were to exercise the Episcopal Function in their Diocess and were once to visit their whole Province and to oversee the Bishops to admonish them for what was amiss and to receive and judge Appeals to call Provincial Synods upon any great occasion having obtained Warrant from the King for it Every Bishop was to have a Synod of his Clergy some time in Lent so that they might all return home before Palm-Sunday They were to begin with the Letany a Sermon and a Communion then all were to withdraw into some private place where they were to give the Bishop an account of the state of the Diocess and to consult of what required advice every Priest was to deliver his opinion and the Bishop was to deliver his Sentence and to bring matters to as speedy a Conclusion as might be and all were to submit to him or to appeal to the Arch-bishop The 21st 22d 23d 24th 25th 26th 27th 28th and 29th Titles are about Church-wardens Universities Tithes Visitations Testaments Ecclesiastical Censures Suspension Sequestration Deprivation The 30th is about Excommunication of which as being the chief Ecclesiastical Censure I shall set down their Scheme the more fully Excommunication they reckon an Authority given of God to the Church for removing scandalous or corrupt Persons Their design concerning the use of Excommunication from the use of the Sacraments or fellowship of Christians till they give clear signs of their repentance and submit to such Spiritual punishments by which the Flesh may be subdued and the Spirit saved This was trusted to Church-men but chiefly to Arch-bishops Bishops Arch-deacons Deans and any other appointed for it by the Church None ought to be excommunicated but for their obstinacy in great faults but it was never to be gone about rashly and therefore the Judge who was to give it was to have a Justice of Peace with him and the Minister of the Parish where the Party lived with two or three learned Presbyters in whose Presence the matter was to be examined and Sentence pronounced which was to be put in writing It was to be intimated in the Parish where the Party lived and in the neighbouring Parishes that all Persons might be warned to avoid the company of him that was under Excommunication and the Minister was to declare what the nature and consequences of Exmunication were the Person so censured being cut off from the Body of Christ after that none was to eat or drink or keep company with him but those of his own Family whosoever did otherwise if being admonished they continued in it were also to be Excommunicated If the Person censured continued forty days without expressing any repentance it was to be certified into the Chancery and a Writ was to issue for taking and keeping him in Prison till he should become sensible of his offences and when he did confess these and submitted to such punishments as should be enjoyned the Sentence was to be taken off and the Person publickly reconciled to the Church And this was to take place against those who being condemned for capital Offences obtained the Kings Pardon but were notwithstanding to be subject to Church-censures Then follows the Office of receiving Penitents They were first to stand without the Church and desire to be again received into it and so to be brought in the Minister was to declare to the People the hainousness of sin and the mercies of God in the Gospel in a long Discourse of which the Form is there prescribed Then he was to shew the People that as they were to abhor hard'ned sinners so they were to receive with the Bowels of true Charity all sincere Penitents he was next to warn the Person not to mock God and deceive the People by a feigned Confession he was thereupon to repeat first a general Confession and then more particularly to name his sin and to pray to God for mercy to himself and that none by his ill example might be defiled and finally to beseech them all to forgive him and to receive him again into their Fellowship Then the Minister was to ask the People whether they would grant his desires who were to answer they would Then the Pastor was to lay his Hand on his Head and to absolve him from the punishment of his offences and the bond of Excommunication and so to restore him to his place in the Church of God Then he was to lead him to the Communion-Table and there to offer up a Prayer of Thanks-giving to God for reclaiming that sinner For the other Titles they relate to the other parts of the Law of those Courts for which I refer the Reader to the Book it self How far any of those things chiefly the last about Excommunication may be yet brought into the Church I leave to the Consultations of the Governors of it and of the two Houses of Parliament It cannot be denied that Vice and Immorality together with much impiety have over-run the Nation and though the charge of this is commonly cast on the Clergy who certainly have been in too many places wanting to their duty yet on the other hand they have so little power or none at all by Law to censure even the most publick sins that the blame of this great defect ought to lie more universally on the whole Body of the Nation that have not made effectual provision for the restraining of vice the making ill Men ashamed of their ways and the driving them from the Holy Mysteries till they change their course of Life A Project for relieving the Clergy reduced to great Poverty There was another thing proposed this Year for the correcting the great disorders of Clergy-men which were occasioned by the extream misery and poverty to which they were reduced There were some motions made about it in Parliament but they took not effect so one writ a Book concerning it which he dedicated to the Lord Chancellor then the Bishop of Ely He shewed that without Rewards or Encouragements few would apply themselves to the Pastoral Function and that those in it if they could not subsist by it must turn to other employments so that at that time many Clergy-men were Carpenters and Taylors and some kept Ale-houses It was a reproach on the Nation that there had been so profuse a zeal for superstition and so much coldness in true Religion He complains of many of the Clergy who did not maintain Students at the Universities according to the Kings Injunctions and that in Schools and Colledges the poor Scholars Places were generally filled with the Sons of the Rich and that Livings were most scandalously sold and the greatest part of the Country-Clergy were so ignorant that they could do little more than read But there was no hope of doing any thing effectually for redressing so great a calamity till the King should be of Age himself to set forward such Laws as might again recover a competent maintenance for the Clergy This Year both
and Queen and be obedient to their Superiors both Spiritual and Temporal according to their duties It is plain this was so contrived that they might have Signed it without either prevaricating or dissembling their Opinions for it is not said That they were to be subject to the Church of Rome but to the Church of Christ and they were to be obedient to their Superiors according to their duties which was a good reserve for their Consciences I stand the longer on this that it may appear how willing the Cardinal was to accept of any shew of submission from them and to stop Bonners rage Upon this they were set at liberty But Bonner got three Men and two Women presented to him in London in January and after he had allowed them a little more time than he had granted others they standing still firm to their Faith were burnt at Smithfield on the 12th of April After that White the new Bishop of Winchester condemned three who were burnt on the third of May in Southwark one of these Stephen Gratwick being of the Diocess of Chichester appealed from him to his own Ordinary whether he expected more favour from him or did it only to gain time I know not but they brought in a Counterfeit who was pretended to be the Bishop of Chichester as Fox has printed it from the account written with the Man 's own Hand and so condemned him On the seventh of May three were burnt a Bristol On the 18th of June two Men and five Women were burnt at Maidston and on the 19th three Men and four Women were burnt at Canterbury fourteen being thus in two days destroyed by Thornton and Harpsfield in which it may seem strange that the Cardinal had less influence to stop the Proceedings in his own Diocess than in London but he was now under the Popes disgrace as shall be afterwards shewn On the 22d of June six Men and four Women were burnt at Lewis in Sussex condemned by White for Christopherson Bishop Elect of Chichester was not yet consecrated On the 13th of July two were burnt at Norwich On the second of August ten were burnt at Colchester six in the Morning and four in the Afternoon they were some of those who had been formerly discharged by the Cardinals Orders but the Priests in the Country complained that the mercy shewed to them had occasioned great disorders among them Hereticks and the favourers of them growing insolent upon it and those who searched after them being disheartned so now Bonner being under no more restraints from the Cardinal new Complaints being made that they came not to Church condemned them upon their Answers to the Articles which he objected to them At this time one George Eagle a Taylor who used to go about from place to place and to meet with those who stood for the Reformation where he prayed and discoursed with them about Religion and from his indefatigable diligence was nicknamed Trudge-over was taken near Colchester and was condemned of Treason for gathering the Queens Subjects together though it was not proved that he had ever stirred them up to Rebellion but did it only as himself always protested to encourage them to continue stedfast in the Faith he suffered as a Traitor On the fifth of August one was burnt at Norwich and on the 20th a Man and a Woman more were burnt at Rochester One was also burnt at Litchfield in August but the day is not named The same Month a Complaint was brought to the Council of the Magistrates of Bristol that they came seldom to the Sermons at the Cathedral so that the Dean and Chapter used to go to their Houses in Procession with their Cross carried before them and to fetch them from thence upon which a Letter was written to them requiring them to conform themselves more willingly to the Orders of the Church to frequent the Sermons and go thither of their own accord On the 17th of September three Men and one Woman were burnt at Islington near London and on the same day two Women were burnt at Colchester On the 20th a Man was burnt at Northampton and in the same Month one was burnt at Laxefield in Suffolk On the 23d a Woman was burnt at Norwich There were seventeen burnt in the Diocess of Chichester about this time one was a Priest thirteen were Lay-men and three Women but the day is not marked On the 18th of November three were burnt in Smithfield On the 12d of December John Rough a Scotchman was burnt whose suffering was on this occasion On the 12th of December there was a private Meeting of such as continued to Worship God according to the Service set out by King Edward at Islington where he was to have administred the Sacrament according to the Order of that Book The new Inquisitors had corrupted one of this Congregation to betray his Brethren so that they were apprehended as they were going to the Communion But Rough being a Stranger it was considered by the Council whether he should be tried as a Native He had a Benefice in York-shire in King Edwards days so it was resolved and signified to the Bishop of London that he should be proceeded against as a Subject Thereupon Bonner objected to him his condemning the Doctrine of the Church and setting out the Heresies of Cranmer and Ridley concerning the Sacrament and his using the Service set out by King Edward that he had lived much with those who for their Heresies had fled beyond Sea that he had spoken reproachfully of the Pope and Cardinals saying That when he was at Rome he had seen a Bull of the Popes that licensed Stews and a Cardinal riding openly with his Whore with him with several other Articles The greatest part of them he confessed and thereupon he with a Woman that was one of the Congregation was burnt in Smithfield And thus ended the Burnings this Year seventy nine in all being burnt These severities against the Hereticks made the Queen shew less pity to the Lord Stourton The Lord Stourton hanged for Murder than perhaps might have been otherwise expected He had been all King Edwards time a most zealous Papist and did constantly dissent in Parliament from the Laws then made about Religion But he had the former Year murdered one Argall and his Son with whom he had been long at variance and after he had knock'd them down with Clubs and cut their Throats he buried them fifteen Foot under ground thinking thereby to conceal the Fact but it breaking out both he and four of his Servants were taken and indicted for it He was found guilty of Felony and condemned to be hanged with his Servants in Wilt-shire where the Murder was committed On the sixth of March they were hanged at Salisbury All the difference that was made in their Deaths being only thus That whereas his Servants were hanged in common Halters one of Silk was bestowed on their Lord. It seemed an indecent thing
364. An Expedition against France pag. 365. Many strange Accidents ibid. A Treaty of Peace pag. 366. The Battel of Graveling ibid. Many Protestants in France ibid. Dolphin marries the Queen of Scots pag. 367. A Convention of Estates in Scotland ibid. A Parliament in England pag. 368. The Queens Sickness and Death pag. 369. Cardinal Pool dies ibid. His Character ibid. The Queens Character pag. 370. BOOK III. Of the Settlement of the Reformation of Religion in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign QVeen Elizabeth succeeds pag. 373. And comes to London pag. 374. She sends a Dispatch to Rome ibid. But to no effect ibid. King Philip Courts her pag. 375. The Queens Council ibid. A Consultation about the Change of Religion pag. 376. A Method proposed for it pag. 377. Many forward to Reform pag. 378. Parker named to be Arch-Bishop of Canterbury ibid. 1559. Bacon made Lord Keeper pag. 380. The Queens Coronation ibid. The Parliament meets pag. 381. The Treaty at Cambray pag. 382. A Peace agreed on with France ibid. The Proceedings of the Parliament pag. 383. An Address to the Queen to marry pag. 384. Her Answer to it ibid. They Recognise her Title pag. 385. Acts concerning Religion ibid. The Bishops against the Supremacy pag. 386. The beginning of the High Commission pag. 387. A Conference at Westminster pag. 388. Arguments for the Latin Service pag. 389. Arguments against it pag. 390. The Conference breaks up pag. 391. The Liturgy corrected and explained pag. 392. Debates about the Act of Vniformity pag. 393. Arguments for the Changes then made pag. 394. Bills proposed but rejected pag. 395. The Bishops refuse the Oath of Supremacy pag. 396. The Queens gentleness to them ibid. Injunctions for a Visitation pag. 397. The Queen desires to have Images retained ibid. Reasons brought against it ibid. The Heads of the Injunctions pag. 398. Reflections made on them pag. 399. The first High Commission pag. 400. Parkers unwillingness to accept of the Archbishoprick of Canterbury pag. 401. His Consecration pag. 402. The Fable of the Nags-head confuted pag. 403. The Articles of Religion prepared pag. 405. An Explanation of the Presence in the Sacrament ibid. The Translation of the Bible pag. 406. The beginnings of the Divisions pag. 407. The Reformation in Scotland ibid. Mills Martyrdome pag. 408. It occasions great discontents pag. 409. A Revolt at St. Johnstoun pag. 410. The French King intends to grant them liberty of Religion pag. 411. But is killed ibid. A Truce agreed to ibid. The Queen Regent is deposed pag. 412. The Scots implore the Queen of England's Aid ibid. Leith besieged by the English ibid. The Queen Regent dies pag. 413. A Peace is concluded ibid. The Reformation setled by Parliament ibid. Francis the second dies ibid. The Civil Wars of France pag. 415. The Wars of the Netherlands pag. 416. The misfortunes of the Queen of Scotland pag. 417. Queen Elizabeth deposed by the Pope pag. 418. Sir Fr. Walsinghams Letter concerning the Queens proceeding with Papists and Puritans ibid. The Conclusion pag. 421. FINIS A COLLECTION OF RECORDS AND Original Papers WITH OTHER INSTRUMENTS Referred to in the SECOND PART OF THE History of the Reformation OF THE Church of England LONDON Printed by J.D. for Richard Chiswell 1680. The Journal of King EDWARD'S Reign written with his own Hand The Original is in the Cotton Library Nero C. 10. THe Year of our Lord 1537 was a Prince born to King Henry the 8th by Jane Seimour then Queen who within few days after the Birth of her Son died and was buried at the Castle of Windsor This Child was Christned by the Duke of Norfolk the Duke of Suffolk and the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Afterwards was brought up till he came to six Years old among the Women At the sixth Year of his Age he was brought up in Learning by Master Doctor Cox who was after his Almoner and John Cheeke Master of Arts two well-learned Men who sought to bring him up in learning of Tongues of the Scripture of Philosophy and all Liberal Sciences Also John Bellmaine Frenchman did teach him the French Language The tenth Year not yet ended it was appointed he should be created Prince of Wales Duke of Cornwal and Count Palatine of Chester At which time being the Year of our Lord 1547 the said King died of a Dropsie as it was thought After whose Death incontinent came Edward Earl of Hartford and Sir Anthony Brown Master of the Horse to convoy this Prince to Enfield where the Earl of Hartford declared to him and his younger Sister Elizabeth the Death of their Father Here he begins anew again AFter the Death of King Henry the 8th his Son Edward Prince of Wales was come to at Hartford by the Earl of Hartford and Sir Anthony Brown Master of the Horse for whom before was made great preparation that he might be created Prince of Wales and afterward was brought to Enfield where the Death of his Father was first shewed him and the same day the Death of his Father was shewed in London where was great lamentation and weeping and suddenly he proclaimed King The next day being the _____ of _____ He was brought to the Tower of London where he tarried the space of three weeks and in the mean season the Council sat every day for the performance of the Will and at length thought best that the Earl of Hartford should be made Duke of Somerset Sir Thomas Seimour Lord Sudley the Earl of Essex Marquess of Northampton and divers Knights should be made Barons as the Lord Sheffield with divers others Also they thought best to chuse the Duke of Somerset to be Protector of the Realm and Governour of the King's Person during his Minority to which all the Gentlemen and Lords did agree because he was the King's Uncle on his Mothers side Also in this time the late King was buried at Windsor with much solemnity and the Officers broke their Staves hurling them into the Grave but they were restored to them again when they came to the Tower The Lord Lisle was made Earl of Warwick and the Lord Great Chamberlainship was given to him and the Lord Sudley made Admiral of England all these things were done the King being in the Tower Afterwards all things being prepared for the Coronation the King being then but nine Years old passed through the City of London as heretofore hath been used and came to the Palace of Westminster and the next day came into Westminster-Hall And it was asked the People Whether they would have him to be their King Who answered Yea yea Then he was crowned King of England France and Ireland by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and all the rest of the Clergy and Nobles and Anointed with all such Ceremonies as were accustomed and took his Oath and gave a General Pardon and so was brought to the Hall to Dinner on Shrove-sunday where he sat with the Crown on his Head with the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury
Question For what Cause it were not expedient nor convenient to have the whole Mass in English The Answer This Question is answered by Dyonise and Basil De Spiritu Sancto and also an uniformity of all Churches in that thing is to be kept Number 26. A Collection of some of the Chief Indulgences then in the English Offices Horae B. Mariae Virg. ad usum Sarum Printed at Paris 1526. Folio 38. TO all them that be in the State of Grace that daily say devoutly this Prayer before our Blessed Lady of Pity she will shew them her blessed Visage and warn them the Day and the Hour of Death and in their last End the Angels of God shall yield their Souls to Heaven and he shall obtain 500 Years and so many Lents of Pardon granted by five Holy Fathers Popes of Rome Folio 42. Our Holy Father Sixtus the 4th Pope hath granted to all them that devoutly say this Prayer before the Image of our Lady the sum of 11000 Years of Pardon Folio 44. Our Holy Father the Pope Sixtus hath granted at the instance of the high-most and excellent Princess Elizabeth late Queen of England and Wife to our Soveraign Liege Lord King Henry the 7th God have mercy on her sweet Soul and all Christian Souls that every day in the Morning after three tollings of the Ave-Bell say three times the whole Salutation of our Lady Ave Maria Gratia that is to say at six of the Clock in the Morning three Ave Maries at twelve of the Clock at Noon three Ave Maries and at six of the Clock at Even for every time so doing is granted of the Spiritual Treasure of Holy Church 300 days of Pardon toties quoties And also our Holy Father the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and York with other nine Bishops of this Realm have granted three times in the day forty days of Pardon to all them that be in the state of Grace able to receive Pardon the which began the 26th day of March Anno 1492. Anno Henrici 7. and the sum of the Indulgence and Pardon for every Ave Maria 860 days toties quoties This Prayer shall be said at the tolling of the Ave-Bell Folio 47. Our Holy Father the Pope Bonifacius hath granted to all them that devoutly say this lamentable contemplation of our Blessed Lady standing under the Cross weeping and having compassion with her sweet Son Jesus seven Years of Pardon and forty Lents And also Pope John the 22d hath granted 300 days of Pardon Folio 50. These be the fifteen Do's the which the Holy Virgin S. Bridget was wont to say daily before the Holy Rood in S. Paul's Church at Rome whoso says this a whole Year shall deliver fifteen Souls out of Purgatory of his next Kindred and convert other fifteen Sinners to good Life and other fifteen Righteous Men of his kind shall persevere in good Life and what ye desire of God ye shall have it if it be to the Salvation of your Souls Folio 54. To all them that before this Image of Pity devoutly say five Pater Nosters and five Ave Maries and a Credo piteously beholding those Arms of Christ's Passion are granted 32755 Years of Pardon and Sixtus the 4th Pope of Rome hath made the fourth and the fifth Prayer and hath doubled his foresaid Pardon Folio 56. This Epistle of our Saviour sendeth our Holy Father Pope Leo to the Emperor Carolo Magno of the which we find written Who that beareth this Blessing upon him and saith it once a day shall obtain forty Years of Pardon and eighty Lentings and he shall not perish with sudden Death Folio 57. This Prayer made by S. Austin affirming who that says it daily kneeling shall not die in Sin and after this Life shall go to the everlasting Joy and Bliss Folio 58. Our Holy Father the Pope John 22d hath granted to all them that devoutly say this Prayer after the Elevation of our Lord Jesus Christ 3000 days of Pardon for deadly sins Ibid. Our Holy Father the Pope Bonifacius the Sixth hath granted to all them that say devoutly this Prayer following between the Elevation of our Lord and the three Agnus Dei 10000 Years of Pardon Folio 61. Our Holy Father Sixtus the 4th hath granted to all them that be in the state of Grace saying this Prayer following immediately after the Elevation of the Body of our Lord clean remission of all their Sins perpetually enduring And also John the Third Pope of Rome at the request of the Queen of England hath granted to all them that devoutly say this Prayer before the Image of our Lord Crucified as many days of Pardon as there were wounds in the Body of our Lord in the time of his bitter Passion the which were 5465. Folio 65. These five Petitions and Prayers made S. Gregory and hath granted unto all them that devoutly say these five Prayers with five Pater Nosters five Ave Maries and a Credo 500 Years of Pardon Folio 66. These three Prayers be written in the Chappel of the Holy Cross in Rome otherwise called Sacellum Sanctae Crucis septem Romanorum who that devoutly say them they shall obtain ten hundred thousand Years of Pardon for deadly Sins granted of our Holy Father John 22d Pope of Rome Folio 68. Who that devoutly beholdeth these Arms of our Lord Jesus Christ shall obtain 6000 Years of Pardon of our Holy Father S. Peter the first Pope of Rome and of thirty other Popes of the Church of Rome Successors after him And our Holy Father Pope John the 22d hath granted unto all them very contrite and truly confessed that say these devout Prayers following in the commemoration of the bitter Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ 3000 Years of Pardon for deadly Sins and other 3000 for venial Sins and say first a Pater Noster and Ave Maria. Folio 71. Our Holy Father Pope Innocentius the Second hath granted to all them that say this Prayer devoutly in the worship of the Wound that our Lord had in his blessed Side when he was dead hanging in the Cross 4000 days of Pardon Folio 72. This most devout Prayer said the Holy Father S. Bernard daily kneeling in the worship of the most Holy Name Jesus And it is well to believe that through the Invocation of the most excellent Name of Jesu S. Bernard obtained a singular Ward of perpetual Consolation of our Lord Jesu Christ And these Prayers written in a Table that hanged at Rome in S. Peter's Church nigh to the High Altar there as our Holy Father the Pope evely is wont to say the Office of the Mass and who that devoutly with a contrite Heart daily say this Orison if he be that day in the state of eternal Damnation then his eternal Pain shall be changed him in temporal pain of Purgatory then if he hath deserved the pain of Purgatory it shall be forgotten and forgiven through the infinite Mercy of God Number 27. Injunctions for
