Grace's Corrections also such as the Bishop of Sarum is And I do sometimes ask my self what Inconvenience could there be if the Bishop of Sarum or any other who is Subordinate to the Archbishop as the Archbishop to the King had no more Prebends to dispose of than the Archbishop hath Or if His Majesty now and then although but rarely only Fourteen or Fifteen in above 500 years should give a Prebend at large of Sarum to a Priest every way qualified with Want and Worth as well as he gives All the Prebends in All the Churches recited without Exception The Church and State might stand firmly as now they do and Christian Souls might be as salvable as now they are tho' the King's Power and Right were as much owned by All as it is by me The Bishops of London and of Lincoln and several others have a most undoubted Right to dispose of Prebends such at least as the Bishop of Sarum hath and that Right the more unquestionable by being held of the Supream and derived from it and Subordinate thereunto A Sole and Sovereign Right wholly exclusive of the King 's which is all I contend against and which my Lord Bishop of Sarum seems to aim at and effect or else his Lordship and I agree I am verily perswaded none of those Bishops will pretend to It cannot be said with any Truth that All the Bishopricks I have named wherein the King gives All the Prebends the Bishops none are not of Old but New Foundation For Worcester and Norwich are very Old Canterbury and Rochester two of the Oldest we have in England Besides that the King's Power and Right in the Church of Sarum is greater than in many others not only because of his Old Free Chappel which I shall prove in the next Chapter and cannot be disproved by some Negatives from some Interested and Passionate Opposers of the Prerogative but also because the Kings of England were the Co-Founders of that Cathedral in a Literal Sence as well as Founders in the Sence of our Common and Statute Law The Co-Founders at least because Osmund had his All from the Bounty of Will 1. and held his All of that King's Favour under Knights Service during Pleasure for which I cited Mr. Selden and Matth. Paris in the first Sect. of this Chapter King Hen. 1 in one day gave 20 Churches to that of Sarum besides the Tithes of New Forrest if the Record which was read by Sir Tho. Ridley said true which he mentions in his View of the Civil Law And passing by the lesser Bounties of Steph. and K. Hen. 2. it is confessed that Hen. 3. gave no fewer than 20 or 21 Prebends and other things even All the Tithes of all the Kings Forrests within Three Counties Wilts Berks and Dorset and the Removal of the Cathedral from Old to New Sarum is owned by Bishop Spondanus as well as others to have been at the King 's cost chiefly Next our Kings were Sole Founders in the Eye and Sence of the Law according to the Maxim cited before from Iudge Coke Instit. Cart 2. Chap. 33. upon Magna Charta p. 68. 44 Ed. 3 cap. 24. And our King at this day according to that other Maxim in Coke 2 Inst. in Statute of Employments p. 742. Whatever Right our Former Kings had our King hath now It seemeth strange to most men who have considered the matter throughly that the King who gets the Right of giving every Ecclesiastical Possession in England not only where Church men but where Saecular men are Patrons by promoting an Incumbent unto a Bishoprick should immediately loose All even in That very Church where he makes the Bishop Or that the King who hath All in his own Disposal during the Vacancy of All the Bishopricks in England should have nothing to dispose of without the Bishop's good leave as soon as the Vacancies are filled tho' filled up freely by himself They are Betrayers of the Churches Rights who go about to undermine and betray the King's And they tempt the King and his Royal Successors to let their Bishopricks lye void as Q. Eliz. and her Ancestors thought fit to do even as far as for 20 or 30 yea for 40 years together Signal Instances of which in the most of our Churches if not in All 't were too easy for me to give if it would not occasion too great a Length Alas we may judge of the King's Regale within the Cathedral Church of Sarum supposing there had been never a Royal Chappel in the Old Castle which yet I shall shortly make apparent by the Exercises of it in other Churches They having in their Pleasures and Displeasures Created some Bishopricks and Supprest them soon after whereof Westminster is an Example Dissolved and Restored whereof Durham is an Example United two into one and again Divided into Two an Instance of which we have in Worcester and Gloucester Taken three out of one as Hen. 1. took Ely out of Lincoln Hen. 8. Oxford and Peterborough out of the same Tho' the Diocess of Lincoln is still the greatest ' its Parishes being no fewer than 1255. Ordered one Bishoprick to be held with Another in Commendam as that of Bristol with that of Gloucester for 23 years together Gave the Bishoprick of Hexam in Augmentation to the Archbishoprick of York from which it was taken again in the 37. of Hen. 8. Converted Canons Saecular into Regular vice versa made the Prior and Convent of Westminster a distinct Corporation from the Abbot Conferred the Patronage of a Bishoprick upon a Subject as Hen. 4. that of Man upon the Family of the Stanleys Gave Temporalities and Reassumed them as in 14 Ed. 3. cap. 3. deprived Bishops for very small Failings Examples of which are elsewhere given Subjected them to the Statute of Praemunire and to the Judgments of Saecular Men As All at once to the Lord Cromwel and Sir Io. Tregonwel to that of Sarum Made Inferiour Clergymen to be the Judges of their Superiors as the Dean of St. Pauls over Bonner Bishop of London Translated Bishops in Displeasure from the Greater Bishopricks to the lesser As Nevil from York to St. Andrews in Scotland and Iohn Buckingham from Lincoln to Litchfield which was not then half so good Made a Saecular Man a Dean as the Lord Cromwel Dean of Wells In a word the same Authority which took four Bishopricks out of Sherburn and added Sherburn with about 40 Parishes about it to the Dean of Sarum's Iurisdiction And gave away the Jurisdiction of the Rest of all Dorsetshire from the Bishop of Sarum to that of Bristol but never gave away one from the Dean of Sarum can give a Prebend of Sarum or a Residentiaries Place to any man in full Orders and that de Iure for to a Lay-man and de facto it has frequently been done And if the Corporation of Dean and Chapter is not of the King's Foundation when the Bishoprick is
made so bold with my Master's Enemies and mine own as to be dutifully Loyal without their Leave I was loth to ask of them by whom I was sure to be denied And did Presume I might as pardonably assert the King's and the Churches Rights now that the King is on His Throne and the Church less Militant as I did safely and with Success before the Great Year of their Restauration Sect. 1. First I was of an Opinion before I had it from a most excellent and most Noble Lord Commissioner That 't is the Duty of every Subject and especially of the King's Chaplains to discover all they know of His Majesties Prerogative tho' not Commanded by Authority as I had been Which saying of a Judicious and a most Honourable Lord in the Council Chamber and elsewhere is agreeable to another of two Lord Chancellors in their times whereof the first was the Lord Bacon from whom 't was borrowed by the Second who used it in his Speech to Sir Edward Thurland when made a Baron of the Exchequer To wit That the Subjects of England in General as well as the Iudges in particular and particularly the Judges of Ecclesiastical Courts such as is the Dean of Sarum are bound to maintain the Prerogative and not distinguish it from the Law The King's Prerogative being Law and in the words of Chief Justice Coke The Principal part of the Common Law as That from which all other Laws are derived and on which they do depend With these I compared that famous Saying of a full Parliament which I found cited by my Lord Coke too That no King or Kingdom can be safe but where the King has Three Abilities 1. To live of his own and defend his Kingdom 2. To assist his Confederates and 3 To reward his deserving Subjects From whence I thought it would follow that to take from the great Number of Ecclesiastical Promotions in the Kings Gift is to act against the safety of King and Kingdom 'T is reckoned one of those things which even a King cannot do Lawfully and which a Parliament cannot consent to Besides I thought it most unworthy that he who had not been afraid in the worst of Times and without a Warrant and under none but God's Protection to defend the King 's Rights and the whole Church of England by many Arguments in Print when some New Royalists durst not join in a Petition for the Kings wished Return for fear as they then said of setting their Hands to their own Ruine as having reason to suspect the Restauration would be General that All Usurpers must be Ejected and all Ejected for their Loyalty would have their own which passed with some for an