earnestly to the King in his Favours He said he found that he had always loved the King above all things and had served him with such Fidelity and Success that he believed no King of England had ever a faithfuller Servant And he wished the King might find such a Councellour who both could and would serve him as he had done So great and generous a Soul had Cranmer that was not turned by changes in his Friends Fortunes and would venture on the displeasure of so Imperious a Prince rather than fail in the Duties of Friendship But the King was now resolved to ruine Crom wel and that unjust Practice of Attainting without hearing the Parties Answer for themselves which he had promoted too much before was now turned upon himself He had such Enemies in the House of Lords that the Bill of Attainder was dispatched in two days being read twice in one day Cranmer was absent and no other would venture to speak for him But he met with more Justice in the House of Commons for it stuck ten days there And in Conclusion a new Bill was drawn against him and sent up to the Lords to which they consented and it had the Royal Assent In it they set forth His Attainder That tho the King had raised him from a base State to great Dignities Yet it appeared by many Witnesses that were Persons of Honour that he had been the most Corrupt Traitor that ever was known That he had set many at Liberty that were condemned or suspected of Misprision of Treason That he had given Licences for transporting out of the Kingdom things prohibited by Proclamation And had granted many Passports without search made That he had said he was sure of the King That he had dispersed many Erroneous Books contrary to the Belief of the Sacrament And had said That every Man might Administer it as well as a Priest That he had licensed many Preachers suspected of Heresy And had ordered many to be discharged that were committed on that account and had discharged all Informers That he had many Hereticks about him That above a Year before he had said The preaching of Barns and others was good And that he would not turn tho the King did turn but if the King turned he would fight in Person against him and all that turned And drawing out his Dagger he wisht that might pierce him to the Heart if he should not do it he had also said If he lived a year or two longer it should not be in the King's Power to hinder it He had likewise been found guilty of great Oppression and Bribery And when he heard that some Lords were taking Counsel against him he had threatned that he would raise great stirrs in England For these things he was Attainted both of High Treason and Heresy A Proviso was added for securing the Church of Wells of which he had been Dean This was lookt on as very hard Measure It was believed Censures past upon it That he had at least Verbal Orders from the King for the Licences and Orders that were complained of and perhaps he could have shewed some in Writing if he had been heard to make his Answers Bribery seemed to be cast on him only to render him odious but no Particulars were mentioned Nor was it credible That he could have spoken such Words of the King as were alledged especially when he was in the height of his Favour and if he had spoken them above a Year before it is not to be imagined that they could have been so long kept secret and what was said of his drawing out a Dagger look'd like a design to affix an overt Act to them This being done The King's Marriage annulled The King went on to move for a Divorce An Address was moved to be made to him by the Lords that he would suffer his Marriage to be examined Cranmer and others were sent down to desire the Concurrence of the Commons and they ordered 20 of their number to go along with the Lords who went all in a body to the King He granted their desire the matter being concerted before So a Commission was sent to the Convocation to discuss it Gardiner opened it to them and they appointed a Committee for the Examination of Witnesses The Substance of the whole Evidence amounted to these Particulars
That the matter of the Precontract with the Prince of Lorrain was not fully cleared and it did not appear if it was made by the Queen or whether it was in the Words of the present time or not That the King had married her against her Will and had not given an inward and compleat Consent and that he had never consummated the Marriage so that they saw he could have no Issue by the Queen Upon these grounds the whole Convocation with one consent annulled the Marriage and declared both Parties free This was the grossest piece of Compliance that the King had from his Clergy in his whole Reign For as they knew that there was nothing in the pretended Precontract so by voiding the Marriage because the Consent was not internal and free they made a most pernicious Precedent for breaking all publick Treaties for none can know Men's Hearts it would be easy for every one to pretend that he had not given a perfect Consent and that being allowed there could be no Confidence nor safety among Men any more And in the Process for the King 's first Divorce they had laid it down as a Principle that a Marriage was compleat tho it were never consummated But in a Word the King was resolved to be rid of the Queen and the Clergy were resolved not to offend him And they rather sought out Reasons to give a colour to their Sentence then past it on the force of those Reasons Cromwel was required to send a Declaration of all he knew concerning the Marriage which he did but ended in these most abject Words Written with the heavy Heart and trembling Hand of your Highness's most heavy and most miserable Prisoner and poor Slave Tho. Cromwel and under his Subscription he wrote Most Sacred Prince I cry for Mercy Mercy Mercy The Judgment of the Convocation was reported to the House of Lords by Cranmer and the Reasons were opened by Gardiner They were sent down to the Commons to give them the same account and both Houses were satisfied with it Next day some Lords were sent to the Queen who had retired to Richmond They told her The King was resolved to declare her his adopted Sister and to setle 4000 l. a Year on her if she would consent to it which she cheerfully embraced and it being left to her choice either to live in England or to return to her Brother She preferred the former They prest her to write to her Brother that all this matter was done with her good Will that the King used her as a Father and that therefore he and the other Allies should not take this ill at his hands She was a little averse to this but was prevailed on to do it When things were thus prepared the Act confirming the Judgment of the Convocation past without any Opposition An Act past mitigating one Clause in the Act of the six Articles by which the pains of Death for the Marriage or Incontinence of the Clergy were changed into a Forfeiture of their Goods and Benefices Another Act past Authorizing those Committees of Bishops and Divines that had been named by the King both for the Doctrine and Ceremonies to go on in it and appointing that what should be agreed on by them and Published with the King's Approbation should bind the Subjects as much as if every Particular in it had been ennumerated in that Act any Law or Custome to the contrary notwithstanding But a Proviso was added That nothing might be done by them contrary to the Laws then in force Which Contradiction in the Provisos seems to have been put in on design to keep all Ecclesiastical Proceedings under the Inspection of the Secular Courts since they are the only Expounders of Acts of Parliament Another Act past That no Pretence of a Precontract should be made use of to annul a Marriage duly Solemnized and Consummated And that no Degrees of Kindred but those ennumerated in the Law of Moses might hinder a Marriage This last was added To enable the King to marry Katherine Howard that was Cousin German to Ann Boleyn which was one of the Degrees prohibited by the Canon Law but the reason of the former part is not known It directly condemns the King's Divorce of Ann Boleyn grounded on a pretended Precontract The Province of Canterbury gave the King a Subsidy of 4 s. in the Pound to be payed in two Years with a Preamble of high Acknowledgments of their Happiness under his Protection A Subsidy was also asked of the Laity but in the House of Commons it was much opposed Many said they had given the King the Abbey-Lands in hopes that no Subsidies should have been any more demanded and it shewed a strange Profuseness that now within a Year after that a Subsidy was demanded But it was answered That the King had been at great charge in fortifying his Coasts and in keeping up such Leagues beyond Sea as preserved the Nation in safety a Tenth and four 15ths were granted Several Bills of Attainder were past And in Conclusion the King sent a General Pardon out of which Cromwel and divers others were excepted and then the Parliament was dissolved Cromwel's mean Addresses could not preserve him So he was executed on the 28 of July Cromwels Death He thanked God for bringing him to die in that manner which was just on the account of his Sins against God and his Offences against his Prince He declared that he doubted of no Article of the Catholick Faith nor of any Sacrament of the Church He said He had been seduced but now he died in the Catholick Faith and denied he had supported the Preachers of ill Opinions He desired all their Prayers and prayed very fervently for himself and thus did he end his days He rose meerly by the strength of his Natural Parts for his Education was suitable to his mean Extraction Only he had all the New Testament in Latin by Heart He carried his Greatness with Extraordinary Moderation and fell rather under the weight of Popular Odium than Guilt At his Death he mixed none of the Superstitions of the Church of Rome with his Devotions So it was said that he used the Word Catholick Faith in its true sense and in Opposition to the Novelties of the Church of Rome Yet his Ambiguous way of expressing himself made the Papists say that he died repenting of his Heresy But the Protestants said that he died in the same Perswasions in which he lived With him fell the Office of the King's Vicegerent and none after him have aspired to that Character that proved so fatal to him who first carried it It was believed that the King lamented his Death when it was too late and the Miseries that fell on the new Queen and on the Duke of Norfolk and his Family were look'd on as Strokes from Heaven on them for their cruel prosecuting this unfortunate Minister With his Fall the Progress of the Reformation stopt for Cranmer
Bishops and the Psalter and other Rudiments of Religion in English All Church-men that preached contrary to that Book for the first Offence were only required to recant for the second to abjure and carry a Faggot but were to be burnt for the third the Laity for the third Offence were only to forfeit their Goods and Chattels and to be liable to perpetual Imprisonment but they were to be proceeded against within a Year The Parties accused were not allowed Witnesses for their Purgation The Act of the six Articles was confirmed and it was left free to the King to change this Act or any Proviso in it There was also a new Act past giving Authority to the King's Proclamations and any nine Privy Counsellours were empowered to proceed against Offenders To this the Lord Mountjoy dissented and it is the only Instance of any Protestation against any of the publick Acts that past in this whole Reign By the Act about Religion as the Laity were delivered from the fear of Burning so the Clergy might not be burnt but upon the third Conviction The Act being also put entirely in the King's Power he had now the Reformers all at mercy for he could bind up the Act or execute it as he pleased and he affected this much to have his People depend entirely upon him The League offensive and defensive for England and Calais and for the Netherlands was sworn by the King and the Emperour and Assurances were given that tho the King would not declare Lady Mary legitimate upon which the Emperour insisted much yet she should be put in the Succession to the Crown next Prince Edward The Emperour was glad thus to engage the Kings of England and France in a War by which the Germans were left without Support and so he resolved to carry on his great design of making himself Master of Germany In Scotland the Earl of Arran Affairs in Scotland Hamilton next in Blood to the young Queen was established in the Government during the Queen's Minority he was a Man of great Vertue and much inclined to the Reformation but was soft and easie to be wrought on King Henry sent Sir Ralph Sadler to him to induce him to set forward the Match and to offer him Lady Elizabeth to his Son It was agreed and confirmed in Parliament that the Young Queen should be bred in Scotland till she was ten Years old the King of England sending a Nobleman and his Lady with others not exceeding twenty to wait on her and after that Age she was to be sent to England and in the mean while six Hostages were to be given but all the Clergy headed by Cardinal Beaton set themselves much against this The Queen-Mother opposed it much and it was also said a Match with the French would be more for the Interest of the Nation who being at so great a distance could not oppress them so easily as the English might for if the French opprest them the English would be ready to protect them but if they came under the Yoke of England they could expect no Protection from any other Prince This meeting with that Antipathy that was then formed between the two Nations and being inflamed by the Clergy turned the People generally to prefer a Match with France to that which was proposed for the Prince of Wales The French sent over the Earl of Lennox to make a Party against the Governour they sent also over the Governour 's Base-Brother afterwards made Arch-bishop of St. Andrews to take him out of the hands of the English and he made him apprehend great danger if he went on in his Opposition to the Interests of Rome that he would be declared illegitimate as being begotten in a second Marriage while the first that was annulled because of a Precontract did subsist for if the annulling the first should be reversed then the second could be of no force and if that were once done the Earl of Lennox who was next to him in blood would be preferred to him These threatnings joyned with his Brother 's Artifices had their full Effect on him for he turned off wholly from the Interests of England and gave himself up to the French Councils When it was thus resolved to break the Match with England the Lords that had left Hostages for their faithful performing the Promises they made to King Henry were little concerned either in their own Honour or in the safety of their Hostages only the Earl of Cassilis thought it was unworthy of him to break his Faith in such a manner so he came into England and put himself in King Henry's Hands who upon that called him another Regulus but used him better for he gave him his Liberty and a Noble Present and sent him back with his Hostages but resolved to take a severe Reparation of those who had failed him in that Kingdom At the same time he began the War with France one of the Reasons he gave for it was that Francis had failed in the matter of shaking off the Pope's Authority and advancing a Reformation in which he had promised to second him The King married Katherine Parre Some burnt at Windsor Widow to Nevill Lord Latimer She secretly favoured the Reformation but could not divert a Storm which fell then on a Society at Windsor Person a Priest Testwood and Marbeck two Singing-men and Filmer one of the Town were informed against by Dr. London who had insinuated himself much into Cromwel's Favour and was eminently zealous in the Suppression of the Monasteries But now he made his Court no less dextrously to the Popish Party Gardiner moved in Council That a Commission might be granted for searching all suspected Houses for Books written against the six Articles So the four before mentioned were found to have some of them and upon that account were seized on Sir Philip Hobbey and Dr. Hains Dean of Exeter were also put in Prison There was a Concordance of the Bible and some Notes upon it in English found written by Marbeck which was look'd on as the Work of some learned Man for it was known that he was illiterate Marbeck said the Notes were his own gathered by him out of such Books as he fell on And for the Concordance he said he compiled it by the help of a Latin Concordance and an English Bible tho he understood little Latin He had brought it to the Letter L. This seemed so incredible that it was look'd on only as a Pretence to conceal the true Author so to try him they gave him some Words of the Letter M and shut him up with a Latin Concordance and an English Bible and by his Performance in that they clearly saw that the whole Work was his own and were not a little astonished at the Ingeniousness and Diligence of so poor a Man When the King heard of it he said Marbeck was better imployed than they were that examined him So he was preserved tho the other
thought a vertue might be both in them and in Holy Water as well as there was in Christ's Garments Peter's Shadow or Elisha's Staffe And there might be a Vertue in Holy Water as well as in the Water of Baptism He also mentioned the Vertue that was in the Cramp-Rings blessed by the late King which he had known to be much esteemed and sought after and he hoped their young King would not neglect that gift But to these things which Gardiner wrote in several Letters the Protector perhaps by Cranmer's direction wrote answer that the Bishops had formerly argued much in another strain that because the Scriptures were abused by the vulgar Readers therefore they were not to be trusted to them and so made a pretended abuse the ground of taking away that which by Gods special appointment was to be delivered to all Christians This did hold much stronger against Images that were forbidden by God The Brazen Serpent set up by Moses by Gods own direction was broken when abused to Idolatry for that was the greatest corruption of Religion possible And the Civil respect payed to the Kings Image on a Seal or on the Coyn did not justifie the dotage upon Images But yet the Protector acknowledged he had reason to complain of the forwardness of the people that broke down Images without authority This was the first step that was made in this Reign towards a Reformation of which the sequel shall appear afterwards Orders were sent to the Justices of the Peace to look well to the Peace and Government of the Nation to meet often and every six weeks to advertise the Protector of the state of the County to which they belonged The Funerals of the deceased King were performed with the ordinary Ceremonies at Windsor The Kings Funeral One thing gave those that hated him some advantages his Body was carried the first day to Sheen which had been a Nunnery and there some of the moisture and fat dropt through the Coffin and to make it a compleat accomplishment of Peyto's denunciation that Dogs should lick his Blood it was said the Dogs next day licked it This in a Corpulent man was so far from a wonder that it had been a wonder if it had been otherwise and was a certain sign of nothing but the Plummers carelesness and their weakness and malice that made such Inferences from it The King left six hundred pounds a year to the Church of Windsor for Priests to say Mass for his Soul every day and for four Obits a year and Sermons and distribution of Alms at every one of them and for a Sermon every Sunday and a maintenance for thirteen poor Knights which was setled upon that Church by his Executors in due form of Law The Pomp of this Endowment now in a more Inquisitive Age led people to examine the usefulness of Soul Masses and Obits Soul Masses examined Christ appointed the Sacrament for a commemoration of his Death among the living but it was not easie to conceive how that was to be applied to departed Souls For all the good that they could receive seemed only applicable to the prayers for them but bare Prayers would not have wrought so much on the people nor would they have payed so dear for them It was a clear project for drawing in the wealth of the World into their hands In the Primitive Church there was a Commemoration of the Dead or an Honourable Remembrance of them made in the daily Offices and for some very small faults their names were not mentioned which would not have had done if they had looked upon that as a thing that was really a relief to them in another state But even this custome grew to be abused and some inferred from it that departed Souls unless they were signally pure passed through a Purgation in the next life before they were admitted to Heaven Of which St. Austin in whose time the opinion was beginning to be received says that it was taken up without any sure ground in Scripture But what was wanting in Scripture proof was supplied by Visions Dreams and Tales till it was generally received King Henry had acted like one that did not much believe it for he was to expect no good usage in Purgatory from those Souls whom he had deprived of the Masses that were said for them in Monasteries by destroying those Foundations Yet it seems he intended to make sure work for himself so that if Masses could avail the departed Souls he resolved to have his share of it and as he gratified the Priests by this part of his Endowment so he pleased the people by appointing Sermons and Alms to be given on such days Thus he died as he had lived swimming between both perswasions And it occasioned no small debate when men sought to find out what his opinions were in the controverted points of Religion For the esteem he was in made both sides study to justifie themselves by seeming to follow his sentiments the one party said he was resolved never to alter Religion but only to cut off some abuses and intended to go no further than he had gone They did therefore vehemently press the others to innovate nothing but to keep things in the state in which he left them till his Son should come of Age But the opposite party said that he had resolved to go a great way further and particularly to turn the Mass to a Communion and therefore Religion being of such consequence to the Salvation of Souls it was necessary to make all the haste in Reformation that was fitting and decent The Coronation But now the diversions of the Coronation took them off from more serious thoughts The Protector was made Duke of Somerset the Earl of Essex Marquess of Northampton the Lords Lisle and Wriothesley Earls of Warwick and Southampton Seimour Rich Willoughby and Sheffield were made Barons In order to the Kings Coronation the Office for that Ceremony was reviewed and much shortned One remarkable alteration was that formerly the King used to be presented to the people at the corners of the Scaffold and they were asked If they would have him to be their King Which looked like a rite of an Election rather than a Ceremony of Investing one that was already King This was now changed and the people were desired only to give their assents and good will to his Coronation as by the duty of Allegiance they were bound to do On the twentieth of February he was Crowned and a General Pardon was proclaimed out of which the Duke of Norfolk Cardinal Pool and some others were excepted The Chancellour The Chancellour turned out who was lookt on as the head of the Popish party gave now an advantage against himself which was very readily laid hold on He granted a Commission to the Master of the Rolls and three Masters of Chancery of whom two were Civilians to execute his Office in the Court of Chancery as if he were