Hostages though that Assurance might be good to preserve her from Violence in Scotland yet it may be doubted how the same will be sufficient to keep her from escaping or governing a-again seeing for her part she will make little Conscience of the Hostages if she may prevail and the punishing of the Hostages will be a small satisfaction to the Queen's Majesty for the Troubles that may ensue And for the doubt of her escape or of Rebellion within this Realm it may be said That if she should not be well guarded but should be left open to practise then her Escape and the other Perils might be doubted of but if the Queen's Majesty hold a stricter hand over her and put her under the Care of a fast and circumspect Man all practice shall be cut from her and the Queen's Majesty free from that Peril And more safe it is for the Queen to keep the Bridle in her own Hand to restrain the Scottish Queen than in returning her home to commit that trust to others which by Death composition or abusing of one Person may be disappointed And if she should by any means recover her Estate the doubt of Rebellion there is not taken away but rather to be feared if she have ability to her Will And if she find strength by her own or Forreign Friends she is not far off to give Aid upon a main Land to such as will stir for her which so long as she is here they will forbear lest it might bring most Peril to her self being in the Queen's Hands The like respect no Doubt will move Forreign Princes to become Requesters and no Threatners for her delivery And where it is said That the Queen's Majesty cannot be quiet so long as she is here but it may breed danger to her Majesty's Health That is a Matter greatly to be weighed for it were better to adventure all than her Majesty should inwardly conceive any thing to the danger of her Health But as that is only known to such as have more inward Acquaintance with her Majesty's disposition than is fit for some other to have So again it is to be thought that her Majesty being wise if the Perils like to follow in returning her Home were laid before her and if she find them greater than the other she will be induced easily to change her Opinion and thereby may follow to her Majesty's great satisfaction and quietness Cautions if she be retained To remove her somewhat nearer the Court at the least within one days Journey of London whereby it shall be the more easie to understand of her Doings To deliver her in custody to such as be thought most sound in Religion and most void of practice To diminish her number being now about forty Persons to the one half to make thereby the Queen's Charges the less and to give her the fewer means of Intelligence To cut from her all Access Letters and Messages other than such as he that shall have the Charge shall think fit To signify to all Princes the occasion of this streight Guard upon her to be her late practice with the Duke of Norfolk which hath given the Queen cause to doubt further assuring them that she shall be used honourably but kept safely from troubling the Queen's Majesty or this State That she be retained here until the Estate of Scotland be more setled and the Estate of other Countries now in garboil be quieted the Issue whereof is like to be seen in a Year or two Number 12. A Letter written by the Earl of Leicester to the Earl of Sussex concerning the Queen of Scots taken from the first Draught of it written with his own hand MY good Lord I received your Letter in the answer of mine Ex M. SS Nob. D. Evelyn and though I have not written sooner again to your Lordship both according to your desire and the necessity of our Cases at this time yet I doubt not but you are fully advertised of her Majesty's Pleasure otherwise For my own part I am glad your Lordship hath prospered so well in your Journey and have Answered in all Points the good Opinion conceived of you And touching her Majesty's further Resolution for these Causes my Lord I assure you I know not well what to write First I see her Majesty willing and desirous as Reason is to work her own Security and the quietness of her State during her time which I trust in God shall be far longer than we shall live to see end of And herein my Lord there be sundry Minds and among our selves I must confess to your Lordship we are not fully agreed which way is best to take And to your Lordship I know I may be bold beside the Friendship I owe you the Place you hold presently doth require all the understanding that may be to the furtherance of her Majesty's good Estate wherefore I shall be the bolder even to let you know as much as I do and how we rest among us Your Lordship doth consider for the State of Scotland her Majesty hath those two Persons being divided to deal with the Queen of Scotland lately by her Subjects deprived and the young King her Son Crown'd and set up in her Place Her Majesty of these two is to chuse and of necessity must chuse which of them she will allow and accept as the Person sufficient to hold the principal Place And here groweth the Question in our Council to her Majesty Which of these two are most fit for her to maintain and join in Amity with To be plain with your Lordship The most in number do altogether conceive her Majesty's best and surest way is to maintain and continue the young King in this his Estate and thereby to make her whole Party in Scotland which by the setling of him with the cause of Religion is thought most easiest most safest and most probable for the perpetual quieting and benefit to her own Estate and great assurance made of such a Party and so small Charges thereby as her Majesty may make account to have the like Authority and assured Amity in Scotland as heretofore she had in the time of the late Regent The Reasons against the other are these shortly The Title that the Queen claimeth to this Crown The overthrow of Religion in that Country The impossibility of any assurance for the observing of any Pact or Agreement made between our Soveraign and her These be Causes your Lordship sees sufficient to dissuade all Men from the contrary Opinion And yet my Lord it cannot be denied upon indifferent looking into the Matter on both sides but the clearest is full enough of Difficulties And then my Lord is the Matter disputable and yet I think verily not for Argument-sake but even for Duty and Conscience-sake to find out Truth and safest means for our Soveraign's best doing And thus we differ The first you have heard touching the young King On the other side this it
but by the Advice and Consent of the other Executors according to the Will of the late King Then they all went to take their Oaths but it was proposed that it should be delayed till the next day that so they might do it upon better consideration More was not done that day save that the Lord Chancellor was ordered to deliver up the Seals to the King and to receive them again from his Hands for King Henry's Seal was to be made use of either till a new one was made or till the King was Crowned He was also ordered to renew the Commissions of the Judges the Justices of Peace the Presidents of the North and of Wales and of some other Officers This was the issue of the first Council-day under this King In which the so easie advancement of the Earl of Hartford to so high a Dignity gave great occasion to censure it seeming to be a change of what King Henry had designed But the Kings great kindness to his Unkle made it pass so smoothly For the rest of the Executors not being of the Ancient Nobility but Courtiers were drawn in easily to comply with that which was so acceptable to their young King Only the Lord Chancellor who had chiefly opposed it was to expect small favour at the new Protectors hands It was soon apparent what emulation there was between them And the Nation being then divided between those who loved the old Superstition and those who desired a more complete Reformation The Protector set himself at the Head of the one and the Lord Chancellor at the Head of the other Party The next day the Executors met again Which is declared in Council and first took their Oaths most solemnly for their faithful executing the Will They also ordered all those who were by the late King named Privy-Councellors to come into the Kings Presence and there they declared to the King the choice they had made of his Unkle who gave his Assent to it It was also signified to the Lords of the Council who likewise with one voice gave their Consent to it And Dispatches were ordered to be sent to the Emperour the French King and the Regent of Flanders giving notice of the Kings Death and of the Constitution of the Council and the Nomination of the Protector during the Minority of their young King All Dispatches were ordered to be Signed only by the Protector and all the Temporal Lords with all the Bishops about the Town were commanded to come and swear Allegiance to the King On the 2d of Feb. Feb. 2. the Protector was declared Lord Treasurer and Earl Marshal these Places having been designed for him by the late King upon the Duke of Norfolks Attainder Letters were also sent to Callice Bulloigne Ireland the Marches of Scotland and most of the Counties of England giving notice of the Kings Succession and of the order now setled The Will was also ordered to be Enrolled and every of the Executors was to have an Exemplification of it under the Great Seal and the Clerks of Council were also ordered to give to every of them an account of all things done in Council under their Hands and Seals The Bishops take out Commissions for their Bishopricks And the Bishops were required to take out new Commissions of the same form with those they had taken out in King Henry's time for which see Page 267. of the former Part only with this difference That there is no mention made of a Vicar-General in these Commissions as was in the former there being none after Cromwel advanced to that Dignity Two of these Commissions are yet extant one taken out by Cranmer the other taken out by Bonner But this was only done by reason of the present juncture because the Bishops being generally addicted to the former Superstition it was thought necessary to keep them under so arbitrary a Power as that subjected them to for they hereby held their Bishopricks only during the Kings pleasure and were to exercise them as his Delegates in his Name and by his Authority Cranmer set an Example to the rest Collection Number 2. and took out his Commission which is in the Collection But this was afterwards judged too heavy a Yoak and therefore the new Bishops that were made by this King were not put under it and so Ridley when made Bishop of London in Bonners room was not required to take out any such Commission but they were to hold their Bishopricks during life The reason of the new Creation of many Noblemen There was a Clause in the Kings Will requiring his Executors to make good all that he had promised in any manner of ways Whereupon Sir William Paget Sir Anthony Denny and Sir William Herbert were required to declare what they knew of the Kings Intentions and Promises the former being the Secretary whom he had trusted most and the other two those that attended on him in his Bed-Chamber during his sickness though they were called Gentlemen of the Privy-Chamber for the Service of the Gentlemen of the Bed-Chamber was not then set up Paget declared That when the Evidence appeared against the Duke of Norfolk and his Son the Earl of Surrey the King who used to talk oft in private with him alone told him that he intended to bestow their Lands liberally and since by Attainders and other ways the Nobility were much decayed he intended to create some Peers and ordered him to write a Book of such as he thought meetest who thereupon proposed the Earl of Hartford to be a Duke the Earl of Essex to be a Marquess the Viscount Lisle to be an Earl the Lords St. John Russel and Wriothesley to be Earls and Sir Tho. Seimour Sir Thom. Cheyney Sir Richard Rich Sir William Willoughby Sir Tho. Arundel Sir Edmund Sheffield Sir Jo. St. Leiger Sir _____ Wymbish Sir _____ Vernon of the Peak and Sir Christopher Danby to be Barons Paget also proposed a distribution of the Duke of Norfolk's Estate But the King liked it not and made Mr. Gates bring him the Books of that Estate which being done he ordered Paget to tot upon the Earl of Hartford these are the words of his Deposition a Thousand Merks on the Lord Lisle St. John and Russel 200 Pounds a year to the Lord Wriothesley 100 and for Sir Tho. Seimour 300 Pounds a year But Paget said it was too little and stood long arguing it with him yet the King ordered him to propose it to the Persons concerned and see how they liked it And he putting the King in mind of Denny who had been oft a Suiter for him but he had never yet in lieu of that obtained any thing for Denny the King ordered 200 Pounds for him and 400 Marks for Sir William Herbert and remembred some others likewise But Paget having according to the Kings Commands spoken to these who were to be advanced found that many of them desired to continue in their former
used to bless of which I never met with any thing before I saw this Letter but since I understand the Office of Blessing of these Rings is extant as it was prepared for Queen Maries use as shall be told in her Reign It must be left to conjecture whether he did it as a practice of former Kings or whether upon his being made Supream Head he thought fit to take on him as the Pope did to consecrate such things and send them about Where to be sure Fancy and Flattery would raise many Stories of the wonderful effects of what he had so blessed and perhaps these might have been as true as the Reports made of the Vertues of Agnus Deis touched Beads blessed Peebles with such other goodly Ware which the Friars were wont to carry about and distribute to their Benefactors as things highly sanctified This I set down more fully and have laid some things together that fell not out till some months after this being the first step that was made towards a Reformation in this Reign Upon this occasion it is not unlikely that the Council wrote their Letteâ—s to all the Justices of Peace of England 1547. Feb. 12. The Commission of the Justices of the Peace on the 12th of Feb. letting them know that they had sent down new Commissions to them for keeping the Peace ordering them to assemble together and first to call earnestly on God for his Grace to discharge their Duties faithfully according to the Oaths which they were to take and that they should impartially without corruption or sinister affection execute their Office so that it might appear that they had God and the good of their King and Country before their Eyes and that they should divide themselves into the several Hundreds and see to the publick Peace and that all Vagabonds and disturbers of the Peace should be duly punished and that once every six weeks they should write to the Lord Protector and Council the state in which the County was till they were otherwise commanded That which was sent into the County of Norfolk will be found in the Collection Collection Number 3. But now the Funeral of the deceased King and the Coronation of his Son were to be dispatched In the Coronation-Ceremonies that had been formerly used there were some things that did not agree with the present Laws of the Land as the Promise made to the Abbots for maintaining their Lands and Dignities They were also so tedious that a new Form was ordered to be drawn which the Reader will find in the Collection The most material thing in it is the first Ceremony Collection Number 4. whereby the King being shewed to the People at the four Corners of the Stage the Arch-bishop was to demand their Consent to it and yet in such terms as should demonstrate he was no Elective Prince for he being declared the rightful and undoubted Heir both by the Laws of God and Man they were desired to give their good Wills and Assents to the same as by their Duty of Allegiance they were bound to do This being agreed on the 13th of Feb. on the day following King Henry's Body was with all the pomp of a Royal Funeral removed to Sheen in the way to Windsor 1547. Feb. 13. King Henry buried There great observation was made on a thing that was no extraordinary matter He had been extreme corpulent and dying of a Dropsie or some thing like it it was no wonder if a fortnight after upon so long a motion some putrid Matter might run thorough the Coffin But Sheen having been a House of Religious Women it was called a signal Mark of the displeasure of Heaven that some of his Blood and Fat droped through the Lead in the night and to make this work mightily on weak People it was said that the Dogs licked it next morning This was much magnified in Commendation of Friar Peto afterwards made Cardinal who as was told Page 151. of the former Part had threatned him in a Sermon at Greenwich That the Dogs should lick his Blood Though to consider things more equally it had been a Wonder indeed if it had been otherwise But having met with this Observation in a MS. written near that time I would not envy the World the Pleasure of it Next day he was brought to Windsor and interred in St. George's Chappel And he having by his Will left that Church 600 l. a year for ever for two Priests to say Mass at his Tomb daily for four Obits yearly and a Sermon at every Obit with 10 l. to the Poor and for a Sermon every Sunday together with the maintenance of thirteen poor Knights The Judges were consulted how this should be well setled in Law Who advised that the Lands which the King had given should be made over to that Colledge by Indentures Tripartite the King being one Party the Protector and the other Executors a second and the Dean and Chapter of Windsor a third Party These were to be Signed with the Kings Hand and the Great Seal put to them with the Hands and Seals of all the rest and then Patents were to be given for the Lands founded on the Kings Testament and the Indentures Tripartite Soul-Masses examined But the Pomp of this Business ministred an occasion of enquiring into the use and lawfulness of Soul-Masses and Obits which came to be among the first things that were reformed Christ had instituted the Sacrament to be celebrated in remembrance of his Death and it was a Sacrament only to those who did participate in it but that the consecrating the Sacrament could be of any use to departed Souls seemed a thing not easie to be conceived For if they are the Prayers of the Living that profit the Dead then these would have done as well without a Mass But the People would not have esteemed bare Prayers so much nor have payed so dear for them So that the true original of Soul-Masses was thought to have been only to encrease the Esteem and Wealth of the Clergy It is true in the Primitive Church there was a Commemoration of the Saints departed in the Daily Sacrifice so they termed the Communion and such as had given any offence at their death were not remembred in it So that for so slight an offence as the leaving a Priest Tutor to ones Children which might distract them from their Spiritual care ones Name was to be left out of that Commemoration in Cyprians time which was a very disproportioned punishment to that offence if such Commemorations had been thought useful or necessary to the Souls departed But all this was nothing to the private Masses for them and was indeed nothing at first but an honourable mention of such as had died in the Faith And they believing then generally that there was a Glorious Thousand Years to be on Earth and that the Saints should rise some sooner and some later to have their part in it they
Kingdom to cast themselves wholly into the Arms of France and to offer their young Queen to the Dolphin and to think of no Treaty with the English So the Earl of Warwick returned to London having no small share in the Honour of this Expedition He was Son to that Dudley who was attainted and executed the first year of King Henry the 8th's Reign But whether it was that the King afterwards repented of his severity to the Father or that he was taken with the qualities of the Son he raised him by many degrees to be Admiral and Viscount Lisle He had defended Bulloigne when it was in no good condition against the Dolphin whose Army was believed 50000 strong and when the French had carried the Bassetown he recovered it and killed 800 of their Men The Year after that being in Command at Sea he offered the French Fleet Battel which they declining he made a descent upon Normandy with 5000 Men and having burnt and spoiled a great deal he returned to his Ships with the loss only of one Man And he shewed he was as fit for a Court as a Camp For being sent over to the French Court upon the Peace he appeared there with much Splendour and came off with great Honour He was indeed a Man of great Parts had not insatiable ambition with profound dissimulation stained his other Noble Qualities The Protector at his return was advised presently to meet the Parliament for which the Writs had been sent out before he went into Scotland now that he was so covered with Glory to get himself established in his Authority and to do those other things which required a Session The Visitors execute the Injunctions He found the Visitors had performed their Visitation and all had given obedience And those who expounded the secret Providences of God with an Eye to their own opinions took great notice of this that on the same day in which the Visitors removed Acts and Monuments and destroyed most of the Images in London their Armies were so successful in Scotland in Pinkey Field It is too common to all Men to magnifie such Events much when they make for them but if they are against them they turn it off by this That Gods Ways are past finding out So partially do Men argue where they are once engaged Bonner and Gardiner had shewed some dislike of the Injunctions Bonner received them with a Protestation that he would observe them if they were not contrary to Gods Law and the Ordinances of the Church Upon which Sir Anthony Cook and the other Visitors complained to the Council So Bonner was sent for where he offered a submission but full of vain Quiddities so it is expressed in the Council-Book But they were not well received by Bonner Collection Number 12. But they not accepting of that he made such a full one as they desired which is in the Collection Yet for giving terror to others he was sent to lie for some time in the Prison called the Fleet. Gardiner seeing the Homilies was also resolved to protest against them Nor by Gardiner Sir John Godsalve who was one of the Visitors wrote to him not to ruine himself nor lose his Bishoprick by such an Action To whom he wrote a Letter that has more of a Christian and of a Bishop in it than any thing I ever saw of his He expresses in handsome terms a great contempt of the World and a resolution to suffer any thing rather than depart from his Conscience Besides that as he said the things being against Law he would not deliver up the Liberties of his Country but would petition against them This Letter will be found in the Collection Collection Number 13. for I am resolved to suppress nothing of consequence on what side soever it may be Sept. 15. On the 25th of September it being informed to the Council that Gardiner had written to some of that Board and had spoken to others many things in prejudice and contempt of the Kings Visitation and that he intended to refuse to set forth the Homilies and Injunctions he was sent for to the Council Where being examined he said he thought they were contrary to the Word of God and that his Conscience would not suffer him to observe them He excepted to one of the Homilies that it exclude Charity from justifying Men as well as Faith This he said was contrary to the Book set out in the late Kings time which was afterwards confirmed in Parliament in the Year 1542. he said further that he could never see one place of Scripture nor any ancient Doctor that favoured it He also said Erasmus's Paraphrase was bad enough in Latin but much worse in English for the Translator had oft out of ignorance and oft out of design misrendred him palpably and was one that neither understood Latin nor English well He offered to go to Oxford to dispute about Justification with any they should send him to or to enter in conference with any that would undertake his Instruction in Town But this did not satisfie the Council So they pressed him to declare what he intended to do when the Visitors should be with him He said he did not know he should further study these Points for it would be three weeks before they could be with him and he was sure he would say no worse than that he should obey them as far as could consist with Gods Law and the Kings The Council urged him to promise that he would without any limitation set forth the Homilies and the Injunctions which he refusing to do was sent to the Fleet. Some days after that Cranmer went to see the Dean of St. Pauls having the Bishops of Lincoln and Rochester with Dr. Cox and some others with him He sent for Gardiner thither and entred into discourse with him about that Passage in the Homily excluding Charity out of our Justification and urged those Places of St. Paul That we are justified by Faith without the Works of the Law He said his design in that Passage was only to draw Men from trusting in any thing they did and to teach them to trust only to Christ But Gardiner had a very different Notion of Justification For as he said Infants were justified by Baptism and Penitents by the Sacrament of Penance and that the Conditions of the justifying of those of Age were Charity as well as Faith as the three Estates make a Law all joyned together for by this Simile he set it out in the report he writ of that Discourse to the Lord Protector reckoning the King one of the three Estates a way of Speech very strange especially in a Bishop and a Lawyer For Erasmus it was said that though there were faults in his Paraphrase as no Book besides the Scriptures is without faults yet it was the best for that use they could find and they did choose rather to set out what so learned a Man had written