heavy Iudgement should now descend unto the Meanness of hiding himself behind Another and behind such another as he knew to be Unqualified for such service as I was irrationally suspected and most maliciously reported to have engaged Another in No the Pretenders to that Suspicion and the Inventers of that Report did only design by such Baseness to lessen the merit of my Obedience to the Lords Commissioners Injunction and of my Dutiful Regard to the King himself towards whose Service it was my fault as 't is my Apology and Excuse with a sort of men that I did not go till I was sent nor mend my Pace till I was driven Sect. 2. Next I had learned by my perusal of Keble's Statutes at large and of Chief Justice Coke's Institutes to name no more in this Place That the Gift of all Bishopricks and Nomination of Bishops did ever belong to our Monarchs both before and since the Conquest as in Right of the Crown My Lord Coke gives the Reason from this trite Maxime in the Law That all our Archbishopricks and Bishopricks were and are of the King's Foundation That at first they were therefore all meerly Donative meerly by the Delivery of a Staff and a Ring Never Elective till King Iohn who Reigned not without the Murdering of Arthur of Britain the Rightful Heir That it was again taken away by Hen. 8. and Ed. 6. in whose Reigns all the Bishops were required to take out New Commissions for their Bishopricks and so to hold them onely as Delegates in the King's Name and not for Life Absolute but During Pleasure And Archbishop Cranmer gave an Example to the Rest. That Elections by Deans and Chapters are declared by Law to be No Elections but by a writ of Conge d' Eslire have only Colours and Shadows or Pretenses of Elections serving to no Purpose and seeming derogatory and Prejudicial to the King's Prerogative Royal c. That Bishop Bonner declared under his hand He held his Bishoprick of London of the King's Bounty alone during the King's Pleasure only and that he would again deliver it up when it should please the King to call for it That all the Temporalities of Archbishopricks and Bishopricks in all Uacancies which our Kings made when it pleased them ever came to the King as Founder He being Patronus and Protector Ecclesiae in so high a Prerogative incident to his Crown that he cannot part with it no Subject can have claim to it either by Grant or by Prescription That the Lands of the Church were all at first given by gracious Princes as may appear from the first Book of Iustinian's Code where Laws are recorded for the conferring and also for the Conserving of them Which is also the Affirmation of the most excellent Paulus Sarpius That if the King and a Common Person have joyned in a Foundation the King is the Founder because it is an Entire Thing For the Truth of which Maxime that renowed Judge cited 44 Ed. 3. c. 24. from when I inferred within myself that King Hen. 8. rather than Wolsey was Founder of Christ Church in Oxford tho' its well enough known that Wolsey was a Co-Founder Or Founder Subordinate to the Supreme So William the Conqueror rather than Osmund was the Supreme and Sovereign Founder of the Cathedral Church of Old Sarum tho' by the King's Bounty as well as Leave St. Osmund built and greatly indow'd it with such Revenues as he held of his Lord and Master during Pleasure and by Knights Service For the Conqueror's Soldiers whereof Osmund of Say was one held all the Lands which he gave them under military Service not as properly Freeholders but as Lords in Trust only and according to the King's Pleasure thereby hoping to engage them to a close Dependance upon the Crown as the learned Selden relates of Matthew Paris and his learned Annotator does give the Reason I do not say our Monarchs have had the same Power ever since but the same Right by Law which ever any King had Nor do I say they have a Right to any Saecular Possessions whereof the Subject hath a Feesimple But a Right to confer on Ecclesiastical Persons such Ecclesiastical Dignities and Revenues as
Privileges remain and were ever reserved though the Formality is obscured in a Great Cathedral Church This last Absurdity spoken of may be made to appear by these following Degrees N. I. First There never was a Time since the Foundation of the Cathedral within the Kings Castle of Old Sarum or since its Removal to the Close of New Sarum which Close must be distinguished in all our Discourses from the City which no body denies to be in the Bishops Jurisdiction and in the Sub-Deans two Years in three wherein the Bishop was or wherein the Dean of Sarum was not Immediatus Loci Ordinarius Let them name it and prove it who were bold enough to say there was such a Time as the Dean has named plainly and also proved the Space of Time of almost 300 Years between the Kings and Osmund's Charter on one side and the Infamous Composition on the other side by which the Bishop hath pretended some Jurisdiction over the Close five days in seven years though none at all before or after so great a space as seven years Which by the way is another Absurdity and Inconsistence No Instance can be given of any Will proved within the Close by any Bishop or any Letters of Administration granted or any matter of Instance tryed or any Fornication punished by any Bishop since the Foundation but only by the Dean of Sarum who is confessedly in the Statute of Bishop Roger himself though an high-flying Bishop Loci Ordinarius Immediatus See the Statute De Testamentis Decano insinuandis Now that is clearly an Immemorial Practice and Possession of the Dean which has been a Tempore per Tempus cujus contrarii memoria hominum non existit Which Allegation to the Archbishop for the Chapters Exemption from the Bishops Jurisdiction Bishop Ralph Erghum could not deny and thereupon was decreed against 2. Next the Decisions of Authority have been for the Dean and against the Bishop as often as Authority hath been appealed unto which has been seldom 1. In the Year 1301 when the then Bishop Simon de Gaunt endeavoured to invade the Decanal Jurisdiction over the Canons and other Members of the Cathedral Church of Sarum Petrus de Sabaudia then Dean of Sarum did by his Instrument in Writing on the Third of October Prohibit the Prebendaries or Canons and all other Members of the said Church and discharge them from submitting to the said Bishops Visitation N. II. No longer since than in the Year 1665 Iohn Elliot LL. Doctor Chancellor then to Dr. Alexander Hyde Lord Bishop of Sarum cited one Iohn Wickham Servant to Mr. Chafin living then in the Close of Sarum unto the Bishops Consistory for Incontinency c. Wickham not obeying the Summons was by the said Chancellor de facto Excommunicated Whereupon Mr. Richard Kent then Prebendary of Sarum and Surrogate to the Reverend Dr. Richard Baily Dean of Sarum perceiving the Invasion committed upon the Dean's peculiar Jurisdiction by Dr. Elliot the Bishops Chancellor in citing Wickham within the Close Absolves the said Wickham Whereupon the Bishop makes his complaint to the Archbishop Dr. Gilbert Sheldon The business came to an Hearing in St. Iohn's College Gallery in Oxford before the said Archbishop and Edward Earl of Clarendon Lord Chancellour of England the King then residing in Oxford And the Issue was this That the Bishop should not intermeddle with any Ecclesiastical Censures things or Persons out of his own Palace and Family but that the whole decision of Ecclesiastical Matters within the said Close did and do purely wholly and solely belong unto the Dean This is a True Copy of the whole Relation of the Matter from the Reverend Dr. Richard Baily received by me the Surrogate to the said Dr. Richard Baily Dean of Sarum It a testor Ricard Kent primo Jun. A.D. 1678. Sub-Dec Sarum N. III. Yea since the present Lord Bishops and the present Dean's Time there was a Crime committed within his Lordships own Pallace and by his Lordships chief Domestick which being a Crime of Ecclesiastical cognizance was by consequence to be punished by the King 's Ecclesiastical Laws The Bishop applied himself first by Letters to the Dean and Chapter conjunctim for the Punishing of the chief Party in that Commission proposing the Composition to them whereby his Lordship was in hopes a Correction de bene esse might be favourably inflicted The Dean and Chapter met on purpose in Dr. Drake's House to Read and to consider of the said Composition Which having done They unanimously agreed in this Judgment of which they sent his Lordship word That the whole Composition supposing it to be valid was wholly impertinent to the Matter in hand And that none but the Dean alone as the Sole Ordinary of the Close could Summon both Parties into his Consistory Court and put the Law in Execution The Dean however made a delay because the Principal Offender had committed the Fact in the Bishop's Palace which he was willing to esteem a place Exempted from the Decanal Jurisdiction And this he pleaded to the Lord Bishop whom he desired to correct his own Domestick in his own Family or in his own Court which the Dean said he