present only their Decrees were to be brought to him to be Signed before they should be Inrolled This being done without any authority from the Protector and the other Executors was thought a high Presumption since he did hereby devolve on others that trust which was deposited in his hands Upon this some Lawyers complained to the Protector and they seem'd also apprehensive of a design to change the Common Laws which was occasioned by the Decrees made by the Civilians that were more suted to the Imperial than to the English Laws The Judges being desired to give their opinions made report That what the Chancellour had done was against Law and that he had forfeited his place and might be imprisoned for it during pleasure But he carried it high he threatned both the Judges and Lawyers and when it was urged that he had forfeited his place he said he had it from the late King who had likewise named him one of the Executors during his Sons minority But it was answered That the major part had power over any of the rest otherwise one of them might rebel and pretend he could not be punished by the rest He being driven out of that was more humble and acknowledged he had no Warrant for granting the Commission he thought by his Office he might lawfully do it he asked Pardon for his offence and desired he might lose his place with as little disgrace as was possible and then it was resolved on by the rest to take the Seal from him and to Fine him as they should afterwards think fit So he being suffered to go home with the Seal the Lord Seimour and some others were sent to demand it of him He was also confined to his house and kept under the terrour of an Arbitrary Fine But upon giving a Bond of 4000 l. to be payed upon demand he was freed from his confinement Yet he was not put out of the trust of the King and the Government for it seems the Council did not look on that as a thing that was in their power to do Soon after this the Protector took a Patent for his Office under the Great Seal March Protectors Patent then in the keeping of the Lord St. John by which he was confirmed in his Authority till the King should be eighteen years of Age he was also authorized to bring in new Councellours besides those enumerated in the Patent who are both the Executors and the Councellours nominated by the late King The Protector with so many of the Council as he thought meet were empowered to administer the affairs of the Kingdom but the Council was limited to do nothing without his Advice and Consent And thus was he now as well established in his Authority as Law could make him He had a Negative on the Council but they had none on him and he could either bring his own creatures into it or select a Cabinet Council out of it as he pleased And the other Executors having now delivered up their Authority to him were only Privy Councellors as the rest were without retaining any singular authority peculiar to them as was provided by King Henry's Will The first business of consequence that required great consideration The affairs of Germany was the Smalcaldick War then begun between the Emperor and the Princes of that League the effects of which if the Emperor prevailed were like to be not only the extirpating of Lutheranism but his being the absolute Master of Germany which the Emperor chiefly designed in order to an Universal Monarchy but disguised it to other Princes to the Pope he pretended that his design was only to extirpate Heresie to other Princes he pretended it was only to repress some Rebels and denied all design of suppressing their new Doctrines which he managed so artificially that he divided Germany it self and got some Lutheran Princes to declare for him and others to be Neutrals and having obtained a very liberal supply for his Wars with France and the Turk for which he granted an Edict for liberty of Religion he made Peace with both those Princes and resolved to imploy that Treasure which the Germans had given him against themselves That he might deprive them of their chief Allies he used means to engage King Henry and Francis the First in a War but that was chiefly by their Interposition composed And now when the War was like to be carried on with great Vigour they lost both those Princes for as Henry died in January so Francis followed him into another World in March following Many of their Confederates began to capitulate and forsake them and the divided command of the Duke of Saxe and the Landgrave of Hesse lost them great advantages the former year in which it had been easie to have driven the Emperor out of Germany but it fell often out that when the one was for engaging the other was against it which made many very doubtful of their success The Pope had a mind to engage the Emperor in a War in Germany that so Italy might be at quiet and in order to that and to Imbroil the Emperor with all the Lutherans he published his Treaty with him that so it might appear that the design of the War was to extirpate Heresie though the Emperor was making great protestations to the contrary in Germany He also opened the Council of Trent which the Emperor had long desired in vain but it was now brought upon him when he least wished for it for the Protestants did all declare that they could not look upon it as a free General Council The Council of Trent since it was so entirely at the Popes devotion that not so much as a Reformation of some of the grossest abuses that could not be justified was like to be obtained unless clogged with such Clauses as made it ineffectual Nor could the Emperor prevail with the Council not to proceed to establish the doctrine and condemn Heresie but the more he obstructed that by delays the more did the Pope drive it on to open the eyes of the Germans and engage them all vigorously against the Emperor yet he gave them such secret assurances of tollerating the Ausburg Confession that the Marquess of Brandenburg declared for him and that joyned with the hopes of the Electorate drew in Maurice of Saxe The Count Palatine was old and feeble the Archbishop of Colen would not make resistance but retired being condemned both by Pope and Emperor and many of the Cities submitted And Maurice by falling into Saxe forced the Elector to separate from the Landgrave and return to the defence of his own Dominions This was the state of the affairs in Germany so it was a hard point to resolve on what answer the Protector should give to the Duke of Saxe's Chancellor whom he sent over to obtain an Aid in Money for carrying on the War It was on the one hand of great importance to the safety of England to preserve
and Equity and said that all people even those who complained most of arbitrary power were apt to usurp it when they were in authority And some thought the delivering the doctrine of Justification in such nice terms was not sutable to the plain simplicity of the Christian Religion Lady Mary was so alarmed at these proceedings that she wrote to the Protector that such changes were contrary to the honour due to her Fathers Memory and it was against their duty to the King to enter upon such points and endanger the publick Peace before he was of Age. To which he wrote answer That her Father had died before he could finish the good things he had intended concerning Religion and had expressed his regret both before himself and many others that he left things in so unsetled a state and assured her that nothing should be done but what would turn to the Glory of God and the Kings Honour He imputed her Writing to the importunity of others rather than to her self and desired her to consider the matter better with an humble Spirit and the assistance of the Grace of God The Parliament was opened the fourth of November A Parliament meets and the Protector was by Patent authorized to sit under the Cloath of State on the Right hand of the Throne and to have all the Honours and Priviledges that any Unkle of the Crown either by Father or Mothers side ever had Rich was made Lord Chancellour The first Act that past five Bishops only dissenting An Act of Repeal was A Repeal of all Statutes that had made any thing Treason or Felony in the late Reign which was not so before and of the six Articles and the authority given to the Kings Proclamations as also of the Acts against Lollards All who deni'd the Kings Supremacy or asserted the Popes for the first offence were to forfeit their goods for the second were to be in a Pramunire and were to be attainted of Treason for the third But if any intended to deprive the King of his Estate or Title that was made Treason none were to be accused of Words but within a month after they were spoken they also repealed the power that the King had of annulling all Laws made till he was twenty four years of age and restrained it only to an annulling them for the time to come but that it should not be of force for the declaring them null from the beginning Another Act past with the same dissent An Act about the Sacrament for the Communion in both kinds and that the people should always communicate with the Priest and by it irreverence to the Sacrament was condemned under severe penalties Christ had instituted the Sacrament in both kinds and S. Paul mentions both In the Primitive Church that custome was universally observed but upon the belief of Transubstantiation the reserving and carrying about the Sacrament were brought in this made them first endeavour to perswade the World that the Cup was not necessary for Wine could neither keep nor be carried about conveniently but it was done by degrees the Bread was for some time given dipt as it is yet in the Greek Church but it being believed that Christ was entirely under either kind and in every crumb the Council of Constance took the Cup from the Laity yet the Bohemians could not be brought to submit to it so every where the use of the Cup was one of the first things that was insisted on by those who demanded a Reformation At first all that were present did communicate and censures past on such as did it not And none were denied the Sacrament but Penitents who were made to withdraw during the Action But as the devotion of the World slackned the people were still exhorted to continue their Oblations and come to the Sacrament though they did not receive it and were made believe that the Priest received it in their stead The name Sacrifice given to it as being a holy Oblation was so far improved that the World came to look on the Priests officiating as a Sacrifice for the dead and living From hence followed an infinite variety of Masses for all the accidents of humane life and that was the chief part of the Priests trade but it occasioned many unseemly jests concerning it which were restrained by the same Act that put these down Another Act past without any dissent An Act concerning the nomination of Bishops That the Conge d'elire and the Election pursuant to it being but a shadow since the person was named by the King should cease for the future and that Bishops should be named by the Kings Letters Patents and thereupon be consecrated and should hold their Courts in the Kings name and not in their own excepting only the Arch-bishop of Canterbury's Court And they were to use the Kings Seal in all their Writings except in Presentations Collations and Letters of Orders in which they might use their own Seals The Apostles chose Bishops and Pastors by an extraordinary gift of discerning Spirits and proposed them to the approbation of the people yet they left no rules to make that necessary In the times of Persecution the Clergy being maintained by the Oblations of the people they were chosen by them But when the Emperours became Christians the Town Councils and eminent men took the Elections out of the hands of the Rabble And the Tumults in popular Elections were such that it was necessary to regulate them In some places the Clergy and in others the Bishops of the Province made the choice The Emperours reserved the Confirmation of the Elections in the great Sees to themselves But when Charles the Great annexed great Territories and Regalities to Bishopricks a great change followed thereupon Church-men were corrupted by this undue greatness and came to depend on the humours of those Princes to whom they owed this great encrease of their wealth Princes named them and invested them in their Sees But the Popes intended to separate the Ecclesiastical State from all subjection to Secular Princes and to make themselves the heads of that State at first they pretended to restore the freedom of Elections but these were now ingrossed in a few hands for only the Chapters chose The Popes had granted thirty years before this to the King of France the nomination to all the Bishopricks in that Kingdome so the King of Englands assuming it was no new thing and the way of Elections as King Henry had setled it seemed to be but a Mockery so this change was not much condemned The Ecclesiastical Courts were the Concessions of Princes in which Trials concerning Marriages Wills and Tithes depended so the holding those Courts in the Kings name was no Invasion on the Spiritual Function since all that concerned Orders was to be done still in the Bishops name only Excommunication was still left as the Censure of those Courts which being a Spiritual Censure ought to have been reserved to
the Bishop to be proceeded in by him only with the assistance of his Clergy and this fatal errour then committed has not yet met with an effectual regulation Another Act was made against idle Vagabonds An Act against Vagabonds that they should be made slaves for two years by any that should seize on them This was chiefly designed against some Vagrant Monks as appears by the Proviso's in the Act for they went about the Countrey infusing in the People a dislike of the Government The severity of this Act made that the English Nation which naturally abhors slavery did not care to execute it and this made that the other Proviso's for supplying those that were truly indigent and were willing to be imployed had no effect But as no Nation has better and more merciful Laws for the supply of the Poor so the fond pity that many shew to the common Beggars which no Laws have been able to restrain makes that a sort of dissolute and idle Beggars intercept much of that Charity which should go to the relief of those that are indeed the only proper objects of it An Act for dissolving the Changries After this came the Act for giving the King all those Chantries which the late King had not seized on by Vertue of the Grant made to him of them Cranmer opposed this much for the poverty of the Clergy was such that the State of Learning and Religion was like to suffer much if it should not be relieved and yet he saw no probable Fond for that but the preserving these till the King should come to be at Age and allow the selling them for buying in of at least such a share of the Impropriations as might afford some more comfortable subsistence to the Clergy yet though he and seven other Bishops dissented it was past After all other Acts a General Pardon but clogged with some Exceptions came last some Acts were proposed but not past one was for the free use of the Scriptures others were for a Court of Chancery in Ecclesiastical Causes for Residence and for a Reformation of the Courts of Common Law The Convocation fits The Convocation sat at the same time and moved that a Commission begun in the late Reign of thirty two Persons for reforming the Ecclesiastical Laws might be revived and that the inferiour Clergy might be admitted to sit in the House of Commons for which they alledged a Clause in the Bishops Writ and Ancient Custome and since some Prelates had under the former Reign begun to alter the form of the Service of the Church they desired it might be brought to perfection and that some care might be had of supplying the poor Clergy and relieving them from the Taxes that lay on them This concerning the inferiour Clergy's sitting in the House of Commons was the subject of some debate and was again set on foot both under Queen Elizabeth and King James but to no effect Some pretended that they always sat in the House of Commons till the submission made in the former Reign upon the suit of the Praemunire but that cannot be true since in this Convocation 17. years after that in which many that had been in the former were present no such thing was alledged It is not clear who those Proctors of the Clergy that sat in Parliament were if they were the Bishops assistants it is more proper to think they sat in the House of Lords No mention is made of them as having a share in the Legislative Authority in our Records except in the 21. of Richard the 2d In which mention is made both of the Commons the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Proctors of the Clergy concurring to the Acts then made which makes it seem most probable that they were the Clerks of the lower House of Convocation When the Parliament met antiently all in one Body the inferiour Clergy had their Writs and came to it with the other Freeholders but when the two Houses were separated the Clergy became also a distinct body and gave their own Subsidies and medled in all the concerns and represented all the grievances of the Church But now by the Act made upon the submission of the Clergy in the last Reign their power was reduced almost to nothing so they thought it reasonable to desire that either they might have their Representatives in the House of Commons or at least that matters of Religion should not pass without the assent of the Clergy But the raising the Ecclesiastical authority too high in former times made this turn that it was now depressed as much below its just limits as it was before exalted above them as commonly one extreme produces another It was resolved that some Bishops and Divines should be sent to Windsor to finish some Reformations in the publick Offices for the whole lower House of Convocation without a contradictory Vote agreed to the Bill about the Sacrament But it is not known what opposition it met with in the Upper House A Proposition being also set on foot concerning the lawfulness of the Marriage of the Clergy thirty five subscribed to the affirmative and only fourteen held the Negative And thus ended this Session both of Parliament and Convocation And the Protector being now established in his power and received by a Parliament without contradiction took out a new Commission in which besides his former authority he was impowered to substitute one in his room during his absence In Germany the Princes of the Smalcaldick League were quite ruined The affairs of Germany the Duke of Saxe was defeated and taken Prisoner and used with great severity and scorn which he bare with an invincible greatness of mind The Landgrave was perswaded to submit and had assurances of liberty given him but by a trick unbecoming the greatness of the Emperour he was seized on and kept Prisoner contrary to faith given upon this all the Princes and Towns except Magdeburg and Brome submitted and purchased their pardon at what terms the Conquerour was pleased to impose The Bishop and Elector of Colen withdrew peaceably to a retirement in which after four years he died and now all Germany was at the Emperours mercy Some Cathedrals as that at Ausburg were again restored to the Bishops and Mass was said in them A Diet was also held in which the Emperor obtain'd a Decree to pass by which matters of Religion were referred wholly to his care The Pope instead of rejoycing at this blow given the Lutherans was much troubled at it for the Emperour had now in one Year made an end of a War which he hoped would have Imbroiled him his whole life so that Italy was now more at his mercy than ever and it seemed the Emperour intended to inlarge his Conquests there for the Pope's Natural Son being killed by a Conspiracy the Governour of Milan seized on Placentia which gave the Pope some jealousie as if the Emperour had been privy to