than to make a new one which might give occasion to more Objections and he was the most indifferent Writer they knew Afterwards Cranmer knowing what was likely to work most on him let fall some words as Gardiner writ to the Protector of bringing him into the Privy-Council if he would concur in what they were carrying on But that not having its ordinary effect on him he was carried back to the Fleet. There were also many complaints brought by some Clergy-men of such as had used them ill for their obeying the Kings Injunctions and for removing Images Many were upon their submission sent away with a severe rebuke others that offended more hainously were put in the Fleet for some time and afterwards giving Bond for their good behaviour were discharged But upon the Protectors return the Bishop of Winchester writ him a long Letter in his own vindication He complained of the Visitors proceeding in his absence in so great a matter He said the Injunctions were contrary to themselves for they appointed the Homilies to be read and Erasmus's Paraphrase to be put in all Churches so he selected many passages out of these that were contrary to one another He also gathered many things out of Erasmus's Paraphrase that were contrary to the Power of Princes and several other censurable things in that Work which Erasmus wrote when he was young being of a far different strain from what he writ when he grew older and better acquainted with the World But he concluded his Letter with a discourse of the extent of the King and Councils Power Collection Number 14. which is all I transcribed of it being very long and full of things of no great consequence He questions how far the King could command against Common or Statute Law of which himself had many occasions to be well informed Cardinal Wolsey had obtained his Legatine Power at the Kings desire but notwithstanding that he was brought into a Praemunire and the Lawyers upon that Argument cited many Precedents of Judges that were fined when they transgressed the Laws though commanded by Warrants from the King and Earl Typteft who was Chancellor lost his Head for acting upon the Kings Warrant against Law In the late Kings time the Judges would not set Fines on the breakers of the Kings Proclamations when they were contrary to Law till the Act concerning them was passed about which there were many hot words when it was debated He mentions a Discourse that passed between him and the Lord Audley in the Parliament concerning the Kings Supremacy Audley bid him look the Act of Supremacy and he would see the Kings doings were restrained to Spiritual Jurisdiction and by another Act no Spiritual Law could take place against the Common Law or an Act of Parliament otherwise the Bishops would strike in with the King and by means of the Supremacy would order the Law as they pleased but we will provide said he that the Praemunire shall never go off of your backs In some late Cases he heard the Judges declare what the King might do against an Act of Parliament and what danger they were in that medled in such matters These things being so fresh in his memory he thought he might write what he did to the Lords of Council But by this it appears that no sort of Men is so much for the Kings Prerogative but when it becomes in any instance uneasie to them they will shelter themselves under the Law He continued afterwards by many Letters to the Protector to complain of his ill usage That he had been then seven weeks in the Fleet without Servants a Chaplain or a Physician that though he had his Writ of Summons he was not suffered to come to the Parliament which might be a ground afterwards of questioning their Proceedings He advised the Protector not to make himself a Party in these matters and used all the insinuations of decent flattery that he could invent with many sharp reflections on Cranmer and stood much on the force of Laws that they could not be repealed by the Kings Will. Concerning which he mentions a Passage that fell out between Cromwel and himself before the late King Cromwel said That the King might make or repeal Laws as the Roman Emperors did and asked his opinion about it whether the Kings Will was not a Law To which he answered facetiously That he thought it was much better for the King to make the Law his Will than to make his Will a Law But notwithstanding all his Letters which are printed in the second Volume of Acts and Monum Edit 1641. yet he continued a Prisoner till the Parliament was over and then by the Act of Pardon he was set at liberty This was much censured as an invasion of Liberty and it was said these at Court durst not suffer him to come to the House lest he had confounded them in all they did And the explaining Justification with so much nicety in Homilies that were to be read to the People was thought a needless subtilty But the former abuses of trusting to the Acts of Charity that Men did by which they fancied they bought Heaven made Cranmer judge it necessary to express the matter so nicely though the expounding those Places of St. Paul was as many thought rather according to the strain of the Germans than to the meaning of these Epistles And upon the whole matter they knew Gardiners haughty temper and that it was necessary to mortifie him a little though the pretence on which they did it seemed too slight for such severities But it is ordinary when a thing is once resolved on to make use of the first occasion that offers for effecting it The Party that opposed the Reformation The Lady Mary dissatisfied with the Reformation finding these attempts so unsuccessful engaged the Lady Mary to appear for them She therefore wrote to the Protector that she thought all changes in Religion till the King came to be of Age were very much contrary to the respect they owed the memory of her Father if they went about to shake what he had setled and against their duty to their young Master to hazard the Peace of his Kingdom and engage his Authority in such Points before he was capable of judging them The Protector writ to her Collection Number 15. I gather this to have been the substance of her Letter from the Answer which the Protector wrote which is in the Collection In it he wrote That he believed her Letter flowed not immediately from her self but from the instigation of some malicious Persons He protests they had no other design but the Glory of God and the Honour and Safety of the King and that what they had done was so well considered that all good Subjects ought rather to rejoyce at it than find fault with it And whereas she had said That her Father had brought Religion to a godly order and quietness to which both Spiritualty
Judges on the 7th it was read again and joyned to the other Bill about the Sacrament And on the 10th the whole Bill was agreed to by all the Peers except the Bishops of London Hereford Norwich Worcester and Chichester and sent down to the Commons On the 17th a Proviso was sent after it but was rejected by the Commons since the Lords had not agreed to it On the 20th it was sent up agreed to and had afterwards the Royal Assent By it first the value of the Holy Sacrament commonly called the Sacrament of the Altar and in the Scripture the Supper and Table of the Lord was set forth together with its first Institution but it having been of late marvellously abused some had been thereby brought to a contempt of it which they had expressed in Sermons Discourses and Songs in words not fit to be repeated therefore whosoever should so offend after the first of May next was to suffer Fine and Imprisonment at the Kings Pleasure and the Justices of the Peace were to take Information and make Presentments of Persons so offending within three Months after the offences so committed allowing them Witnesses for their own purgation And it being more agreeable to Christs first Institution And the practice of the Church for 500 years after Christ that the Sacrament should be given in both the kinds of Bread and Wine rather than in one kind only Therefore it was Enacted That it should be commonly given in both kinds except necessity did otherwise require it And it being also more agreeable to the first Institution and the primitive Practice that the People should receive with the Priest than that the Priest should receive it alone therefore the day before every Sacrament an Exhortation was to be made to the People to prepare themselves for it in which the benefits and danger of worthy and unworthy receiving were to be expressed and the Priests were not without a lawful cause to deny it to any who humbly askt it This was an Act of great consequence Communion appointed in both kinds since it reformed two abuses that had crept into the Church The one was the denying the Cup to the Laity the other was the Priests communicating alone In the first Institution it is plain that as Christ bad all drink of the Cup and his Disciples all drank of it so St. Paul directed every one to examine himself that he might eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. From thence the Church for many Ages continued this practice and the Superstition of some who received only in one kind was severely censured and such were appointed either to receive the whole Sacrament or to abstain wholly It continued thus till the belief of the Corporal Presence of Christ was set up and then the keeping and carrying about the Cup in Processions not being so easily done some began to lay it aside For a great while the Bread was given dipt in the Cup to represent a bleeding Christ as it is in the Greek Church to this day In other Places the Laity had the Cup given them but they were to suck it through Pipes that nothing of it should fall to the ground But since they believed that Christ was in every crumb of Bread it was thought needless to give the Sacrament in both kinds So in the Council of Constance the Cup was ordered to be denied the Laity though they acknowledged it to have been instituted and practised otherwise To this the Bohemians would never submit though to compel them to it much Blood was shed in this Quarrel And now in the Reformation this was every where one of the first things with which the People were possessed the opposition of the Roman Church herein to the Institution of Christ being so manifest And all private Masses put down At first this Sacrament was also understood to be a Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ of which many were to be partakers while the fervor of devotion lasted it was thought a scandalous and censurable thing if any had come unto the Christian Assemblies and had not stayed to receive these Holy Mysteries and the denying to give any one the Sacrament was accounted a very great punishment So sensible were the Christians of their ill condition when they were hindred to participate of it But afterwards the former Devotion slackening the good Bishops in the 4th and 5th Centuries complained oft of it that so few came to Receive yet the Custom being to make Oblations before the Sacrament out of which the Clergy had been maintained during the poverty of the Church the Priests had a great mind to keep up the constant use of these Oblations and so perswaded the Laity to continue them and to come to the Sacrament though they did not receive it and in process of time they were made to believe that the Priest received in behalf of the whole People And whereas this Sacrament was the Commemoration of Christs Sacrifice on the Cross and so by a Phrase of Speech was called a Sacrifice they came afterwards to fancy that the Priests consecrating and consuming the Sacrament was an Action of it self expiatory and that both for the Dead and the Living And there rose an infinite number of several sorts of Masses some were for commemorating the Saints and those were called the Masses of such Saints others for a particular Blessing for Rain Health c. and indeed for all the accidents of Humane Life where the addition or variation of a Collect made the difference So that all that Trade of Massing was now removed An Intimation was also made of Exhortations to be read in it which they intended next to set about These abuses in the Mass gave great advantages to those who intended to change it into a Communion But many in stead of managing them prudently made unseemly Jests about them and were carried by a lightness of temper to make Songs and Plays of the Mass for now the Press went quick and many Books were printed this year about matters of Religion the greatest number of them being concerning the Mass which were not written in so decent and grave a style as the matter required Against this Act only five Bishops protested Many of that Order were absent from the Parliament so the opposition made to it was not considerable The next Bill brought into the House of Lords An Act about the Admission of Bishops was concerning the admission of Bishops to their Sees by the Kings Letters Patents Which being read was committed to the Arch-bishop of Canterburies care on the fifth of November and was read the second time on the 10th and committed to some of the Judges and was read the third time on the 28th of November and sent down to the Commons on the 5th of December There was also another Bill brought in concerning the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Bishops Courts on the 17th of November and pass'd and sent
Dutchess of Somerset should be so foolish as to think that she ought to have the precedence of the Queen Dowager Therefore I look upon this Story as a meer Fiction though it is probable enough there might upon some other accounts have been some Animosities between the two high-spirited Ladies which might have afterwards be thought to have occasioned their Husbands quarrel It is plain in the whole thread of this Affair that the Protector was at first very easie to be reconciled to his Brother and was only assaulted by him but bore the trouble he gave him with much patience for a great while though in the end seeing his factious temper was incurable he laid off Nature too much when he consented to his Execution Yet all along till then he had rather too much encouraged his Brother to go on by his readiness to be after every breach reconciled to him When the Protector was in Scotland the Admiral then began to act more avowedly and was making a Party for himself of which Paget took notice and charged him with it in plain terms He asked him why he would go about to reverse that which himself and others had consented to under their Hands Their Family was now so great that nothing but their mutual quarrelling could do them any prejudice But there would not be wanting officious Men to inflame them if they once divided among themselves and the Breaches among near Friends commonly turn to the most irreconcilable Quarrels Yet all was ineffectual for the Admiral was resolved to go on and either get himself advanced higher or to perish in the Attempt It was the knowledge of this which forced the Protector to return from Scotland so abruptly and disadvantageously for the securing of his Interest with the King on whom his Brothers Artifices had made some impression Whether there was any reconciliation made between them before the Parliament met is not certain But during the Session the Admiral got the King to write with his own Hand a Message to the House of Commons for the making of him the Governour of his Person and he intended to have gone with it to the House and had a Party there by whose means he was confident to have carried his business He dealt also with many of the Lords and Counsellors to assist him in it When this was known before he had gone with it to the House some were sent to him in his Brothers Name to see if they could prevail with him to proceed no further He refused to hearken to them and said That if he were cross'd in his attempt he would make this the blackest Parliament that ever was in England Upon that he was sent for by Order from the Council but refused to come Then they threatned him severely and told him the Kings Writing was nothing in Law but that he who had procured it was punishable for doing an Act of such a nature to the disturbance of the Government and for engaging the young King in it So they resolved to have sent him to the Tower and to have turned him out of all his Offices But he submitted himself to the Protector and Council and his Brother and he seemed to be perfectly reconciled Yet as the Protector had reason to have a watchful Eye over him so it was too soon visible that he had not laid down but only put off his high Projects till a fitter conjuncture For he began the next Christmas to deal Money again among the Kings Servants and was on all occasions infusing into the King a dislike of every thing that was done and did often perswade him to assume the Government himself But the sequel of this Quarrel proved fatal to him as shall be told in its proper place And thus ended the Year 1547. On the 8th of Jan. 1548. Jan. 8. next year Gardiner was brought before the Council Where it was told him that his former Offences being included in the Kings general Pardon he was thereupon discharged a grave admonition was given him to carry himself reverently and obediently and he was desired to declare whether he would receive the Injunctions and Homilies and the Doctrine to be set forth from time to time by the King and Clergy of the Realm He answered he would conform himself as the other Bishops did and only excepted to the Homily of Justification and desired four or five days to consider of it What he did at the end of that time does not appear from the Council-Book no farther mention being made of this matter for the Clerks of Council did not then enter every thing with that exactness that is since used He went home to his Diocess where there still appeared in his whole behaviour great malignity to Cranmer and to all motions for Reformation yet he gave such outward compliance that it was not easie to find any advantage against him especially now since the Councils great Power was so much abridged The Marquess of Northampton sues a Divorce for Adultery In the end of Jan. the Council made an Order concerning the Marquess of Northampton which will oblige me to look back a little for the clear account of it This Lord who was Brother to the Queen Dowager had married Anne Bourchier Daughter to the Earl of Essex the last of that Name But she being convicted of Adultery he was divorced from her which according to the Law of the Ecclesiastical Courts was only a separation from Bed and Board Upon which Divorce it was proposed in King Henry's time to consider what might be done in favour of the Innocent Person when the other was convicted of Adultery So in the beginning of King Edward's Reign on the 7th of May a Commission was granted to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Duresme and Rochester this was Holbeack who was not then translated to Lincoln to Dr. Ridley and six more ten in all of whom six were a Quorum to try whether the Lady Anne was not by the Word of God so lawfully divorced that she was no more his Wife and whether thereupon he might not marry another Wife This being a new Case and of great importance Cranmer resolved to examine it with his ordinary diligence and searched into the Opinions of the Fathers and Doctors Ex MSS. D. Stillingfleet so copiously that his Collections about it grew into a large Book the Original whereof I have perused the greatest part of it being either written or marked and interlined with his own Hand This required a longer time than the Marquess of Northampton could stay and therefore presuming on his great Power without waiting for Judgment he solemnly married Eliz. Daughter to Brooke Lord Cobham On the 28th of Jan. Information was brought to the Council of this which gave great scandal since his first Marriage stood yet firm in Law So he being put to answer for himself said he thought that by the Word of God he was discharged of his tie to
which he should preach before the King in which he should openly declare how well he was satisfied with his Proceedings yet it is added That in his Sermon where there was a wonderful Audience he did most arrogantly meddle with some Matters that were contrary to an express command given him both by word of Mouth and by Letters and in other Matters used such words as had almost raised a great Tumult in the very time and had spoken very seditiously concerning the Policy of the Kingdom So they saw that Clemency wrought no good effect on him and it seeming necessary to terrifie others by their Proceedings with him he was sent to the Tower and the door of his Closet was sealed up Thus it is entred in the Council-Book Signed E. Somerset T. Cantuarien W. St. Johns J. Russel and T. Cheyney Yet it seems this Order was not Signed when it was made but some years after For the Lord Russel Signed first Bedford but remembring that at the time when this Order was made he had not that Title therefore he dashed it out but so as it still appears and Signed J. Russel Fox's Acts and Monuments The account that Gardiner himself gives of this Business is That being discharged upon the Act of Pardon he was desired to promise that he would set forth the Homilies and a Form was given him to which he should set his Hand but he considering of it a fortnight returned and said he could not subscribe it so he was confined to his House Then Ridley and Mr. Cecil afterwards the great Lord Burleigh Lord Treasurer to Queen Eliz. at that time Secretary to the Protector were sent to him and so prevailed that he did set his Hand to it But upon some Complaints that were made of him he was sent for after Whit-Sunday and accused that he had carried Palms had crept to the Cross and had a Sepulchre on Good-Friday which was contrary to the Kings Proclamations all which he denied and said he had and would still give obedience to what the King should command That of affronting the Kings Preachers was objected to him to which he answered telling matter of fact how it was done but he does not in his Writing set it down Then it was complained that in a Sermon he had said The Apostles came away rejoycing from the Council the Council the Council repeating it thus to make it seem applicable to himself This he denied Then it was objected That he preached the Real Presence in the Sacrament the Word Real not being in Scripture and so it was not the setting forth the pure Word of God He said he had not used the Word Real only he had asserted the Presence of Christ in such words as he had heard the Arch-bishop of Canterbury dispute for it against Lambert that had been burnt He was commanded to tarry in London but he desired that since he was not an Offender he might be at his liberty He complained much of the Songs made of him and of the Books written against him and particularly of one Philpot in Westminster whom he accounted a mad Man Then he relates That Cecil came to him and proposed to him to preach before the King and that he should write his Sermon and also brought him some Notes which he wished him to put in his Sermon he said he was willing to preach but would not write it for that was to preach as an Offender nor would he make use of Notes prepared by other Men. Then he was privately brought to the Protector none but the Lord St. John being present who shewed him a Paper containing the opinion of some Lawyers of the Kings Power and of a Bishops Authority and of the Punishment of disobeying the King but he desired to speak with those Lawyers and said no subscription of theirs should oblige him to preach otherwise than as he was convinced The Protector said he should either do that or do worse Secretary Smith came to him to press him further in some Points but what they were is not mentioned Yet by the other Papers in that Business it appears they related to the Kings Authority when under Age and for justifying the Kings proceedings in what had been done about the Ceremonies and that Auricular Confession was indifferent So the Contest between him and the Protector ended and there was no writing required of him but he left the whole matter to him so that he should treat plainly of those things mentioned to him by Cecil He chose St. Peters day because the Gospel agreed to his purpose Cecil shewed him some Notes written with the Kings Hand of the Sermons preached before him especially what was said of the Duty of a King and warned him that when ever he named the King he should add and his Council To this he made no Answer for though he thought it wisely done of a King to use his Council yet being to speak of the Kings Power according to Scripture he did not think it necessary to add any thing of his Council and hearing by a confused report some secret matter he resolved not to meddle with it Two days before he preached the Protector sent him a Message not to meddle with those Questions about the Sacrament that were yet in controversie among Learned Men and that therefore he was resolved there should be no publick determination made of them before-hand in the Pulpit He said he could not forbear to speak of the Mass for he looked on it as the chief foundation of Christian Religion but he doubted not that he should so speak of it as to give them all content So the day following the Protector writ to him Number 28. as will be found in the Collection requiring him in the Kings Name not to meddle with these Points but to preach concerning the Articles given him and about Obedience and good Life which would afford him matter enough for a long Sermon since the other points were to be reserved to a publick Consultation The Protector added That he held it a great part of his Duty under the King not to suffer wilful Persons to disswade the People from receiving such Truths as should be set forth by others But Gardiner pretended that there was no Controversie about the Presence of Christ And so the next day he took his Text out of the Gospel for the day Thou art Christ Parkers MSS. Ex C. Ch. Col. Cant. He preached before the King c. In his Sermon of which I have seen large Notes he expressed himself very fully concerning the Popes Supremacy as justly abolished and the Suppression of Monasteries and Chantries he approved of the Kings Proceedings he thought Images might have been well used but yet they might be well taken away He approved of the Sacrament in both kinds and the taking away that great number of Masses satisfactory and liked well the new Order for the Communion But he asserted largely the Presence of