would warrant his Lordship the doing of by Letters Dimissory or License under the Seal of his Decanal Office But his Lordship urged with great strength of Reason as well as Earnestness 1. That such a Liberty in the Close was more than either the Dean could give away lawfully or the Bishop receive 2. That the Party cited into his Court might appeal to the Arches from the Bishop tanquam a non Iudice and make the very Iudge of that Court a Criminal 3. That the Dean might Summon a Prebendary to appear in his Court by a certain day from any part of the Kingdom but 4. That the Bishop could not cite him into His however nearly an Inhabitant Whereupon the Dean of Sarum acknowledging the Bishop too hard for him in the Contest was forced to own his Unavoidable Authority in the Close as inseparably annexed to the Imperial Crown of these Realms which is the language of several Acts of Parliament and not without Trouble and Self denial did satisfie the Law upon both the offending Parties N. IV. Since which time also no longer since than on the 15th of September 1681. the present Dean was desired by Mr. Archdeacon Woodward then the Bishop of Sarum's Surrogate Now the Chancellor of this whole Diocess to permit and allow the People of Broad-Chalk in Wiltshire to ask the voluntary Benevolence of Persons living within the Close of Sarum To whom the Dean gave his leave or permission rather in these words following As far as the Laws of this Realm permit and being earnestly requested as well as moved with the Resentment of so many mens Losses within the Parish of Broad-Chalk I do allow the said Sufferers to try the Charity of the Inhabitants within my Peculiar of the Close of New Sarum
A VINDICATION OF THE KING' 's Sovereign Rights Together with A Justification of His ROYAL Exercises thereof in all Causes and over All Persons Ecclesiastical as well as by consequence over All Ecclesiastical Bodies Corporate and Cathedrals More particularly applyed to the KING 's Free Chappel and Church of SARUM Upon Occasion of The Dean of SARUM's Narrative and Collections made by the Order and Command of the most Noble and most Honourable The LORDS Commissioners Appointed by the KING's Majesty for Ecclesiastical Promotions By way of Reply unto the Answer of the Lord Bishop of Sarum Presented to the aforesaid most Honourable LORDS Printed only to save the Labour of Transcribing several Copies and to prevent the Mistakes thereby apt to be incurr'd and meerly for the Satisfaction of private Friends who either Want or Desire a most Impartial Information of that Affair A GENERAL TABLE OF THE CONTENTS THE Dean of Sarum superstructs the Ecclesiastical Rights in Thesi to things of humane Establishment upon the Foundation of the Regal as upon a Rock which cannot fail them And also the Rights of the Bishop of Sarum in Hypothesi upon the only sure Foot which it can possibly stand upon The Moral Necessity of distinguishing with the Judicious Bishop Sanderson between an Original and Derivative Right As also with the famous Chief Justice Coke between a Subordinate and the Supreme The KING in Law is The Founder Proprietor in Chief and Advower Paramount of All Arch-Bishopricks and Bishopricks Cathedrals Prebends and of All contained in them The Despotical Exercise of the Regality as in all Other Churches so Above All in the Church of Sarum The Church is never so much Betray'd as by Them who assert a Church-man's Right with an Exclusion of the King 's and strive to take down the Stairs to which they owe their own Advancement The Dean of Sarum does not ascribe an higher Prerogative to the KING than Iudge Coke himself and Bishop Sanderson the Common and Statute and Civil Laws yea no more than Pope Nicolas to Edward the Confessor and his Successors Kings of England And does but distinguish with the most excellent Paolo Sarpi That Oracle Life and Soul of the most famous Venetian Senate between Dominion and Dispensation Where any Bishop is Dispensator the KING is Dominus The Second Chapter THE King's Castle at Old Sarum and the King's Free-Chappel in it and the Dean of it Before a Cathedral Church was built Before a Chapter was created Before the Indowments of the Sovereign and Subordinate Founders and during all Bishop Herman's Time are made Apparent and Undeniable by the Best and First Authors printed by which the Written Registers can be confirmed And That Register of Registers which was cited by the Dean but cheaply slighted by the Bishop is shewed to be as Authentick as any his Lordship can produce and for All the same Reasons which any Ordinary can urge for another Register Florentius of Worcester Eadmerus Will. of Malmsbury Roger Hoveden Simeon Dunelmensis All elder than Mat. Paris and M. Paris Himself with several others do all conspire in antecessum to prove the Authority of the Deans Register maugre Those who disesteem it for appearing too much in the Royal Cause Truth justified by its Opposers before they are aware and against their Wills in the very Act of their Opposition Two or three Bishops and many Earls had the King's Castle only as Keepers and during pleasure Thence 't was an Ambulatory Trust as is demonstrated by an Induction The Castle stood on the King's Soil The Lord Bishops Margin does only serve to Confute his Text. The Third Chapter THE Dean of Sarum's Jurisdiction in his Peculiars and particularly in That of Salisbury-Close which must be distinguished from the City which is the Bishops under the KING whereof the Dean is the Sole Immediate Ordinary was ever Exempted from the Bishop by the Charter of the Supreme and Subordinate Founder of the Cathedral the King and Osmund In comparison with which The most unlawful Composition was but a Novelty Almost Three Hundred years Younger than the Great Fundamental Statute That Composition was a Conspiracy of Pope Boniface the Ninth with the Then Bishop Dean and Chapter against whatsoever is Great or Sacred Against the Good Word of GOD. Against the Supremacy and Prerogative of the KING Against both the Common and Statute Law of the Land Against the very Foundation whereupon the whole Colledge and Church are laid and together with which they must Stand or Fall Against the Souls of Them that Made it and have Acted according to it both in regard of their own Oaths and the Founder's Curse And by reason of All the Nullities and Inconsistences that are in it against Common Sense and against It Self The Dean of Sarum's Jurisdiction exclusively of the Bishop's within the Close is strongly proved by the Confessions of the present Lord Bishop to the Dean Before his Lordship had been Incensed by the Dean's Services for the King and by his dutiful Obedience to the Lords Commissioners Command 'T is farther proved by All Decisions of Authority For the Dean's evident Right against the Bishop's Invasion of it An instance of it in the Sentence of the Lord Chancellor of England and the Arch-Bishop of the whole Province The Mischeivous Effects of the Composition Of no use to its Observers unless to make them in danger of incurring a Praemunire The Absolute Necessity of a Royal Visitation to set all Right The Appendix MR. Yeates in several Letters to persons of Honour and lesser Quality doth strongly assert unto himself his whole design of the Four Heads He irrefragably proves the Dean of Sarum not to have had an Hand in or Assent to or Connivance at or Knowledge of his Design Antecedently to the Command of the Lords Commissioners or to the First Notice sent him by the Lord Bishop and the Chapter His Two Inducements to it from his Right Reverend Diocesan and his None at all from the Dean of Sarum A VINDICATION OF THE King 's Sovereign Rights As in all Cathedral Churches so especially in the Church both of Old and New Sarum as asserted in the Dean of Sarum's Narrative drawn up and presented to the most Noble Lords Commissioners HAving laboured of Late under the Obloquy of Some and the Ill-will of Others and the impotent Revengefulness at least of One for having delivered what I had found of the King 's Sovereign Rights and his Royal Exercises thereof as well in All Causes as over all Persons Ecclesiastical All Bodys Corporate and Cathedrals more particularly applied unto His Majesty's Free Chappel and Church of Sarum tho' I did nothing of my self as a Voluntier but by Commission and Command from the most Noble and the most Honourable the Lords Commissioners appointed by his Gracious Majesty for Ecclesiastical Promotions whom God knows I did believe it my bounden Duty to obey I am induced to give the Reasons of my having