In the distribution it was said The Body of our Lord c. preserve thy Body and The Blood of our Lord c. preserve thy Soul This was Printed with a Proclamation requiring all to receive it with such Reverence and Uniformity as might encourage the King to proceed further and not to run to other things before the King gave direction assuring the people of his earnest zeal to set forth Godly Orders and therefore it was hoped they would tarry for it The Books were sent over England and the Clergy were appointed to give the Communion next Easter according to them Many were much offended to find Confession left indifferent Auricular Confession examined so this matter was examined Christ gave his Apostles a power of binding and loosing and S. James commanded all to confess their faults to one another In the Primitive Church all that denied the Faith or otherwise gave scandal were separated from the Communion and not admitted to it till they made publick Confession And according to the degrees of their sins the time and degrees of publick Penitence and their Separation were proportioned Which was the chief subject of the Consultations of the Councils in the fourth and fifth Centuries For secret sins the people lay under no obligation to confess but they went often to their Priests for direction even for these Near the end of the fifth Century they began to have secret Penances and Confessions as well as publick But in the seventh Century this became the general practice In the eighth Century the Commutation of Penance for Money or other Services done the Church was brought in Then the Holy Wars and Pilgrimages came to be magnified Croisadoes against Hereticks or Princes deposed by the Pope were set up instead of all other Penances Priests also managed Confession and Absolution so as to enter into all mens secrets and to govern their Consciences by them but they becoming very ignorant and not so associated as to be governed by Orders that might be sent them from Rome the Friers were every where imployed to hear Confessions and many reserved Cases were made in which the Pope only gave Absolution these were trusted to them and they had the Trade of Indulgences put in their hands which they managed with as much considence as Mountebanks used in selling their Medicines with this advantage that the ineffectualness of their devices was not so easily discovered for the people believed all that the Priests told them In this they grew to such a pitch of confidence that for saying some Collects Indulgences for years and for Hundreds Thousands yea a Million of years were granted so cheap a thing was Heaven made This trade was now thrown out of the Church and private Confession was declared indifferent But it was much censured that no Rules for Publick Penance were set up at this time but what were corrupted by the Canonists The people did not think a Declarative Absolution sufficient and thought it surer work when a Priest said I Absolve thee though that was but a late Invention Others censured the words of distribution by which the Bread was appropriated to the Body and the Cup to the Soul And this was soon after amended only some words relating to it are still in the Collect We do not presume The affairs of State took up the Council Gardiner is imprisoned as much as the matters of Religion imployed the Bishops the War with Scotland grew chargeable and was supported from France but the sale of the Chantry Lands brought the Council in some Money Gardiner was brought into new trouble many complaints were made of him that he disparaged the Preachers sent with the Kings licence into his Diocess and that he secretly opposed all Reformation So being brought before the Council he denied most of the things objected to him and offered to explain himself openly in a Sermon before the King The Protector prest him not to meddle in matters not yet determined particularly the presence of Christ in the Sacrament and to assert the Kings power though he was under age and the Authority of the Council for the Clergy began generally to say that though they acknowledged the Kings Supremacy yet they would not yield it to the Council and seemed to place it in some extraordinary grace conferred on the King by the Anointing in the Coronation So the Protector desired Gardiner to declare himself in those points but when he came to preach on St. Peters day he inveighed against the Popes Supremacy and asserted the Kings but said nothing of the Council nor the Kings power under Age he also justified the suppression of Monasteries and Chantries and the putting down Masses satisfactory as also the removing of Images the Sacrament in both kinds and the new Order for the Communion but did largely assert the Corporal Presence in the Sacrament Upon which there was a noise raised by hot Men of both sides during the Sermon and this was said to be a stirring of sedition and upon that he was sent to the Tower This way of proceeding was thought contrary both to Law and Justice and as all violent courses do this rather weakned than strengthned those that were most concerned in it Cranmer did at this time set out a large Catechism which he dedicated to the King He insisted much on shewing that Idolatry had been committed in the use of Images he asserted the Divine Institution of Bishops and Priests and their authority of Absolving sinners and expressed great Zeal for setting up Penitentiary Canons and exhorted the People to discover the state of their Souls to their Pastors from this it appears that he had changed the opinions he formerly held against the Divine Institution of the Ecclesiastical Offices But now a more general Reformation of the whole Liturgy was under consideration A new Liturgy composed that all the Nation might have an Uniformity in the Worship of God and be no more cantoned to the several Uses of Sarum York Lincoln Hereford and Bangor Anciently the Liturgies were short and had few Ceremonies in them Every Bishop had one for his own Diocess but in the African Churches they began first to put them into a more Regular Form Gregory the Great labour'd much in this yet he left Austin the Monk to his liberty either to use the Roman or French forms in England as he found they were like to tend most to Edification Great Additions were made in every Age for the private Devotions of some that were reputed Saints were added to the Publick offices and mysterious significations were invented for every new Rite which was the chief study of some Ages and all was swelled up to a vast bulk It was not then thought on that praying by the spirit consisted in the inventing new words and uttering them with warmth and it seemed too great a subjection of the People to their Priests that they should make them joyn with them in all their heats
and wished there were more preaching and in a more lively way than he heard was then in England but above all things he prayed him to suppress that Impiety and profanity that as he heard abounded in the Nation In the end of this Year A Session of Parliament a Session of Parliament met but no Bill was finished before February the first was concerning the married Clergy which was finished by the Commons in six days but lay six Weeks before the Lords Nine Bishops and four Temporal Lords protested against it It was declared An Act for the marriage of the Clergy that it were better for Priests to live unmarried free of all worldly cares yet since the Laws compelling it had occasioned great filthiness they were all repealed The pretence of Chastity in the Romish Priests had possessed the World with a high opinion of them and had been a great reflection on the Reformers if the World had not clearly seen through it and been made very sensible of the ill effects of it by the defilement it brought into their own Beds and Families Nor was there any point in which the Reformers had enquired more to remove this prejudice that lay against them In the old Testament all the Priests were not only married but the Office descended by Inheritance In the New Testament Marriage was declared Honourable in all among the qualifications of Bishops and Deacons their being the Husbands of one Wife are reckoned up Many of the Apostles were married and carried their Wives about with them as also Aquila did Priscilla Forbidding to marry is reckoned a mark of the Apostasie that was to follow Some of the first Hereticks inveighed against Marriage but the Orthodox justified it and condemned those Churchmen that put away their Wives which was confirmed by a General Council in the fifth Century In Trullo Paphnutius in the Council of Nice opposed a motion that was made for it Hilary of Poictiers was married Basil and Nazianzen's Fathers were Bishops Heliodorus the first that wrote a Romance moved that Bishops might live singly but till then every one did in that as he pleased and even those who were twice married if the first was before their Conversion might be Bishops which Jerome himself though very partial to celibate justifies all the Canons made against the married Clergy were only positive Laws which might be repealed The Priests in the Greek Church did still live with their Wives at that time In the West the Clergy did generally marry and in Edgar's time they were for the most part married in England In the Ninth Century P. Nicolas prest the Celibate much but was opposed by many In the Eleventh Century Gregory the 7th intending to set up a new Ecclesiastical Empire found that the unmarried Clergy would be the surest to him since the married gave Pledges to the State and therefore he proceeded furiously in it and called all the married Priests Nicolaitans yet in England Lanfranc did only impose the Celibate on the Prebendaries and the Clergy that lived in Towns Anselm imposed it on all without exception but both he Bernard and Petrus Damiani complain that Sodomy abounded much even among the Bishops And not only Panormitan but Pius the 2d wished that the Laws for the Celibate were taken away So it was clear that it was not founded on the Laws of God and it was a sin to force Churchmen to vow that which sometimes was not in their power and it was found by examining the forms of Ordination that the Priests in England had made no such vows and even the vow in the Roman Pontifical to live chastly did not import a tie not to marry since a Man might live Chast in a married state Many lewd stories were published of the Clergy but none seemed more remarkable than that of the Pope's Legate in Henry the second 's time who the very same Night after he had put all the married Clergy from their Benefices was found a-bed with a Whore It was also observed that the unmarried Bishops if they had not Bastards to raise were as much set on advancing their Nephews and Kindred as those that were married could be Nor did any Persons meddle more in secular affairs than the unmarried Clergy and it might be reasonable to restrain the Clergy as was done in the Primitive Church from converting the Goods of the Church which were entrusted to their care to the enriching of their Families None appeared more zealous for procuring this liberty than several Clergy men that never made use of it in particular Ridley and Redmayn Another Act past An Act confirming the Liturgy confirming the Liturgy which was now finished Eight Bishops and three Temporal Lords only protesting against it There was a long preamble setting forth the inconvenience of the former Offices and the pains that had been taken to reform them and that diverse Bishops and Divines had by the aid of the Holy Ghost with an uniform agreement concluded on the new Book therefore they Enacted That by Whitsunday next all Divine Offices should be performed according to it and if any used other Offices for the first offence they should be imprisoned six months lose their Benefices for a second and be imprisoned during life for the third offence Some censured those words that the Book was composed by the Aid of the Holy Ghost but this did not import an Inspiration but a Divine assistance Many wondred to see the Bishops of Norwich Hereford Chichester and Westminster protest against the Act since they had concurred in composing the Book It does not appear whether they were dissatisfied at any thing in it or whether they opposed the imposing it on such severe penalties or if they were displeased at a Proviso that was added for the using of Psalms taken out of the Bible which was intended for the singing Psalms then put in Verse and much used both in Churches and Houses by all that loved the Reformation In the Primitive times the Christians used the Psalter much and the chief devotion of the Monastick Orders consisted in repeating it often Apollinarius put it in Verse and both Nazianzen and Prudentius wrote many devout Hymns in Verse Others though in Prose were much used as the Gloria in Excelsis and the Te Deum afterwards the greatest part of the Offices was put in Latin Rhimes and so now some English Poets turned the Psalter into Verse which was then much esteemed but both our Language and Poetry being since that time much improved this work has now lost its beauty so much that there is great need of a new Version Another Act past about Fasting An Act for Fasting declaring That though all days and meats were in themselves alike yet fasting being a great help to vertue and to the subduing the Body to the mind and a distinction of meats conducing to the advancement of the Fishing trade it was Enacted That Lent and all Fridays and
Saturdays and Ember days should be Fish days under several penalties excepting the weak or those that had the Kings Licence Christ had told his Disciples that when he was taken from them they should fast So in the Primitive Church they fasted before Easter but the same number of days was not observed in all places afterwards other rules and days were set up but S. Austin complained that many in his time placed all their Religion in observing them Fast-days were turned to a mockery in the Church of Rome in which they both dined and did eat Fish drest exquisitely and drank Wine This made many run to another extream against all Fasts or distinction of days which certainly if rightly managed and without superstition is a great means for keeping up a seriousness of mind which is necessary for maintaining the power of Religion Other Bills were proposed but not past one for making it Treason to marry the Kings Sisters without the consent of the King and Council But the forfeiture of Succession in that case was thought sufficient The Bishops did also complain of their want of power to repress vice which so much abounded But the Laity were so apprehensive of coming again under an Ecclesiastical Tyranny that they would not consent to it A Proposition was also made for bringing the Common Law into a body in imitation of Justinians Digests But it fell being too great a design to be finished under an Infant King In this Parliament the Admiral was Attainted The Admirals Attainder The Queen Dowager died in September last not without suspicion of Poison upon that he renewed his Addresses to Lady Elizabeth but finding it in vain to expect that his Brother and the Council would consent to it and that her right to the Succession would be cut off if he married her without their consent he resolved to make sure of the Kings Person till he made a change in the Government He fortified his House he laid up a Magazine and made a party among the Nobility The Protector imployed many to divert him from those desperate designs but his Ambition being incurable he was forced to proceed to extremities against him He sent him Prisoner to the Tower in January with his Confederate Sharington who being Vice-Treasurer of the Mint at Bristol had supplied him with Money and had coined much base Money for his use Many were sent to perswade him to a better mind and his Brother was willing to be again reconciled to him if he would retire from the Court and business but he was intractable So many Articles were objected to him both of his designs against the State and of his Malversation in his Office several Pyrates having been entertained by him Many Witnesses and Letters under his own hand were brought against him Almost the whole Council went to the Tower and examined him but he refused to make any Answers and said he expected an open Tryal The whole Council upon this acquainted the King with it and desired him to refer the matter to the Parliament which he granted Upon that some Counsellors were again sent to see what they could draw from him but he was sullen and after he had answered to three of the Articles denying some particulars and excusing others he refused to go any further The business was next brought into the House of Lords The Judges and the Kings Council delivered their opinions That the Articles objected to him were Treason Then the Evidence was given upon which the whole House past the Bill the Protector only withdrawing They dispatched it in two days In the House of Commons many argued against Attainders without a Trial or bringing the party to make his Answers But a Message was sent from the King desiring them to proceed as the Lords had begun So the Lords that had given Evidence against him in their own House were sent down to the Commons Upon which they past the Bill and the Royal Assent was given the fifth of March And afterwards the King being prest to it by the Council gave order for the Execution which was done the twentieth of March. This was the only cure that his Ambition seemed capable of Yet it was thought against nature that one Brother should fall by the hand of another And the Attainting a man without hearing him was condemned as contrary to Natural Justice so that the Protector suffered almost as much by his death as he could have done by his life The Laity and Clergy both gave the King Subsidies and so the Parliament was Prorogued The first thing taken into care was the receiving the Act of Uniformity A new Visitation Some Complaints were made of the Priests way of officiating that they did it with such a tone of voice that the people did not understand what was said no more than when the Prayers were said in Latine so this Temper was found Prayers were ordered to be said in Parish Churches in a plain voice but in Cathedrals the old way was still kept up as agreeing better with the Musick used in them Though this seemed not very decent in the Confession of sins nor in the Litany where a simple voice gravely uttered agreed better with those devotions than those Cadences and unmusical notes do Others continued to use all the Gesticulations Crossings and Kneelings that they had formerly been accustomed to The people did also continue the use of their Beads which were brought in by Peter Hermit in the eleventh Century by which the repeating the Angels Salutation to the Virgin was made a great part of their devotion and was ten times said for one Pater Noster Instructions were given to the Visitors to put all these down in a new Visitation and to enquire if any Priests continued to drive a trade by Trentals or Masses for departed Souls Order was also given that there should be no Private Masses at Altars in the corners of Churches and that there should be but one Communion in a day unless it were in great Churches and at high Festivals in which they were allowed to have one Communion in the morning and another at noon The Visitors made their Report That they found the Book of Common Prayer received universally over all the Kingdom only Lady Mary continued to have Mass said according to the abrogated forms Upon this the Council wrote to her to conform to the Laws for the nearer she was to the King in blood she was so much the more obliged to give a good Example to the rest of the Subjects She refused to comply with their desires and sent one to the Emperour for his Protection upon which the Emperour pressed the English Embassadours and they promised that for some time she should be dispensed with The Emperour pretended afterwards that they made him an absolute Promise that she should never be more troubled about it but they said it was only a Temporary Promise A Match was also proposed for her with the King
down all the Churches as for laying aside those Habits Cranmer desired Bucer's opinion concerning the lawfulness of those Habits and the obligation lying on Subjects to obey the Laws about them His opinion was that every creature of God was good and that no former abuse could make a thing indifferent in its self become unlawful He thought ancient customes ought not to be lightly changed and that there might be a good use made of those Garments that they might well express the purity and candour that became all who ministred in Holy things and that it was a sin to disobey the Laws in such matters Yet since those Garments had been abused to Superstition and were like to become a subject of Contention he wished they might be taken away by Law and that Ecclesiastical Discipline and a more compleat Reformation might be set up and that a stop might be put to the robbing of Churches otherwise they might see in the present State of Germany a dreadful prospect of that which England ought to look for He also writ to the same effect to Hooper and wished that all good men would unite against the greater Corruptions and then lesser abuses would easily be redressed Peter Martyr did also deliver his opinion to the same purpose and was much troubled at Hooper's stiffness and at such contests among the professors of true Religion Hooper was suspended from Preaching but the Earl of Warwick writ to Cranmer to dispense with him in that matter He answered That while the Law continued in force he could not do it without incurring a Praemunire Upon that the King writ to him allowing him to do it and dispensing with the Law Yet this matter was not setled till a year after John à Lasco with some Germans of the Helvetian Confession came this year into England being driven out of Germany by the Persecution there They were erected by Letters Patents into a Corporation and à Lasco was their Superintendent he being a stranger medled too much in English affairs and wrote both against the Habits and against kneeling in the Sacrament Polydore Virgil was this year suffered to go out of England and still to hold the preferments he had in it Pomet was made Bishop of Rochester and Caverdale Co-adjutor to Veysy in Exeter There was now a design set on foot A review of the Common-Prayer-Book for a review of the Common-Prayer-Book In order to which Bucer's opinion was asked He approved the main parts of the former Book he wished there might be not only a denunciation against scandalous persons that came to the Sacrament but a discipline to exclude them That the Habits might be laid aside that no part of the Communion Office might be used except when there was a Sacrament that Communions might be more frequent that the Prayers might be said in a plain voice that the Sacrament might be put in the peoples hands and that there might be no Prayers for the Dead which had not been used in Justin Martyr's time He advised a change of some phrases in the Office of the Communion that favoured Transubstantiation too much and that Baptism might be only in Churches He thought the hallowing the Water the Chrisme and the White garment were too scenical nor did he approve of adjuring the Devil nor of the Godfathers answering in the Childs name He thought Confirmation should be delayed till the person was of Age and came sincerely to renew the Baptismal Covenant He advised Catechizing every Holy-day both of Children and the Adult he disliked private Marriages Extream Unction and offering Chrisomes at the Churching of Women And thought there ought to be greater strictness used in the examining of those who came to receive Orders At the same time he understood that the King expected a New-years gift from him of a Book written particularly for his own use So he made a Book for him concerning the Kingdom of Christ He prest much the setting up a strict discipline the Sanctification of the Lords day Bucer offers some advices to the King the appointing many days of Fasting and that Pluralities and Non-residence might be effectually condemned that Children might be Catechized that the Reverence due to Churches might be preserved that the Pastoral function might be restored to what it ought to be that Bishops might throw off Secular affairs and take care of their Diocesses and govern them by the advice of their Presbyters that there might be Rural Bishops over twenty or thirty Parishes and that Provincial Councils might meet twice a year that Church-lands should be restored and that a fourth part should be assigned to the poor that Marriage without consent of Parents should be annulled that a second Marriage might be declared lawful after a Divorce for Adultery and some other Reasons that care should be taken of the education of youth and for repressing luxury that the Law might be reformed that no Office might be sold but given to the most deserving that none should be put in Prison upon slight offences and that the severity of some Laws as that which made Theft capital might be mitigated The young King was much pleased with these advices The Kings great understanding and upon that began himself to form a Scheme for amending many things that were amiss in the Government which he writ with his own hand and in a stile and manner that had much of a Child in it though the thoughts were manly It appears by it that he intended to set up a Church discipline and settle a method for breeding of youth but the discourse is not finished He also writ a Journal of every thing that past at home and of the news that came from beyond Sea It has clear marks of his own Composing as well as it is written with his own hand He wrote another discourse in French being a Collection of all the places of Scripture against Idolatry with a Preface before it dedicated to the Protector At this time Ridley made his first Visitation of his Diocess Altars put down the Articles upon which he proceeded were chiefly relating to the Service and Ceremonies that were abolished whether any continued to use them or not and whether there were any Anabaptists or others that used private Conventicles He also carried some Injunctions with him against some remainders of the former superstition and for exhorting the people to give Alms and to come oft to the Sacrament and that Altars might be removed and Tables put in their room in the most convenient place of the Chancel In the Ancient Church their Tables were of Wood But the Sacrament being called a Sacrifice as Prayers Alms and all Holy Oblations were they came to be called Altars This gave the rise to the Opinion of Expiatory Sacrifice in the Mass and therefore it was thought fit to take away both the name and form of Altars Ridley only advised the Curates to do this but upon some contests arising