Contritions of thy Heart this Confession and all thy other devout Confessions all thy Fastings Abstinencies Almsgivings Watchings Disciplines Prayers and Pilgrimages and all the good thou hast done or shall do and all the evils thou hast suffered or shalt suffer for God the Passions of our Lord Jesus Christ the Merits of the Glorious and Blessed Virgin Mary and of all other Saints and the Suffrages of all the Holy Catholick Church turn to thee for the remission of these and all other thy sins the encrease of thy Merits and the attainment of Everlasting Rewards When Extream Unction was given to dying Persons they applied it to the Ears Lips Nose and other Parts with this Prayer By this Holy Vnction and his own most tender Mercy and by the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints may God pardon thee whatever thou hast sinned by thy Hearing Speaking or Smelling and so in the other Parts And when the dead Body was laid in the Grave this Absolution was said over it The Lord Jesus Christ who gave to St. Peter and his other Disciples power to bind and loose absolve thee from all the guilt of thy sins and in so far as is committed to my weakness be thou absolved before the Tribunal of our Lord and may thou have Eternal Life and live for evermore This was thought the highest abuse possible when in giving the hopes of Heaven and the pardon of sins which were of all the other parts of Religion the most important there were such mixtures and that which the Scriptures had taught could be only attained by Jesus Christ and that upon the sincere belief and obedience of his Gospel was now ascribed to so many other procuring Causes These things had possessed the World with that conceit that there was a trick for saving Souls besides that plain method which Christ had taught and that the Priests had the secret of it in their Hands so that those who would not come under the Yoak of Christ and be saved that way needed only to apply themselves to Priests and purchase their favour and the business would be done There were two other Changes which run through the whole Offices The one was The translating them into a Vulgar Tongue The Jewish Worship was either in Hebrew or after the Captivity in the Syriack the Vulgar Tongues of Palestine The Apostles always officiated in the Tongues that were best understood So that St. Paul did copiously censure those who in Prayers or Psalms used any Language that was not understood And Origen Basil with all the Fathers that had occasion to mention this took notice that every one in their own Tongue worshiped God After the renting of the Roman Empire by the Goths and other barbarous Nations the Roman Tongue did slowly mix with their Tongues till it was much changed and altered from it self by degrees yet it was so long a doing that that it was not thought necessary to translate the Liturgy into their Languages But in the ninth Century when the Slavons were converted it being desired that they might have Divine Offices in their own Language while some opposed it a Voice was said to be heard Let every Tongue Praise God Upon which Pope John the 8th writ to Methodius their Bishop that it might be granted and founded it on St. Pauls Epist to the Cor. and on these words of David Let every Tongue praise the Lord. And in the fourth Council of Lateran it was decreed That Bishops who lived in Places where they were mixed with Greeks should provide fit Priests for performing Divine Offices according to the Rites and Language of those to whom they ministred But the Roman Church though so merciful to the Greeks and Slavons was more cruel to the rest of Europe and since only Hebrew Greek and Latin had been written on the Cross of Christ by Pilate they argued that these Languages were thereby consecrated though it is not easie to apprehend what Holiness could be derived into these Tongues by Pilate who ordered these Inscriptions It was also pretended that it was a part of the Communion of Saints that every where the Worship should be in the same Tongue But the truth was they had a mind to raise the value of the Priestly Function by keeping all Divine Offices in a Tongue not understood which in People otherwise well seasoned with superstition might have that effect but it did very much alienate the rest of the World from them There was also a vast number of Holy-days formerly observed with so many Prayers and Hymns belonging to them and so many Lessons that were to be read which were many of them such impudent Forgeries that the whole Breviary and Missal being full of these a great deal was to be left out There is in the whole Breviary scarce one Saint but the Lessons concerning him contain some ridiculous Legend such as indeed could not be well read in a Vulgar Tongue without the scorn and laughter of the Hearers and for most part the Prayers and Hymns do relate to these lying Stories Many of the Prayers and Hymns were also in such a Style that the pardon of Sin Grace and Heaven were immediately desired from the Saints as if these things had come from their Bounty or by their Merits or were given by them only of which the Reader shall have a little tast in the Collection in some of the Addresses made to them Collection Number 29. The Reformers having thus considered the corruptions of the former Offices were thereby better prepared to frame new ones But the Priests had officiated in some Garments which were appropriated to that use as Surplices Copes and other Vestments and it was long under consideration whether these should continue It was objected that these Garments had been parts of the Train of the Mass and had been superstitiously abused only to set it off with the more pomp On the other hand it was argued That as White was anciently the Colour of the Priests Garments in the Mosaical Dispensation so it was used in the African Churches in the fourth Century And it was thought a natural expression of the purity and decency that became Priests besides the Clergy were then generally extream poor so that they could scarce afford themselves decent Cloaths the People also running from the other Extream of submitting too much to the Clergy were now as much enclined to despise them and to make light of the Holy Function so that if they should officiate in their own mean Garments it might make the Divine Offices grow also into contempt And therefore it was resolved to continue the use of them and it was said that their being blessed and used superstitiously gave as strong an Argument against the use of Churches and Bells but that St. Paul had said That every Creature of God was good and even the Meat of the Sacrifice offered to an Idol than which there could be no greater abuse might lawfully
Articles which he had not yet answered otherwise they would proceed against him as Contumax and hold him as Confessing But he adhered to his Appeal and so would answer no more New matter was also brought of his going out of St. Pauls in the midst of the Sermon on the 15th of the Month and so giving a publick disturbance and scandal and of his writing next day to the Lord Major not to suffer such Preachers to sow their ill Doctrine This was occasioned by the Preachers speaking against the Corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament But he would give the Court no account of that matter so they adjourned to the 27th and from that to the first of October In that time great endeavours were used to perswade him to submit and to behave himself better for the future and upon that condition he was assured he should be gently used But he would yield to nothing So on the first of October when he was brought before them the Arch-bishop told him they had delayed so long being unwilling to proceed to extremities with him and therefore wished him to submit But he read another Writing by which he protested that he was brought before them by force and that otherwise he would not have come since that having appeal'd from them he looked on them as his Judges no more He said that he had also written a Petition to the Lord Chancellor complaining of the Delegates and desiring that his Appeal might be admitted and said by that Appeal it was plain that he esteemed the King to be cloathed with his full Royal Power now that he was under Age since he thus appealed to him Upon which the Arch-bishop the Bishop of Rochester Secretary Smith and the Dean of St. Pauls He is deprived from his Bishoprick gave Sentence against him that since he had not declared the Kings Power while under Age in his Sermon as he was commanded by the Protector and Council therefore the Arch-bishop with the Consent and Assent of his Colleagues did deprive him of the Bishoprick of London Sentence being thus given he appealed again by word of mouth The Court did also order him to be carried to Prison till the King should consider further of it This account of his Trial is drawn from the Register of London where all these Particulars are inserted From thence it was that Fox printed them For Bonner though he was afterward Commissioned by the Queen to deface any Records that made against the Catholick Cause yet did not care to alter any thing in this Register after his re-admission in Queen Maries time It seems he was not displeased with what he found Recorded of himself in this matter Thus was Bonner deprived of his Bishoprick of London Censures past upon it This Judgment as all such things are was much censured It was said it was not Canonical since it was by a Commission from the King and since Secular Men were mixed with Clergy-men in the censure of a Bishop To this it was answered That the Sentence being only of deprivation from the See of London it was not so entirely an Ecclesiastical Censure but was of a mixed nature so that Lay-men might joyn in it and since he had taken a Commission from the King for his Bishoprick by which he held it only during the Kings pleasure he could not complain of this deprivation which was done by the Kings Authority Others who looked further back remembred that Constantine the Emperor had appointed Secular Men to enquire into some things objected to Bishops who were called Cognitores or Triers and such had examined the business of Cecilian Bishop of Carthage even upon an Appeal after it had been tried in several Synods and given Judgment against Donatus and his Party The same Constantine had also by his Authority put Eustathius out of Antioch Athanasius out of Alexandria and Paul out of Constantinople and though the Orthodox Bishops complained of these Particulars as done unjustly at the false suggestion of the Arrians yet they did not deny the Emperors Authority in such Cases Afterwards the Emperors used to have some Bishops attending on them in their Comitatus or Court to whose Judgment they left most Causes who acted only by Commission from the Emperor So Epiphanius was brought to condemn Chrysostome at Constantinople who had no Authority to judge him by the Canons Others objected that it was too severe to deprive Bonner for a defect in his memory and that therefore they should have given him a new Tryal in that Point and not have proceeded to censure him on such an omission since he protested it was not on design but a pure forgetfulness and all People perceived clearly it had been before hand resolved to lay him aside and that therefore they now took him on this disadvantage and so deprived him But it was also well known that all the Papists infused this Notion into the People of the Kings having no Power till he came to be of Age and he being certainly one of them there was reason to conclude that what he said for his defence was only a Pretence and that it was of design that he had omitted the mentioning the Kings Power when under Age. The adding of Imprisonment to his Deprivation was thought by some to be an extream accumulation of Punishments But that was no more than what he drew upon himself by his rude and contemptuous behaviour However it seems that some of these Objections wrought on Secretary Petre for he never sate with the Delegates after the first day and he was now turning about to another Party On the other hand Bonner was little pitied by most that knew him He was a cruel and fierce Man he understood little of Divinity his Learning being chiefly in the Canon Law Besides he was looked on generally as a Man of no Principles All the obedience he gave either to the Laws or the Kings Injunctions was thought a compliance against his Conscience extorted by fear And his undecent carriage during his process had much exposed him to the People so that it was not thought to be hard dealing though the Proceedings against him were summary and severe Nor did his carriage afterward during his imprisonment discover much of a Bishop or a Christian For he was more concerned to have Puddings and Pears sent him than for any thing else This I gather from some original Letters of his to Richard Leechmore Esq in Worcester-shire which were communicated to me by his Heir Lineally descended from him the Worshipful Mr. Leechmore now the Senior Bencher of the Middle-Temple of which I transcribed the latter part of one Collection Number 37. that will be found in the Collection In it he desires a large quantity of Pears and Puddings to be sent him otherwise he gives those to whom he writes an odd sort of Benediction very unlike what became a Man of his Character he gives them to the Devil to the Devil
Triumphs would follow him but it was below him to be second to any So he engaged him to quarrel in every thing with the Protector all whose wary motions were ascribed to fear or dullness To others he said What friendship could any expect from a Man who had no pity on his own Brother But that which provoked the Nobility most Complaints against the Protector was the partiality the Protector had for the Commons in the Insurrections that had been this Summer He had also given great Grounds of jealousie by entertaining Forreign Troops in the Kings Wars which though it was not objected to him because the Council had consented to it yet it was whispered about that he had extorted that Consent But the noble Palace he was raising in the Strand which yet carries his Name out of the ruines of some Bishops Houses and Churches drew as publick an envy on him as any thing he had done It was said that when the King was engaged in such Wars and when London was much disordered by the Plague that had been in it for some Months he was then bringing Architects from Italy and designing such a Palace as had not been seen in England It was also said That many Bishops and Cathedrals had resigned many Mannours to him for obtaining his favour Though this was not done without leave obtained from the King for in a Grant of some Lands made to him by the King on the 11th of July in the second year of his Reign it is said That these Lands were given him as a Reward of his Services in Scotland Rot. Pat. 4. Par. 2. Reg. for which he was offered greater Rewards but that he refusing to accept of such Grants as might too much impoverish the Crown had taken a Licence to the Bishop of Bath and Wells for his alienating some of the Lands of that Bishoprick to him he is in that Patent called by the Grace of God Duke of Somerset which had not of late years been ascribed to any but Sovereign Princes It was also said That many of the Chantry Lands had been sold to his Friends at easie rates for which they concluded he had great Presents and a course of unusual greatness had raised him up too high so that he did not carry himself towards the Nobility with that equality that they expected from him All these things concurred to beget him many Enemies and he had very few Friends for none stuck firmly to him but Paget and Secretary Smith and especially Cranmer who never forsook his Friend All that favoured the old Superstition were his Enemies and seeing the Earl of Southampton heading the Party against him they all run in to it And of the Bishops that were for the Reformation Goodrich of Ely likewise joyned to them He had attended on the Admiral in his Preparations for death from whom it seems he drank in ill impressions of the Protector All his Enemies saw and he likewise saw it himself that the continuance of the War must needs destroy him and that a Peace would confirm him in his Power and give him time and leisure to break thorough the Faction that was now so strong against him that it was not probable he could master it without the help of some time So in the Council his Adversaries delivered their Opinions against all motions for Peace and though upon Pagets return from Flanders it appeared to be very unreasonable to carry on the War yet they said Paget had secret Instructions to procure such an Answer that it might give a colour to so base a Project The Officers that came over from these Places that the French had taken pretended as is common for all Men in such Circumstances that they wanted things necessary for a Siege and though in truth it was quite contrary as we read in Thuanus yet their Complaints were cherished and spread about among the People The Protector had also against the Mind of the Council ordered the Garrison to be drawn out of Hadingtoun and was going notwithstanding all their opposition to make Peace with France and did in many things act by his own Authority without asking thâ—ir advice and often against it This was the assuming a Regal Power and seemed not to be endured by those who thought they were in all Points his equals It was also said That when contrary to the late Kings Will he was chosen Protector it was with that special condition that he should do nothing without their consent and though by the Patent he had for his Office his Power was more enlarged which was of greater force in Law than a private Agreement at the Council Table yet even that was objected to him as an high presumption in him to pretend to such a vast Power Thus all the Month of September there were great Heats among them several Persons interposed to mediate but to no effect for the Faction against him was now so strong that they resolved to strip him of his exorbitant Power and reduce him to an equality with themselves The King was then at Hampton-Court where also the Protector was with some of his own Retainers and Servants about him which encreased the Jealousies for it was given out that he intended to carry away the King So on the 6th of October some of the Council met at Ely House the Lord St. John President Most of the Council separate from him the Earls of Warwick Arundel and Southampton Sir Edw. North Sir Richard Southwell Sir Edmund Pecham Sir Edw. Wotton and Dr. Wotton and Secretary Petre being sent to them in the Kings Name to ask what they met for joyned himself likewise to them They sate as the Kings Council and entred their Proceedings in the Council-Book from whence I draw the account of this Transaction These being met together and considering the disorders that had been lately in England the losses in Scotland and France laid the blame of all on the Protector who they said was given up to other Councils so obstinately that he would not hearken to the advises they had given him both at the Board and in private and they declared that having intended that day to have gone to Hampton-Court for a friendly communication with him he had raised many of the Commons to have destroyed them and had made the King set his Hand to the Letters he had sent for raising Men and had also dispersed seditious Bills against them therefore they intended to see to the safety of the King and the Kingdom So they sent for the Lord Major and Aldermen of London and required them to obey no Letters sent them by the Protector but only such as came from themselves They also writ many Letters to the Nobility and Gentry over England giving them an account of their Designs and Motives and requiring their assistance They also sent for the Lieutenant of the Tower and he submitted to their Orders Next day the Lord Chancellor the Marquess of Northampton
the Earl of Shrewsbury Sir Tho. Cheyney Sir John Gage Sir Ralph Sadler and the Lord Chief-Justice Montague joyned with them Then they wrote to the King a Letter Collection Number 41. which is in the Collection full of expressions of their duty and care of his Person complaining of the Duke of Somerset's not listening to their Councils and of his gathering a Force about him for maintaining his wilful doings they owned that they had caused Secretary Petre to stay with them and in it they endeavoured to perswade the King that they were careful of nothing so much as of his preservation They also wrote to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and to Sir William Paget to see to the Kings Person and that his own Servants should attend on him and not those that belonged to the Duke of Somerset But the Protector hearing of this disorder had removed the King to Windsor in all hast and had taken down all the Armour that was either there or at Hampton-Court and had armed such as he could gather about him for his preservation The Council at London complained much of this that the King should be carried to a Place where there were no Provisions fit for him So they ordered all things that he might need to be sent to him from London And on the 8th of October they went to Guild-hall when they gave an account of their Proceedings to the Common-Council of the City and assured them they had no thoughts of altering the Religion as was given out by their Enemies but intended only the safety of the King and the Peace of the Kingdom and for these ends desired their assistance The City of London joyns with them The whole Common-Council with one Voice declared they thanked God for the good intentions they had expressed and assured them they would stand by them with their Lives and Goods At Windsor when the Protector understood that not only the City but the Lieutenant of the Tower of whom he had held himself assured had forsaken him he resolved to struggle no longer and though it is not improbable that he who was chiefly accused for his protecting the Commons might have easily gathered a great Body of Men for his own preservation yet he resolved rather to give way to the Tide that was now against him So he protested before the King and the few Councellors then about him that he had no design against any of the Lords and that the Force he had gathered was only to preserve himself from any violent attempt that might be made on his Person he declared that he was willing to submit himself The Protector offers to treat and submit and therefore proposed that two of those Lords should be sent from London and they with two of those that were yet about the King should consider what might be done in whose determination he would acquiesce and desired that whatsoever was agreed on should be confirmed in Parliament Hereupon there was sent to London a Warrant under the Kings Hand for any two of the Lords of the Council that were there to come to Windsor with twenty Servants a-piece who had the Kings Faith for their safety in coming and going and Cranmer Paget and Smith wrote to them to dispose them to end the matter peaceably and not follow cruel Councils nor to be misled by them who meant otherwise than they professed of which they knew more than they would then mention This seemed to point at the Earl of Southampton On the 9th of October the Council at London encreased by the accession of the Lord Russel the Lord Wentworth Sir Anthony Brown Sir Ant. Wingfield and Sir John Baker the Speaker of the House of Commons For now those who had stood off a while seeing the Protector was resolved to yield came and united themselves with the prevailing Party so that they were in all two and twenty They were informed that the Protector had said that if they intended to put him to death the King should die first and if they would famish him they should famish the King first and that he had armed his own Men and set them next to the Kings Person and was designing to carry him out of Windsor and as some reported out of the Kingdom upon which they concluded that he was no more fit to be Protector But of those words no proofs being mentioned in the Council-Books they look like the forgeries of his Enemies to make him odious to the People The Council ordered a Proclamation of their Proceedings to be printed and writ to the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth acquainting them with what they had done They also wrote to the King as will be found in the Collection acknowledging the many bonds that lay on them in gratitude both for his Fathers goodness to them and his own to take care of him Collection Number 4â— They desired he would consider they were his whole Council except one or two and were those whom his Father had trusted with the Government that the Protector was not raised to that Power by his Fathers Will but by their choice with that condition that he should do all things by their advice which he had not observed so that they now judged him most unworthy of these Honours therefore they earnestly desired they might be admitted to the Kings Presence to do their duties about him and that the Forces gathered about his Person might be sent away and the Duke of Somerset might submit himself to the Order of Council They also wrote to the Arch-bishop and Sir William Paget which is in the Collection charging them as they would answer it Collection Number 43. that the Kings Person might be well looked to that he should not be removed from Windsor and that he should be no longer guarded by the Duke of Somersets Men as they said he had been of which they complained severely but by his own sworn Servants and they required them to concur in advancing the desire they had signified by their Letter to the King protesting that they would do with the Duke of Somerset as they would desire to be done by and with as much moderation and favour as in honour they could so that there was no reason to apprehend from them such cruelty as they had mentioned in their Letters These were sent by Sir Philip Hobbey who was returned from Flanders and had been sent by the King to London on the day before Upon this Cranmer and Paget as is entred in the Council-Book perswaded both the King and the Protector to grant their desire The Protectors Servants were dismissed and the Kings were set about his Person And Cranmer Paget and Smith wrote to the Council at London that all they had proposed should be granted They desired to know whether the King should be brought to London or stay at Windsor and that three of the Lords might be sent thither who should see all things done according to their
to that See vacant as his Patent has it by the free resignation of William the former Bishop And the same day being the first of April Ridley was made Bishop of London and Westminster Both were according to the common Form to be Bishops durante vita naturali during Life Proceedings against Gardiner The See of Winchester had been two years as good as vacant by the long imprisonment of Gardiner who had been now above two years in the Tower When the Book of Common-Prayer was set out the Lord St. John and Secretary Petre were sent with it to him to know of him whether he would conform himself to it or not and they gave him great hopes that if he would submit the Protector would sue to the King for mercy to him He answered That he did not know himself guilty of any thing that needed mercy so he desired to be tried for what had been objected to him according to Law For the Book he did not think that while he was a Prisoner he was bound to give his Opinion about such things it might be thought he did it against his Conscience to obtain his liberty but if he were out of Prison he should either obey it or be liable to punishment according to Law Upon the Duke of Somersets Fall the Lord Treasurer the Earl of Warwick Sir William Herbert and Secretary Petre were sent to him Fox says this was on the 9th of July but there must be an error in that for Gardiner in his Answer says That upon the Duke of Somersets coming to the Tower he looked to have been let out within two days and had made his farewel Feast but when these were with him a Month or thereabout had passed so it must have been in November the former year They brought him a Paper to which they desired he would set his Hand It contained first a Preface which was an acknowledgment of former faults for which he had been justly punished There were also divers Articles contained in it Some Articles are sent to him which were touching the Kings Supremacy his Power of appointing or dispencing with Holy-days and Fasts that the Book of Common-Prayer set out by the King and Parliament was a most Christian and Godly Book to be allowed of by all Bishops and Pastors in England and that he should both in Sermons and Discourses commend it to be observed that the Kings Power was compleat now when under Age and that all owed Obedience to him now as much as if he were thirty or forty years old that the six Articles were justly abrogated and that the King had full Authority to correct and reform what was amiss in the Church both in England and Ireland He only excepted to the Preface and offered to Sign all the Articles but would have had the Preface left out They bid him rather write on the Margent his Exceptions to it so he writ that he could not with a good Conscience agree to the Preface and with that Exception he set his Hand to the whole Paper The Lords used him with great kindness Which he Signed with some Exceptions and gave him hope that his troubles should be quickly ended Herbert and Petre came to him some time after that but how soon is not so clear and pressed him to make the acknowledgment without exception he refused it and said he would never defame himself for when he had done it he was not sure but it might be made use of against him as a Confession Two or three days after that Ridley was sent to him together with the other two and they brought him new Articles In this Paper the acknowledgment was more general than in the former It was said here in the Preface that he had been suspected of not approving the Kings Proceedings and being appointed to preach had not done it as he ought to have done and so deserved the Kings displeasure for which he was sorry The Articles related to the Popes Supremacy New Articles sent to him the suppression of Abbies and Chantries Pilgrimages Masses Images the adoring the Sacrament the Communion in both kinds the abolishing the old Books and bringing in the new Book of Service and that for ordaining of Priests and Bishops the compleatness of the Scripture and the use of it in the Vulgar Tongue the lawfulness of Clergy-mens Marriage and to Erasmus's Paraphrase that it had been on good considerations ordered to be set up in Churches He read all these and said he desired first to be discharged of his imprisonment and then he would freely answer them all so as to stand by it and suffer if he did amiss but he would trouble himself with no more Articles while he remained in Prison since he desired not to be delivered out of his troubles in the way of Mercy but of Justice After that he was brought before the Council and the Lords told him they sate by a special Commission to judge him and so required him to subscribe the Articles that had been sent to him He prayed them earnestly to put him to a Trial for the grounds of his Imprisonment and when that was over he would clearly answer them in all other things but he did not think he could subscribe all the Articles after one sort some of them being about Laws already made which he could not qualifie others of them being matters of Learning in which he might use more freedom In conclusion he desired leave to take them with him and he would consider how to answer them But they required him to subscribe them all without any qualification But he refusing to Sign them which he refused to do Upon this the Fruits of his Bishoprick were sequestred and he was required to conform himself to their Orders within three Months upon pain of deprivation and the liberty he had of walking in some open Galleries Was hardly used when the Duke of Norfolk was not in them was taken from him and he was again shut up in his Chamber All this was much censured as being contrary to the liberties of English-men and the Forms of all legal Proceedings It was thought very hard to put a Man in Prison upon a complaint against him and without any further enquiry into it after two years durance to put Articles to him And they which spoke freely said it savoured too much of the Inquisition But the Canon Law not being rectified and the King being in the Popes room there were some things gathered from the Canon Law and the way of proceeding ex officio which rather excused than justified this hard measure he met with The sequel of this business shall be related in its proper place Latimers advice to the King concerning his Marriage This Lent old Latimer preached before the King The discourse of the Kings marrying a Daughter of France had alarum'd all the Reformers who rather enclined to a Daughter of Ferdinand King of the Romans To a
