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A30331 A continuation of reflections on Mr. Varillas's History of heresies particularly on that which relates to English affairs in his third and fourth tomes / by G. Burnet ... Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715. 1687 (1687) Wing B5771; ESTC R23040 59,719 162

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he made Cromwel Great Chamberlain and created him Earl of Essex and made his Son a Lord. But this is so false that the King from the time he saw Anne of Cleve had an aversion for her and intended once to have sent her away without Marrying her and after he had married her he told Cromwel how much he disliked her and that he believed She was no Maid and that her person was loathsom so that he believed he should never be able to consummate the Marriage so that Cromwel had rather reason to apprehend that this proving so unhappy it would be his Ruin He was not made Earl of Essex till the April following so that as this Marriage was too unlucky to do him any service it seems it did not hurt him much neither XXII He shews us how well he understands our Constitutions when he says That the Subsidy granted the King was a Tenth and the Fourth part of a fifteenth whereas it was a Tenth and Four Fifteenths XXIII He says That Cromwel having met with some Opposition by three members of Parliament who were the Bishop of Chichester Dr. Wilson and Frammer a Merchant he charged some false Crimes on them and put them in prison but he proceeded more severely against John Nevil Knight of the Garter for he subordned false Witnesses against him so that he was beheaded 1. The Bishop of Chichester comply'd with every thing that was done in Parliament as appears by the Journal of the House of Lords but some Correspondence that he held with the Court of Rome being discovered about this time he was put in prison but upon his submission he was set at Liberty 2. Wilson being a Clergy-man could not be of the House of Commons and he was no Bishop so that he could not be a Member of either House but he was clapt up as a Compsice of the Bishop of Chichester's and likewise set at liberty with him Frammer is not named there is indeed one Grunceter a Merchant named who was condemned of Treason a year before this 3. There was one Sr. Edward Nevil a Knight tho not of the Garter who was indeed condemned and executed a year before this but it was for being in a Confederacy with Cardinal Pool and more particularly for having said that the King was a Beast and worst than a Beast God only knows whether the Witnesses swore true or false against him XXIV He tells us That C●omwel to fill up the measure of his Iniquities got a Law to be made by which he might easily dispatch all those who should oppose his Designs which was that any man condemned in absence without being heard to justify himself either in person or by proxy should be esteemed as justly condemned as if it had been done in the common form Here is indeed the great blemish of of King Henry's Reign and of Cromwel's Ministry but it is told in such a manner by Mr. Varillas that it appears to be no extraordinary thing as he relates it 1. There was no Law made about this it was only practised by the Parliament as the Legislative Body without giving the common Courts of Judicature the power of using it 2. The Condemning men in Absence has been always practised by our Law when the Absence was wilful and if Mr. Varillas accuses the putting men to death upon such a Sentence it may probably be supposed to be an effect of his aversion to the King of England and put here on design to aggravate the Execution of Sr. Thomas Armstrong and the Duke of Monmouth who were the two last that suffered being condemned in absence 3. The Heinousness of this matter which our Author shews he understood not consists in this that men who were in prison were condemned upon the examination of Witnesses against them without confronting them with their Witnesses or bringing them to answer for themselves now tho this was taken from the Holy Courts of Inquisition and was only put in practise by the Parliament it self yet I will not go about to soften much less to justify a practice so contrary to the most Indispensable Rules of Equity and Morality XXV He says K. Henry being sooner disgusted at Anne of Cleve than he had been of his other Wives dissolved the Marriage for two reasons the one was that she was Incapable of having children and the other was her Heresy to which the English Writers that favour Henry add two others the one that those of the League of Smalcald would not receive the English into their Vnion and the other that K. Henry's Interests were then changed to these four reasons he adds a fifth that She had not that engaging Temper that was necessary to charm Henry 1. It is a strange thing to see an Historian mistake every thing and that there should not be one single part of his work sound The sentence annulling the K's Marriage with Anne of Cleve is printed according to the Record yet extant in which as there is not one of all the reasons mentioned by Mr. Varillas so there are other Reasons that would have given him much better grounds to have censured this Action than those he sets up chiefly the second which is that K. Henry had not given an inward clear perfect and entire consent to the Marriage which I had laid open with the Indignation that so unjust a practice ought to raise in an Historian since here a ground was laid down by which all Faith and Commerce among men is quite destroyed so ill instructed was Mr. Varillas that tho he had a mind to write a Satyr against K. Henry he did not know where to take the true Advantages that a man better Informed would have found if he writes Panegyricks as he does Satyrs Mr. Varillas will still be Mr. Varillas XXVI He pretends that Cromwell would not so far comply with the King's aversion to Anne of Cleves as to concur with him in the Divorce which drew on him his Ruin His testimony was the fullest proof that the King made use of for obtaining the Divoce but whether he consented to it or not it cannot be known if he refused to do it he was so much the worthier man XXVII He tells us a long story of the different Interests to which K. Henry was leaning at last he says that Cromwellsigned a League in the Kings name with the German Princes which some say he did without the Kings knowledge th● others say the contrary upon which the Emperours Ambassadours reproached the King with it but the King denying it the discovery was made and after a dressing up of the scene with more of his Visions it ends in this That Cromwell was put in Prison yet he hoped to have justified himself for this Treaty if he had been brought to make his Defence but many other things besides this were laid to his charge and the Law that he had procured to be passed three moneths before this of