and worship and our being during the whole action in one continued posture of devotion and if the Jews who were more bound up to Ceremonies made a change in the posture at the Memorial of their deliverance without any warrant mentioned in the Old Testament it must be acknowledged that the Christian Church which is more at liberty in such matters had authority to make the like change of the posture in this Memorial of Christ's sufferings At this time six of the most eminent Preachers were appointed to wait on the Court by turns two at a time and the other four were sent as Itinerant Preachers into all the Counties of England in a Circuit for supplying the defects of the Clergy who were generally very weak and faulty The Mass said in Lady Mary's Chappel Lady Mary in trouble for having Mass said was now again challenged The Court was less afraid of the Emperours displeasure than formerly and so would no longer bear with so publick a breach of Law And the Promise they had made being but Temporary and never given in Writing they thought they were not bound by it But the Emperour assured her that he had an absolute Promise for that Priviledge to her This encouraged her so much that when the Council wrote to her she said she would follow the Catholick Church and adhere to her Fathers Religion Answer was writ in the Kings name requiring her to obey the Law and not to pretend that the King was under age since the late Rebels had justified themselves by that The way of Worship then established was also vindicated as most consonant to the word of God But she refused to engage into any disputes only she said she would continue in her former courses And she was thinking of going out of England insomuch that the Emperour ordered a Ship to lie near the Coast for her Transportation which was strange advice for it is probable if she had gone beyond Sea she had been effectually shut out from succeeding to the Crown The Emperour espoused her quarrel so warmly that he threatned to make War if she should be hardly used and the Merchants having then great effects at Antwerp it was not thought fit to give him a colour for breaking with them and seizing on these so the Council were willing to let the matter fall and only advised her to have her Mass privately said yet the young King could not be easily induced to yield to that for he said he ought not to connive at Idolatry The Council ordered Cranmer Ridley and Poinet to satisfie him in it And they convinced him that though he ought not to consent to any sin yet he was not at all times obliged to punish it He burst out in weeping lamenting his Sisters obstinacy and his own circumstances that obliged him to comply with such an impious way of Worship Dr. Wotton was sent over to the Emperour to convince him that no absolute Promise was ever made For Paget and Hobbey whom the Emperour vouched for it declared upon Oath that they made not any but what was Temporary and since the King did not meddle in the concerns of the Emperours Family it was not reasonable for him to interpose in this The Emperor pretended that he had promised to her Mother at her death to protect her and so he was bound in honour to take care of her But now when the Council were not in such fear of the Emperours displeasure as formerly they sent to seize on two of her Chaplains that had said Mass in her House when she was absent they kept out of the way and she writ to the Council to stop the prosecution and continued to stand upon the Promise made to the Emperour A long answer was returned to her by the Council in which after the matter of the Promise was cleared they urged her with the absurdity of Prayers in an unknown tongue offering the Sacrament for the dead and worshipping Images All the Ancients appealed upon all occasions to the Scriptures by these she might easily discover the errours and cheats of the old Superstition that were supported only by false Miracles and lying Stories They concluded that they being trusted with the execution of the Laws were obliged to proceed equally Mallet one of the Chaplains was taken and she earnestly desired that he might be set at liberty but it was denied her The Council sent for the chief Officers of her House and required them to let her know the Kings pleasure that she must have the new Service in her Family and to give the like charge to her Chaplains and Servants This vexed her much and did almost cast her into sickness She said she would obey the King in every thing in which her Conscience was not touched But charged them not to deliver the Councils Message to her Servants Upon that the Lord Chancellour Petre and Wyngfield were sent with the same orders to her and carried to her a Letter from the King which she received on her knees but when she read it she cast the blame of it on Cecyl then Secretary of State The Chancellour told her the whole Council were of one mind that they could not suffer her to use a form of Worship against Law And had ordered them to intimate this both to herself and her Family She made great protestations of duty to the King but said she would die rather than use any form of Worship but that which was left by her Father only she was afraid she was not worthy to suffer on so good an account When the King was of age she would obey his Commands in Religion and though he now knew many things above his age yet as they did not think him yet capable of matters of War or Policy so much less could he judge in points of Divinity If her Chaplains refused to say Mass she could have none but for the new Service she was resolved against it and if it were forced on her she would leave her house She desired her Officers might be sent back to her whom they had put in the Tower for not intimating the Councils order to her Servants which had been strange for them to have done when she forbid it She charged them to use her well for her Fathers sake who had raised them all out of nothing She was sick by reason of their ill usage and if she died she would lay it at their door She insisted on the Promise made to the Emperour who writ of it to her and she believed him more than them all She gave them a token to be carried to the King and so dismist them When they had laid a charge on her Chaplains and Servants to the same effect and were going away she called after them and desired they would send her Comptroller to her for she was weary of receiving her accounts and examining how many Loaves were made of a Bushel of Meal Upon this resolution that she exprest
for though by the Law of England no Peer can be challenged yet by the Law of Nature no Man can well judge where he is a Party The Chancellour though a Peer was left out upon suspicion of a reconciliation which he was making with the Duke He was not well skilled in Law and neither objected to the Indictment nor desired Councel to plead for him but only answered to matters of fact he denied all designs to raise the People or to kill Northumberland if he had talked of it it was in passion without any Intention and it was ridiculous to think that he with a small Troop could destroy the Gendarmoury who were 900. The armed Men he had about him were only for his own defence he had done no mischief to his Enemies though it was once in his power to have done it and he had rendred himself without making any resistance He desired the Witnesses might be brought face to face and objected many things to them chiefly to Palmer but that was not done and their Depositions were only read The King's Councel pleaded upon the Statute against unlawful Assemblies that to contrive the death of Privy Counsellors was Felony and to have Men about him for his defence was also Felony The material defence was omitted for by that Statute those Assemblies were not felonious except being required to disperse themselves they had refused to do it and it does not appear that any such Proclamation had been made in this case The Proofs of his raising Rebellion were insufficient so he was acquitted of Treason which raised a great shout of joy that was heard as far as Charing-Cross but he was found guilty of Felony for intending to imprison Northumberland He carried himself during the Trial with great temper and all the sharpness which the Kings Councel expressed in pleading against him did not provoke him to any undecent passion But when Sentence was given he sunk a little and asked the three Lords that were his Enemies pardon for his ill designs against them and made sute for his life and for his Wife and Children It was generally thought that nothing being found against him but an Intention to imprison a Privy Counsellor that never took effect one so nearly related to the King would not have been put to death on that account It was therefore necessary to raise in the King a great Aversion to him so a story was brought to the King as if in the Tower he had confessed a design to imploy some to Assassinate those Lords and the Persons named for that wicked service were also perswaded to take it on them This being believed by the King he took no more care to preserve him assassination being a crime of so barbarous a nature that it possessed him with a horrour even to his Uncle when he thought him guilty of it and therefore he was given up to his Enemies rage Stanhop Partridge Arundel and Vane were tried next the two first were not much pitied for they had made a very ill use of their Interest in the Duke during his greatness the other two were much lamented Arundels Jury was shut up a whole Day and a Night and those that were for the acquittal yielded to the fury of the rest only that they might save their own Lives and not be starved Vane had done great services in the Wars and carried himself with a Magnanimity that was thought too extravagant they were all condemned and Partridge and he were hanged the other Two were beheaded The Lord Chancellor was become a secret friend to the Duke of Somerset and that was thus discovered he went aside once at Council Rich gives up the Great Seal and it was given to the Bish of Ely and writ a Note giving the Duke notice of what was then in agitation against him and endorsed it only for the Duke and sent it to the Tower but his Servant not having particular directions fansied it was to the Duke of Norfolk and not to Somerset and carried it to him He to make Northumberland his friend sent this to him Rich understanding the mistake in which his Servant had fallen prevented the discovery and went immediately to the King and pretending some indisposition desired to be discharged and upon that took his Bed so it seemed too barbarous to do any thing further against him only the Great Seal was taken from him and was put in the Bishop of Ely's hands This was much censured for all the Reformers had inveighed severely against the secular imployments and high places which Bishops had in the Church of Rome since by these they were taken wholly off from the care of Souls or those spiritual exercises that might dispose them for it and assumed only the name and garb of Churchmen to serve their Ambition and Covetousness and by this the People were much prejudiced against them so upon Goodrick's advancement this was turned against the Reformers it was said they only complained of those things when their Enemies enjoyed them but changed their minds as soon as they fell into the hands of their friends but Goodrick was no Pattern he complied only with the Reformation but turned when Queen Mary succeeded Christ said Who made me a Judge St. Paul left it as a Rule that no Man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life This Saint Cyprian and the other Fathers understood as a perpetual prohibition of Churchmen's medling with secular matters and condemned it severely Many Canons were made against it in Provincial Councils and a very full one was decreed at Chalcedon But as the Bishops of Rome and Alexandria grew rich and powerful they establisht a sort of secular principality in the Church and other Sees as they encreased in wealth affected to imitate them Charles the Great raised this much every where and gave great Territories and Priviledges to the Church upon which the Bishop and Abbots were not only admitted to a share in the Publick Counsels by virtue of their Lands but to all the chief Offices of the State and then Ecclesiastical Preferments were given to Courtiers as Rewards for their services and by these means the Clergy became very corrupt Merit and Learning being no more the standards by which Men were esteemed or promoted and Bishops were only considered as a sort of great Men who went in a peculiar Habit and on great Festivities were obliged to say Mass or perform some other Solemnities but they wholly abandoned the Souls committed to their care and left the spiritual part of their callings to their Vicars and Arch-deacons who made no other use of it but to squeeze the Inferiour Clergy and to oppress the People and it was not easie to perswade the world that those Bishops did much aspire to Heaven who were so indecently thrusting themselves into the Courts of Princes and medling so much in matters that did not belong to them that they neglected those for which they were to account
to God On the 22. The Duke of Somerset's Execution day of January the Duke of Somerset was executed at Tower-Hill the substance of his Speech was a Vindication of himself from all ill designs he confessed his private sins and acknowledged the mercies of God in granting him time to Repent he declared that he had acted sincerely in all he did in matters of Religion while he was in power and rejoyced for his being Instrumental in so good a work he exhorted the People to live sutably to the doctrine received among them otherwise they might look for great Judgments from God As he was going on there was an unaccountable Noise heard which so frighted the People that many run away Sir Anthony Brown came up riding towards the Scaffold which made the Spectators think that he brought a Pardon and this occasioned great shouts of Joy but they soon saw their mistakes so the Duke went on in his Speech He declared his chearful submission to the will of God and desired them likewise to acquiesce in it he prayed for the King and his Council and exhorted the People to continue obedient to them and asked the forgiveness of all whom at any time he had offended Then he turned to his private devotions and fitted himself for the blow which upon the signal given severed his Head from his Body He was a Man of extraordinary Virtues of great candor and eminent Piety he was always a promoter of Justice and a Patron of the oppressed He was a better Captain than a Counsellor and was too easie and open-hearted to be so cautious as such times and such Imployments required It was generally believed all this Conspiracy for which he and the other Four suffered was only a forgery all the other Complices were quickly discharged and Palmer the chief Witness became Northumberlands particular confident and the indiscreet words which the Duke of Somerset had spoken and his gathering armed Men about him was imputed to Palmer's artifices who had put him in fear of his life and so made him do and say those things for which he lost it His four friends did all end their Lives with the most solemn protestations of their Innocence and the whole matter was lookt on as a contrivance of Northumberlands by which he lost the affections of the People entirely Some reflected on the Attainder of the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey's death occasioned likewise by a Conspiracy of their own Servants in which it was thought this Duke was too active He was also much censured for his Brothers death He had raised much of his Estate out of the spoils of Bishops Lands and his Palace out of the Ruines of some Churches and to this some added a remark that he did not claim the benefit of his Clergy which would have saved him and since he had so spoiled the Church they imputed it to a particular Judgment on him that he forgat it But in this they were mistaken for in the Act by which he was condemned it was provided that no Clergy should purge that Felony In Germany The affairs of Germany Maurice began this year to form a great design He enter'd into correspondences not only with the Princes of Germany but also with France and England and having given intimations of his designs for the liberty of Germany and the security of the Protestant Religion to some that had great credit in Magdeburg he brought that Town to a surrender and having made himself sure of the Army he quartered his Troops in the Territories of the Popish Princes by which they were all much alarmed only the Emperour did not apprehend the danger till it was too late for him A quarrel fell in between the Pope and the King of France about Parma The Pope threatned if that King would not restore Parma he would take France from him Upon that the Council being now again opened at Trent the King of France protested against it and declared that he would call a National Council in France and would not obey nor receive their Decrees The Emperor still pressed the Germans to send Embassadours and Divines to Trent The Council began with the points about the Eucharist and it was ordered that these should be handled according to the Scriptures and Ancient Authors the Italians did not like this and said the bringing many quotations was only an Act of Memory and that way would give the Lutherans great advantages The sublime speculations of the Schools together with their terms were much safer Weapons to deal with A Safe-Conduct was demanded from the Council for the Emperours Conduct was not thought sufficient since at Constance John Hus and Jerome of Prague were burnt though they had the Emperours Safe-Conduct The Council of Basil had granted a very full one to the Bohemians so the Lutherans demanded one in the same form but though one was granted yet it was in many things short of that The Elector of Brandenburg sent an Embassadour to Trent who made a general Speech of the respect his Master had for them The Legates answered and thanked him for submitting to their Decrees of which the Embassadour had not said a word but when he expostulated about it the Legates said they answered him according to that he ought to have said and not to that he did say The Council decreed the manner of Christs presence to be ineffable and yet added that Transubstantiation was a fit term for it for that was a notion as unconceivable as any that could be thought on Then they decreed the necessity of Auricular Confession that thereby Priests might keep a proportion between Penances and Sins which was thought a mockery for the trade of slight Penances and easie Absolutions for the greatest sins shewed there was no care taken to adjust the one to the other The Embassadour of the Duke of Wirtemberg came and moved for a Safe-Conduct to their Divines to come and maintain their Doctrine The Legates answered they would enter into no disputes with them but if they came with an humble mind and proposed their scruples they would satisfie them Embassadours from some Towns arrived at Trent and those sent by the Duke of Saxe were on their way upon which the Emperour ordered his Agents to gain time and hinder the Council to proceed in their decisions till those were heard but all he could prevail in was that the Article concerning the Communion in both kinds was postponed till they should come The day after the Duke of Somerset's execution a Session of Parliament was assembled A Session of Parliament The first Act they past was about the Common-Prayer-Book as it was now amended To it only one Earl two Bishops and two Lords dissented The Book was appointed to be every where received after All-hallows next The Bishops were required to proceed by the censures of the Church against such as came not to it they also authorized the Book of Ordinations and