Servants and to return with an answer In August they came back and said she was much indisposed and received the Message very grievously She said she would obey the King in all things except where her Conscience was touched but she charged them to deliver none of their Message to the rest of her Family in which they being her Servants could not disobey her especially when they thought it might prejudice her health Upon this And sent some to her they were sent to the Tower The Lord Chancellor Sir Ant. Wingfield and Sir William Petre were next sent to her with a Letter from the King and Instructions from the Council for the charge they were to give to her and her Servants They came to her House of Copthall in Essex The Lord Chancellor gave her the Kings Letter which she received on her Knees and said she payed that respect to the Kings Hand and not to the matter of the Letter which she knew proceeded from the Council and when she read it she said Ah! Mr. Cecil took much pains here he was then Secretary of State in Dr. Wottons room So she turned to the Counsellors and bid them deliver their Message to her She wished them to be short for she was not well at ease and would give them a short answer having writ her mind plainly to the King with her own Hand The Lord Chancellor told her that all the Council were of one mind that she must be no longer suffered to have private Mass or a Form of Religion different from what was established by Law He went to read the Names of those who were of that mind but she desired him to spare his pains she knew they were all of a sort They next told her they had order to require her Chaplains to use no other Service and her Servants to be present at no other than what was according to Law She answered She was the Kings most obedient Subject and Sister and would obey him in every thing but where her Conscience held her and would willingly suffer death to do him service but she would lay her Head on a Block rather than use any other Form of Service But she was Intractable than what had been at her Fathers death only she thought she was not worthy to suffer death on so good an account When the King came to be of Age so that he could order these things himself she would obey his Commands in Religion for although he Good sweet King these were her words had more knowledge than any of his years yet he was not a fit Judge in these matters for if Ships were to be set to Sea or any matter of Policy to be determined they would not think him fit for it much less could he be able to resolve Points of Divinity As for her Chaplains if they would say no Mass she could hear none and for her Servants she knew they all desired to hear Mass her Chaplains might do what they would it was but a whiles Imprisonment but for the new Service it should never be said in her House and if any were forced to say it she would stay no longer in the House When the Counsellors spake of Rochester Inglefield and Walgrave who had not fully executed their charge she said it was not the wisest Counsel to order her Servants to controul her in her own House and they were the honester Men not to do such a thing against their Consciences She insisted on the Promise made to the Emperor which she had under his Hand whom she believed better than them all they ought to use her better for her Fathers sake who had raised them all almost out of nothing But though the Emperor were dead or would bid her obey them she would not change her mind and she would let his Ambassador know how they used her To this they answered clearing the mistake about the Promise to which she gave little heed They told her they had brought one down to serve as her Comptroller in Rochesters room She said she would choose her own Servants and if they went to impose any on her she would leave the House She was sick but would do all she could to live but if she died she would protest they were the causes of it they gave her good words but their deeds were evil Then she took a Ring from her Finger and on her Knees gave it to the Lord Chancellor to give to the King as a Token from her with her humble Commendations and protested much of her duty to him but she said this will never be told him The Counsellors went from her to her Chaplains and delivered their Message to them who promised they would obey Then they charged the rest of the Servants in like manner and also commanded them to give notice if those Orders were broken And so they went to go away But as they were in the Court the Lady Mary called to them from her Window to send her Comptroller to her for she said that now she her self received the accounts of her House and knew how many Loaves were made of a Bushel of Meal to which she had never been bred and so was weary of that Office but if they would needs send him to Prison she said I beshrew him if he go not to it merrily and with a good Will and concluded I pray God to send you to do well in your Souls and Bodies for some of you have but weak Bodies This is the substance of the Report these Counsellors gave when they returned back to the Court on the 29th of August By which they were now out of all hopes of prevailing with her by perswasions or Authority So it was next considered whether it was fit to go to further extremities with her How the matter was determined I do not clearly find it is certain the Lady Mary would never admit of the new Service and so I believe she continued to keep her Priests and have Mass but so secretly that there was no ground for any publick complaint For I find no further mention of that matter than what is made by Ridley of a Passage that befel him in September next year He went to wait on her she-living then at Hunsden Nor would she hear Bishop Ridley preach where she received him at first civilly and told him she remembred of him in her Fathers time and at Dinner sent him to dine with her Officers after Dinner he told her he came not only to do his Duty to her but to offer to Preach before her next Sunday She blushed and once or twice desired him to make the Answer to that himself But when he pressed her further she said the Parish-Church would be open to him if he had a mind to preach in it but neither she nor any of her Family should hear him He said he hoped she would not refuse to hear Gods Word She said She did not know what they called
present and he somewhat sharply asked them Why they had not prepared the Book as he had ordered them They answered That what ever they did would be of no force without a Parliament The King said He intended to have one shortly Then Mountague proposed that it might be delayed till the Parliament met But the King said He would have it first done and then ratified in Parliament and therefore he required them on their Allegiance to go about it and some Counsellors told them if they refused to obey that they were Traitors This put them in a great consternation and old Mountague thinking it could not be Treason what ever they did in this matter while the King lived and at worst that a Pardon under the Great Seal would secure him consented to set about it if he might have a Commission requiring him to do it and a Pardon under the Great Seal when it was done Both these being granted him he was satisfied The other Judges But through fear all yielded except Judge Hales being asked if they would concur did all agree being overcome with fear except Gosnald who still refused to do it But he also being sorely threatned both by the Duke of Northumberland and the Earl of Shrewsbury consented to it the next day So they put the Entail of the Crown in Form of Law and brought it to the Lord Chancellor to put the Seal to it They were all required to set their Hands to it but both Gosnald and Hales refused Yet the former was wrought on to do it but the latter though a most steady and zealous Man for the Reformation would upon no consideration yield to it After that the Lord Chancellor for his Security desired that all the Counsellors might set their Hands to it which was done on the 21st of June by thirty three of them it is like including the Judges in the Number But Cranmer as he came seldom to Council after the Duke of Somersets Fall so he was that day absent on design Cecil in a Relation which he made one write of this Transaction for clearing himself afterwards says That when he had heard Gosnald and Hales declare how much it was against Law he refused to set his Hand to it as a Counsellor and that he only Signed as a Witness to the Kings Subscription But Cranmer still refused to do it after they had all Signed it and said he would never consent to the disinheriting of the Daughters of his late Master Many Consultations were had to perswade him to it Cranmer was very hardly brought to consent to it But he could not be prevailed on till the King himself set on him who used many Arguments from the danger Religion would otherwise be in together with other Perswasions so that by his Reasons or rather Importunities at last he brought him to it But whether he also used that distinction of Cecils that he did it as a Witness and not as a Counsellor I do not know but it seems probable that if that liberty was allowed the one it would not be denied the other The Kings sickness becomes desperate But though the setling this business gave the King great content in his mind yet his Distemper rather encreased than abated so that the Physicians had no hope of his recovery Upon which a confident Woman came and undertook his Cure if he might be put into her Hands This was done and the Physicians were put from him upon this pretence that they having no hopes of his recovery in a desperate Case desperate Remedies were to be used This was said to be the Duke of Northumberlands advice in particular and it encreased the Peoples jealousie of him when they saw the King grow very sensibly worse every day after he came under the Womans care which becoming so plain she was put from him and the Physicians were again sent for and took him into their charge But if they had small hopes before they had none at all now Death thus hastening on him the Duke of Northumberland who knew he had done but half his work except he had the Kings Sisters in his Hands got the Council to write to them in the Kings Name inviting them to come and keep him company in his sickness But as they were on the way on the sixth of July his Spirits and Body were so sunk that he found death approaching and so he composed himself to die in a most devout manner His whole exercise was in short Prayers and Ejaculations The last that he was heard to use was in these words Lord God deliver me out of this miserable and wretched Life His last Prayer and take me among thy Chosen Howbeit not my Will but thine be done Lord I commit my Spirit to thee O Lord thou knowest how happy it were for me to be with thee yet for thy Chosens sake send me Life and Health that I may truly serve thee O my Lord God bless my People and save thine Inheritance O Lord God save thy chosen People of England O Lord God defend this Realm from Papistry and maintain thy true Religion that I and my People may praise thy Holy Name for Jesus Christ his sake Seeing some about him he seemed troubled that they were so near and had heard him but with a pleasant countenance he said he had been praying to God And soon after the Pangs of death coming on him he said to Sir Henry Sidney who was holding him in his Arms I am faint Lord have mercy on me and receive my Spirit and so he breathed out his Innocent Soul The Duke of Northumberland according to Cecils Relation intended to have concealed his death for a fortnight but it could not be done His Death and Character Thus died King Edward the sixth that incomparable young Prince He was then in the sixteenth Year of his Age and was counted the wonder of that Time He was not only learned in the Tongues and other Liberal Sciences but knew well the State of his Kingdom He kept a Book in which he writ the Characters that were given him of all the chief Men of the Nation all the Judges Lord-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace over England in it he had marked down their way of living and their zeal for Religion He had studied the matter of the Mint with the Exchange and value of Money so that he understood it well as appears by his Journal He also understood Fortification and designed well He knew all the Harbours and Ports both of his own Dominions and of France and Scotland and how much Water they had and what was the way of coming in to them He had acquired great knowledge in Forreign Affairs so that he talked with the Ambassadors about them in such a manner that they filled all the World with the highest opinion of him that was possible which appears in most of the Histories of that Age. He had great quickness of apprehension and
afraid of burdening her Conscience by assuming that which belonged to them and that she was unwilling to enrich her self by the spoils of others But they told her all that had been done was according to the Law to which all the Judges and Counsellors had set their Hands This joined with their Persuasions and the Importunities of her Husband who had more of his Fathers temper than of her Philosophy in him at length prevailed with her to submit to it Of which her Father-in-Law did afterwards say in Council She was rather by enticement of the Counsellors and force made to accept of the Crown then came to it by her own seeking and request Upon this order was given for proclaiming her Queen the next day And an Answer was writ to Queen Mary signed by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Lord Chancellor the Dukes of Suffolk and Northumberland the Marquesses of Winchester and Northampton the Earls of Arundel Shrewsbury Huntington Bedford and Pembrook the Lords Cobham and Darcy Sir Thomas Cheyney Sir Robert Cotton Sir William Petre Sir William Cecil Sir John Cheek Sir John Mason Sir Edward North and Sir Robert Bowes in all one and twenty Council writes to Q. Mary letting her know That Queen Jane was now their Soveraign according to the Ancient Laws of the Land and the late King's Letters Patents to whom they were now bound by their Allegiance They told her That the Marriage between her Father and Mother was dissolved by the Ecclesiastical Courts according to the Laws of God and of the Land That many noble Universities in Christendom had consented to it That the Sentence had been confirmed in Parliaments and she had been declared illegitimate and uninheritable to the Crown They therefore required her to give over her Pretences and not to disturb the Government and promised that if she shewed her self Obedient she should find them all ready to do her any Service which in Duty they could The day following they proclaimed Queen Jane Lady Jane proclaimed Queen Collection Number 1. The Proclamation will be found in the Collection It sets forth That the late King had by his Letters Patents limited the Crown that it should not descend to his two Sisters since they were both illegitimated by Sentences in the Spiritual Courts and Acts of Parliament and were only his Sisters by the Half-Blood who though it were granted they had been legitimate are not inheritable by the Law of England It was added That there was also great cause to fear that the King's Sisters might marry Strangers and so change the Laws of the Kingdom and subject it to the Tyranny of the Bishops of Rome and other Forreign Laws For these Reasons they were excluded from the Succession and the Lady Frances Dutchess of Suffolk being next the Crown it was provided that if she had no Sons at the death of the King the Crown should devolve immediately on her eldest Daughter Jane and after her and her Issue to her Sisters since she was born within the Kingdom and already married in it Therefore she was proclaimed Queen promising to be most benign and gracious to all her People to maintain God's Holy Word and the Laws of the Land requiring all the Subjects to obey and acknowledg her When this was proclaimed great multitudes were gathered to hear it but there were very few that shouted with the Acclamations ordinary on such Occasions And whereas a Vintner's Boy did some-way express his scorn at that which was done it was ordered that he should be made an Example the next day by being set on a Pillory and having his Ears nail'd to it and cut off from his Head which was accordingly done a Herauld in his Coat reading to the multitude that was called together by sound of Trumpet the nature of his Offence Censures past upon it Upon this all People were in great distraction The Proclamation opening the new Queen's Title came to be variously descanted on Some who thought the Crown descended by right of Blood and that it could not be limited by Parliament argued that the King having his Power from God it was only to descend in the natural way of Inheritance therefore they thought the next Heir was to succeed And whereas the King 's two Sisters were both by several Sentences and Acts of Parliament declared Bastards and whether that was well judged or not they were to be reputed such as the Law declared them to be so long as it stood in force therefore they held that the Queen of Scotland was to succeed who though she pretended this upon Queen Mary's Death yet did not claim now because by the Papal Law the Sentence against Queen Mary was declared Null Others argued that though a Prince were named by an immediate appointment from Heaven yet he might change the course of Succession as David did preferring Solomon before Adonijah But this it was said did not belong to the King 's of England whose right to the Crown with the extent of their Prerogative did not come from any Divine Designation but from a long Possession and the Laws of the Land and that therefore the King might by Law limit the Succession as well as he and other Kings had in some Points limited the Prerogative which was clearly Sir Thomas More 's Opinion and that therefore the Act of Parliament for the Succession of the King's Sisters was still strong in Law It was also said That if the Kinâ—'â— Sisters were to be excluded for Bastardy all Charles Brandon's Issue were in the same predicament since he was not lawfully married to the French Queen his former Wife Mortimer being then alive and his Marriage with her was never dissolved for though some English Writers say they were divorced yet those who wrote for the Queen of Scots Title in the next Reign denied it But in this the difference was great between them since the King's Sisters were declared Bastards in Law whereas this against Charles Brandon's Issue was only a Surmise Others objected That if the Blood gave an Indefeasible Title How came it that the L. Jane's Mother did not Reign It is true Maud the Empress and Margaret Countess of Richmond were satisfied that their Sons Henry the Second and Henry the Seventh should reign in their Rights but it had never been heard of that a Mother had resigned to her Daughter especially when she was yet under Age. But this was imputed to the Duke of Suffolk's weakness and the Ambition of the Duke of Northumberland That Objection concerning the Half-Blood being a Rule of Common Law in the Families of Subjects to cut off from Step-Mothers the Inclinations and Advantages of destroying their Husbands Children was not thought applicable to the Crown Nor was that of Ones being born out of the Kingdom which was hinted at to exclude the Queen of Scotland thought pertinent to this Case since there was an Exception made in the Law for the King's Children which was thought to
extend to all their Issue But all People agreed in this that though by Act of Parliament King Henry was empowred to provide or limit the Crown by his Letters Patents yet that was a Grant particularly to him and did not descend to his Heirs So that the Letters Patents made by King Edward could have no force to settle the Crown and much less when they did expresly contradict an Act of Parliament The proceeding so severely against the Vintners Boy was imputed to the violent temper of the Duke of Northumberland And though when a Government is Firm and Factions are weak the making some publick Examples may intimidate a Faction otherwise disheartned yet Severities in such a juncture as this when the Council had no other support but the assistance of the People seemed very unadvised and all thought it was a great Error to punish him in that manner This made them reflect on the rest of Northumberland's Cruelties The Duke of Northumberland much hated His bringing the Duke of Somerset with those Gentlemen that suffered with him to their End by a foul Conspiracy but above all things the Suspitions that lay on him of being the Author of the late King 's untimely Death enraged the People so much against him that without considering what they might suffer under Queen Mary they generally inclined to set her up The Lady Jane was proclaimed in many Towns near London yet the People were generally running to Queen Mary Many declare for Q. Mary Many from Norfolk came to her and a great Body of Suffolk Men gathered about her who were all for the Reformation They desired to know of her whether she would alter the Religion set up in King Edward's Days to whom she gave full Assurances that she would never make any Innovation or Change but be contented with the private Exercise of her own Religion Upon this they were all possessed with such a belief of her sincerity that it made them resolve to hazard their Lives and Estates in her Quarrel The Earls of Bath and Suffolk raised Forces and joined with her so did the Sons of the Lord Wharton and Mordant with many more Upon this the Council resolved to gather Forces for the dispersing of theirs The Council orders Forces to be sent against her and sent the Earl of Huntington's Brother to raise Buckinghamshire and others to other parts ordering them to meet the Forces that should come from London at New-Market It was at first proposed to send the Duke of Suffolk to command them but the Lady Jane was so much concerned in her Father's preservation that she urged he might not be sent and he being but a soft Man was easily excused So it fell next on the Duke of Northumberland who was now much distracted in his Mind He was afraid if he went away the City might declare for Queen Mary nor was he well assured of the Council who seemed all to comply with him rather out of fear than good will Cecil would not officiate as Secretary as himself relates the Judges would do nothing and the Duke plainly saw that if he had not according to the custom of our Princes on their first coming to the Crown gone with the Lady Jane and the Council into the Tower whereby he kept them as Prisoners the Council were inclined to desert him This divided him much in his Thoughts The whole success of his Design depended on the dispersing of the Queen's Forces And it was no less necessary to have a Man of courage continue still in the Tower There was none there whom he could entirely trust but the Duke of Suffolk and he was so mean spirited that he did not depend much on him But the progress the Queen's Forces made pressed him to go and make head against her So he laid all the heavy Charges he could on the Council to look to Queen Jane and to stand firmly to her Interests and left London on the 14th of July marching out with 2000 Horse and 6000 Foot But as he rode through Bishops-gate street and Shoreditch though there were great Crouds looking on none cried out to wish him success which gave a sad indication how ill they were affected to him And write to the Emperor The Council writ to the Emperor by one Shelley whom they sent to give notice of the Lady Jane's Succession complaining that the Lady Mary was making Stirs and that his Ambassador had officiously medled in their Affairs but that they had given Orders for reducing the Lady Mary to her Duty They also desired the continuance of his Friendship and that he would command his Resident to carry himself as became an Ambassador Sir Philip Hobbey was continued Ambassador there the others were ordered to stay and prosecute the Mediation of the Peace but the Emperor would not receive those Letters and in a few days there went over others from Queen Mary Ridley preaches for the L. Jane's Title Ridley was appointed to set out Queen Jane's Title in a Sermon at Pauls and to warn the People of the Dangers they would be in if Queen Mary should reign which he did and gave an account in his Sermon of what had passed between him and her when he went and offered to preach to her At the same time the Duke of Northumberland at Cambridg where himself was both Chancellor of the University and Steward of the Town made the Vice-Chancellor preach to the same purpose But he held in more general terms and managed it so that there was no great Offence taken on either hand Q. Mary's Party grows strong But now the Queen had made her Title be proclaimed at Norwich and sent Letters all over England requiring the Peers and others of great Quality to come to her assistance Some Ships had been sent about to lie on that Coast for intercepting her if she should fly away but those who commanded them were so dealt with that instead of acting against her they declared for her Sir Edward Hastings having raised 4000 Men in Buckinghamshire instead of joining with the Duke of Northumberland went over with them into her Service Many were also from all Places every day running to her and in several Counties of England she was proclaimed Queen But none came in to the Duke of Northumberland so he writ earnestly to the Lords at London to send him more Supplies They understanding from all the Corners of England And the Council turn to her that the Tyde grew every-where strong for the Queen entred into Consultations how to redeem their passed Faults and to reconcile themselves to her The Earl of Arundel hated Northumberland on many accounts The Marquess of Winchester was famous for his dexterity in shifting sides all ways to his own Advantage To them joined the Earl of Pembrook the more closely linked to the Interests of the Lady Jane since his Son had married her Sister which made him the more careful to disentangle himself in