Heaven which reigned among them and of the discoveries made of the Instruments of coyning in several Houses and of the False Relicks and the Impostures discovered in some Images of which the Eyes and Mouth were made to move by secret Springs for these things that were laid open in the publickest parts of the Nation disposed men to bear with the dissolution which perhaps would not have been otherwise so easily brought about 4. Nor does our Author know that three years before the general dissolution all the small Monasteries were dissolved In short the great discoveries I had made of the progress of this matter might have engaged a man even of an ordinary degree of carelesness to have read what I had writ concerning it But Mr. Varillas must be an Original in every thing XIX He says This Petition was no sooner read in Parliament than on the 28. of April 1539. they appointed that all the Monasteries in England should be set open and that their Lands should be appropriated to the King for the encrease of his Revenue upon this all was seised on and there was so much wealth found among them that out of the Church of Thomas Becket alone there were six Cart load of Plate and other things carried away and for such of the Religious Persons as would not quit their Profession nor their Lands they proceeded against those who were of a meaner rank as guilty of a Contempt of an Act of Parliament and those that were more considered were attainted of Treason because some Libels that had been writ upon the Kings divorce were found among their Papers in which the Kings Amours were painted to the life for these they were accused as having not only concealed them but preserved them to posterity and by a new subtilty the Crime of lese Majesty was added to that of High Treason and here he comes over again with that of King Edward's being cut out of his Mothers belly as if the frequent repeating of Falsehoods would gain them the more credit 1. Dates are unhappy things for Mr. Varillas for this Act did not pass before the 28. of Iune 2. This Act did only confirm what was already done but did not at all threaten any that would not surrender 3. There were eighteen Abbots present when the Act was first read and seventeen when it passed in the House of Lords and yet none of them opposed it 4. There was no petition read in either House of Parliament that had been made by the Monks for this Act neither dissolved nor opened any Monasteries but only confirmed the Kings Title upon their Surrenders 5. His Author Sanders had raised up Two Chests of the Plate that belonged to Beckets Shrine to Twenty six Cart Load but it seems Mr. Varillas thought this a little too Extravagant so that he reduces it to a modester number of six but yet he should stick to his Author And here I must call to mind a passage of our Author's that had escaped me concerning Thomas Beckets Bones being raised and burnt as if the King had reviewed his Process and by a formal Sentence degraded him of his Saintship whereas this matter passed without any sort of Ceremony Becket did things that were of another nature than all that has been lately done in the business of the Regale he was not content to disobey but thundred against the King and the Clergy and the whole Nation that would not concur with him in his Violences which were such that at this day they would not pass unpunished even in Spain it self and tho he was killed without any Order of the King 's it is known not only what Pennance the King was forced to do but what a Superstition for his Memory there followed upon his Canonisation there were Two Holy Days assigned him there was a Iubily every fifty year with Plenary Indulgences to all who visited his Tomb which brought sometimes an hundred thousand persons together and his Altar was so much more valued than either Christ's or the Virgins that by the old accounts yet extant it appears that some years there were no Offerings at all made at Christ's Altar and tho there were indeed some made at the Virgin 's Altar yet those of Thomas Becket's made a sum about twenty times more So it was no wonder if King Henry put an end to this Superstition and therefore he ordered the Shrine to be broken and the Bones to be buried as our Authors say positively tho the Italians say they were burned for so it is specified in the Bull and indeed there had been no great fault if they had been burnt 6. No man could be punished for refusing to surrender for the Act of Parliament required none to do it 7. Those who were attainted of Treason had been either in the Rebellion or had sent their Plate to the Rebels 8. Our Author shews how well he understands our Law when he pretends to make a difference between High Treason and the Crime of lese Majesty for they are one and the same thing we do not use to express the highest sort of Crimes against the State by the term of Lese Majesty but only by that of High Treason 9. Those Libels of which he speaks were only found among the Carthusians and tho some of that Order were put to death upon other accounts yet these Libels were only made use of to frighten them to surrender up their House sure here are faults enough for one Paragraph XX. He gives us a long prospect of what Cromwel thought on and of what he should have thought on both being alike true and equally judicious then he goes on to tell us the Interests of the Duke of Cleves and of his Sister's Qualities and to shew us how well he was informed of her greatest Secrets he sayes that she was fit for Marriage before she was twelve year old but that tho she had been courted by many Princes her Brother was resolved to reserve her for such an Alliance as might protect him against the House of Austria She was a Lutheran which did not please Henry yet at last the Marriage was agreed on and She came to England and was married the third of Ianuary 1540. 1. She had been contracted to Prince of Lorraine and tho this was really of no force in Law yet it was afterwards pretended to dissolve her Marriage with Henry as appears by the Sentence So much is our Author a stranger to her Story tho he would make us fancy that he had Memoirs concerning her from her Chamber-maids since he tells us when she was fit for Marriage 2. I have often warned our Author to avoid the giving of Dates for he is unhappy in them all this Marriage was made the 6. of Ianuary yet it is much for him to have hit the Moneth right for he is not always so exact XXI He says The King was so well pleased with this Match that immediately upon it