day before the dissolution of the Parliament The Lords added a Proviso confirming the Duke of Somerset's Attainder but that was cast out by the Commons Some Writings had been sealed with relation to a Marriage between the Earl of Hartford the Dukes Son and the Earl of Oxford's Daughter and the Lords sent down a Bill voiding these but upon a division in the House of Commons 68. were for it and 69. were against it so it was cast out The House was now thin when we find but 137. Members in it but that is one of the effects of a long Parliament many grow infirm and many keep out of the way on design and those who at their first Election were the Representatives of the People after they have sat long become a Cabal of Men that pursue their own Interests Tonstall is imprisoned more than the Publick Service Tonstall Bishop of Durham upon some Informations was put in Prison in the former year The Duke of Northumberland intended to erect a great Principality for his Family in the North and the accession of the Jurisdiction of the County Palatine which is in that See seemed so considerable that he resolved to ruine Tonstall and so make way for that He complied in all the changes that were made though he had protested against them in Parliament he writ also for the Corporal Presence but with more Eloquence than Learning He was a candid and moderate Man and there was always a good correspondence between Cranmer and him and now when the Bill was put in against him he opposed it and protested against it by which he absolutely lost the Duke of Northumberland but all the Popish complying Bishops went along with it There were some Depositions read in the House of Lords to justifie it but when the Bill with these was sent down to the Commons they resolved to put a stop to that way of condemning Men without hearing them so they sent a Message to the Lords that he and his Accusers might be heard face to face and that not being done they let the Bill fall By these Indications it appeared that the House of Commons had little kindness for the Duke of Northumberland Many of them had been much obliged to the Duke of Somerset so it was resolved to have a new Parliament and this which had sat almost five years was on the 15th of April dissolved The Convocation did confirm the Articles of Religion A Reformation of Ecclesiastical Laws prepared that had been prepared the former year and thus was the Reformation of Worship and Doctrine now brought to such perfection that since that time there has been very little alteration made in these But another Branch of it was yet unfinished and was now under consultation touching the Government of the Church and the rules of the Ecclesiastical Courts Two Acts had passed in the former reign and one in this impowering XXXII to revise all the Laws of the Church and digest them into a body King Henry issued out a Commission and the Persons were named who made some progress in it as appears by some of Cranmer's Letters to him In this Reign it had been begun several times but the Changes in the Government made it be laid aside Thirty two were found to be too many for preparing the first draught so Eight were appointed to make it ready for them These were Cranmer and Ridley Cox and Peter Martyr Traheron and Taylor and Lucas and Gosnold two Bishops two Divines two Civilians and two Common Lawyers but it was generally believed that Cranmer drew it all himself and the rest only corrected what he designed Haddon and Cheek were imployed to put it in Latine in which they succeeded so well and arrived at so true a purity in the Roman stile that it looks like a work of the best Ages of that State before their Language was corrupted with the mixture of barbarous terms and phrases with which all the later Writings were filled but none were more nauseously rude than the Books of the Canon-Law The Work was cast into fifty one Titles perhaps it was designed to bring it near the number of the Books into which Justinian digested the Roman Law The Eight finished it and offered it to the XXXII who divided themselves into Four Classes every one was to offer his Corrections and when it had past through them all it was to be offered to the King for his Confirmation but the King died before it was quite finished nor was it ever afterwards taken up yet I shall think it no useless part of this work to give an account of what was intended to be done in this matter as well as I relate what was done in other things The first Title of it was concerning the Catholick Faith The heads of it it was made Capital to deny the Christian Religion The Books of Scripture were reckoned up and the Apocrypha left out The four first General Councils were received but both Councils and Fathers were to be submitted to only as they agreed with the Scriptures The second enumerates and condemns many Heresies extracted out of the Opinions of the Church of Rome and the Tenets of the Anabaptists and among others those who excused their lives by the pretence of Predestination are reckoned up 3. The judgment of Heresie was to lye in the Bishops Court except in exempted places Persons suspected might be required to purge themselves and those who were convicted were to abjure and do Penance but such as were obstinate were declared Infamous and not to have the benefit of the Law or of making Testaments and so all Capital proceedings for Heresie were laid aside 4. Blasphemy against God was to be punished as obstinate Heresie 5. The Sacraments and other parts of the Pastoral Charge were to be decently performed 6. All Magick Idolatry or Conjuring was to be punished arbitrarily and in case of obstinacy with Excommunication 7. Bishops were appointed once a Year to call all their Clergy together to examine them concerning their Flocks and Itinerant Preachers were to be often imployed for visiting such Precincts as might be put under their care 8. All Marriages were to be after asking of Banes and to be annulled if not done according to the Book of Common Prayer Corrupters of Virgins were to marry them or if that could not be done to give them the third part of their Goods and suffer Corporal punishment Marriages made by force or without consent of Parents were declared null Polygamy was forbid and Mothers were required to suckle their Children 9. The degrees of Marriage were setled according to the Levitical Law but spiritual kindred was to be no barr 10. A Clergy-man guilty of Adultery was to forfeit his Goods and Estate to his Wife and Children or to some pious use and to be banished or Imprisoned during life a Layman guilty of it was to forfeit the half and be banished or Imprisoned during life Wives that were
Duke of Somerset's administration and was set on by the Duke of Northumberland's Party to let the King see how well pleased the Representative of the Nation was with his fall The Sons of the Nobility and Gentry had ordinarily Prebends given them A Bill proposed that Lay-men should not hold Church-dignities under this pretence that they intended to follow their studies and make themselves capable of entring into Orders and this was like to become a great prejudice to the Clergy when so many of the dignities of the Church were in Lay-hands Upon this the Bishops procured a Bill to be past in the House of Lords that none might hold these that was not either Priest or Deacon but at the third reading the Commons threw it out Another Bill past for suppressing the Bishoprick of Durham An Act suppressing the Bishop of Durham and erecting two new Sees the one at Durham and the other at Newcastle the former was to have 2000. and the latter 1000. Marks Revenue there was also a Dean and a Chapter to be endowed at Newcastle Ridley was designed to be made Bishop of Durham But though the secular Jurisdiction of that See was given to the Duke of Northumberland yet the King's death stopt the further progress of this affair Tonstall was deprived as Heath and Day were by a Court of Lay-delegates upon the Informations that had been brought against him of Misprision of Treason and was kept in the Tower till Queen Mary set him at liberty The King granted a General Pardon in which the Commons moved the Lords that some words might be put though that is not usual to be done for Acts of Pardon are commonly past without any Changes made in them After the passing these Acts the Parliament was dissolved on the last of March. For it seems either the Duke of Northumberland was not pleased with the proceedings in the House of Commons or he was resolved to call frequent Parliaments and not continue the same as the Duke of Somerset had done Visitors were sent after this to examine what Plate was in every Church Another Visitation and to leave them one or two Chalices of Silver with Linnen for the Communion-Table and for Surplices and to bring in all other things of value to the Treasurer of the King's Houshold and to sell the rest and give it to the Poor This was a new rifling of Churches by which it seemed some resolved not to cease till they had brought them to a Primitive Poverty as well as the Reformers intended to bring them to a Primitive purity The King set his hand to these Instructions from which some have inferred that he was ill principled in himself when at such an Age he joyned his Authority to such proceedings But he was now so ill that it is probable he set his hand to every thing that the Council sent him without examining anxiously what it might import Skip Bishop of Hereford dying Harley succeeded him and was the last that was promoted by the Kings Letters Patents as Barlow was the first Bishops made by the Kings Patent being removed by them from St. Davids to Bath and Wells The form of the Patent was That the King appointed such a one to be Bishop during his Natural life or as long as he behaved himself well and gave him power to ordain or deprive Ministers to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and perform all the other parts of the Episcopal Function that by the Word of God were committed to Bishops and this they were to do in the King's Name and by his Authority Ferrar was put in St. Davids upon Barlow's removal he was an indiscreet Man and drew upon himself the dislike of his Prebendaries and many complaints were made of him which if true discovered great weakness in him at last he was sued in a Premunire for acting in his own name and not in the King 's in his Courts and was put in Prison where he continued till Morgan that was his chief Accuser being put in his place by Queen Mary condemned him to the Fire which turned all former Censures that he had given occasion for by his simplicity into esteem and compassion By these Patents the Episcopal Power was still declared to flow from Christ they were only presentations to Bishopricks such as other Patrons gave to inferiour Benefices and such as Christian Princes in France and other Kingdoms gave in elder times for Bishopricks Their Courts were ordered to be held in the King's Name but all this was repealed by Queen Mary and when Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown instead of reviving this she revived that made in the 25 Hen. 8. by which Bishops were authorised to hold their Courts as they had done formerly and though Queen Mary's repeal of the Statute of this King was afterwards taken away so that this Act seemed thereby to be again in force yet Queen Flizabeth's reviving that made by her Father was understood to be in effect a Repeal of it so that in King James's time when some scruples were started about it the Judges did not think it necessary to make an Explanatory Act to clear the matter for the thing did not seem to admit of any debate A new and fuller Catechism was this Year composed by Poinet and was published with the Kings approbation The state of affairs beyond Sea Affairs in Germany was now quite turned so that the Progress the French had made set the English Council on mediating a Peace The Emperour represented to them the danger the Netherlands were in since the French were Masters of Metz and so could in a great measure divide them from the assistance that they might receive from the Empire therefore he desired that according to the Ancient Leagues between England and the House of Burgundy they would now engage against the French The Council sent over Ambassadours both to the Emperour and the French King to mediate The Emperour was then indisposed but his Ministers complained much that the French had broken with them perfidiously when they were making solemn protestations that they intended to observe the Peace religiously The Germans proposed a League between the Emperour the King of the Romans the King of England and the Princes of the Empire The Emperour moved that the Netherlands might be comprehended within the perpetual League of the Empire but the Princes refused that since those Provinces were like to be the perpetual Seat of War when ever it should break out between France and Spain unless they might have reciprocal advantages for exposing themselves to so much danger and charge The French made extravagant Propositions by which it appeared that their King had a mind to carry on the War They askt the restitution of Millan Sicily Naples and Navarre and the Soveraignty of the Netherlands and that Metz Toul and Verdun should continue under the Protection of France The English would not receive these as Mediators but took them
only as a Paper of News and so ordered their Ambassadours to communicate them to the Emperour But the King's death broke off this Negotiation He had contracted great Colds by Violent Exercises which in January setled in a deep Cough and all Medicines proved ineffectual The Kings sickness There was a suspicion taken up and spred over all Europe that he was poisoned but no certain grounds appear for justifying that During his sickness Ridley preached before him and among other things run out much on works of Charity and the duty of Men of high condition to be Eminent in good works The King was much touched with this so after Sermon he sent for the Bishop and treated him with such respect that he made him sit down and be covered then he told him what Impression his Exhortation had made on him and therefore he desired to be directed by him how to do his duty in that matter Ridley took a little time to consider of it and after some consultation with the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London he brought the King a Scheme of several Foundations one for the sick and wounded another for such as were wilfully idle or were mad and a third for Orphans so he endowed St. Bartholomew's Hospital for the first Bridewell for the second and Christ's Church near Newgate for the third and he enlarged the Grant he made the former year for St. Thomas's Hospital in Southwark The Statutes and Warrants relating to these were not finished before the 26. of June though he gave order to make all the hast that was possible and when he set his hand to them he blest God that had prolonged his life till he finished his designs concerning them These Houses have by the good Government and great Charities of the City of London continued to be so useful and grown to be so well-endowed that now they may be well reckoned among the Noblest in Europe The King bore his sickness with great submission to the will of God The Patents for the succession to the Crown and seemed concerned in nothing so much as the state that Religion and the Church would be in after his death The Duke of Suffolk had only three Daughters the eldest of these was now married to Lord Guilford Dudley the second to the Earl of Pembroke's eldest Son and the third that was crooked to one Keys The Duke of Northumberland for strengthning his Family married also his own two Daughters the one to Sir Henry Sidney and the other to the Earl of Huntington's eldest Son He grew to be much hated by the People and the jealousie of the King 's being poisoned was fastened on him But he regarded these things little and resolved to improve the fears the King was in concerning Religion to the advantage of Lady Jane The King was easily perswaded to order the Judges and his Learned Council to put some Articles which he had signed for the succession of the Crown in the common form of Law They answered that the Succession being setled by Act of Parliament could not be taken away except by Parliament yet the King required them to do what he commanded them But next time they came to the Council they declared that it was made Treason to change the Succession by an Act past in this Reign so they could not meddle with it Mountague was chief Justice and spake in the name of the rest Northumberland fell out in a great passion against him calling him Traitor for refusing to obey the King's commands for that is always the language of an Arbitrary Minister when he acts against Law But the Judges were not shaken by his threatnings so they were again brought before the King who sharply rebuked them for their delays but they said all that they could do would be of no force without a Parliament yet they were required to do it in the best manner they could At last Mountague desired they might have a Pardon for what they were to do that being granted all the Judges except Gosnald and Hales agreed to the Patent deliver'd their Opinions that the Lord Chancellor might put the Seal to it and that then it would be good in Law yet the former of these two was at last wrought on so Hales was the only Man that stood out to the last who though he was a zealous Protestant yet would not give his Opinion against his Conscience upon any consideration whatsoever The Privy Councellours were next required to set their hand to it Cecyl in a Relation he writ of this transaction says that hearing some of the Judges declare so positively that it was against Law he refused to set his hand to it as a Privy Councellour but signed it only as a Witness to the King's subscription Cranmer stood out long he came not to Council when it was past there and refused to consent to it when he was prest to it for he said he would never have a hand in disinheriting his late Master's Daughters The young dying King was at last set on him and by his Importunity prevailed with him to do it and so the Seal was put to the Patents The King's distemper continued to encrease so that the Physicians despaired of his Recovery A confident Woman undertook his Cure and he was put in her hands but she left him worse than she found him and this heightned the jealousie of the Duke of Northumberland that had introduced her and put the Physicians away At last to Crown his designs he got the King to write to his Sisters to come and divert him in his sickness and the matter of the Exclusion had been carried so secretly that they apprehending no danger had begun their Journey In the 6th of July The Kings death and Character the King felt death approaching and prepared himself for it in a most devout manner He was often heard offering up Prayers and Ejaculations to God Particularly a few Moments before he died he prayed earnestly that God would take him out of this wretched life and committed his Spirit to him he interceded very fervently for his Subjects that God would preserve England from Popery and maintain his true Religion among them soon after that he breathed out his Innocent Soul being in Sir Henry Sidney's arms Endeavours were used to conceal his death for some days on design to draw his Sisters into the snare before they should be aware of it but that could not be done Thus died Edward the VI. in the sixteenth Year of his Age. He was counted the wonder of that time he was not only Learned in the Tongues and the Liberal Sciences but knew well the state of his Kingdom He kept a Table-Book in which he had writ the Characters of all the eminent Men of the Nation he studied Fortification and understood the Mint well he knew the Harbours in all his Dominions with the depth of Water and way of coming into them He understood foreign
affairs so well that the Ambassadours that were sent into England published very extraordinary things of him in all the Courts of Europe He had great quickness of apprehension but being distrustful of his Memory he took Notes of every thing he heard that was considerable in Greek Characters that those about him might not understand what he writ which he afterwards Copied out fair in the Journal that he kept His Virtues were wonderful when he was made believe that his Unkle was guilty of conspiring the death of the other Counsellours he upon that abandoned him Barnaby Fitzpatrick was his Favourite and when he sent him to travel he writ oft to him to keep good Company to avoid excess and Luxury and to improve himself in those things that might render him capable of Imployment at his return He was afterwards made Lord of Upper Ossory in Ireland by Queen Elizabeth and did answer the hopes that this excellent King had of him He was very merciful in his nature which appeared in his unwillingness to sign the Warrant for burning the Maid of Kent He took great care to have his debts well paid reckoning that a Prince who breaks his Faith and loses his Credit has thrown up that which he can never recover and made himself liable to perpetual distrust and extreme contempt He took special care of the Petitions that were given him by poor and opprest People But his great zeal for Religion crowned all the rest It was not only an angry heat about it that acted him but it was a true tenderness of conscience founded on the love of God his Neighbors These extraordinary qualities set off with great sweetness and affability made him be universally beloved by all his People Some called him their Josias others Edward the Saint and others called him the Phoenix that rise out of his Mothers ashes and all People concluded that the sins of England must have been very great since they provoked God to deprive the Nation of so signal a blessing as the rest of his Reign would have by all appearance proved Ridley and the other good Men of that time made great lamentations of the Vices that were grown then so common that Men had past all shame in them Luxury Oppression and a hatred of Religion had over-run the higher rank of People who gave a countenance to the Reformation meerly to rob the Church but by that and their other practices were become a great scandal to so good a work The inferiour sort were so much in the power of the Priests who were still notwithstanding their outward Compliance Papists in heart and were so much offended at the spoil they saw made of all good endowments without putting other and more useful ones in their room that they who understood little of Religion laboured under great prejudices against every thing that was advanced by such tools And these things as they provoked God highly so they disposed the People much to that sad Catastrophe which is to be the subject of the next Book BOOK III. Book III 1553. THE LIFE and REIGN OF Queen MARY BY King Edward's death Qu. Mary succeeds the Crown devolved according to Law on his Eldest Sister Mary who was within half a days Journey to the Court when she had notice given her by the Earl of Arundel of her Brother's death and of the Patent for Lady Jane's succession and this prevented her falling into the Trap that was laid for her Upon that she retired to Framlingham in Suffolk both to be near the Sea that she might escape to Flanders in case of a misfortune and because the slaughter that was made of Kets People by Northumberland begat him the hatred of the People in that Neighbourhood Before she got thither she wrote on the 9th of July to the Council and let them know she understood that her Brother was dead by which she succeeded to the Crown but wondred that she heard not from them she knew well what Consultations they had engaged in but she would pardon all that was done to such as would return to their duty and proclaim her Title to the Crown By this it was found that the Kings death could be no longer kept secret so some of the Privy Council went to Lady Jane and acknowledged her their Queen The news of the King's death afflicted her much and her being raised to the Throne rather encreased than lessened her trouble She was a very extraordinary Person both for Body and Mind She had learned both the Greek and Latine Tongues to great perfection and delighted much in study She read Plato in Greek and drunk in the Precepts of true Philosophy so early that as she was not tainted with the levities not to say Vices of those of her Age and condition so she seemed to have attained to the practice of the highest notions of Philosophy for in those sudden turns of her condition as she was not exalted with the prospect of a Crown so she was as little cast down when her Palace was made her Prison The only passion she shewed was that of the Noblest kind in the concern she exprest for her Father and Husband who fell with her and seemingly on her account though really Northumberland's ambition and her Father's weakness ruined her She rejected the offer of the Crown when it was first made her she said she knew that of right it belonged to the late King's Sisters and so she could not with a good Conscience assume it but it was told her that both the Judges and Privy Councellours had declared that it fell to her according to Law This joyned with the Importunities of her Husband who had more of his Father's Temper than of her Philosophy in him made her submit to it Upon this XXI Privy Councellours set their hands to a Letter to Queen Mary letting her know that Queen Jane was now their Soveraign and that the Marriage between her Father and Mother was null so she could not succeed to the Crown and therefore they required her to lay down her Pretensions and to submit to the settlement now made and if she gave a ready obedience to these Commands they promised her much favour The day after this they proclaimed Jane But Lady Jane Gray is proclaimed In it they set forth That the late King had by Patent excluded his Sisters that both were illegitimated by sentences past in the Ecclesiastical Courts and confirmed in Parliament and at best they were only his Sisters by the half blood and so not inheritable by the Law of England There was also cause to fear that they might marry strangers and change the Laws and subject the Nation to the Tyranny of the See of Rome Next to them the Crown fell to the Dutchess of Suffolk and it was provided that if she should have no Sons when the King died the Crown should devolve on her Daughter who was born and married in the Kingdom Upon which