time To those Sir Thomas Cheney Warden of the Cinque-Ports and Sir John Mason with the two Secretaries came over It was said that the French and Spanish Ambassadors had desired an Audience in some Place in the City and it was proposed to give it in the Earl of Pembrooks House who being the least suspected it was agreed to by the Duke of Suffolk that they should be suffered to go from the Tower thither They also pretended that since the Duke of Northumberland had writ so earnestly for new Forces they must go and treat with my Lord Mayor and the City of London about it But as soon as they were got out the Earl of Arundel pressed them to declare for Queen Mary And to perswade them to it he laid open all the Cruelty of Northumberland under whose Tyranny they must resolve to be enslaved if they would not now shake it off The other consenting readily to it they sent for the Lord Mayor with the Recorder and the Aldermen and having declared their Resolutions to them they rode together into Cheapside And proclaimed her Queen and there proclaimed Queen Mary on the 19th of July From thence they went to Saint Pauls where Te Deum was sung An Order was sent to the Tower to require the Duke of Suffolk to deliver up that Place and to acknowledg Queen Mary and that the Lady Jane should lay down the Title of Queen To this as her Father submitted tamely so she expressed no sort of Concern in losing that imaginary Glory which now had for nine days been rather a Burden than any Matter of Joy to her They also sent Orders to the Duke of Northumberland to disband his Forces and to carry himself as became an Obedient Subject to the Queen And the Earl of Arundel with the Lord Paget were sent to give her an account of it who continued still at Framingham in Suffolk The Duke of Northumberland had retired back to Cambridg The Duke of Northumberland submits and is taken to stay for new Men from London but hearing how Matters went there before ever the Councils Orders came to him he dismist his Forces and went to the Market-place and proclaimed the Queen flinging up his own Hat for joy and crying God save Queen Mary But the Earl of Arundel being sent by the Queen to apprehend him it is said That when he saw him he fell abjectly at his Feet to beg his favour This was like him it being not more unusual for such Insolent Persons to be most basely sunk with their Misfortunes than to be out of measure blown up with success He was on the 25th of July sent to the Tower with the Earl of Warwick his eldest Son With many more Prisoners who were sent to the Tower of London Ambrose and Henry two of his other Sons Some other of his Friends were made Prisoners among whom was Sir Thomas Palmer the wicked Instrument of the Duke of Somerset's fall who was become his most intimate Confident and Dr. Sands the Vicechancellor of Cambridg Now did all People go to the Queen to implore her Mercy She received them all very favourably except the Marquess of Northampton Dr Ridley and Lord Robert Dudley The first of these had been a submissive fawner on the Duke of Northumberland the second had incurred her displeasure by his Sermon and she gladly laid hold on any colour to be more severe to him that way might be made for bringing Bonner to London again the third had followed his Father's Fortunes On the 27th the Lords Chief Justices Cholmley and Montague were sent to the Tower and the day after the Duke of Suffolk and Sir John Cheek went after them the Lady Jane and her Husband being still detained in the Tower Three days after an Order came to set the Duke of Suffolk at liberty upon engagement to return to Prison when the Queen required it for it was generally known that he had been driven on by Dudley and as it was believed that he had not been faulty out of Malice so his great weakness made them little apprehensive of any Dangers from him and therefore the Queen being willing to express a signal Act of Clemency at her first coming to the Crown it was thought best to let it fall on him Now did the Queen come towards London being met on the way by her Sister Elizabeth The Queen enters London with a thousand Horse who had gathered about her to shew their Zeal to maintain both their Titles which in this late contest had been linked together She made her entry to London on the third of August with great solemnity and pomp When she came to the Tower the Duke of Norfolk who had been almost seven Years in it Gardiner the Bishop of Winchester that had been five Years there the Dutchess of Somerset that had been kept there near two Years and the Lord Courtney whom she made afterwards Earl of Devonshire that was Son to the Marquess of Exeter and had been kept there ever since his Father was Attainted had their Liberty granted them So now she was peaceably setled in the Throne without any effusion of Blood having broke through a Confederacy against her which seemed to be so strong that if he that was the Head of it had not been universally odious to the Nation it could not have been so easily dissipated She was naturally pious and devout even to superstition had a generous disposition of Mind but much corrupted by Melancholy which was partly natural in her but much increased by the cross Accidents of her Life both before and after her Advancement so that she was very peevish and splenetick towards the end of her Life When the Differences became irreconcilable between her Father and Mother She had been in danger in her Father's Time she followed her Mothers Interests they being indeed her own and for a great while could not be perswaded to submit to the King who being impatient of contradiction from any but especially from his own Child was resolved to strike a terror in all his People by putting her openly to death Which her Mother coming to know writ her a Letter of a very devout strain which will be found in the Collections Coll. Numb 2. In which She encouraged her to suffer chearfully to trust to God and keep her heart clean She charged her in all things to obey the King's Commands except in the Matters of Religion She sent her two Latin Books the one of the Life of Christ which was perhaps the famous Book of Thomas a Kempis and the other St. Jerom's Letter She bid her divert her self at the Virginals or Lute but above all things to keep her self pure and to enter into no treaty of Marriage till these ill times should pass over of which her Mother seemed to retain still good hopes This Letter should have been in my former Volumn if I had then seen it but it is no improper
former Act. After this one Flower that had been in Orders but was a rash indiscreet Man went on Easter day into St. Margarets Church in Westminster and there with a Knife struck at and wounded the Priest as he was officiating He for some time justified what he had done as flowing from Zeal but afterwards he sincerely condemned it Bonner upon this proceeding against him as an Heretick condemned him to the Fire and he was burnt on the 24th of April in Westminster Church-Yard This Fact was condemned by all the Reformed who knew that the Wrath of Man was not the way to accomplish the Righteousness of God In the Jewish Government some extraordinary Persons did execute Vengeance on notorious Offenders but that Constitution was in all its Policy regulated by the Laws given by Moses in which such Instances vvere proposed as Examples vvhereby they became a part of the Law of that Land so that in such Cases it vvas certainly lawful to execute Punishment in that vvay so in some Kingdoms any Man that finds an out-lawed Person may kill him but vvhere there is no Law vvarranting such things it is certainly against both Religion and the Laws of all Society and Government for private Persons to pretend to the Magistrates right and to execute Justice upon any account vvhatsoever There vvas at this time a second stop put to the execution of Hereticks for till the end of May more fires were not kindled People grew generally so enraged upon it that they could not bear it I shall therefore now turn my self to other things that vvill give the Reader a more pleasing entertainment The Queen resolves to surrender up all the Church-Lands that were in her hands On the 28th of March the Queen called for the Lord Treasurer Sir Robert Rochester Comptroller Sir William Petre Secretary of State and Sir Francis Inglefield Master of the Wards She said She had sent for them to declare her Conscience to them concerning the Church-Lands that continued still in the Crown She thought they were taken away in the time of the Schism and by unlawful Means therefore she could not keep them vvith a good Conscience so she did surrender and relinquish them If they should tell her That her Crown vvas so poor that she could not well maintain her Dignity if she parted with them she must tell them She valued the Salvation of her Soul more than ten Kingdoms and thanked God her Husband was of the same mind and therefore she was resolved to have them disposed as the Pope or his Legat should think fit so she ordered them to go with the Lord Chancellor to whom she had spoken of it before and wait on the Legat and signify it to him together with the value of those Lands This flowed from the strictness of the Queen's Conscience vvho then thought her self near the time of her delivery and therefore vvould not have such a load lie on her of which she was the more sensible by reason of a Bull which Pope Julius had made excommunicating all that kept any Abbey or Church-Lands and all Princes Prelats and Magistrates that did not assist in the execution of such Bulls Some said this related to the Business of England but Gardiner said it was only made for Germany and that Bulls had no Authority unless they vvere received in England This did not satisfy the People much for if it was such a sin in Germany they could not see but it was as bad in England And if the Pope had his Authority from Christ and St. Peter his Bulls ought to take place every-where Pope Julius died soon after this on the 20th of March Pope Julius dies and Marcellus succeeds and on the 6th of April after Cardinal Marcellus Cervinus was chosen Pope a Man of great gravity and innocence of Life He continued to keep his former Name which had not been done a great while except by Adrian the 6th between whose temper and this Man there was a great resemblance He presently turned all his Thoughts as Adrian had done to a Reformation of the Corruptions of that See and blamed his Predecessors much who had always put it off he thought nothing could make the Papacy more reverenced than to cut off their excessive and superfluous Pomp whereby they would be the more esteemed all the World over and might on surer grounds expect the protection of God He had been one of the Legats at Trent and there observed what was represented as the root of all Heresy and Disorder that the Clergy were generally corrupted and had by many Exemptions procured from Rome broken all the Primitive Rules Upon his first Election he called for the Cardinal of Mantâ—a and having observed him to be a Man of great probicy told him he knew it vvas ordinary for all Popes at their first coming to the Throne to talk of Reformation but he would talk little being resolved to do more only he opened his mind to him that if ever he went back from it he might have this check upon him that so honest a Man as he was would know him to be a Knave and a Hypocrite He would suffer none of his Friends that were in remote parts to come to Rome nor his Nephews that were in Rome to come within the Court He was resolved to have sent all Priests and Bishops home to their Benefices and talked much of their Non residence with great detestation He would not change his Table nor his Custom of making one read to him when he was sitting at it One day after a long musing at Dinner he said he remembred the words of Hadrian the Fourth That the Pope was the most miserable of all Men his whole Life was bitterness his Chair was full of Thorns and his way of Briars and then leaning with his Hand on the Table he said I do not see how they can be saved that hold this high Dignity These Thoughts did so affect him that on the 12th day after that he vvas chosen Pope he sickned and died ten days after These things are reported of him by the Learned Onuphrius who knew him well and they will not be thought impertinent to have a room in this Story The Queen recommends Card Pool tâ— the Popedom upon Maâ—cellus's death As soon as the News of his Death came to England the Queen writ on the 29th day of May to Gardiner the Earl of Arundel and the Lord Paget vvho vvere then at Calais mediating a Peace between the French and Spaniard which they could not effect but only procured a Truce She desired them to deal with the Cardinal of Lorrain the Constable and the other French Commissioners to persuade their Master to set up Cardinal Pool that he might succeed in that Chair since he seemed every way the fittest Person for it adding Coll. Numb 18. as will appear by the Letter which is in the Collection that she had done this without his knowledg or
but in vain At this time the Nation was in expectation of the Queen's Delivery And on the third of May the Bishop of Norwich writ a Letter to the Earl of Sussex of which I have seen the Original that news was brought him from London that the Queen had brought forth a Noble Prince for which he had Te Deum solemnly sung in his Cathedral and in the other Churches thereabout He adds in the Postscript that the News was confirmed by two other Hands But tho this was without any ground the Queen continued still in her opinion that she was with Child and on the 29th of May Letters were written by the Council to the Lord Treasurer to have Money in readiness that those who were appointed to carry the joyful news of the Queens happy Delivery might be speedily dispatched In the beginning of June she was believed to be in Labour and it flew over London again that she had brought forth a Son The Priests had setled all their hopes on that so they did every where sing Te Deum and were transported into no small Extasies of Joy One more officious than the rest made a Sermon about it and described all the lineaments of their young Prince but they soon found they were abused It was said that they had been deceived and that the Queen had no great Belly But Melvil in his Memoirs says he was assured from some of her Women that she did cast forth at several times some Moles and unformed pieces of flesh So now there was small hopes of any Issue from her This encreased the sowrness of her temper and King Philip being so much younger than she growing out of conceit with her did not much care for her but left her some months after He saw no hope of Children and finding that it was not possible for him to get England in his hands without that gave over all his Designs about it so having lived with her about fifteen months after their first Marriage he found it necessary to look more after his Hereditary Crown and less after his Matrimonial one and henceforth he considered England rather as a sure Ally that was to adhere firmly to his Interests than as a Nation which he could ever hope to add to his other Crowns All these things concurred to encrease the Queen's Melancholy Humours and did cast her into an ill state of Health so that it was not probable she could live long Gardiner upon that set himself much to have the Lady Elizabeth put out of the way but as it was formerly said King Philip preserved her Proceedings against Hereticks And thus Affairs went on as to Civil matters till the meeting of the next Parliament in October following But I now return to the Proceedings against the poor men called Hereticks who were again after a short intermission brought to new Sufferings John Cardmaker 1555. that had been Divinity-Reader at S. Pauls and a Prebendary at Bath and John Warne an Upholster in London were both burnt in Smithfield on the 30th of May for denying the Corporal presence being proceeded against ex Officio On the 4th of June there was a piece of Pageantry acted on the Body of one Tooly who being executed for a Robbery did at his death say something that savoured of Heresy upon which the Council writ to Bonner to enquire into it and to proceed according to the Ecclesiastical Laws He thereupon form'd a Process cited the dead Body to answer the Points objected to him but he to be sure neither appearing nor answering was condemned and burnt After this on the 10th of June Thomas Hawkes a Gentleman in Essex who had lived much in the Court was also burnt at Coxhall and on the same day John Simpson and John Ardeley two Husbandmen were also burnt in Essex Thomas Watts a Linen-Draper was burnt at Chelmsford On the 9th Nicholas Chamberlain a Weaver was burnt at Colchester and on the 15th Thomas Osmond a Fuller was burnt at Manning-tree and the same day William Bamford a Weaver was burnt at Harwich These with several others had been sent up by the Earl of Oxford to Bonner because they had not received the Sacrament the last Easter and were suspected of Heresie and Articles being given to them they were upon their Answers condemned and sent to be burnt in the places where they had lived But upon this occasion The Council writ to the Lords in Essex to gather the Gentry and assist at these Burnings the Council fearing some Tumult or violent Rescue writ to the Earl of Oxford and the Lord Rich to gather the Country and to see the Hereticks burnt The Earl of Oxford being some way indisposed could only send his People to the Lord Rich who went and obeyed the Orders that had been sent him for which Letters of Thanks were written to him and the Council understanding that some Gentlemen had come to the burning at Colchester that had not been writ to but as the words of the Letter have it had honestly and of themselves gone thither writ to the Lord Rich to give them the Council's thanks for their Zeal I find in the Council Books many Entries made of Letters writ to several Counties to the Nobility and Gentry to assist at these Executions and such as made excuses were always after that looked on with an ill eye and were still under great jealousy After these followed the Execution of Bradford in July Bradford's Martyrdome He had been condemned among the first but was not burnt till now He had been a Prebendary of St. Pauls and a celebrated Preacher in the end of King Edwards days He had preserved Bourn in the tumult at Pauls-Cross and that afternoon preaching at Bow-Church he severely reproved the people for the disorder at Pauls but three days after was put in Prison where he lay removed from one Prison to another near three years where-ever he came he gained so much on the Keepers that they suffered Preach and give the Sacrament to his Fellow Prisoners He was one of those that were carried before the Council on the 22d of January where Bonner accused him of the Tumult at Pauls though all he pretended to prove it by was that his way of speaking to the People shewed he thought he had some Authority over them and was a presumption that he had set on the Sedition Bradford appealed to God that saw his Innocency and how unworthily he was requited for saving his Enemies who rendered him evil for good At last refusing to conform himself to the Laws he was condemned with the rest on the 31. of Jan. where that Rescue was again laid to his Charge together with many Letters he had written over England which as the Earl of Darby informed the Parliament had done more hurt than he could have done if he had been at liberty to Preach He said since he understood that they acted by a Commission which was derived from
delivery of it This being put on Pool he went into the Pulpit and made a cold Sermon about the Beginning the Use and the Matter of the Pall without either Learning or Eloquence The Subject could admit of no Learning and for Eloquence though in his younger days when he writ against King Henry his Stile was too luxuriant and florid yet being afterwards sensible of his excess that way he turned as much to the other Extream and cutting off all the Ornaments of Speech he brought his Stile to a flatness that had neither life nor beauty in it Some more Religious Houses endowed All the Business of England this Year was the raising of Religious Houses Greenwich was begun with last Year The Queen also built a House for the Dominicans in Smithfield and another for the Franciscans and they being Begging Orders these Endowments did not cost much At Sion near Brainford there had been a Religious House of Women of the Order of St. Bridget That House was among the first that had been dissolved by King Henry the eighth as having harboured the Kings Enemies and been Complices to the Business of the Maid of Kent The Queen a-new Founded a Nunnery there She also Founded a House for the Carthusians at Sheen near Richmond in gratitude to that Order for their Sufferings upon her Mothers account From these she went to a greater Foundation but that which cost her less for she suppressed the Deanry and the Cathedral of Westminster and in September this Year turned it into a Monastery and made Fecknam Dean of Pauls the first Abbot of it I have not met with her Foundation of it which perhaps was razed out of the Records in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign for it is not enrolled among the other Patents of this Year But on the 23d of September she gave Warrants for Pensions to be paid to the Prebends of Westminster till they were otherwise provided and about that time Fecknam was declared Abbot though the solemn Installment of him and fourteen other Monks with him was not done till the 21st of November There had been many Searches and Discoveries made in the former Reign of great disorders in these Houses All the former Records concerning them are razed and at the dissolution of them many had made Confession of their ill Lives and gross Superstition all which were laid up and Recorded in the Augmentation Office There had been also in that state of things which they now called The late Schism many Professions made by the Bishops and Abbots and other Religious Men of their renouncing the Popes Authority and acknowledging the Kings Supremacy therefore it was moved that all these should be gathered together and destroyed So on the 23d of September theâ—e was a Commission granted to Bonner and Cole the new Dean of Pauls in Fecknams room and Dr. Martin to search all Registers to find out both the Professions made against the Pope and the Scrutinies made in Abbies which as the Commission that is in the Collection Collection Number 29. sets forth tended to the subversion of all good Religion and Religious Houses These they were to gather and carry to the Cardinal that they might be disposed of as the Queen should give order It is not upon Record how they executed this Commission but the effects of it appear in the great defectiveness of the Records in many things of consequence which are razed and lost This was a new sort of Expurgation by which they intended to leave as few foot-steps to Posterity as â—hey could of what had been formerly done Their care of their own credits led them to endeavour to suppress the many Declarations themselves had formerly made both against the See of Rome the Monastick Orders and many of the old Corruptions which they had disclaimed But many things escaped their diligence as may appear by what I have already Collected and considering the pains they were at in vitiating Registers and destroying Records I hope the Reader will not think it strange if he meets with many defects in this Work In this Search they not only took away what concerned themselves but every collateral thing that might inform or direct the following Ages how to imitate those Precedents and therefore among other Writings the Commission that Cromwell had to be Vice-gerent was destroyed but I have since that time met with it in a Copy that was in the Cotton Library which I have put in the Collection Collection Number 30. How far this resembled the endeavours that the Heathens used in the last and hotest Persecution to burn all the Registers of the Church I leave to the Reader The Abbey of Westminster being thus set up some of the Monks of Glassenbury who were yet alive were put into it And all the rest of the old Monks that had been turned out of Glaslenbury Endeavours to raise the Abbey of Glassenbury and who had not married since were invited to return to this Monastery They began to contrive how to raise their Abbey again which was held the Ancientest and was certainly the richest in England and therefore they moved the Queen and the Cardinal that they might have the House and Site restored and repaired and they would by Labour and Husbandry maintain themselves not doubting but the People of the Country would be ready to contribute liberally to their subsistence The Queen and Cardinal liked the Proposition well so the Monks wrote to the Lord Hastings then Lord Chamberlain to put the Queen in mind of it and to follow the Business till it were brought to a good Issue which would be a great Honour to the Memory of Joseph of Arimathea who lay there whom they did heartily beseech to pray to Christ for good success to his Lordship This Letter I have put in the Collection Collection Number 31. copied from the Original What followed upon it I cannot find It is probable the Monks of other Houses made the like endeavours and every one of them could find some rare thing belonging to their House which seemed to make it the more necessary to raise it speedily These of St. Albans could say the first Martyr of England lay in their Abbey those of St. Edmundbury had a King that was Martyred by the Heathen Danes those of Battel could say they were Founded for the remembrance of William the Conquerors Victory from whence the Queen derived her Crown and those of St. Austins in Canterbury had the Apostle of England laid in their Church In short they were all in hopes to be speedily restored And though they were but few in Number and to begin upon a small Revenue yet as soon as the belief of Purgatory was revived they knew how to set up the old Trade a-new which they could drive with the greater advantage since they were to deal with the People by a new Motive besides the old ones formerly used that it was Sacriledge to possess the