are in Law of the King's Foundation Which all are affirmed to be by Keble referring to the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. p. 121. Where the Holy Church of England is said to have been Founded by Ed. 1. and his Progenitors c. as the Lords and Advowers of it And then by vertue of that other Maxime in my Lord Coke who was never more an Oracle than when he spake for the King's Prerogative to which he had never a Partiality That Successors are included under the Name of King 'T is plain that what Right soever was in William the First and his next immediate Successors especially Hen. 1. and Hen. 3. from whom the Church of Sarum had vast Additions of Endowment Our King hath now Hence it is that All our Kings have been not only owned as the Founders but as Patrons of our Cathedral For which I cited the Address of the Dean and Chapter to Hen. 7. in whom the two contending Houses were united wherein they called him their Founder seven times at least Their Numerical Expressions in their Prayer to God for him to whom they could not intend to lye was Fundator Ecclesiae Sarum And Hen. 8. was so stiled by the famously Learned and Prudent Longland after Bishop of Lincoln and Lord Chancellor of the University of Oxford for which I might cite the Exact Register of Harward the Authenticalness of which was never questioned So 't is Notorious that all Members of Christ-Church in Oxford in their Prayers before their Sermons do Commemorate Hen. 8. not naming Wolsey as their Founder From whence it is that the Dean of Christ-Church is the Sole Governour of that Cathedral and the Bishop of Oxford not As the Dean of Westminster had the Sole Jurisdiction within the Precincts of that Cathedral when there was Created a Bishop of it And the Dean there hath more than Episcopal Jurisdiction Archiepiscopal saith Dr. Heylin within all the Liberties as the Abbots had heretofore Ever since Sebert King of Essex Kings and Queens have been Successively and in the Eye of the Law the Founders of the Church and of all within it As it is now a Collegiate Church Queen Elizabeth was the Foundress and our King at this day whom God preserve is in Law the Founder of it As for all the same Reasons He is the Founder of our Colledge and Church of Sarum as well by several Acts of Parliament as in our own Books Our Norman Kings did say of it as Will. 1. of Battle Abby Libera sit sicut mea Basilica Capella and as that was exempted from the Power and Visitation of the Bishops of Chichester so was ours from the Bishops of Sarum as shall be shewn in its proper Place I end this Section with that Old Distich in Spondanus of our Salisbury Cathedral and with a Verse made in those very times Rex largitur opes fert Praesul opem Lapicidae Dant operam tribus his est opus ut stet opus Regis enim Virtus Templo spectabitur isto Sect. 3. Thirdly Altho' I do not say with that incomparable Civilian Sir Thomas Ridley That the King himself is instead of the whole Law yea he is the Law it self and the only Interpreter thereof in as much as all those who govern under him govern by him and for him Yet I will and do say with our Acts of Parliament That the Kingdom of England is an Empire and the King Supreme Head of it and his Crown an Imperial Crown He is not a Precarious but an Absolute Monarch saith the Learned Camden in his Britannia Supremam Potestatem merum Imperium habet apud nos Rex And his Sovereign Dominion over all Ecclesiastical Persons and in all Causes without exception is confessed to be de Iure by All our Clergy Men in their Pulpits as well as by All in England who pay him Firsts-fruits and Tenths Not excepting those very Persons who cannot yet Pardon my most necessary Distinction on which doth lye the whole stress of Ours and all Other Cathedrals between an Original and Derivative Right a Right Supreme and one Suburdinate thereunto Our Proprietaries in the Chief of the Church of Saerum and so it is with the strictest Propriety of speaking that in all their Royal Mandates they use that Stile Our Church of Sarum For as Proprietaries in Chief bonae fidei Possessores and Founders of the Bishoprick as well as of All belonging to it I find and can prove against the naked and cheap Denials of such as can easily deny what they cannot Disprove by any Artifices or Strengths that our Monarchs have Acted as Despotically in and over the Church of Sarum as in any their Mansion Houses Who but our Monarchs did take away the Fourteen Prebends I reckon'd up in my Collections and the Archdeaconry of Dorset and all the Dorsetshire Iurisdiction from the Bishops of Sarum not so much as One Parish remaining there unto the Bishop though about Forty to the Dean and conferred them upon others according to their Wills and Pleasures To begin with the first Times were to write a Volume Let it suffice that Hen. 8. gave Four of them at once to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor as that of Okeborn St. Andrew that of Okeborn St. George that of Hungerford and that of Sherbourn but did not take from the Dean of Sarum the Episcopal Iurisdiction in any one of them Nor in that which was given by Hen. 8. or Ed. 6. to the Earls of Pembroke to wit the Great Prebend of Axford supposed to have been given by Q. Elizabeth to her Secretary of State Sir Francis Walsingham from whom I know it came by Purchase to Sir Francis Pyle's Grandfather the like to which he has also in the Prebend of Sherbourn in Dorset which hath been variously disposed of to and fro by our several Monarchs for about Five Hundred Years together from King Stephen to King Iames. And tho' Sherbourn was the Seat of so vast a Bishoprick that no fewer than Four Bishopricks were taken out of it yet the whole Jurisdiction of That and many round about it have still been saved intirely by All our Monarchs since the Conquest to Him who was then and ever since the Dean of their Majesties free Chappel and Church of Sarum Then Formaliter and ever since Virtualiter in Respect of the Franchises belonging to him Indeed in the Prebend of Bedwin given away by Ed. 6. to the Earl of Hertford and his Heirs the Dean of Sarum has but Episcopal Iurisdiction and a Triennial Visitation the like to which he has in the Prebend of Faringdon which is now in Sir Robert Pye to whom it descended from his Father by whom it was bought of the Lady Umpton and given for ever from the Bishop and Church of Sarum by Ed. 6. to Wm. Hening Esq. A. D. 1550. The Three good Prebends of Uphaven Loders and Horton were Alienated from us I
clear Title to the Right of the Regale in all the Bishopricks of his Kingdom That a General Council cannot lessen it much less a Pope That no Present King can be deprived of what a former King had That the King 's Collating to Prebends is such an Act of Supremacy so the Historian does infer as shews the King to be Lord in Fee and by the Code made in the Time of Hen. 4. If a Chapter refuse to Install a Regalist Letters are to go out to compel them to it or else their Revenues are to be Seized on Briefly 't was confessed by the Bishop of Pamiees the stoutest Assertor of the Pope's Ecclesiastical Supremacy that The Foundation of Churches does prove the King 's Right of Patronage All which and much more may be Collected out of Dr. Burnet's elaborate History of the Rights of Princes c. And if the French Kings Prerogative is such who does not own an Ecclesiastical Supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons as our King does How much greater is the Regale of our Kings here in England ever since the Reformation I will conclude this Comparison of the King of France with the French King in the words of this King's Procurator General in Parliament to wit That the King can no more renounce the Right of the Regale in Ecclesiasticis either in whole or in part than he can destroy the Salick Law or quit the Sovereignty of any Provinces in France And further adds They would all quit their Employments rather than consent to the least Diminution of that Right There are some among Us who do not speak in that Strain though others do Sect. 4. Fourthly I observed a Maxim of Law in my Lord Coke which did Confirm me in my Distinction between a Supream and Subordinate Right The Maxim is that If the Title of the King and of a common Person concurr the King's Title shall be Preferred For the Law saith he respecteth Honour and Order Therefore if the King makes one Man a Resident whilst the Dean and Chapter is choosing and have a desire to Choose another the Dean and Chapter will prefer the King's Clerk and not dispute with his Majesty de jure Patronatus Several Instances may be given in several Churches Those of Sarum and Wells in especial manner So if the King presents One to a Prebend without Residence and the Bishop Another the Dean and Chapter will Install and Admit the King's Man because by express Statute-Law The King is the Advower Paramount immediate of all Churches and Prebends And accordingly our Kings the Last and Present in particular do not only Recommend but pro Imperio plane Despotico do expresly Command Obedience to and Compliance with them and that sometimes in the very same Line sometimes two or three Lines lower sometimes again in the Conclusion Yes and in variety of Despotical Expressions as great as any can be invented in Law to be Imperial Such as are for instance We will We command We will and require Willing and requiring you Our pleasure is Our express will and pleasure is This We will have done Any Use Custome Prescription or any other Matter or Thing to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding Again We Will and Our Pleasure is that You cause these our Letters to be entred in your Register to the end they may be produced when Occasion requires What French King did ever Write in a more Decretory Despotical and Masterly Stile than Le Roy le veult Car tel est son plaisir This was as far as Heaven from Hell from Expresly Disclaiming a Royal Patronage and Right and Iurisdiction I will add but one more which was both ways Despotical to wit by a signal Inhibition and by a Peremptory Command For having said that He had given unto his Chaplain Dr. Drake the Dignity and Office of Chancellor in that his Cathedral Church of Sarum with the Prebend thereto annexed His Majesty added these signal words We hereby Will and Require that no Other Person be Admitted or Elected into any Residentiaries Place now vacant or that shall be vacant until He the said Dr. Drake be received into the Rights and Profits of Residence And for so doing This shall be your Warrant Much more might be said of the King's Mandate for Dr. Whitby which yet I forbear till occasion serves Only of this I am assured by as Eminent a Lawyer as perhaps ever was That a false Suggestion in a Petition to the King does void the King 's Grant of the thing Petitioned for It being a Maxim in My Lord Coke The Grant is void where the King is deceived in his Grant Besides all this I sadly considered with my self how often Bishops Temporalities have been Resumed by our Kings upon light Displeasures How often Will. 2. did Resume his own Grants And how he at once took all the Profits of the Bishopricks of Canterbury Winchester and Sarum And how all Bishops were threaten'd by Hen. 3. With a Seizure of all they had if they presumed to intermeddle in any thing to the Prejudice of the Crown Lastly How all our Kings and Parliaments excepting one even from Hen. 3. until the 6. of Hen. 8. have used Acts of Resumption whereby to Repair the low Estate of the Crown The just and frequent way to do it said the learned Sir Robert Cotton in his Speech to the House of Commons 1 Car. 1. The Dean of Sarum as much as any Man is for the Bishop of Sarum's Rights though not exclusively of the Kings and would have it stand safely by standing for ever upon a Rock to wit The Prerogative of our Monarchs who in Law can never dye They tend to the Ruin of the Prelacy and all Cathedrals who labour to make their King Despotical in the Sence of the Greek Proverb only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be a Family never so Great there is but one Servant in it and that is the Master of the House But the Learned Dr. Burnet affirms the King to be Despotical in a much better Sense For premising an Observation how frequently Christian Monarchs made Paenal Laws for Church-men the Pains of which were Suspension or Deprivation whereof the Instances are many both in the old Roman Laws and in the Capitulars He Infers the King's Mastership and gives a very sound Reason for it Indeed the Bishops of Rome for several Centuries of Years even in all their Publick Bulls and till the Death of Charles the Great did own the Emperors of their Times as their Lords and Masters And Richard Poor Bishop of Sarum did own King Iohn as his Master with greater Reason however that King de facto made himself the Pope's Vassal Postulans ab Eo tanquam a Domino suo manus adjutrices All agree the Monarchs of England have power to Suspend or Deprive a Bishop as Ours has done an Arch-Bishop and that for a lesser degree
or in the Prebendary both being at most for Term of Life and both Subject to Deprivations for less then Treason or Felony therefore 't is in the King as Original Founder whose Royal Right can never dye King Hen. 8. and Ed. 6. did act accordingly and the same Authority which was made use of by Hen. 8. and Ed. 6. was declared by Parliament to be in Q. Eliz. her Heirs and Successors Nor can any Discontinuance be any prejudice to a King 's Right who therein hath this Prerogative Quod nullum Tempus occurrit Regi And when a King ordains any thing for the Honour of God and the Church he Wills not saith my Lord Coke that it turn to the Prejudice of Him or his Crown but that his Right should be saved in all Points Besides the Church is for ever in Law a Minor as I observed before semper in Custodia Domini Regis And 't is unnatural that the Guardian should have nothing to dispose of not so much as a Prebend in the Minority of his Pupil to which he is a Nursing Father The King's Possession and Rights saith the same Oracle of the Law are called Sacra Patrimonia Dominica Corona Regis So that 't is Sacriledge to invade them Nor can he so make them away but that at one time or other they will revert unto the Crown He is in Law Summus Dominus supra Omnes still the words of Chief Justice Coke of whom are held either mediately or immediately All the Free Lands of England much more all Ecclesiasticals for term of Life onely or Quam diu bene se gesserint Possessores Lastly The King is not only the Legal Founder and Patron of all the Bishopricks in England and of all contained in them as Causa Causae is ever Causa Causati But he is himself in Person the Supreme and Sovereign Bishop of every Diocess in England It being the true and known saying of Constantine the Great an Englishman born and King of Britain as well as Emperour of Rome and Constantinople in his Speech unto the Fathers of the first Nicene General Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And every body knows that the perpetual Advocation or right Patronage of is a Lay Fee as peculiar to many Lay Subjects much more to the Sovereign qui intra Ecclesiam potestatis Culmen habet say the Canonists themselves as Institution to a Subordinate Bishop or other Ordinary and Induction to an Archdeacon Especially when the thing presented to is without Cure of Souls as Prebends are For where a Parsonage is the Corps of any Prebendary at large and demised for three Lives to a Secular man as most commonly it is the cure of Souls is wholly devolved and incumbent upon the Vicar if at least there is a Vicaridge endowed and if not upon the Curate But the Rector and his Tenent are both Exempt Briefly our Monarch has a Right as well by Common as Statute Law and the Deans of Sarum have ever been largely Partakers of it by Royal Bounty to Exempt what Place he will from every Bishop's Jurisdiction and when he will from the Arch-Bishops such as Pool and other places in the possession of Sir Iohn Webb Every Ordinary in England such as is the Dean of Sarum in the Close is an immediate Officer to the King's Courts And to the King Appeals lye even from the Court of Arches His Majesty being in Law Le dernier Resort de la Iustice yea in Places exempt no Archbishop may intermeddle according to 25 Hen. 8. c. 19. 6. and c. 21. § 20. And all Iurisdiction Ecclesiastical being both derived from and inseparably annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and that for ever by Acts of Parliament from thence it is that a Convocation cannot meet without the King 's Writ nor treat at their meeting without his Commission nor Establish any thing when Commissioned without his Royal Assent and Fiat They who say less than this Do make Episcopacy Prejudicial to Monarchy which Bishop Sanderson could not endure and set up a Papal like Supremacy in a Protestant Kingdom A Loyal Subject and Son of the Church of England will conscientiously distinguish with Padre Paul and the Canonists between Dominion and Dispensation and then he will dutifully concede That where the Bishop is Dispensator the King is Dominus CHAP. II. WHat I said in my unprinted Narrative of the King's Castle at Old Sarum and of the King 's Free Chappel in it before the Cathedral Church was built All which is gain-said by the present Lord Bishop of Sarum in his Answer to the said Narrative I take upon me to prove and to place beyond Dispute by not a few of the best Historians who have written of those Times whose printed Writings are extant and do confirm what was produced out of the Dean of Sarum's Register which was extracted out of the Registers for the most important Part of it of the Ancient Bishops of Sarum and which I thought had been Sufficient without the Confirmations of it which now ensue Sect. 1. First 'T is plain from William of Malmsbury that the said Castle was the Peculium of the King and stood upon the King's Soil Castellum Salesberiae Regij Iuris Proprium erat Sect. 2. Next 't is Evident from the same and from other old Authors of greatest Note such as Eadmerus Florentius Wigorniensis Roger Hoveden Simeon Dunelmensis All elder than Matthew Paris and Matthew Paris himself and several others that the said Castle was a Place of Usual Resort for the Kings of England and sometimes for Extraordinary Meetings As for Example A. D. 1086. Aug. 1. William the Conqueror pointed his Bishops Barons Sheriffs and their Milites to meet him at Saresbury where and when the said Milites took their Oaths of Fidelity to him So saith Florentius of Worcester the Ancientest Writer who hath mentioned the Church of Old Sarum and Roger Hoveden This precisely was the Year wherein was compiled the Doomsday-Book as the same Authors and the Book it self Witness A. D. 1096. W. Rufus held a Council in his Castle at old Sarum as the same Authors testify when Osmund was present and took the Confession of William de Alvery before he went to Execution A. D. 1100. Henry I. le Beauclerc newly Crowned held his Court in the same Castle Arch-Bishop Anselm repairing thither to His Majesty among the rest So saith Eadmer p. 55 He also held an Assembly of the Three Estates at Old Sarum which had from that Time the Name of Parliament A. D. 1116. The same King called a Meeting of the Bishops and Great Men of the whole Kingdom at the same Place there to do their Homage to his Son William So saith Eadmer pag. 117. Florentius and Hoveden Hitherto is no mention of City Town or Village but of the King's Castle only Which W. Malmsb. thus describes