to be favourable to the work he came for the Queen sent two Lords Paget and Hastings for him Both King and Queen rode in state to Westminster and each had a Sword of state carried before them The first Bill that past was a Repeal of Pool's Attainder it was read by the Commons three times in one Day and the Bill was passed without making a Session by a short Prorogation He came over and entred privately to London on the 24th of November for the Pope's authority not being yet acknowledged he could not be received as a Legate His Instructions were full besides the authority commonly lodged with Legates which consists chiefly in the many Graces and Dispensations that they are impowered to grant though it might be expected that they should come rather to see the Canons obeyed than broken only the more scandalous abuses were still reserved to the Popes themselves whose special Prerogative it has always been to be the most Eminent Transgressors of all Canons and Constitutions Pool made his first Speech to the King and Queen The Nation is reconciled to the See of Rome and then to the Parliament in the Name of the Common Pastor inviting them to Return to the Sheepfold of the Church The Queen felt a strange emotion of joy within her as he made his Speech which she thought was a Child quickned in her Belly and the flattering Court Ladies heightned her belief of it The Council ordered Bonner to sing Te Deum and there were Bonefires and all other publick demonstrations of joy upon it The Priests said that here was another John Baptist to come that leapt in his Mother's Belly upon the Salutation from Christ's Vicar Both Houses agreed on an Address to the King and Queen that they would intercede with the Legate to reconcile them to the See of Rome and they offered to repeal all the Laws they had made against the Pope's authority in sign of their repentance Upon this the Cardinal came to the Parliament He first thanked them for repealing his Attainder in recompence of which he was now to reconcile them to the Body of the Church He made a long Speech of the Conversion of the Britains and Saxons to the Faith and of the Obedience they had payed to the Apostolick See and of the many favours that See had granted the Crown of which none was more Eminent than the Title of Defender of the Faith The ruine of the Greek Church and the distractions of Germany and the Confusions themselves had been in since they departed from the Unity of the Church might convince them of the necessity of keeping that bond entire In Conclusion he gave them and the whole Nation a Plenary Absolution The rest of the Day was spent in singing Te Deum and the Night in Bonefires The Act repealing all Laws made against the Popes authority was quickly past only it stuck a little by reason of a Proviso which the House of Lords put in for some Lands which the Lord Wentworth had of the See of London w th the Commons opposed so much that after the Bill was offered to the Royal assent it was cut out of the Parchment by Gardiner They did enumerate and repeal all Acts made since the 20th of Hen. 8. against the Pope's authority but all foundations of Bishopricks and Cathedrals all Marriages tho' contrary to the Laws of the Church all Institutions all Judicial Processes and the settlements made either of Church or Abbey-Lands were confirmed The Convocation of Canterbury had joyned their Intercession with the Cardinal that he would confirm the right of the present Possessors of those Lands Upon which he did confirm them but he added a heavy charge requiring those that had any of the Goods of the Church to remember the Judgments of God that fell on Belshazzar for profaning the holy Vessels though they were not taken away by himself but by his Father and that at least they would take care that such as served the Cures should be sufficiently maintained all which was put in the Act and confirmed by it and it was declared that all Suits concerning those Lands were to be tried in the Civil Courts and that it should be a Praemunire if any went about to disturb the Possessors by the pretence of an Ecclesiastical power They also declared that the Title of Supream Head of the Church did never of right belong to the Crown enacted that it should be left out of Writs in all time coming All Exemptions granted to Monasteries and now continued in Lay-hands were taken away and all Churches were made subject to Episcopal Jurisdiction except Westminster Windsor and the Tower of London The statute of Mortmain was repealed for 20. years to come and all things were brought back to the state in which they were in the 20th year of King Henry's reign The Lower House of Convocation gave occasion to many clauses in this Act by a Petition which they made to the Upper-house consenting to the settlement made of Church and Abbey Lands and praying that the Statute of Mortmain might be repealed and that all the Tithes might be restored to the Church they proposed also some things in relation to Religion for the condemning and burning all Heretical Books and that great care should be had of the Printing and venting of Books that the Church should be restored to its former Jurisdiction that Pluralities and Non-residence might be effectually condemned and all Simoniacal pactions punished that the Clergy might be discharged of paying first-fruits and Tenths that Exemptions might be taken away that all the Clergy should go in their Habits and that they should not be sued in a Praemunire till a Prohibition were first served and disobeyed that so they might not be surprised and ruined a second time By another Bill all former Acts made against Lollards were revived The Commons offered another Bill for voiding all Leases made by married Priests but it was laid aside by the Lords Thus were the Pensioners and aspiring Men in the House of Commons either redeeming former faults or hoping to merit highly by the forwardness of their Zeal By another Bill several things were made Treason and it was declared that if the Queen died before the King and left any Children the King should have the Government in his hands till they were of Age and during that time the conspiring his Death was made Treason but none were to be tried for words but within six Months after they were spoken Another Act past declaring it Treason in any to pray for the Queens death unless they repented of it and in that case they were to suffer Corporal punishment at the Judges discretion A severe Act was also passed against all that spread lying Reports of the King the Queen the Peers Judges or great Officers Some were to lose their Hands others their Ears and others were to be fined according to the degree of their offence And thus all affairs were
under severe penalties The Lords past it but the Commons threw it out for they began now to repent of the severe Laws they had already consented to and resolved to add no more They also rejected another Bill for incapacitating some to be Justices of Peace who were complained of for their remissness in prosecuting Hereticks An Act was put in for debarring one Bennet Smith who had hired some Assassinates to commit a most detestable Murder from the benefit of Clergy which by the course of the Common Law would have saved him This was an invention of the Priests that if any who was capable of entring into Orders and had not been twice married or had not married a Widow could read and vowed to take Orders he was to be saved in many criminal cases And it was looked on as a part of the Ecclesiastical Immunity which made diverse of the Bishops oppose this Act Yet it past though four of them and five Temporal Lords protested against it There was such heat in the House of Commons in this Parliament that one Sir Anth. Kingston who was a great stickler called one day for the Keys of the House but when the Parliament was dissolved he was sent to the Tower for it He was soon after set at liberty but next year he and six others were accused of a design of robbing the Exchequer He died before he was brought up to London the other six were hanged But the Evidence against them does not appear on Record Cardinal Pool called a Convocation Pools decrees for the Reformation of the Clergy having first procured a Licence from the Queen empowering them both to meet and to make such Canons as they should think fit This was done to preserve the Prerogatives of the Crown and to secure the Clergy that they might not be afterwards brought under a Praemunire In it several decrees were proposed by Pool and assented to by the Clergy 1. For observing the Feast of the Reconciliation made with Rome with great solemnity They also condemned all Heretical Books and received that exposition of the Faith which Pope Eugenius sent from the Council of Florence to the Armenians 2. For the decent administration of the Sacraments and putting down the yearly Feasts in the dedications of Churches 3. They required all Bishops and Priests to lay aside Secular cares and to give themselves wholly to the Pastoral charge And all Pluralists were required to resign all their benefices except one within two months otherwise to forfeit all 4. Bishops were required to preach often and to provide good Preachers for their Dioceses to go over them as their Visitors 5. All the Pomp and Luxury of the Tables Servants and Families of the Bishops was condemned and they were required chiefly to lay out their Revenues on works of Charity 6. They were required not to give Orders but after a long and strict Trial which they ought to make themselves and not to turn it over to others 7. They were charged not to bestow Benefices upon partial regards but to confer them on the most deserving and to take them bound by Oath to reside upon them 8. Against giving Advowsons before Benefices fell vacant 9. Against Symony 10. Against Dilapidations 11. For Seminaries in every Cathedral for the Diocess and the Clergy were taxed in a fourth part of their Benefices for their maintenance The twelfth was about Visitations It was designed also to set out four Books of Homilies The first for points of Controversie the second was for the exposition of the Creed the Lords Prayer the ten Commandments the Ave and the Sacraments The third was to be a Paraphrase on all the Lessons on Holy-days and the fourth was to be concerning the several Vertues and Vices and the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church In these the wise and good temper of Cardinal Pool may be well discerned He thought the people were more wrought on by the scandals they saw in the Clergy than by the Arguments which they heard from the Reformers and therefore he reckoned if Pluralities and Non-residences and the other abuses of Church-men could have been removed and if he could have brought the Bishops to have lived better and laboured more to be stricter in giving Orders and more impartial in conferring Benefices and if he could have established Seminaries in Cathedrals Heresie might have been driven out of the Nation by gentler methods than by Racks and Fires In one thing he shewed the meanness of his Spirit that though he himself condemned cruel proceedings against Hereticks yet he both gave Commissions to other Bishops and Arch-Deacons to try them and suffered a great deal of Cruelty to be exercised in his own Diocess but he had not courage enough to resist Pope Paul the Fourth who thought of no other way for bearing down Heresie but by setting up Courts of Inquisition every where He had clapt up Cardinal Morone that was Pool's great friend in prison upon suspicion of Heresie and would very probably have used himself so if he had got him at Rome The Jesuites were at this time beginning to grow considerable They were tied He refuses to bring the Jesuites to England besides their other Vows to an absolute obedience to the See of Rome and set themselves every where to open Free Schools for the education of youth and to bear down Heresie They were excused from the hours of the Quire and so were looked on as a mungrel Order between the Regulars and the Seculars They proposed to Cardinal Pool that since the Queen was restoring the Abbey-Lands it would be to little purpose to give them again to the Benedictine Order which was now rather a clog than a help to the Church And therefore they desired that Houses might be assigned to them for maintaining Schools and Seminaries and they did not doubt but they should quickly both drive out Heresie and recover the Church Lands Pool did not listen to this for which he was much censured by the Fathers of that Society It is not certain whether he had then the sagacity to foresee that disorder which they were like to bring into the Government of the Church and that corruption of Morals that had since flowed from their Schools and has been infused by them generally in Confessions so that their whole Church is now over run with it Three were burnt at one Stake in Canterbury in November More of the Reformed are burnt and Philpot was burnt in Smithfield in December he had been put in Prison soon after that Convocation was dissolved in which he had disputed in the beginning of this Reign and was now brought out to the Stake In all sixty seven were burnt this Year of whom Four were Bishops and Thirteen were Priests In Germany Affairs in Germany a Diet was held in which it was left free to all the Temporal Princes to set up what Religion they pleased but a restraint was put on the Ecclesiastical
Europe in a Flame The next Year Pool sent Ormaneto with some English Divines to visit Cambridge A Visitation of the Universities They put the Churches in which the Bodies of Bucer and Fagius lay under an Interdict They made a Visitation of all the Colledges and Chappels in which Ormaneto shewed great Integrity and without respect of Persons he chid some Heads of Houses whom he found guilty of misapplying the Revenues of their Houses The two dead Bodies were burnt with great solemnity They were raised and cited to appear and answer for the Heresies they had taught and if any would answer for them they were required to come The Dead said nothing for themselves and the living were afraid to do it for fear of being sent after them so Witnesses were examined and in conclusion they were condemned as obstinate Hereticks and the dead Bodies with many Heretical Books were all burnt in one Fire Peru was Vice-Chancellour at this time and happened to be in some Office four years after when by Queen Elizabeth's Order publick honours were done to the Memory of these Learned Men and he obeyed both these Orders with so much zeal that it appeared how exactly he had learned the Lesson so much studied in that Age of serving the time After this there was a Visitation of all the Colledges in Oxford and there it was intended to act such Pageantry on the body of Peter Martyr's Wife as had been done at Cambridge But she that could speak no English had not declared her Opinions so that Witnesses could be found to convict her of Heresie yet since it was notoriously known that she had been a Nun and had broken her Vow of Chastity they raised her Body and buried it in a Dunghill but her Bones were afterwards mixed with Saint Frideswide's by Queen Elizabeth's Order The Justices of Peace were now every where so slack in the Prosecution of Hereticks A severe Inquisition of Hereticks that it seemed necessary to find out other Tools So the Courts of Inquisition were thought on These were set up first in France against the Albigenses and afterwards in Spain for discovering the Moors and were now turned upon the Hereticks Their power was uncontrolable they seised on any they pleased upon such Informations or Presumptions as lay before them They managed their Processes in secret and put their Prisoners to such sorts of Torture as they thought fit for extorting Confessions or Discoveries from them At this time both the Pope and King Philip though they differed in other things agreed in this that they were the only sure means for extirpating Heresie So as a step to the setting them up a Commission was given to Bonner and twenty more the greatest part Lay-men to search all over England for all suspected of Heresie that did not hear Masse go in Processions or did not take Holy bread or Holy water they were authorised three being a Quorum to proceed either by Presentments or other Politick ways they were to deliver all they discovered to their Ordinaries and were to use all such means as they could invent which was left to their discretions and Consciences for executing their Commission Many other Commissions subalterne to theirs were issued out for several Counties and Diocesses This was looked on as such an advance towards an Inquisition that all concluded it would follow ere long The burnings were carried on vigorously in some places and but coldly in most parts for the dislike of them grew to be almost Universal In January More burnings six were burnt in one Fire at Canterbury and four in other parts of Kent 22. were sent out of Colchester to Bonner but it seems Pool had chid him severely for the Fire he had made of thirteen the last Year so he writ to Pool for directions The Cardinal imployed some to deal with the Prisoners and they got them to sign a Paper in general words acknowledging that Christ's Body was in the Sacrament and declaring that they would be subject to the Church of Christ and to their lawful Superiours And upon this they were set at liberty by which it appeared that Pool was willing to have accepted any thing by which he might on the one hand preserve the Lives of those that were informed against and yet not be exposed to the rage of the Pope as a favourer of Hereticks In April three Men and one Woman were burnt in Smithfield In May three were burnt in Southwark condemned by White the new Bishop of Winchester and three at Bristoll Five Men and nine Women were burnt in Kent in June and in the same Month six Men and four Women were burnt at Lewis In July two were burnt at Norwich and in August ten were burnt in one day at Colchester They were some of those 22. that were by Pool's means discharged but the Cruel Priests informed against them and said the favour shewed to them had so encouraged all others that it was necessary to remove the scandal which that mercy of the Cardinals gave and to make Examples of some of them In August one was burnt at Norwich two at Rochester and one at Litchfield One Eagle that went much about from place to place from which he was called Trudge-over was condemned as a Traytor for some words spoken against the Queen But all this Cruelty did not satisfie the Clergy they complained that the Magistrates were backward and did their duty very negligently upon which severe Letters were written to several Towns from the Council-board and zealous Men were recommended to be chosen Mayors in sundry Towns In September three Men and one Woman were burnt at Islington and two at Colchester one at Northampton and one at Laxefield a Woman was burnt at Norwich a Priest with thirteen other Men and three Women were burnt at Chichester In November three were burnt in Smithfield Rough a Scotchman that had a Benefice in K. Edward's time kept a private Meeting at Istington but one of the Company being corrupted discovered the rest so they were apprehended as they were going to the Communion and he and a Woman were burnt in December so 79. were burnt in all this year This Year a horrid Murder of one Argol The Lord Stourton hanged and his Son was committed by the L. Stourton and some of his Servants who after they had butchered them in a most barbarous manner buried them fifteen Foot deep in the ground The Lord Stourton was a zealous Papist and had protested against all the Acts that had past in King Edward's time yet the Queen not only would not pardon him but would not so much as change the Infamous death of hanging into a beheading not because the Prerogative extends not so far as some have without reason asserted for both the Duke of Somerset condemned in the Reign of King Edward and the Lord Audley condemned under King Charles the First for Felony were beheaded but the Queen resolved in this case to