from Rome This Storm against Pool went soon over by the Peace that was made between Philip and the Pope of which it will not be unpleasant to give the Relation The Duke of Guise having carried his Army out of Italy the Duke of Alva marched towards Rome and took and spoiled all Places on his way When he came near Rome all was in such confusion that he might have easily taken it but he made no assault The Pope called the Cardinals together and setting out the danger he was in with many Tears said he would undauntedly suffer Martyrdome which they who knew that the trouble he was in flowed only from his restless ambition and fierceness could scarce hear without laughter The Duke of Alva was willing to treat A Peace made between the Pope and the King of Spain The Pope stood high on the Points of Honour and would needs keep that entire though he was forced to yield in the chief matters he said rather than lose one jot that was due to him he would see the whole World ruined pretending it was not his own Honour but Christs that he sought In fine the Duke of Alva was required by him to come to Rome and on his Knees to ask pardon for invading the Patrimony of the Church and to receive Absolution for himself and his Master He being superstitiously devoted to the Papacy and having got satisfaction in other things consented to this So the Conqueror was brought to ask pardon and the vain Pope received him and gave him Absolution with as much haughtiness and state as if he had been his Prisoner This was done on the 14th of September and the news of it being brought into England on the 6th of October Letters were written by the Council to the Lord Major and Aldermen of London requiring them to come to St. Pauls where high Mass was to be said for the Peace now concluded between the Pope and the King after which Bonfires were ordered One of the secret Articles of the Peace was the restoring Pool to his Legatine Power The beginnings of a War between England and Scotland War being now proclaimed between England and France the French sent to the Scotish Queen Regent to engage Scotland in the War with England Hereupon a Convention of the Estates was called But in it there were two different Parties Those of the Clergy liked now the English Interest as much as they had been formerly jealous of it and so refused to engage in the War since they were at Peace with England They had also a secret dislike to the Regent for her kindness to the Heretical Lords On the other hand those Lords were ready enough to gain the protection of the Regent and the favour of France and therefore were ready to enter into the War hoping that thereby they should have their Party made the stronger in Scotland by the entertainment that the Queen Regent would be obliged to give to such as should fly out of England for Religion Yet the greater part of the Convention were against the War The Queen Regent thought at least to engage the Kingdom in a defensive War by forcing the English to begin with them Therefore she sent D'Oisel who was in chief command to fortifie Aymouth which by the last Treaty with England was to be unfortified So the Governour of Berwick making Inroads into Scotland for the disturbing of their Works upon that D'Oisel began the War and went into England and besieged Warke Castle The Scotish Lords upon this met at Edenburgh and complained that D'Oisel was engaging them in a War with England without their consent and required him to return back under pain of being declared an Enemy to the Nation which he very unwillingly obeyed But while he lay there the Duke of Norfolk was sent down with some Troops to defend the Marches There was only one Engagement between him and the Kers but after a long dispute they were defeated and many of them taken The Queen Regent seeing her Authority was so little considered writ to France to hasten the Marriage of her Daughter to the Dolphin for that he being thereupon invested with the Crown of Scotland the French would become more absolute Upon this a Message was sent from France to a Convention of Estates that sate in December to let them know that the Dolphin was now coming to be of Age and therefore they desired they would send oversome to treat about the Articles of the Marriage They sent the Arch-bishop of Glasgow the Bishop of Orkney the Prior of St. Andrews who afterwards was Earl of Murray the Earls of Rothes and Cassils the Lord Fleeming and the Provosts of Edenburgh and Mountrose some of every Estate that in the Name of the three Estates they might conclude that Treaty These Wars coming upon England when the Queens Treasure was quite exhausted it was not easie to raise Money for carrying them on They found such a backwardness in the last Parliament that they were afraid the supply from thence would not come easily or at least that some favour would be desired for the Hereticks Therefore they tried first to raise Money by sending Orders under the Privy Seal for the borrowing of certain Sums But though the Council writ many Letters to set on those Methods of getting Money yet they being without if not against Law there was not much got this way so that after all it was found necessary to summon a Parliament to assemble on the 20th of January In the end of the Year the Queen had Advertisements sent her from the King that he understood the French had a design on Calais but she either for want of Money or that she thought the place secure in the Winter did not send these Supplies that were necessary and thus ended the Affairs of England this Year In Germany there was a Conference appointed The Affairs of Germany to bring matters of Religion to a fuller settlement Twelve Papists and twelve Protestants were appointed to manage it Julius Pflugius that had drawn the Interim being the chief of the Papists moved that they should begin first with condemning the Heresie of Zuinglius Melancthon upon that said it was preposterous to begin with the condemnation of errors till they had first setled the Doctrines of Religion Yet that which the Papists expected followed upon this for some of the fiercer Lutherans being much set against the Zuinglians agreed to it This raised heats among themselves which made the Conference break up without bringing things to any issue Upon this occasion Men could not but see that Artifice of the Roman Church which has been often used before and since with too great success When they cannot bear down those they call Hereticks with open force their next way is to divide them among themselves and to engage them into Heats about those lesser matters in which they differ hoping that by those animosities their endeavours which being united would
to meet and consider of the Book of Service In the mean while the People were to be restrained from Innovating without Authority and the Queen to give some hope of a Reformation might appoint the Communion to be given in both kinds The Persons that were thought fit to be trusted with the Secret of these Consultations were the Marquess of Northampton the Earls of Bedford and Pembroke and the Lord John Gray The Place that was thought most convenient for the Divines to meet in was Sir Thomas Smiths House in Channon-Row where an Allowance was to be given for their Entertainment The forwardness in many to the Reformation As soon as the News of the Queens coming to the Crown was known beyond Sea all those who had fled thither for shelter did return into England and those who had lived in Corners during the late Persecution now appeared with no small assurance and these having notice of the Queens Intentions could not contain themselves but in many Places begun to make Changes to set up King Edwards Service to pull down Images and to affront the Priests Upon this the Queen to make some discovery of her own Inclinations gave order that the Gospels and Epistles and the Lords Prayer the Apostles Creed and the Ten Commandements should be read in English and that the Letany should be also used in English and she forbade the Priests to Elevate the Host at Mass Having done this on the 27th of December she set out a Proclamation against all Innovations requiring her Subjects to use no other Forms of Worship than those she had in her Chappel till it should be otherwise appointed by the Parliament which she had summoned to meet on the 23d of January The Writs were issued out by Bacon into whose Hands she had delivered the Great Seal On the fifth of December she performed her Sisters Funeral Rites with great Magnificence at Westminster The Bishop of Winchester being appointed to preach the Sermon did so mightily extoll her and her Government and so severely taxed the disorders which he thought the Innovators were guilty of not without reflections on the Queen that he was thereupon confined to his House till the Parliament met Parker designed to be Archbishop of Canterbury One of the chief things under consultation was to provide Men fit to be put into the Sees that were now vacant or that might fall to be so afterwards if the Bishops should continue intractable Those now vacant were the Sees of Canterbury Hereford Bristol and Bangor and in the beginning of the next Year the Bishops of Norwich and Glocester died so that as Cambden hath it there were but fourteen Bishops living when the Parliament met It was of great importance to find Men able to serve in these Imployments chiefly in the See of Canterbury For this Dr. Parker was soon thought on Whether others had the offer of it before him or not I cannot tell but he was writ to by Sir Nicholas Bacon on the ninth of December to come up to London and afterwards on the 30th of December by Sir William Cecil and again by Sir Nicholas Bacon on the fourth of January He understood that it was for some high preferment and being a Man of an humble Temper distrustful of himself that loved privacy and was much disabled by sickness he declined coming up all he could he begged he might not be thought of for any publick Imployment but that some Prebend might be assigned him where he might be free both from Care and Government since the Infirmities which he had contracted by his flying about in the Nights in Queen Maries time had disabled him from a more publick station That to which he pretended shews how moderate his desires were for he professed an Imployment of twenty Nobles a year would be more acceptable to him than one of two hundred Pound He had been Chaplain to Queen Anne Bullen and had received a special charge from her a little before she died to look well to the Instruction of her Daughter in the Principles of the Christian Religion and now the Queen had a grateful Remembrance of those Services This joyned with the high Esteem that Sir Nicholas Bacon had of him soon made her resolve to raise him to that great Dignity And since such high Preferments are generally if not greedily sought after yet very willingly undertaken by most Men it will be no unfit thing to lay open a modern Precedent which indeed savours more of the Ancient than the latter Times for then in stead of that Ambitus which has given such offence to the World in the latter Ages it was ordinary for Men to fly from the offer of great Preferments Some run away when they understood they were to be Ordained or had been Elected to great Sees and fled to a Wilderness This shewed they had a great sense of the Care of Souls and were more apprehensive of that weighty Charge than desirous to raise or enrich themselves or their Families It hath been shewed before that Cranmer was very unwillingly engaged in the See of Canterbury and now he that succeeded him in that See with the same designs was drawn into it with such unwillingness that it was almost a whole year before he could be prevailed upon to accept of it The account of this will appear in the Series of Letters both written to him and by him on that Head which were communicated to me by the present most Worthy and most Reverend Primate of this Church I cannot mention him in this place without taking notice that as in his other great Vertues and Learning he has gone in the steps of those most eminent Arch-bishops that went before him so the whole Nation is witness how far he was from aspiring to high Preferment how he withdrew from all those opportunities that might be steps to it how much he was surprized with his unlooked-for advancement how unwillingly he was raised and how humble and affable he continues in that high Station he is now in but this is a Subject that I must leave for them to enlarge on that shall write the History of this present Age. 1559. Bacon made Lord Keeper In the beginning of the next Year the Queen having found that Heath Arch-bishop of York then Lord Chancellor would not go along with her as he had done in the Reigns of her Father and Brother and having therefore taken the Seals from him and put them into Sir Nicholas Bacon's Hand did now by Patent create him Lord Keeper Formerly those that were Keepers of the Seal had no Dignity nor Authority annexed to their Office they did not hear Causes nor preside in the House of Lords but were only to put the Seals to such Writs or Patents as went in course and so it was only put in the Hands of a Keeper but for some short Interval But now Bacon was the first Lord Keeper that had all the Dignity and Authority of
Reformation from its first and small beginnings in England till it came to a compleat settlement in the time of this Queen Of whose Reign if I have adventured to give any Account it was not intended so much for a full Character of Her and her Councils as to set out the great and vissible Blessings of God that attended on her the many Preservations she had and that by such signal Discoveries as both sav'd her Life and secured her Government and the unusual happiness of her whole Reign which raised her to the Esteem and Envy of that Age and the Wonder of all Posterity It was wonderful indeed that a Virgin Queen could rule such a Kingdom for above 44 Years with such constant success in so great tranquility at Home with a vast encrease of Wealth and with such Glory abroad All which may justly be esteem-to have been the Rewards of Heaven crowning that Reign with so much Honour and Triumph that was begun with the Reformation of Religion The end of the third Book and of the History of the Reformation of the Church of England THE TABLE OF THE CONTENTS Of the Second Part of the History of the Reformation of the CHURCH of England BOOK I. Of the Life and Reign of King Edward the Sixth 1547. K. Edward's Birth and Baptism pag. 1 His Education and Temper pag. 2 Cardan's Character of him ibid. A design to create him Prince of Wales pag. 3 King Henry dies and he succeeds ibid. King Henry's Will ibid. Debate about choosing a Protector pag. 4 The Earl of Hartford is chosen pag. 5 It is declared in Council ibid. The Bishops take out Commissions pag. 6 Reasons for a Creation of Peers ibid. Affairs of Scotland pag. 8 Lay men in Ecclesiastical Dignities ibid. Images taken away in a Church in London pag. 9 The progress of Image-Worship ibid. Many pull down Images pag. 11 Gardiner is offended at it ibid. The Protector writes about it ibid. Gardiner writes to Ridley about them pag. 12 Commissions to the Justices of Peace pag. 13 The form of Coronation changed ibid. King Henry's Burial ibid. Soul-Masses examined pag. 14 A Creation of Peers pag. 15 The King is crowned ibid. The Lord Chancellor is turned out ibid. The Protector made by Patent pag. 17 The Affairs of Germany pag. 19 Ferdinand made K. of the Romans ibid. The Diet at Spire ibid Emperor makes Peace with France and with the Turk pag. 20 And sets about the ruin of the Protest ibid. Protestant Princes meet at Frankfort pag. 21 D. of Sax and Land of Hesse Arm pag. 22 Peace between England and France pag. 23 Francis the first dies ibid. A Reformation set about in England pag. 24 A Visitation resolved on pag. 26 Some Homilies compiled pag. 27 Injunctions for the Visitation pag. 28 Injunctions for the Bishops pag. 29 Censures passed upon them ibid. Protector goes into Scotland pag. 31 Scotland said to be Subject to England ib. Protector enters Scotland pag. 33 Makes Offers to the Scots ibid. The Scots Defeat at Musselburgh pag. 34 Protector returns to England pag. 35 The Visitors execute the Injunctions pag. 36 Bonner Protests and Recants ibid. Gardiner would not obey ibid. His Reasons against them ibid. He complains to the Protector pag. 38 The Lady Mary complains also pag. 39 The Protector writes to her ibid. The Parliament meets ibid. An Act repealing severe Laws pag. 40 An Act about the Communion pag. 41 Communion in both kinds ibid. Private Masses put down pag. 42 An Act about the admission of Bishops pag. 43 Ancient ways of electing Bishops ibid. An Act against Vagabonds pag. 45 Chauntries given to the King ibid. Acts proposed but not passed pag. 46 The Convocation meets pag. 47 And makes some Petitions ibid. The Clergie desire to have Representatives in the House of Commons ibid. The Grounds of that pag. 48 The Affairs of Germany pag. 50 Duke of Saxe taken ibid. The Archbishop of Colen resigns pag. 51 A Decree made in the Diet pag. 52 Proceedings at Trent ibid. The Council removed to Boloign pag. 53 The French quarrel about Buloign ibid. The Protector and the Admiral fall out pag. 54 1548. Gardiner is set at liberty pag. 55 Mâ—rq of Northampton sues a Divorce pag. 56 The Arguments for it pag. 57 A Progress in the Reformation pag. 58 Proclamation against Innovation pag. 59 All Images taken away pag. 60 Restraints put on Preachers pag. 61 Some Bishops and Doctors examine the Publick Offices and Prayers ibid. Corruptions in the Office of the Commun pag. 62 A new Office for the Communion pag. 64 It is variously censured pag. 65 Auricular Confession left indifferent ibid. Chauntry Lands sold pag. 67 Gardiner falls into new Troubles pag. 68 He is ordered to preach pag. 69 But gives offence and is imprisoned pag. 70 A Catechism set out by Cranmer pag. 71 A further reformation of public Offices ibid. A new Liturgie resolved upon pag. 72 The Changes made in it pag. 73 Preface to it pag. 79 Reflections made on it ibid. All preaching forbid for a time pag. 81 Affairs of Scotland ibid. The Queen of Scots sent to France pag. 82 The Siege of Hadingtoun ibid. A Fleet sent against Scotland pag. 83 But without success ibid. The Siege of Hadingtoun raised pag. 84 Discontents in Scotland pag. 85 The Affairs of Germany ibid. The Book of the Interim pag. 86 Both sides offended at it ibid. Calvin writes to the Protector pag. 88 Bucer writes against Gardiner ibid. A Session of Parliament ibid. Act for the Marriage of the Clergie pag. 89 Which was much debated ibid. Arguments for it from Scripture ibid. And from the Fathers pag. 90 The Reasons against it examined pag. 91 An Act confirming the Liturgie pag. 93 Censures passed upon it pag. 94 The singing of Psalms set up ibid. 1549. An Act about Fasts pag. 95 Some Bills that did not pass pag. 96 A design of digesting the Common Law into a Body ibid. The Admiral 's Attainder pag. 97 He was sent to the Tower ibid. The Matter referred to the Parliament pag. 99 The Bill against him passed ibid. The Warrant for his Execution pag. 100 It is signed by Cranmer ibid. Censures upon that ibid. Subsidies granted pag. 101 A New Visitation ibid. All obey the Laws except Lady Mary pag. 103 A Treaty of Marriage for her ibid. The Council required her to obey pag. 104 Christ's Presence in the Sacrament examined ibid. Publick Disputations about it pag. 105 The manner of the Presence explained pag. 107 Proceedings against Anabaptists pag. 110 Of these there were two sorts ibid. Two of them burnt pag. 112 Which was much censured ibid. Disputes concerning Infant Baptism ibid. Predestination much abused pag. 113 Tumults in England ibid. Some are soon quieted pag. 114 The Devonshire Rebellion pag. 115 Their Demands ibid. An Answer sent to them pag. 116 They make new Demands pag. 117 Which are rejected ibid. The Norfolk Rebellion ibid. The Yorkshire Rebellion pag. 118
the Stream to sink it but or ere it sunk it came near to one Bank where the Bulloners took it out and brought the Stones to reinforce the Peer Also at Guines was a certain Skirmish in which there was about an 100 Frenchmen slain of which some were Gentlemen and Noblemen In the mean season in England rose great Stirs like to increase much if it had not been well foreseen The Council about nineteen of them were gathered in London thinking to meet with the Lord Protector and to make him amend some of his Disorders He fearing his state caused the Secretary in My Name to be sent to the Lords to know for what Cause they gathered their Powers together and if they meant to talk with him that they should come in a peaceable manner The next morning being the 6th of October and Saturday he commanded the Armour to be brought down out of the Armoury of Hampton-Court about 500 Harnesses to Arm both his and My Men with all the Gates of the House to be Rampeir'd People to be raised People came abundantly to the House That night with all the People at nine or ten of the Clock of the night I went to Windsor and there was Watch and Ward kept every night The Lords sat in open Places of London calling for Gentlemen before them and declaring the Causes of Accusation of the Lord Protector and caused the same to be proclaimed After which time few came to Windsor but only Mine own Men of the Guard whom the Lords willed fearing the Rage of the People so lately quieted Then began the Protector to treat by Letters sending Sir Philip Hobbey lately come from his Ambassage in Flanders to see to his Family who brought in his return a Letter to the Protector very gentle which he delivered to him another to Me another to my House to declare his Faults Ambition Vain-Glory entring into rash Wars in my Youth negligent looking on New-Haven enriching of himself of my Treasure following of his own Opinion and doing all by his own Authority c. Which Letters were openly read and immediately the Lords came to Windsor took him and brought him through Holborn to the Tower Afterward I came to Hampton-Court where they appointed by My consent six Lords of the Council to be Attendant on Me at least two and four Knights Lords the Marquess of Northampton the Earls of Warwick and Arundel the Lords Russel St. John and Wentworth Knights Sir Andr. Dudley Sir Edw. Rogers Sir Tho. Darcy and Sir Tho. Wroth. After I came through London to Westminster The Lord of Warwick made Admiral of England Sir Thomas Cheiney sent to the Emperor for Relief which he could not obtain Master Wotton made Secretary The Lord Protector by his own Agreement and Submission lost his Protectorship Treasureship Marshalship all his Moveables and more 2000 l. Land by Act of Parliament The Earl of Arundel committed to his House for certain Crimes of suspicion against him as plucking down of Bolts and Locks at Westminster giving of My Stuff away c. and put to fine of 12000 l. to be paid 1000 l. Yearly of which he was after relieved Also Mr. Southwell committed to the Tower for certain Bills of Sedition written with his Hand and put to fine of 500 l. Likewise Sir Tho. Arundel and six then committed to the Tower for Conspiracies in the West Places A Parliament where was made a manner to Consecrate Priests Bishops and Deacons Mr. Paget surrendring his Comptrolership was made Lord Paget of Beaudesert and cited into the Higher House by a Writ of Parliament Sir Anthony Wingfield before Vicechamberlain made Comptroller Sir Thomas Darcy made Vicechamberlaine Guidotty made divers Errands from the Constable of France to make Peace with us upon which were appointed four Commissioners to Treat and they after long Debatement made a Treaty as followeth Anno 1549. Mart. 24. Peace concluded between England France and Scotland By our English side John Earl of Bedford Lord Privy Seal Lord Paget de Beaudesert Sir William Petre Secretary and Sir John Mason On the French side Monsieur de Rochepot Monsieur Chastilion Guilluart de Mortier and Boucherel de Sany upon these Conditions That all Titles Tribute and Defences should remain That the Faults of one Man except he be punished should not break the League That the Ships of Merchandize shall pass to and fro That Pirats shall be called back and Ships of War That Prisoners shall be delivered of both sides That we shall not War with Scotland That Bollein with the pieces of New Conquest and two Basilisks two Demy-Cannons three Culverines two Demy-Culverins three Sacres six Faulcons 94 Hagbutts a Crook with Wooden Tailes and 21 Iron Pieces and Lauder and Dunglass with all the Ordnance save that that came from Haddington shall within six months after this Peace proclaimed be delivered and for that the French to pay 200000 Scutes within three days after the delivery of Bollein and 200000 Scutes on our Lady Day in Harvest next ensuing and that if the Scots raizd Lauder and we should raze Roxburg and Heymouth For the performance of which on the 7th of April should be delivered at Guisnes and Ardres these Hostages Marquess de Means Monsieur Trimoville Monsieur D'anguien Monsieur Montmorency Monsieur Henandiere Vicedam de Chartres My Lord of Suffolk My Lord of Hartford My Lord Talbot My Lord Fitzwarren My Lord Martavers My Lord Strange Also that at the delivery of the Town Ours should come home and at the first Payment three of theirs and that if the Scots raze Lauder and Dunglass We must raze Roxburgh and Heymouth and none after fortify them with comprehension of the Emperor 25. This Peace Anno 1550 proclaimed at Calais and Bollein 29. In London Bonefires 30. A Sermon in Thanksgiving for Peace and Te Deum sung 31. My Lord Somerset was delivered of his Bonds and came to Court April 2. The Parliament prorogued to the second day of the Term in October ensuing 3. Nicholas Ridley before of Rochester made Bishop of London and received his Oath Thomas Thirlby before of Westminster made Bishop of Norwich and received his Oath 4. The Bishop of Chichester before a vehement affirmer of Transubstantiation did preach against it at Westminster in the preaching place Removing to Greenwich from Westminster 6. Our Hostages passed the Narrow Seas between Dover and Calais 7. Monsieur de Fermin Gentleman of the King 's Privy Chamber passed from the French King by England to the Scotch Queen to tell her of the Peace An Ambassador came from Gustave the Swedish King called Andrew for a surer Amity touching Merchandize 9. The Hostages delivered on both the sides for the Ratification of the League with France and Scotland for because some said to Monsieur Rochfort Lieutenant that Monsieur de Guise Father to the Marquess of Means was dead and therefore the delivery was put over a day 8. My Lord Warwick made General Warden of