therefore is it for men to lessen that Monarch in his Prerogative who did not only make them but does still keep them Great How often had the Hierarchy been trodden utterly under foot if the King singly had not Sustained them How many Parliaments may be convened who will Vote down All Bishops and Deans and Chapters ab Actu ad potentiam optime valet Argumentum if the King will prompt them to it or but Consent when it is done They who look downwards upon themselves but neither backwards nor forwards on the years that are passed and the years to come do not consider what Protections they have received from the King at the King 's great cost or what Protections for the future they may have a sad Occasion to wish and pray for And here I should have ended this 2d Chapter but for a Passage out of the Annals of Burton Abby MS. 1245. Which shews that even then in the Time of Hen. 3. long enough after Osmund and Will 1. the King of England had Many Free Chappels and was resolved to keep them Free Indeed so many that diverse Parish Churches which did but Neighbour on the King's Castles were apt to pretend to that Priviledge Yea the Chappels in the King's Castles were Confirmed in their Immunities Exemptions and Liberties by Popes themselves As appears by that Kings Proclamation Dated at Westminster March the 3d. in the 30. Year of His Reign Wherein he strictly Commanded that the said Freedom of his Chappels should be Perpetual Et ne Aliquis contra praedictum Privilegium aliquid audeat attemptare Nor hath any of our Monarchs taken away or surrendered that glorious Branch of their Prerogative whatever Subjects have attempted by joining with Boniface the 9th CHAP. III. WHereas 't was affirmed by the Bishop of Sarum to the Lords That there never was a Time when either the Dean and Canons were exempt from all Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Sarum The contrary to it is confessed and strongly proved by his Lordship himself in the very next Words following wherein his Lordship cites The Composition that was made between Bishop Waltham Dean Montacute and the Then Chapter of the said Church which was no longer since than in the Year 1391. whereas the Absolute Exemption of the Dean and All the Canons from the Bishops Jurisdiction was in the Year 1095. Between which two Dates there was an Interval of almost 300 Years Which Composition so called was indeed a Conspiracy of the said Bishop Dean and Chapter with Pope Boniface the Ninth by whom it was confirmed and for which by the Laws of England even c Then in force they did incur a Praemunire Which All the Bishops ever since are humbly conceived to have incurred who have presumed to Act according to That Conspiracy I. Against the Supremacy and Prerogative of the King II. Against the Common and Statute Law of the Land III. Against the Fundamental Statute of our Subordinate Founder Osmund IV. Against their own Souls in two respects first in respect of the Several Oaths which have severally been Sworn by all the Bishops Deans and Chapters That they would keep and cause to be kept as much as in them lay that Fundamental Statute of Osmund with all the Priviledges Dignities Immunities and Exemptions therein contained of which Oaths the said Conspiracy or Composition is a Professed Violation as shall be shewn in its proper place Secondly in respect of the heavy Curse which Osmund denounced against All those who should dare to pervert the said Fundamental Constitutions in any kind V. Against its own Being by reason of its several Inconsistences with it self and of the several Nullities contained in it Lastly Against the Well-being if not against the very Being of the whole College within the Cathedral Church of Sarum by reason of its most scandalous and most mischievous Effects But of each in its Order § 1. First It was a Conspiracy against the King of England and his Prerogative who is in Law declared to be the Founder as well as Patron of all the Archibishopricks and Bishopricks in England but took care in his Original Charter granted to his Favourite Osmund sealed first with the Seal of Will I. and then with the Seal of Will II. to exempt his Dean and All his Prebendaries or Canons from the Bishops Jurisdiction in as full and as plain a manner as Latin words could express an Exemption by In words so carefully contrived against all possible Affectation of Jurisdiction over the College of Dean and Chapter in any succeeding Bishop of Sarum that what the present Lord Bishop of Sarum would make an Argument for himself and his Affected Jurisdiction makes quite against him For the Voice and the Place which the Bishop has in Chapter common to him with all the 52 Canons he has as Prebendary of Pottern not as Bishop of Sarum nor has he so much as a Second Voice as he is Prebendary of Blewbery because he was never admitted to it by Installation nor lawfully could be For when Hen. 2. had given two Prebends to One man in one Church Pope Alexander the Third complained of it in his Letter as Unlawful and Uncanonical Not denying the King 's Right of conferring Prebends but the Evil use of it So that the Bishop in Capitulo has but one single Vote and the liberty to propose what he thinks may tend to the good of the Church or to complain of what he takes to be amiss as every other Prebendary has as free liberty to do and to be punished or amended by the Authority of Dean and Chapter Nor is it said to be the Duty but the Dignity of the Dean and of all the Canons ut Episcopo in nullo respondeant nisi in Capitulo To which 't is added in the next words what his Lordship does not mention judicio Tantùm Capituli pareant where the word Tantum excludes the Bishops Iudgment or definitive Sentence of any matter limits it wholly to the Body of the Great Chapter consisting of All the Canons Non-Resident and Resident whereof the Dean is the Head and the Prebendary of Pottern a worthy Member but the Bishop as Bishop is neither of them Nor was this Signal Exemption only in the Foundation of the Cathedral made at once by the Supreme and the Subordinate Founder but it was Repeated and Confirmed by Hen. III. and Bishop Poor in the Removal of the same from Old to New Sarum in the years 1220. And the same Oaths for the due observance of it have been ever since Sworn by all the Bishops Deans and Chapters without Exception All which was alledged with effect in the Chapters Accusation of Bishop Erghum to Archbishop Sudbury 1375 whom they charged before his Grace at once with Perjury and Usurpation for affecting a Jurisdiction over the Canons when the Dean was Dead and the Deanry Vacant at a Time wherein the Bishop had a little colour for it
though not in any other Place under the Decanal Iurisdiction of Tho. Pierce Decan Sarum Now it is to be noted that the Parish of Broad-Chalk is under the Bishop's Jurisdiction and that the Lord Bishop was then at home in his Palace within the Close and that his Leave had been sufficient without the Deans had he had any Jurisdiction within the Close much more had his Jurisdiction been Archiepiscopal or Regal and so Superior to the Deans Lastly That the Bishops Surrogate knowing well that his Lordship had none at all within the Close though his Lordship and the Sub-Dean have all between them in the City did therefore make his Application to the Dean and the Dean only In like manner the Collection which was made within the Close for the rebuilding of St. Paul's London the Redemption of Captives and the like was made and returned by the Dean only and his Officers according to the King's Order and Direction N. V. If we step as far back as to the Year of our Lord 1584. we shall find the great difference between a Bishop of Sarum who was first Dean of Sarum and a Bishop who never was Dean of the same Church For Dr. Iohn Pierce whilst Dean of Sarum did in conjunction with his Chapter and by Command of Queen Elizabeth to whom he was Almoner many years upon the 17th of October 1573. begin the good work of abolishing Superstitious and Popish Statutes without the consent or the assistance of the then Bishop Edmund Ghuest Though he so swept the Church as to leave some Dust behind the Door