that would execute the Sentence Nor would any do so much as sell a Cord to tye him to the Stake so that the Archbishop was forced to send for the Cords of his own Pavilion The old Man expressed great firmness of mind and such chearfulness in his sufferings that the People were much affected at it and this being every where looked on as a Prologue to greater severities that were to follow the Nobility and Gentry began to consider what was fit to be done They had offered a Petition to the Queen Regent the last year that the worship might be in the Vulgar Tongue that the Communion might be given in both kinds and that scandalous Priests might be turned out and worthy Men be put in their places The Queen Regent being unwilling to irritate so great a Party before the Dauphin was declared King of Scotland promised that they should not be punished for having their Prayers in the Vulgar Tongue In Parliament they moved for a Repeal of the Laws for the Bishops proceedings against Hereticks and that nothing might be judged Heresie but that which was condemned by the Word of God but the Queen Regent told them these things could not pass because of the Opposition which was made to them by the Spiritual Estate upon that they made a Protestation that whereas they had modestly moved for a redress of abuses they were not to be blamed for the ill effects of rejecting their Petition and the Violences that might follow But when the Queen had gained her end in relation to the Dauphin she ordered a Citation to be served on all the Reformed Preachers The Earl of Glencawn was upon that sent to put her in mind of her former promises she answered him roughly That maugre all that would take those Mens part they should be banished Scotland and added that Princes were bound only to observe their promises so far as they found it convenient for them to do it To this he replied that if she renounced her Promises they would renounce their obedience to her In St. Johnstown It is first set up in St. Johnstown that Party entred into the Churches and had Sermons publickly in them The Ministers were coming from all parts to appear on the 20th of May for to that day they had been cited and great numbers came along with them The Queen apprehending the ill effects of a great Confluence of People sent them word not to come and upon this many went home again yet upon their not appearance they were all declared Rebels This foul dealing made many leave her and go over to those that were met at St. Johnstown And the heat of the People was raised to that pitch that they broke in upon the Houses of the Monks and Friars and after they had distributed all that they found in them except that which the Monks conveyed away to the Poor they pulled them down to the ground This provoked the Queen so much that she resolved to punish that Town in a most exemplary manner so she gathered the French Souldiers together with such others as would joyn with her but the Earl of Glencairn gathered 2500. Men together and with incredible hast he marched to that place where there were now in all 7000. armed Men. This made the Queen afraid to engage with them so an agreement was made An oblivion was promised for all that was past Matters of Religion were referred to a Parliament and the Queen was to be received into St. Johnstown without carrying her Frenchmen with her But she carried them with her into the Town and as she put a Garrison in it so she punished many for what was past and when her promises were objected to her she answered Princes were not to be strictly charged with their Promises especially when they were made to Hereticks and that she thought it no sin to kill and destroy them all and then would excuse it as well as could be when it was done This turned the Hearts of the whole Nation from her and in many places they began to pull down Images and to rase Monasteries The Queen Regent represented this to the King of France as done on design to shake off the French yoke and desired a great Force to reduce the Countrey On the other hand some were sent over from the Lords to give a true representation of the matter and to let him know that an Oblivion for what was past and the free Exercise of their Religion for the time to come would give full satisfaction The French King began now to apprehend how great a charge the keeping that Kingdom in peace was like to come to and saw the danger of the Scots casting themselves into the Arms of the Queen of England therefore he sent one in whom the Constable put an entire confidence to Scotland to bring him a true report of the state of that matter that was so variously represented But before he could return the King of France was dead and the Constable was in disgrace and all affairs were put in the hands of the Brothers of the House of Guise so that all moderate Councils were now out of doors The people did so universally rise against the Queen Regent that she was forced to retire to Dunbar-Castle She was once willing to refer the whole matter to a Parliament But 2000. Men coming over from France and assurances being sent Her of a greater Force to follow she took heart and came and fortified Leith and again broke her last agreement upon which the Lords pretended that in their Queens Minority the Government was chiefly in the States and that the Regent was only the chief Administrator and accountable to them so they resolved to depose her from her Regency They objected many Maleadministrations to her The Queen Regent is deposed as her beginning a War in the Kingdom and bringing in strangers to subdue it her embasing the Coin governing without consent of the Nobility breaking her Faith and Promises to them upon which they declared that she had fallen from her Regency and suspended her Power till the next Parliament The Lords now called the Lords of the Congregation retired from Edenburgh to Sterlin upon which the French came to Edenburgh and set up the Masse again in the Churches then a new Supply came from France commanded by the Marquess of Elbeufe one of the Queen Regents Brothers so that there were in all 4000. French in Scotland But by her having this foreign Force the whole Nation came to be united against the Queen and to look on her as a common Enemy The Scots who had been hitherto animated and secretly supplied with Money and Ammunition from England were now forced to desire the Queen of England's aid more openly and France was now like to be so much divided within it self that the Queen did not much apprehend a War with that Crown so she was more easily determined to assist the Scots A Treaty was
Arthur and Katherine the Infanta of Spain She came into England was married in November but on the second of April after the Prince died They were not only bedded in Ceremony the night of the Marriage but continued still to lodg together and the Prince by some indecent Rallery gave Occasion to believe that the Marriage was consummated which was so little doubted that some imputed his too early end to his excess in it After his Death his younger Brother was not created Prince of Wales till ten Months had past it being then apparent that the Princess was not with Child by the late Prince Women were also set about her to wait on her with the Precaution that is necessary in such a Case so that it was generally believed that she was no Virgin when the Prince died Henry the seventh being unwilling to restore so great a Portion as two hundred thousand Ducats proposed a second Match for her with his Younger Son Henry Warham did then object against the Lawfulness of it yet Fox Bishop of Winchester was for it and the Opinion of the Pope's Authority was then so well established that it was thought a Dispensation from Rome was sufficient to remove all Objections Decemb. 1503. so one was obtained grounded upon a desire of the two young Persons to marry together for preserving Peace between the Crowns of England and Spain by which the Pope dispensed with it notwithstanding the Princess's Marriage to Prince Arthur which was as is said in the Bull perhaps consummated The Pope was then in War with Lewis the twelfth of France and so would refuse nothing to the King of England being perhaps not unwilling that Princes should contract such Marriages by which the Legitimation of their Issued epending on the Pope's Dispensation they would be thereby obliged in Interest to support that Authority upon this a Marriage followed the Prince being yet under Age but the same day in which he came to be of Age he did by his Father's Orders make a Protestation that he retracted and annulled his Marriage Henry the seventh at his Death charged him to break it off entirely being perhaps apprehensive of such a return of Confusion upon a controverted Succession to the Crown as had been during the Wars of the Houses of York and Lancaster but upon his Death Henry the Eighth being then eighteen Years of Age married her She bore him two Sons who died soon after they were born and a Daughter Mary that lived to reign after him Matches proposed for his Daughter but after that the Queen contracted some Diseases that made her unacceptable to the King so all hope of any other Issue failing several Matches were proposed for his Daughter the first was with the Dauphin then she was contracted with the Emperor and after that a Proposition was made for the King of Scotland and last of all a Treaty was made with Francis the first either for himself he being then a Widower or for his second Son the Duke of Orleans to be determin'd at his Option upon which the Bishop of Tarbe was sent over Ambassador to conclude it he made an Exception that the Marriage was doubtful and the Lady not legitimate which had been likewise made by the Cortes of Spain by whose Advice the Emperor broke the Contract upon that very account so that other Princes moving Scruples against a Marriage with his Daughter the Heir of so great a Crown the King began to make some himself or rather to publish them for he said afterwards he had them some Years before Yet the Cardinal's hatred to the Emperor was look'd on as one of the secret Springs of the King's Aversion to his Aunt which the King vindicating him in publick afterwards did not remove that being considered only as a Court Contrivance The King seemed to lay the greatest Weight on the prohibition in the Levitical Law of marrying the Brother's Wife The King has some scruples concerning his Marriage and he being conversant in Thomas Aquinas's Writings found that he and the other Schoolmen look'd on those Laws as Moral and for ever binding and that by Consequence the Pope's Dispensation was of no force since his Authority went not so far as to dispence with the Laws of God All the Bishops of England Fisher of Rochester only excepted declared under their Hands and Seals that they judged the Marriage unlawful The ill Consequences of Wars that might follow upon a doubtful Title to the Crown were also much considered or at least pretended It is not probable that the engagement of the King's Affections to any other gave the rise to all this for so prying a Courtier as Wolsey was would have discovered it and not have projected a Marriage with Francis's Sister if he had seen the King prepossessed It is more probable that the King conceiving himself upon the point of being discharged of his former Marriage gave a free scope to his Affections which upon that came to settle on Anne Bolleyn The King had reason enough to expect a quick and favourable dispatch of his business at Rome where Dispensations or Divorces in Favour of Princes used to pass rather with regard to the Merits of the Prince that desired them than of the Cause it self His Alliance seemed then necessary to the Pope who was at that time in Captivity Nor could the Emperour with any good colour oppose his Suit since he had broken his Contract with his Daughter upon the account of the doubtfulness of the Marriage The Cardinal had also given him full Assurances of a good Answer from Rome whether upon the knowledg he had of that Court and of the Pope's temper or upon any promise made him is not certain The Reasons gathered by the Canonists for annulling the Bull of Dispensation upon which the Divorce was to follow in course were grounded upon some false suggestions in the Bull and upon the Protestation which the King had made when he came to be of Age. In a word they were such that a favourable Pope left to himself would have yielded to them without any scruple Anne Bolleyn was born in the year 1507 and went to France at seven years of Age and returned twelve years after to England She was much admired in both Courts and continued to live without any Blemish till her unfortunate Fall gave occasion to some malicious Writers to defame her in all the Parts of her Life She was more beautiful than graceful and more chearful than discreet She wanted none of the Charms of Wit or Person and must have had extraordinary Attractives since she could so long manage such a King's Affection in which her being with Child soon after the Marriage shews that in the whole course of seven years she kept him at a due distance Upon her coming to England the Lord Piercy being then a Domestick of the Cardinals made love to her and went so far as to engage himself some way to
marry her and that being entertained by her shews she had then no aspirings to the Crown But the Cardinal having understood somewhat of the King 's secret Intentions did so threaten him that he made him tho not without great difficulty break off his addresses to her Knight then Secretary of State was sent to Rome to prepare the Pope in the matter And applies to the Pope and the Family of the Cassali having much of the Pope's Favour they were likewise imployed to promote it To Gregory Cassali did the Cardinal send a large Dispatch setting forth all the Reasons both in Conscience and Policy for obtaining a Commission to himself to judge the Affair Great Promises were made in the King's Name both for publick and private Services and nothing was forgot that was likely to work either on the Pope or those Cardinals that had the greatest Credit about him Knight made application to the Pope in the secretest manner he could and had a very favourable Answer for the Pope promised frankly to dissolve the Marriage but another Promise being exacted of him in the Emperour's Name not to proceed in that Affair he was reduced to great straits not so much out of regard to his Promises for he had so engaged himself that it was unavoidable for him to break one as to his Interests he was then at the Emperour's mercy so he was in fear of offending him yet he both hated him and was distrustful of him and had no mind to lose the King of England therefore he studied to gain time and promised that if the King would have a little patience he should not only have that which he asked but every thing that was in his power to grant The Cardinal Sanctorum quatuor made some Scruples concerning the Bull that was demanded till he had raised his price and got a great Present and then the Pope signed both a Commission for Wolsey to try the Cause Who was very favourable and judge in it and also a Dispensation and put them in Knights hands but with tears prayed him that there might be no proceedings upon them till the Emperour were put out of a capacity of executing his Revenge upon him and when ever that was done he would own this act of Justice which he did in the King's favour For tho the Pope on publick occasions used to talk in the language of one that pretended to be S. Peter's Successor yet in private Treaties he minded nothing but his own Security and the Interests of his Family And being a very crafty Man he proposed an Expedient which if the King had followed it had put a quicker and easier end to the Process He found his sending Bulls or a Legat to England would become publick and draw the Emperour upon him and must admit of delays and be full of danger therefore he proposed if the King was satisfied in his own Conscience in which he believed no Doctor could resolve him better than himself then he might without more noise make Judgment be given in England and upon that marry another Wife and send over to Rome for a Confirmation which would be the more easily granted if the thing were once done This the Pope desired might be represented to the King as the Advice of the Cardinals and not as his own But the King's Counsellers thought this more dangerous than the way of a Process for if upon the King 's second Marriage a Confirmation should be denyed then the Right Succession by it would be still very doubtful so they would not venture on it The Pope was at this time distasted with Cardinal Wolsey for he understood that during his Captivity he had been in an Intrigue to get himself chosen Vicar of the Papacy and was to have sate at Avignion which might have produced a new Schism Staphileus Dean of the Rota being then in England was wrought on by the promise of a Bishoprick and a Recommendation to a Cardinals Hat to promote the King's Affair and by him the Cardinal wrote to the Pope in a most earnest strain for a dispatch of this business and he desired that an indifferent and tractable Cardinal might be sent over with a full Commission to joyn with him and to judge the matter proposing to the King's Embassadours Campegio as the fittest Man when a Legate should be named he ordered Presents to be made him and that they would hasten his dispatch and take care that the Commission should be full But upon the Arrival of the Couriers that were sent from Rome Gardiner the Cardinals Secretary and Fox the Kings Almoner the one a Canonist and the other a Divine were sent thither with Letters both from the King and Cardinal to the Pope they carried orders that were like to be more effectual than any Arguments they could offer to make great Presents to the Cardinals They carried with them the draught of a Bull containing all the Clauses could be invented to make the matter sure one Clause was to declare the Issue of the Marriage good as being begotten bona fide which was perhaps put in to make the Queen more easy since by that it appeared that her Daughter should not suffer which way soever the matter went The Cardinal in his Letters to Cassali offered to take the blame on his own Soul if the Pope would grant this Bull and with an Earnestness as hearty and warm as can be expressed in Words he pressed the thing and added That he perceived that if the Pope continued Inexorable the King would proceed another way These Intreaties had such Effects Campegio sent over Legate That Campegio was declared Legate and ordered to go for England and joyn in Commission with Wolsey for judging this matter Campegio was Bishop of Saliebury and having a Son whom he intended to advance was no doubt a tractable Man but to raise his price the higher he moved many Scruples and seemed to enter upon this Employment with great fear and aversion Wolsey who knew his Temper prest him vehemently to make all the hast he could and gave him the Assurance of great Rewards from the King For whatever was to be made use of publickly for formes sake these were the effectual Arguments that were most likely to convince a Man of his Temper In which Wolsey was so sincere that in a Letter he wrote to him that of a good Conscience being put among other Motives to perswade him in the first Draught the Cardinal struck it out as knowing how little it would signify Campegio set out from Rome and carried with him a Decretal Bull for annulling the Marriage which was trusted to him and he was Authorized to shew it to the King and Wolsey but was required not to give it out of his Hands to either of them At this time Wolsey was taken with the sweating Sickness which then raged in England and by a Complement which both the King and Ann Boleyn writ him
officious Courtiers are apt to do often without any good Grounds so that Silence was made an Argument of her Guilt and that she could not be defended But perhaps that was an effect of the Wisdom of the Ministers of that time who would not suffer so nice a Point upon which the Queen's Legitimation depended to be brought into dispute The day after Anne Boleyn's Death the King married Jane Scimour who gained more upon him than all his Wives ever did But she was happy that she did not out-live his Love to her Lady Mary was advised upon this turn of Affairs Lady Mary 's Submission oo the King to make her Submission to the King she offered to confess the Fault of her former Obstinacy and in General to give up her Understanding entirely to the King but that would not satisfy unless she would be more particular so at last she was prevailed with to do it in the fullest Terms that could be desired She acknowledged the King to be the Supream Head on Earth under Christ of the Church of England and did renounce the Bishop of Rome's Authority and promised in all things to be obedient to the Laws that were made which she said flowed from her inward Belief and Judgment and in which she would for ever continue and she did also acknowledg that the King's Marriage with her Mother was by God's Law and Man's Law unlawful and incestuous all this she writ with her own Hand and subscribed it upon which she was again received into Favour and an Establishment was made for a Family about her in which 40 l. a quarter was all the Allowance for her Privy Purse so great was the Frugality of that time Lady Elizabeth continued to be educated with great Care and was so forward that before she was four Years old she both wrote a good Hand and understood Italian for there are Letters extant written by her in that Language to Queen Jane when she was with child in which she subscribed Daughter On the 8th of June the Parliament met A Farliament meets which shews that it was summoned before the Justs at Greenwich The Chancellour told them that the King had called them to settle the Succession of the Crown in case he should dye without Children lawfully begotten and to repeal the Act made concerning his Marriage with Queen Anne It seems the Parliament was not at first easily brought to comply with these things and that it was necessary to take some pains to prepare them to it For the Bill of Succession was not put in till the 30th of June but then it was quickly dispatched without any Opposition by it the Attainder of Queen Anne and her Complices is confirmed both the Sentences of Divorces pass'd upon the King 's two former Marriages were also confirmed and the Issue by both was illegitimated and for ever excluded from claiming the Crown by Lineal Descent And the Succession was established on the King's Issue by his present Queen or any whom he might afterwards marry But it not being fit to declare who should succeed in default of that lest the Person so named might be thereby enabled to raise Commotions in Confidence of the King's Wisdom and Affection to his People they left it to him nominate his Successors either by Letters Patents or by his last Will signed by his Hand and promised to obey the Persons so nominated by him It was declared Treason to maintain the Lawfulness of his former Marriages or of his Issue by them and it was made not only Treason but a forfeiture of the Right of Succession if any of those whom the King should name in default of others should endeavour to get before them The Scots complained of this Act and said their Queen Dowager being King Henry's Eldest Sister could not be put by her Right after the King 's lawful Issue But by this the King was now made Master indeed and had the Crown put entirely in his Hands to be disposed of at his Pleasure and his Daughters were now to depend wholly on him He had it also in his Power in a great measure to pacify the Emperour by providing that his Kinswoman might succeed to the Crown Pope Clement the 7th Pope Paul the 3d proposes a Recoaciliation with the King was now dead and Farnese succeeded by the Name of Paul the 3d who after an unsuccesful Attempt which he made for reconciling himself with the King when that was rejected and Fisher was beheaded thundered out a most terrible Sentence of Deposition against him Yet now since both Queen Katherine and Queen Anne upon whose account the Breach was made were out of the way he thought it a fit time to try what might be done and ordered Cassali to let the King know that he had always favoured his Cause when he was a Cardinal that he was driven very much against his Mind to pass Sentence against him and that now it would be easy for him to recover the Favour of the Apostolick See But the King instead of hearkening to the Proposition Acts against the Pope's Power got two Acts to be pass'd The one was for the utter extinguishing the Pope's Authority and it was made a Premunire for any to acknowledg it or to perswade others to it And a strict Charge was given to all Magistrates under severe Penalties to enquire after all Offenders By another all Bulls and all Priviledges flowing from them were declared null and void only Marriages or Consecrations made by virtue of them were excepted All who enjoyed Priviledges by these Bulls were required to bring them into the Chancery upon which the Arch-bishop was to make them a new Grant of them and that being confirmed under the Great Seal was to be of full force in Law Another Act pass'd explaining an Exception that was in the Act for the Residence of all Incumbents by which those who were at the Universities were dispensed with upon which many went and lived idlely there It was therefore now declared that none above the Age of fourty except Heads and publick Readers should have the Benefit of that Proviso and that none under that Age should be comprehended in it except they performed their Exercises Another Act pass'd in Favour of the King's Heirs if they should Reign before they were of full Age that they might any time before they were 24 repeal by Letters Patents all Acts made during their Minority All these things being concluded the Parliament after it had sate six Weeks was dissolved The Convocation examines some points of Religion The Convocation sate at the same time and was much imployed for the House of Lords was oft adjourned because the Spiritual Lords were busy in the Convocation Latimer preached the Latine Sermon he was the most celebrated Preacher of that time the Simplicity of his matter and his Zeal in expressing it being preferred to more elaborate Composures They first confirmed the Sentence of the Divorce of