But being afterwards Bishop of Sarum as after that Archbishop of York he got a Commission from the Archbishop of the Province to visit the Church upon occasion of the Case of Dr. Zouch and said he was fultus Iurisdictione Metropolitana knowing well and confessing that as Bishop of Sarum he had no right to Visit the Choral Vicars much less the Chapter much less the Dean for if he had he would not have needed any Commission from the Archbishop of the whole Province N. VI. The said Exemption of All the Canons of the greater and lesser Chapter who make a Superiour Corporation whereof their Dean is the Head may be yet farther proved by the Exemption of All the Vicars who are an Inferiour Corporation from the Bishop of Sarum's Power and Jurisdiction For it appears by the Vicars Charter which they enjoy from the Crown of England as the Dean and Chapter do Theirs that they are only subjected to the correction of Dean and Chapter not at all to the Bishops who can neither put in nor punish much less put out a Vicar or a Lay Clerk however criminal And accordingly the Vicars as well as the Lay Clerks take an Oath at their Admission of paying Obedience unto the Dean and to the Dean only whilst he is present and in the Dean's Absence to the Deans Locum-tenens authorized under the Seal of the Decanal Office But none at all to the Bishop whether Present or Absent which was eminently acknowledged by this present Bishop in his own Palace when in the presence of the Dean and Chapter and all the Vicars his Lordship protested three several times to Mr. Hardwick the Vicars Procurator and Prolocutor and to his Brethren then present That if it were in his Power he would expel them every one for their then Recalcitration and Opposition both to the Bishop and to the Chapter when good Lawyers told the Vicars they had the Law on their Side The Vicars were not a little pleased at his Lordship 's Brutum Fulmen and confession of his No-Power over the Vicars within the Close three times repeated Nor could any but the Dean bring those Vicars to a Submission and full compliance which he soon after did with the best effect N. VII Even since my coming to keep my Residence at Sarum the 20th of this instant Iune I find two Notorious and Publick Confessions in effect of the Lord Bishop of Sarum his having no Power to Visit within the Close whether the Dean will or no or without the Dean's Leave Concurrence and Consent under the Seal of his Decanal Office as well as under his own Hand which being sought but refused very honestly and prudently by the Dean's Surrogate in his absence and without his knowledge the Dean's Locum-tenens for the Chapter as the Sub Dean Mr. Kent is the Dean's Surrogate for his Court and his peculiar Jurisdiction wherewith the Chapter hath nothing to do nor any mortal Besides the King and the Arch-Bishop of the Great Province did as absurdly as unfaithfully clap the Common Seal of the Dean and Chapter of the Dean chiefly as the Head and of the Chapter as his Members by usurping my Name in it and by counterfeiting my Will against my Will my Interest my Jurisdiction without asking my Consent or Permission without so much as saying By your Leave Sir yea studiously and in haste without my knowledge even when He and the Rest knew I was but few Miles from them and even then coming tho' not yet come to my House at Sarum Being come I soon found Two Citations in the Choir made by a Fiction of my Name and of my Name only beginning Thus Thomas Pierce Sancta Theol. Professor Ecclesiae Cathedralis Sarum Decanus ejusdem Ecclesiae Capitulum Universis Singulis c. Finding This to be done 1. Without my knowledge and 2. With my very great Abhorrence 3. Against my Judgment 4. Against my Right of Jurisdiction 5. Against the King of whom I hold my Jurisdiction under the Great Seal of England and unto whose Imperial Crown my Iurisdiction is annexed by 32 Acts of Parliament 6. Against my self in mine own name and Poetically brought in upon the stage Citing my self and the Bishop as the Prebendary of Blewbery but not as Prebendary of Pottern which the Bishop is also Comically personated whether I will or no like a Puppet moving by Wires 7. Against Express Statute to the contrary 8. Against the Oaths of the Members of the Chapter who had an Hand in the usurpation which I am sure but few had 9. Against the Trust reposed in my Deputy and 10. Against the very License or Constitution whereby I had enabled him in my Absence to call Chapters for the taking care of God's worship the keeping of Statutes and Laudable Customs of the Church as far as they agree with the Word of God and with the Law of the Land and for the Correction of the Canons and Members but so limited as I have said not for the using the Common Seal at all much less at his Pleasure without my knowledge and consent and against my self I say finding This and a world of Absurdities too many and too great to be recounted in this Pinch of Time I inferred their Conviction of my sole Right as Dean to cite the 52 Prebendaries and all other members who had sworn obedience to me from
believed upon their Oaths much less upon their Words who will not believe the Dean of Sarum and Mr. Cornelius Yeats of Marlborough either upon their Words or upon their Oaths Mr. Yeats his Character is no where fitter to be seen than in the famous Petition of the Mayor and Magistrates of Marlborough to the King Presented by the hands of the Lord Bruce in his behalf whose great Parts and greater Piety are celebrated by Them both to the King and the Lords Commissioners who have the best experience and knowledge of him And not yet to mention those Horrid and Scandalous Reports which Mr. Yeats his bitter Enemies have laboured under and still do labour There are not any either of his or of the Dean of Sarum's Enemies who can prove so convincingly that they had not any hand in or Assent to or Connivance at or Knowledge of the most execrable Murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey until they had it by report as the said Dean hath proved and can prove that he had no hand in or Assent to or Connivance at or Knowledge of Mr. Yeats his Project of the Four Articles until he was informed of it by the Lord Bishop of Sarum and by the Chapter of the same in a Letter from Mr. Frome For Sir Edm. Godfrey being dead can attest nothing on their behalf and they have nothing but their own Oaths whereby to clear their own Innocence to which they have forfeited all Belief with considering men But Mr. Yeats is still living to clear the Dean of Sarum upon his Oath the which he offered in open Court and will be ever ready to take and who will ever find Belief from All who are acquainted with his unblameable Conversation which will every where have credit where his Enemies have None Nor hath he or the Dean of Sarum any Enemies they know of who are not Enemies at the same time both to God and the King and the Church of England 'T is the Nature of Christian Charity not to suspect others hastily of any ill thing which it abhors whilst they who are wont to do Injuries suspect others of the like Nothing hitherto can be said to clear the Regular and Episcopal Clergy from a suspition of being Papists or Popishly affected with the whole Dissenting and Schismatical Party and they who suspected or rather pretended to suspect the Dean of Sarum of a Plot to deprive the Bishop of a Right to give Prebends even immediately after the Bishop had promised a Prebend to the Dean's Son of his own accord and undesired which added most of all to the Obligation are like those most Malitious and Unexcusable Fanaticks who pretended to suspect the King himself not only of contriving the Fire of London but also of being in the plot against his own Life and Kingdom See the excellent Address to all the Freeholders and Freemen of England part 1. pag. 45 and 50. and part 2. pag. 2 3 5 6. § 3. But now suppose the Dean of Sarum had not only permitted but perswaded Mr. Yeats and the Magistrates of Marlborough to apply themselves unto the King for a Prebend of Sarum and to plead that the Supremacy of Right to give Prebends is in the King from whose Original Right the Bishops Right to give them is but derivative and therefore only a good and undoubted Right because derived from the Crown he had not abjured the doing of it but rather had owned it with Ambition The only Reason why he denies it is because it is a Lye and because he is a lover of Truth and Justice and because he will not willingly fully the Merit of his Obedience to the very express Commands of the Lords Commissioners who finding him averse from his being a Voluntier were therefore pleased to press him for his Majesties Service wherein he had not been else employed § 4. In compliance with the said Order and peremptory Command of the Lords Commissioners to which no Churchman could refuse to pay Obedience the Dean of Sarum drew up a Narrative of Matters of Fact which he had found in Old Registers wherein he took occasion to censure Mr. Yeats § 9. and to assert the Lord Bishop of Sarum's Right to dispose of