the King's Marriage with Queen Anne Then the lower House made an Address to the upper House complaining of 67 Opinions that they found were much spread in the Kingdom they were either the Tenets of the old Lollards or the new Reformers or of the Anabaptists and many of them were only unsavoury and indiscreet Expressions which might have flowed from the Heat and Folly of some rash Zealots who by petulant Jeers and an Affectation of Wit had endeavoured to disgrace both the received Doctrines and Rites They also complained of some Bishops who were wanting in their Duty to suppress such Abuses which was understood as a Reflection on Cranmer Shaxton and Latimer It was hoped that Cranmer was now declining by Queen Ann's Fall and the other two who were raised by her would not have stood long if he had been once disgraced yet they premised to this a Protestation that they intended to do nothing that might displease the King whom they acknowledged to be their Supream Head and they were resolved to obey his Laws and they renounced the Pope's Authority with all his Laws All these Projects failed for Cranmer was now fully established in the King's Favour Cromwell was sent to them with a Message from the King That they should reform the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the Rules set down in Scripture which ought to be preferred to all Glosses or Decrees of Popes There was one Alesse a Scotch-man whom Cromwell entertained in his House and he being appointed to deliver his Opinion largely shewed that there was no Sacraments instituted by Christ but Baptism and the Lord's Supper Stokesly answered him in a long Discourse upon the Principles of the School-Divinity upon which Cranmer took occasion to shew the Vanity of that sort of Learning and the Uncertainty of Tradition and that Religion had been so corrupted in the latter Ages that there was no finding out the Truth but by resting in the Authority of the Scriptures Fox Bishop of Hereford seconded him and told them the World was now awake and would be no longer imposed on by the Niceties and dark Terms of the Schools for the Laity now did not only read the Scriptures in the vulgar Tongues but searched the Originals themselves therefore they must not think to govern them as they had been in the Times of Ignorance Among the Bishops Cranmer Goodrick Shaxton Latimer Fox Hilsey and Barlow prest a Reformation but Lee Arch-bishop of York Stokesly Tonstall Gardiner Longland and several others opposed it as much But the Contest had been sharper if the King had not sent some Articles to them to be considered of by them so they whose chief Design it was to recommend themselves to Preferment by the easiness of their Compliance with him in all Points did agree on the following Particulars 1. Articles of Religion agreed on That the Bishops and Preachers ought to instruct the People according to the Scripture the three Creeds and the four first General Councils 2. That Baptism was necessary to Salvation and that Children ought to be baptized for the pardon of Original Sin and obtaining the Holy Ghost 3. That Penance was necessary to Salvation and that it consisted in Confession Contrition and Amendment of Life with the External Works of Charity to which a lively Faith ought to be joyned and that Confession to a Priest was necessary where it might be had 4. That in the Eucharist under the forms of Bread and Wine the very Flesh and Blood of Christ was received 5. That Justification was the Remission of Sins and a perfect Renovation in Christ and that not only outward good Works but inward Holiness was absolutely necessary As for the outward Ceremonies the People were to be taught that it was meet to have Images in Churches but they ought to avoid all such Superstition as had been usual in time past and not to worship the Image but only God 2. That they were to honour the Saints but not to expect those things from them which God only gives 3. That they might pray to them for their Intercession but all Superstitious Abuses were to cease and if the King should lessen the number of Saints Days they ought to obey him 4. That the use of the Ceremonies was good and that they contained many Mystical Significations that tended to raise the mind towards God such were Vestments in Divine Worship Holy Water Holy Bread the carrying of Candles and Palms and Ashes and creeping to the Cross and the Hallowing the Font with other Exorcisms 5. That it was good to pray for departed Souls and to have Masses and Exequies said for them but the Scriptures having neither declared in what Place they were nor what Torments they suffered that was uncertain and to be left to God therefore all the Abuses of the Pope's Pardons or saying Masses in such or such Places or before such Images were to be put away These Articles were signed by Cromwel the two Arch-bishops sixteen Bishops fourty Abbots and Priors and fifty of the lower House to them the King added a Preface declaring the Pains that he and the Clergy had been at for the removing the Differences in Religion that were in the Nation and that he approved of these Articles and required all his Subjects to accept them with the like Unanimity with which they were consented to and he would be thereby encouraged to take further Pains in the like Matters for the future When these things were published They are variously censured those that desired a Reformation tho they did not approve of every Particular yet were well pleased to see things brought under Examination and since some things were at this time changed they did not doubt but more Changes would follow they were glad that the Scriptures and the Ancient Creeds were made the Standards of the Faith without adding Tradition and that the nature of Justification and the Gospel-Covenant were rightly stated that the immediate Worship of Images and Saints was condemned and that Purgatory was left uncertain but the necessity of Auricular Confession and the Corporal Presence the doing Reverence to Images and praying to Saints were of hard Digestion to them yet they were glad to see some grosser Abuses removed and a Reformation once set on foot The Popish Party were sorry to see four Sacraments past over in silence and the Trade about Purgatory put down and were very apprehensive of the Precedent of bringing matters of Religion under debate which would bring on other Alterations When these things were known beyond Sea the Court of Rome made great use of them to let all Princes see the necessity of adhering to the Holy See for no sooner did England depart from that than it began to change the Doctrine likewise The Germans on the other hand said This was a Political Daubing for satisfying all Parties and that it savoured not of the Sincerity that became the Professors of True Religion to
the Papacy to offer Confirmations unsought and afterwards to found a Right on such a Precedent So that the receiving a Confirmation was made to pass for an acknowledgment of an Authority in that See to grant it upon which the Popes afterwards pretended that such things could not be done without their consent Here the Series of the King 's Advances towards a Reformation ends what he did after this was by Starts backwards or forwards as the humour took him Nor was he steady in his Councils in State-Affairs He had no Minister about him that had an Ascendent over him Sickness and Years increased his Imperious Temper so that his Counsellors had a hard task to please him and many Errours were committed by him A new Impression of the Bible was at this time finished The Bible set up in Churches And the King required all Parishes to provide one of them by the next All-hallowtide under the pain of 40 s. a Month after that till they had got one The People were also charged not to dispute about it nor to disturb Divine Service by reading it during the Mass but to read it humbly and reverently for their Instruction and Edification Six of these were set up in divers Places of St. Pauls But Bonner being afraid of the Mischief they might do posted up near them an Admonition to the People That none should read them with vain Glory and corrupt Affections or draw Multitudes about them when they read them But great numbers gathered about those that read and such as had good Voices used to be reading them aloud a great part of the Day Many set their Children to School and when they had learn'd to read they carri'd them to Church to read the Bibles some began likewise to argue from them particularly against taking away the Chalice in the Communion and the Worship in an unknown Tongue Upon which Bonner set up a new Advertisement and threatned to remove them if these abuses were not corrected And upon the Complaints made of those things the free use of the Scriptures was afterwards much restrained This Year the King added to his former Foundations two Collegiat Churches at Burton upon Trent and Thornton consisting of a Dean and four Prebendaries apiece Cranmer observing the Excesses in Bishops Tables by which under the name of Hospitality so much was consumed in great Entertainments that they were disabled from more necessary and profitable Acts of Charity made a Regulation that an Archbishop should not have above six Dishes of Meat and four of Banquet a Bishop not above five of Meat and four of Banquet a Dean or Arth-deacon not above four and two of the one and the other and Inferiour Church-men might not have above two Dishes But this did not take effect and Sumptuous Tables still continued tho the Revenues were much impaired and thus besides the other ill Effects of these a great part of the Church-rents goes for Entertaining the Rich which should be applied to the Poor This Summer the King went to York to meet his Nephew the King of Scotland who promised him an Enterview there He was an Extraordinary Prince The Affairs of Scotland a great Patron both of Learning and Justice but out of measure addicted to his Pleasures The Clergy of Scotland were very Apprehensive of his seeing his Uncle lest King Henry might have perswaded him to follow the Copy he had set to his Neighbours and they used such perswasions that these seconded by a Message from France diverted the King from his purpose Here I shall digress a little to give an account of the State of Scotland at this time The long Alliance between Scotland and France made that Paris was the place where the Learned of that Nation had their Education Yet after the Year 1412 Learning came to have more footing there and Universities were set up in several Episcopal Sees At the same time some of Wickliff's Followers began to creep into Scotland and one Resby an Englishman was burnt 1407 for teaching some Opinions contrary to the Pope's Authority Some Years after that Paul Craw an Hussite and Bohemian was burnt for infusing the Opinions of that Party into some at St. Andrews About the end of that Century Lollardy as it was then called was spread into many parts of the Diocess in Glasgow For which several Persons of Quality were accused But they answered the Archbishop of that See with such Assurance that he dismissed them having admonish'd them to content themselves with the Faith of the Church and to beware of new Doctrines The same Spirit of Ignorance Immorality and Superstition had over-run the Clergy there that was so much complained of in the other parts of Europe only it may be supposed that in Nations less Polite and Learned it was in Proportion greater then it was elsewhere The total neglect of the Pastoral Care and the gross Scandals of the Clergy possessed the People with such Prejudices against them that they were easily disposed to hearken to new Preachers Patrick Hamilton nobly born Nephew by his Father to the Earl of Aran and to the Duke of Albany by his Mother was bred up on design to be highly preferred and had an Abby given him for prosecuting his Studies He went to travel and in Germany grew acquainted with Luther and Melancthon and being possessed with their Opinions he returned to Scotland and laid open the Errours and Corruptions then received in the Church He was invited to St. Andrews to confer concerning these Points upon which he was condemned and put in Prison Articles were objected to him and upon his refusing to abjure them Beaton Archbishop of St Andrews with the Archbishop of Glasgow 3 Bishops and 5 Abbots condemned him as an obstinate Heretick and delivered him to the Secular Power and ordered the Execution to be that Afternoon for the King had gone in Pilgrimage to Ross and they were afraid lest upon his Return Hamilton's Friends might have interceeded effectually for him He was tied to the Stake and expressed great Joyes in his Sufferings since by these he was to enter into Everlasting Life A Train of Powder being fired it did not kindle the Fewel but only burnt his Face So a stop was made till more Powder was brought and in that time the Friars call'd oft to him to recant and pray to the Virgin and to say the Salve Regina One Frier Campbel was very officious among the rest who had been oft with him in Prison He answered him That he knew he was not an Heretick and had confess'd it to him in private and he charged him to answer for that to God By this time the Gun-powder was brought and the Fire was kindled and he died often repeating these Words Lord Jesus receive my Soul Campbel became soon after Frantick and died within a Year Both these laid together made great Impressions on the People And now that these Points began to be inquired into many
received the new Opinions Seaton a Dominican the King's Confessor preaching in Lent set out the Nature of true Repentance and the Method to it without mixing the Directions which the Friars commonly gave on that Subject and when another Friar shewed the defectiveness of what he had taught he defended himself in another Sermon and reflected on those Bishops that did not preach and called them dumb Dogs But the Clergy would not meddle with him till they found him in ill Terms with the King and the freedom he used in reproving him for his Vices quickly alienated the King from him upon which they resolved to fall on him but he withdrew into England and wrote to the King taxing the Clergy for their Cruelty and praying him to restrain it One Forrest an ignorant Benedictine was accused for having spoken Honourably of Patrick Hamilton and was put in Prison In Confession to a Friar he acknowledged he thought he was a good Man and that the Articles for which he was condemned might be defended The Friar discovered this and it was received as Evidence and upon it he was condemned and burnt Divers others were brought into the Bishop's Courts of whom the greatest part abjured but two were more resolute one Gourley denied Purgatory and the Pope's Authority another was David Smiton who being a Fisherman had refused to pay the Tithe of his Fish and when the Vicar came to take them he said the Tithe was taken where the Stock grew and therefore he threw the tenth Fish into the Sea For this and other Opinions he was condemned and they were both burnt at one Stake Several others were accused of whom some fled to England and others went over to Germany The Changes made in England raised in all the People a curiosity of searching into matters of Religion and that was always fatal to Superstition Pope Clement the 7th wrote earnestly to the King of Scotland to continue firm to the Catholick Faith Upon which he called a Parliament and made new Laws for maintaining the Pope's Authority and proceeding against Hereticks yet the Pope could not engage him to make War on England King Henry sent Barlow Bishop of St. Davids to him with some Books that were written in Defence of his Proceedings and desired him to examine them Impartially He also proposed the Enterview at York and a Match between him and Lady Mary the King 's eldest Daughter and promised that he should be made Duke of York and Lord Lieutenant of the whole Kingdom Yet the Clergy diverted him from this and perswaded him to go in Person to France and court the Daughter of that King Magdalene He married her in January 1537 but she died in May. She had been bred in the Queen of Navarre's Court and so was well disposed towards the Reformation Upon her Death the King married Mary of Guise she was a Branch of the Family of all Europe that was most zealously addicted to the old Superstition and her Interest joined with the Clergy's engaged the King to become a violent Persecuter of all that were of another mind The King was very expensive both in his Pleasures and Buildings and had a numerous Race of Bastards A Persecution set on foot in Scotland so that he came to want Mony much The Nobility proposed to him the seizing on the Abbey-Lands as his Uncle had done The Clergy on the other hand advised him to proceed severely against all suspected of Heresy By which means according to the Lists they shewed him he might raise 100000 Crowns a Year They also advised him to provide his Children to Abbies and Priories and represented to him That if he continued stedfast in the old Religion he would still have a great Party in England and might be made the Head of a League which was then in Project against King Henry This so far prevailed with him that as he made four of his Sons Abbots and Priors so he gave way to the persecuting Spirit of the Clergy Upon which many were cited to answer for Heresy of these many abjured and some were banisht A Canon Regular a Secular Priest two Friars and a Gentleman were burnt Forrest the Canon Regular had been reproved by his Ordinary the Bishop of Dunkell for meddling with the Scriptures too much He told him he had lived long and had never known what was in the Old or New Testament but contented himself with his Portoise and Pontifical and that he might come to repent it if he troubled himself with such Fancsies The Archbishop of Glasgow was a very moderate Man and disliked cruel Proceedings Russel a Friar and Kennedy a young Man of 18 Years of Age were brought before him they expressed wonderful Joy and a steady Resolution in their Sufferings And after a long dispute between Russel and the Bishop's Divines Russel concluded This is your Hour and the Power of Darkness go on and fill up the Measures of your Iniquities The Archbishop was unwilling to give Sentence he said he thought these Executions did the Church more Hurt than Good But those about him told him He must not take a Way different from the rest of the Bishops and threatned him so that he pronounced Sentence They were burned but they gave such Demonstrations of Patience and Joy as made no small Impression on all that saw it or heard of it Among those that were in trouble George Buchanan was one who at the King's Instigations had writ a very sharp Poem against the Franciscans but was now abandoned by him He made his Escape and lived 20 Years in Forraign Parts and at last returned to do his Country Honour and what by his Immortal Poems what by his History of Scotland he shewed both how great a Master he was in the Roman Tongue and how true a Judge he was both in Wit and in the Knowledge of Human Affairs if Passion had not corrupted him towards the end of his History that he is justly to be reckoned the greatest and best of the Modern Writers So much of the Affairs of Scotland the Author 's Native Country King Henry stayed not long at York The Queen 's ill Life is discovered since his Nephew came not to him He set out a Proclamation there inviting all that had been of late oppressed to come in and make their Complaints and he promised to repair them This was done to cast the Load of all past Errours upon Cromwel The King was mightily wrought on by the Charms of his Wife so that on the First of November he gave publick thanks to God for the happy Choice he had made But this did not last long for the next day Cranmer came and gave him an account of the Queen 's ill Life which one Lassells had revealed to him as having learnt it from his Sister She had been very lewd before her Marriage both with one Deirham and one Mannock Cranmer by the Advice of the other Privy Counsellors put this in Writing