Dignities Sub-Dignities and Prebends at large § 10. as well as the Right of the Dean singly together with the Rights of Dean and Chapter in conjunction And all upon the same principle or ground on which he humbly did conceive the several Rights were all held He did conceive that all Rights are either Subordinate or Supream He thought it dangerous to assert the Subjects Rights to be Supream and therefore called them Subordinate And lastly He thought their Rights the Firmer for being derived from and depending on and standing upon so sure a Bottom as the Supream He shew'd what our Monarchs had done de facto in and over the Church of Sarum which was not to reveal a Secret for some of the Alienations of several Prebends and one Archdeaconry from that Church are publickly written in Letters of Gold on the several Stalls and exposed to the Reading of all Mankind But whether such Alienations were or could be de Iure the said Dean left humbly to the Consideration of his Superiors What more or less could have been said to that purpose by any of the Chapter or by them All or by my Lord Bishop himself if either of them had been so commanded to speak his Knowledge or his Sense as the Dean of Sarum was they themselves can best tell but the Dean of Sarum is yet to learn § 5. One thing is fit to be considered by those Pretenders to a suspicion of Persons more credible than themselves which suspicion 't is thought they have not and cannot have in good earnest against the Evidence and Conviction they have several times met with if at least they have Faith and Charity and do really believe there is a God and a Devil and Heaven and Hell Suppose that two of their Number shall be pretended to be suspected of two grand Crimes the one of Simony and the other of Incest and that the Whispers of those Suspicions shall be disseminated and spread into publick Fame Will not those Persons be glad to be allowed to prove the Negative upon their Oaths Will they not take it extreamly ill to get no more by their Vindication than to have the Fame of Perjury superadded to the suspicions both of Simony and Incest Will they not expostulate si accusasse suffecerit Quis erit Innocuus Will they not probably break out into the Learned Diatribist's Exclamation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They cannot hope to be believed upon their own single Oaths who dare pretend not to believe honester Men upon their double ones Besides that Simony and Incest will be accounted more scandalous even by the Whigs in these worst of Times than to be zealous for the King 's Rights or to obey the Lords Commissioners And therefore if the
Inventers of silly Jealousies and Lyes shall at any time chance to suffer the heinous things which they have done they will learn for the future to deal with their Neighbours and their Friends as they would that their Enemies should deal with Them Part of Mr. Cornelius Yeats his LETTER to a Person of Great Honour an Eminent Officer at Court and afterwards to another of lesser Quality giving an Account of his Undertaking after the Petition of the Mayor and Magistrates of Marlborough to the KING in his behalf BEsides my appearing for the King's Prerogative and Right which was a principal Motive to this so strange Attempt of mine I had likewise two other Inducements which I hope may in some measure take off the blame and very tolerably account for a Procedure of this Nature The One that the Bishop of Sarum some years since voluntarily promised and that with repeated Asseverations I do not say the next Prebend but whatever lay in his Power to do for me though being since that time again and again Requested by me and by many Others not considerable Persons on my behalf at what time there were vacant Prebends many in one Year yet he never did any thing towards the Augmentation of my Poor Maintenance so that indeed I was weary of depending any longer upon Complements Next I did but follow as I was led the Bishops own Example for having observed that his Lordship applyed himself to the King for a Royal Mandate whereby to over Rule the Dean and Chapter of Sarum to Praeelect his Nephew Mr. Seth Ward into the next Place of Residence which should be void the only Good Thing which is in the Gift of the Dean and Chapter when the King does not oppose his Original Right to their Derivative I thought I might with greater Reason apply my self in such a way as I did viz. by asserting the Kings Original Right to obtain from His Majesty a Prebend at large of a lesser Value not the only Good Thing in the Bishops Gift by a Derivative Right whereof the Original is in the King because that Nephew had been before provided for by two Uncle-Bishops with as much as would have served five or six Worthy men and did not want an Augmentation as I evidently did nor was his Task so great as mine is very well known to have always been nor did his Uncle want Things in his particular Disposal as most of my Patrons did and do nor had the Bishop more Right Derivative to bestow a Prebend at large than the Dean and Chapter to bestow the Places of Residence and his Lordships applying himself to the King for such a Canonry was accoring to the Rules of all the Logick that I ever have been acquainted with a Confession of his Iudgment that All Promotions in the Cathedral Church of Sarum are in the King by an Original Right though by a Derivative in the Bishop partly and partly in the Dean and Chapter and truly Sir I had a fairer Opinion of his Lordship than to think he would blame that in me which he approved of in himself Nor did I imagine but that a Poor Vicar might beg what he wanted of his King as well as a Great and Rich Bishop who wanted nothing Sir I have here freely and fully discovered the very sense and thoughts of my Heart to you and do humbly hope that I may from You at least obtain a merciful and candid Opinion of my Proceedings But I am afraid I have wearied you with the unusual length of this Letter I am sure I have wearied my self in writing it having already preached twice this day and being also to prepare another Sermon at a Funeral to Morrow Night which may serve to excuse what slips may have here fallen from my Pen. I hope I shall always deport my self as become him who is Your most c. Part of Mr. Yeats his Letter of Dec. 14. 1682. to the Lord Bishop of Sarum in Vindication of the Dean My Lord NO Person can be more highly displeased with me than I am with my self for having under the impatience of some disappointments attempted a thing so far above my reach in that Paper delivered to the Lords Commissioners especially since I find that hereby I have not only provoked your Lordship but also my Worthy Patron the Dean of Sarum once my Friend but now I fear made my Enemy as being hereby wrongfully drawn under the most unjust Suspicion of his having been privy to my Design when as the Truth is which merely to do him right I think my self bound to declare and if your Lordship require I will affirm it upon Oath He had no hand in or knowledge of those Informations nor as I verily do believe of any my proceedings thereabout till my Letter to him at Canterbury in Nov. last which he answered with sharp Reproofs and a Declaration of his Absolute Refusal to assist me in any thing or to deliver what he might know of that matter so that I was forced seeing my self Summoned into your Lordships Consistory to use my utmost endeavours with all my Friends to procure a peremptory Command to him from the Lords Commissioners which I hear is now sent but with what effect I do not as yet understand only that it hath brought him to White-Hall Besides my Lord the thing speaks it self Articles so unskilfully penned and with so many disadvantages to the Cause undertaken can never be supposed to have been drawn up by his Advice or so much as Connivance or Permission c. This is all of that Letter wherein the Dean is concerned FINIS Connubium Regiae Praerogativae cum Magnâ Chartâ Anglorum AN Compositio quae vulgo dicitur à Papa Romano Confirmata A D. 1392. Ecclesiae Sarum Fundamenta convellat penitus evertatque An cum ijsdem nequaquam pugnet Quae sequuntur perlecturis liquidò admodum Constabit § 1. Osmundi Charta in ipsa Fundatione edita ac Sigillo Regis Willielmi communita ex cujus Dono Concessu de Dominio suo Regali tam in Ecclesiis quam in Terris Ecclesia Cathedralis Sarum Originem duxit Incrementum inter caetera Haec habet Dignitas est Decani omnium Canonicorum ut Episcopo in nullo respondeant nisi in Capitulo judicio tantum Capituli pareant Habeant etiam Curiam suam in omnibus Praebendis suis Dignitatem Archidiaconi ubicunque Praebendae fuerint assignatae in Parochia nostra sive in Ecclesiis vel Decimis vel Terris Ita quidem quòd Nulla omnino Exigentia in dono vel in Assisa aut aliqua alia Consuetudine ab Episcopo vel a quolibet Alio fiat in Praebendis eorum Sed Omnes Libertates omnes Dignitates Plenarie Pacifice habeant Quas Ego Osmundus Episcopus in eisdem Praebendis habui Aut Aliquis Alius cum eas in nostro Dominio haberemus Quando verò aliquis constituitur Canonicus