Men was but for his own defence He did not determine to kill the Duke of Northumberland the Marquess c. but spoke of it and determined after the contrary and yet seemed to confess he went about their Death The Lords went together The Duke of Northumberland would not agree that any searching of his Death should be Treason So the Lords acquitted him of High-Treason and condemned him of Treason Fellonious and so he was adjudged to be hang'd He gave thanks to the Lords for their open Trial and cried Mercy of the Duke of Northumberland the Marquess of Northampton and the Earl of Pembrook for his ill-meaning against them and made suit for his Life Wife Children Servants and Debts and so departed without the Ax of the Tower The People knowing not the Matter shouted half a dozen of times so loud that from the Hall-Door it was heard at Charing-Cross plainly and rumours went that he was quit of all 2. The Peace concluded by the Lord Marquess was ratified by Me before the Ambassadour and delivered to him Signed and Sealed 3. The Duke told certain Lords that were in the Tower that he had hired Bertivill to kill them which thing Bertivill examined on confessed and so did Hammond that he knew of it 4. I saw the Musters of the new Band-men of Arms 100 of my Lord Treasurers 100 of Northumberland 100 Northampton 50 Huntingtoun 50 Rutland 120 of Pembrook 50 Darcy 50 Cobham 100 Sir Thomas Cheyney and 180 of the Pensioners and their Bands with the old Men of Arms all well-armed Men some with Feathers Staves and Pensils of their Colours some with Sleeves and half-Coats some with Bards and Staves c. The Horses all fair and great the worst would not have been given for less than 20 l. there was none under fourteen handfull and an half the most part and almost all Horses with their Guider going before them They passed twice about St. James's Field and compassed it round and so departed 15. Then were certain Devices for Laws delivered to my Learned Council to Pen as by a Schedule appeareth 18. It was appointed I should have six Chaplains ordinary of which two ever to be present and four always absent in preaching one Year two in Wales two in Lancashire and Darby next Year two in the Marches of Scotland two in Yorkshire the third Year two in Devonshire two in Hampshire fourth Year two in Norfolk and Essex and two in Kent and Sussex c. These six to be Bill Harle Perne Grindall Bradford * The other name dasht 20. The Bishop of Duresme was for concealment of Treason written to him and not disclosed at all till the Party did open him committed to the Tower 21. Richard Lord Rich Chancellor of England considering his sickness did deliver his Seal to the Lord-Treasurer the Lord great Master and the Lord Chamberlain sent to him for that purpose during the time of his sickness and chiefly of the Parliament 5. The Lord Admiral came to the French King and after was sent to the Queen and so conveied to his Chamber 6. The Lord Admiral christned the French King's Child and called him by the King's commandment Edward Alexander All that day there was Musick Dancing and Playing with Triumph in the Court but the Lord Admiral was sick of a double Quartane yet he presented Barnabe to the French King who took him to his Chamber 7. The Treaty was delivered to the Lord Admiral and the French King read it in open Audience at Mass with Ratification of it The Lord Admiral took his leave of the French King and returned to Paris very sick The same day the French King shewed the Lord Admiral Letters that came from Parma how the French Men had gotten two Castles of the Imperialists and in the defence of the one the Prince of Macedonia was slain on the Walls and was buried with triumph at Parma 22. The Great Seal of England delivered to the Bishop of Ely to be Keeper thereof during the Lord Rich's sickness The Band of 100 Men of Arms which my Lord of Somerset of late had appointed to the Duke of Suffolk 23. Removing to Greenwich 24. I began to keep Holy this Christmass and continued till Twelve-tide 26. Sir Anthony St. Legier for Matters laid against him by the Bishop of Dublin was banished my Chamber till he had made answer and had the Articles delivered him 28. The Lord Admiral came to Greenwich 30. Commission was made out to the Bishop of Ely the Lord Privy-Seal Sir John Gates Sir William Petre Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Walter Mildmay for calling in my Debts January 1. Orders were taken with the Chandlers of London for selling their Tallow-Candles which before some denied to do and some were punished with Imprisonment 3. The Challenge that was made in the last Month was fulfilled The Challengers were Sir Henry Sidney Sir Henry Nevel Sir Henry Gates Defendants The Lord Williams The Lord Fitzwater The Lord Ambrose The Lord Roberts The Lord Fitzwarren Sir George Howard Sir William Stafford Sir John Parrat Mr. Norice Mr. Digby Mr. Warcop Mr. Courtney Mr. Knolls The Lord Bray Mr. Paston Mr. Cary. Sir Anthony Brown Mr. Drury These in all ran six Courses a-piece at Tilt against the Challengers and accomplished their Courses right-well and so departed again 5. There were sent to Guisnes Sir Richard Cotton and Mr. Bray to take view of Calais Guisnes and the Marches and with the advice of the Captain and Engineers to devise some amendment and thereupon to make me Certificate and upon mine Answer to go further to the Matter 4. It was appointed that if Mr. Stanhop left Hull then that I should no more be charged therewith but that the Town should take it and should have 40 l. a Year for the repairing of the Castle 2. I received Letters out of Ireland which appear in the Secretary's Hand and thereupon the Earldom of Thowmount was by Me given from O-Brians Heirs whose Father was dead and had it for term of Life to Donnas Baron of Ebrecan and his Heirs Males 3. Also Letters were written of Thanks to the Earls of Desmond and Clanrikard and to the Baron of Dunganan 3. The Emperor's Ambassador moved me several times that my Sister Mary might have Mass which with no little reasoning with him was denied him 6. The foresaid Challengers came into the Tournay and the foresaid Defendants entred in after with two more with them Mr. Terill and Mr. Robert Hopton and fought right-well and so the Challenge was accomplished The same Night was first of a Play after a Talk between one that was called Riches and the other Youth whether of them was better After some pretty Reasoning there came in six Champions of either side On Youth's side came My Lord Fitzwater My Lord Ambrose Sir Anthony Brown Sir William Cobham Mr. Cary. Mr. Warcop On Riches side My Lord Fitzwarren Sir Robert Stafford Mr. Courtney Digby Hopton Hungerford All
send a Man for the same purpose to know our further meaning in that behalf 11. Mr. Pickering declared to the French King being then at Rhemes Stuckley's Matter of Confession and the Cause of his Imprisonment Who after protestation made of his own good Meaning in the Amity and of Stuckley's Ingratitude toward him his lewdness and ill-demeanour thanked Us much for this so gentil an uttering of the Matter that we would not be led with false Bruites and Tales The Bishop Tunstal of Durham was deprived of his Bishoprick In this month Monsieur de Rue Martin Rossen and an Army of Flemings while the French had assembled his Men of War in Lorrain had sent the Constable to the Army which lay four leagues from Verdun the Duke de Guise with 7000 Men to Metz and the Mareschal St. Andrew at Verdeun razed and spoiled between the River of Some and Osse many Towns as Noyon Roy Chamy and Villages Nelle Follambray a new built House of the King 's c. insomuch that the French King sent the Admiral of France to help the Duke of Vendosme against that Army There was at this time a great Plague that reigned in sundry parts of France of which many Men died 20. A Man of the Earl of Tyrones was committed to the Tower because he had made an untrue Suggestion and Complaint against the Deputy and the whole Council of Ireland Also he had bruited certain ill Bruites in Ireland how the Duke of Northumberland and the Earl of Pembrook were fallen out and one against another in the Field 17. The Flemings and the Englishmen that took their parts assaulted by Night Hamletue the Englishmen were on the Walls and some some of the Flemings also but by the cowardise of a great part of the Flemings the Enterprize was lost and many Men slain The number of the Flemings were 4000 the number of the Men within Hambletue 400. The Captain of this Enterprise was Monsieur de Vandeville Captain of Gravelin 6. Monsieur de Boissey entred Treves with a Flemish Army to the number of 12000 Footmen and 2500 Horsemen Burgunions without any resistance because the Ensigns there left by Marquess Albert were departed and thereupon the Duke d' Alva and the Marquess of Marion marched toward Metz the Emperor himself and the Marquess Hans of Brandenburg having with him the rest of his Army the ninth day of this month departed from Landaw towards Metz. Monsieur de Boissey's Army also joined with him at a place called Swayburg or Deuxpont 23. It was agreed that because the State of Ireland could not be known without the Deputy's presence that he should in this dead time of the Year leave the governance of the Realm to the Council there for the time and bring with him the whole State of the Realm whereby such order might be taken as the superfluous Charge might be avoided and also the Realm kept in quietness and the Revenue of the Realm better and more profitably gathered 25. Whereas one George Paris an Irishman who had been a practiser between the Earl of Desmond and other Irish Lords and the French King did now being weary of that Matter practise means to come home and to have his old Lands in Ireland again His Pardon was granted him and a Letter written to him from my Council in which he was promised to be considered and holpen There fell in this month a great Contention among the Scots for the Kers slew the Lord of Balcleugh in a Fray in Edinburgh and as soon as they had done they associated to them the Lord Home and all his Kin But the Governour thereupon summoned an Army to go against them but at length because the Dowager of Scotland favoured the Kers and Homes and so did all the French Faction the French King having also sent for 5000 Scotch Footmen and 500 Horsemen for his Aid in these Wars the Governour agreed the 5000 Footmen under the leading of the Earl of Cassils and 500 Light-Horsemen of which the Kers and the Homes should be Captains and go with such haste into France that they might be in such place as the French King would appoint them to serve in by Christmass or Candlemass at the furthest And thus he trusted to be well rid of his most mortal Enemies 27. The Scots hearing that George Paris practised for Pardon committed him to Ward in Striveling-Castle 25. Monsieur de Rue having burnt in France eighteen leagues in length and three leagues in breadth having pillaged and sacked and razed the fair Towns of Noyon Roy Nelle and Chamy the King 's new House of Follambray and infinite other Villages Bullwarks and Gentlemens Houses in Champaign and Picardy returned into Flanders 23. The Emperor in his Person came to the Town of Metz with his Army which was reckoned 45000 Footmen as the Bruit went and 7000 Horsemen The Duke d' Alva with a good Band went to view the Town upon whom issued out the Souldiers of the Town and slew of his Men about 2000 and kept him play till the main force of the Camp came down which caused them to retire with loss On the French Party was the Duke of Nemours hurt on the Thigh There was in the Town as Captain the Duke of Guise and there were many other great Lords with him as the Prince of Rochsurion the Duke de Namours the Vicedam of Chartres Pierro Stozzy Monsieur Chastilion and many other Gentlemen November 5. Monsieur de Villandry returned to declare how the King his Master did again offer to deliver four Ships against which Judgment had passed He said The King would appoint Men to hear our Merchants at Paris which should be Men of the best sort He said likewise how the King his Master meant to mend the Ordinance of which Amendment he brought Articles 7. These Articles were delivered to be considered by the Secretaries 9. Certain were thought to be sought out by several Commissions viz. Whether I were justly answered of the Plate Lead Iron c. that belonged to Abbeys Whether I were justly answered the Profit of Alome Copper Fustians c. which were appointed to be sold and of such Land as the King my Father sold and such-like Articles 12. Monsieur Villandry received answer for the first Article as he did before How I meant not by taking freely so few to prejudice the rest For hearing of our Merchants Matters at Paris by an inferior Council We thought both too dilatory after these long Suits and also unreasonable because the inferior Council would undoe nothing though cause appeared which had been before judged by the higher Council And as for the New Ordinances we liked them in effect as ill as their Old and desired none other but the Old accustomed ones which have been used in France of late Time and to be yet continued between England and the Low-Country Finally We desire no more Words but Deeds 4. The Duke d'Aumail being left in
another To the fifth Point 1. The Emperor is at this time so driven to his Shifts that neither he shall be able to attend the stay of Mony from coming to the Mart neither if he were able to attend could I think do it now the Flemings being put in such fear as they be of the loss of all they have 2. The Flemings and the Spaniards which be under him can hardlier be without us than we without them and therefore they would hardly be brought to forbear our Traffique To the sixth Point 1. It were good the Stiliard-men were for this time gently answered and that it were seen whether by any gentle offer of some part of their Liberties again they might be brought to ship their Wares to the Mart. The Frenchmen also I think would easily be brought to come hither having now none other Traffique but hither these two Nations would suffice to begin a Mart for the first part To the seventh Point 1. It is not the ability of the English Merchants only that maketh the Mart but it is the resort of other Nations to some one place when they do exchange their Commodities one with another for the bargaining will be as well amongst the Strangers themselves the Spaniards with the Almains the Italians with Flemings the Venetians with the Danes c. as other Nations will bargain with Us. 2. The Merchants of London of Bristol and other places will come thither for the Mart time and traffique 3. The Merchants will make shift enough for their Lodging 4. There may be some of these Clothes that shall go hereafter be bought with my Mony and so carried to Southampton to be there uttered To the eighth Point 1. Bruges where the Mart was before stood not on the River of Rhine nor Antwerp doth not neither stand on that River 2. Frankfort Mart may well stand for a Fair in Almain although Southampton serve for all Nations that lie on the Sea-side for few of those come to Frankfort Mart. Windsor Sept. 23. Sexto Edwardo Sexti 1552. Number 5. The Method in which the Council represented Matters of State to the King An Original Written by Sir William Cecil Secretary of State Questions 1. Whether the King's Majesty shall enter into the Aid of the Emperor Answ He shall A Pacto 1. THe King is bound by the Treaty and if he will be helped by that Treaty he must do the Reciproque A periculo vitando 2. If he do not Aid the Emperor is like to Ruin and consequently the House of Burgundy come to the French Possession which is perilous to England and herein the greatness of the French King is dreadful Religio Christiana 3. The French King bringeth the Turk into Christendom and therefore that exploit to be staied Periculum violati pacti 4. If the Emperor for Extremity should agree now with the French then our Peril were double greater 1. The Emperor's Offence for lack of Aid 2. The French King's Enterprises towards us and in this Peace the Bishop of Rome's devotion towards us Pro Repub. Patria 5. Merchants be so evil used that both for the loss of Goods and Honour some Remedy must be sought Pericula consequentia 6. The French King 's Proceedings be suspicious to the Realm by breaking and burning of our Ships which be the old strength of this Isle Declaration of Stuckley's Tale. Answer He shall not Difficile quasi impossibile 1. The Aid is to be chargeable for the Cost and almost to be executed is impossible Solitudo in periculis 2. If the Emperor should die in this Confederacy we should be left alone in the War Amicorum suspitio vitanda 3. It may be the German Protestants might be more offended with this Conjunction with the Emperor doubting their own Causes Sperandum bene ab amicis 4. The Amity with France is to be hoped will amend and continue and the Commissioners coming may perchance restore Corrolarium of a mean way Judicium 1. So to help the Emperor as we may also join with other Christian Princes and conspire against the French King as a common Enemy to Christendom Reasons for the Common Conjunction 1. The cause is common Auxilia communia and therefore there will be more Parties to it 2. It shall avoid the chargeable entry into Aid with the Emperor Sumptus vitandi according to the Treaties 3. If the Emperor should die or break off Amicorum copia yet it is most likely some of the other Princes and Parties will remain so as the King's Majesty shall not be alone 4. The Friendship shall much advance the King 's other Causes in Christendom Dignitas causae 5. It shall be most honourable to break with the French King for this common Quarrel of Christendom Pro fide Religione Reasons against this Conjunction 1. The Treaty must be with so many Parties Inter multos nihil secretum that it can neither be speedily or secretly concluded 2. If the Matter be revealed and nothing concluded Amicitiae irritatae then consider the French King's Offence and so may he at his leasure be provoked to practise the like Conjunction against England with all the Papists Conclusion 1. The Treaty to be made with the Emperor The King's Hand and by the Emperor's means with other Princes 2. The Emperor's Acceptation to be understanded before we treat any thing against the French King Number 6. A Method for the Proceedings in the Council written with King Edward's Hand The Names of the whole Council The Bishop of Canterbury The Bp of Ely Lord Chancellor The Lord Treasurer The Duke of Northumberland The Lord Privy-Seal The Duke of Suffolk The Marquess of Northampton The Earl oâ— Shrewsbury The Earl of Westmoreâ—â—nd The Earl of Huntington The Earl of Pembrâ—â—k The Viscount Hereford The Lord Admiral The Lord Chamberlain The Lord Cobham The Lord Rich. Mr. Comptroller Mr. Treasurer Mr. Vicechamberlain Mr. Secretary Petre. Mr. Secretary Cecil Sir Philip Hobbey Sir Robert Bowes Sir John Gage Sir John Mason Mr. Ralph Sadler Sir John Baker Judg Broomley Judg Montague Mr. Wotton Mr. North. Those that be now called in Commission The Bishop of London The Bishop of Norwich Sir Thomas Wroth. Sir Richard Cotton Sir Walter Mildmay Mr. Sollicitor Mr. Gosnold Mr. Cook Mr. Lucas The Counsellors above-named to be thus divided into several Commissions and Charges First For hearing of those Suits which were wont to be brought to the whole Board The Lord Privy-Seal The Lord Chamberlain The Bishop of London The Lord Cobham Mr. Hobbey Sir John Mason Sir Ralph Sadler Mr. Wotton Mr. Cook Masters of Requests Mr. Lucas Masters of Requests Those Persons to hear the Suits to answer the Parties to make Certificate what Suits they think meet to be granted and upon answer received of their Certificate received to dispatch the Parties Also
ad tuam sive alicujus Comissariorum per te vigore hujus Commissionis jure deputandorum cognitione devolvi aut deduci valeant possunt examinand decidend Caeteraque omnia singula in Praemissis seu circa ea necessaria seu quomodolibet opportuna per ultra ea quae tibi ex sacris Literis divinitus Commissa esse dignoscuntur vice nomine Autoritate nostris exequend Tibi de cujus sana Doctrina Conscientiae puritate vitaeque morum integritate ac in rebus gerundis fide industria plurimum confidimus vices nostras cum potestate alium vel alios Commissarium vel Commissarios ad praemissa vel eorum aliqua surrogand substituend eosdemque ad placitum revocand tenore praesentium Committimus ac liberam facultatem concedimus teque licentiamus per praesentes ac nostrum beneplacitum duntaxat duraturatum cum cujuslibet congrue Ecclesiast coercionis potestate quacunque inhibitione ante dat praesentium emanata in aliquo non obstante tuam Conscientiam coram Deo strictissime onerantes ut summo omnium judici aliquando rationem reddere coram nobis tuo sub periculo corporali respondere intendis te admonentes ut interim tuum officium juxta Evangelii normam pie sancte exercere studeas ne quem ullo tempore unquam ad sacros Ordines promoveas vel ad curam animarum gerendam quovismodo admittas nisi eos duntaxat quos tanti tam venerabilis officii functionem vitae morum Integritas notissimis testimoniis approbata literarum scientia aliae qualitates requisitae ad hoc habiles idoneos clare luculenter ostenderint declaraverint Nam ut maxime compertum cognitumque habemus morum omnium maxime Christianae Religionis corruptelam a malis pastoribus in populum emanasse sic veram Christi Religionem vitaeque morum emendationem a bonis pastoribus iterum delectis assumptis in integrum restitutum iri haud dubie speramus In cujus rei testimonium praesentes Literas nostras inde fieri sigilli nostri quo ad causas Ecclesiasticas utimur appensione jussimus communiri Datum septimo die mensis Februarii Anno Dom. millesimo quingentesimo quadragesimo sexto Regni nostri Anno primo Number 3. The Councils Letter to the Justices of Peace An Original Cotton Libr. Titus B. 2. AFter our right hearty Commendations where the most Noble King of famous memory our late Soveraign Lord and Master King Henry the 8th whom God pardon upon the great Trust which his Majesty had in your virtous Wisdoms and good Dispositions to the Common-Wealth of this Realm did specially name and appoint you among others by his Commissions under his Great Seal of England to be Conservatours and Justices of his Peace within that his County of Norfolk Forasmuch as the same Commissions were dissolved by his decease it hath pleased the King's Majesty our Soveraign Lord that now is by the Advice and Consent of us the Lord Protector and others Executors to our said late Soveraign Lord whose Names be under-written to whom with others the Government of his most Royal Person and the Order of his Affairs is by his last Will and Testament committed till he shall be of full Age of eighteen Years to cause new Commissions again to be made for the conservation of his Peace throughout this Realm whereof you shall by this Bearer receive one for that County And for that the good and diligent execution of the Charge committed to you and others by the same shall be a notable Surety to the King our Soveraign Lord's Person that now is to whom God give increase of Vertue Honour and many Years a most certain Stay to the Common-Wealth which must needs prosper where Justice hath place and reigneth We shall desire you and in his Majesty's Name charge and command you upon the receit hereof with all diligence to assemble your selves together and calling unto you all such others as be named in the said Commission You shall first cry and call to God to give you Grace to execute this Charge committed unto you with all truth and uprightness according to your Oaths which you shall endeavour your selves to do in all things appertaining to your Office accordingly in such sort as all private Malice Sloth Negligence Displeasure Disdain Corruption and sinister Affections set apart it may appear you have God and the preservation of your Soveraign Lord and natural Country before your Eyes and that you forget not that by the same your Selves your Wives and your Children shall surely prosper and be also preserved For the better doing whereof you shall at this your first Assembly make a division of your selves into Hundreds or Wapentakes that is to say Two at the least to have especial eye and regard to the good Rule and Order of that or those Hundreds to see the Peace duly kept to see Vagabonds and Perturbers of the Peace punished and that every Man apply himself to do as his Calling doth require and in all things to keep good Order without alteration innovation or contempt of any thing that by the Laws of our late Soveraign Lord is prescribed and set forth unto us for the better direction and framing of our selves towards God and honest Policy And if any Person or Persons whom ye shall think you cannot Rule and Order without trouble to this Country shall presume to do the contrary upon your Information to us thereof we shall so aid and assist you in the execution of Justice and the punishment of all such contemptuous Offenders as the same shall be example to others And further his Majesty's Pleasure by the Advice and Consent aforesaid is That you shall take such Orders amongst you as you fail not once every six weeks till you shall be otherwise commanded to write unto the said Lord Protector and others of the Privy-Council in what state that Shire standeth and whether any notable things have happened or were like to happen in those Parts that you cannot redress which would be speedily met withal and looked unto or whether you shall need any advice or counsel to the intent we may put our hands to the stay and reformation of it in the beginning as appertains Praying you also to take order That every Commissioner in the Shire may have a Double or a Copy of this Letter both for his own better Instruction and to shew to the Gentlemen and such others as inhabit in the Hundreds specially appointed to them that every Man may the better conform himself to do Truth and help to the advancement of Justice according to their most bounden Duties and as they will answer for the contrary Thus fare you well From the Tower of London the 12th of February Your loving Friends E. Hertford T. Cantuarien Thomas Wriothelsey Cancel W. St. John J. Russell Anthony Brown Anthony Denny Cuth Duresme William Paget W.
nobis virtutem faciet ad nihilum rediget Hostes nostros Serenitatem ac Sanctitatem vestram conservet Altissimus Ecclesiae suae Sanctae per tempora diuturna Datum apud Monasterium de Aberbroth in Scotia 6 die Aprilis Anno gratiae Millesimo trecentesimo vicesimo Anno vero Regni Regis nostri supradicti quintodecimo Number 11. The Oath given to the Scots who submitted to the Protector YOu shall bear your Faith to the King's Majesty Ex Libro Concilii Fol. 139. our Soveraign Lord Edward the Sixth c. till such time as you shall be discharged of your Oath by special License And you shall to the uttermost of your power serve his Majesty truly and faithfully against all other Realms Dominions and Potentates as well Scots as others You shall hear nothing that may be prejudicial to his Majesty or any of his Realms or Dominions but with as much diligence as you may shall cause the same to be opened so as the same come to his Majesty's Knowledg or to the knowledg of the Lord Protector or some of his Majesty's Privy-Council You shall to the uttermost of your possible Power set forwards and advance the King's Majesties Affairs in Scotland for the Marriage and Peace Number 12. The Protestation of the Bishop of London made to the Visitors when he received the King's Majesties Injunctions and Homilies Ex Libro Concilii Fol. 110. I Do receive these Injunctions and Homilies with this Protestation That I will observe them if they be not contrary and repugnant to God's Law and the Statutes and Ordinances of this Church The Submission and Revocation of the same Bishop made before the Lords of the Kings Majesty's Council presently attending upon his Majesty's Person with the subscription of his Name thereunto VVHere I Edmund Bishop of Lodon have at such time as I received the King's Majesty's my most dread Soveraign Lord's Injunctions and Homilies at the Hands of his Highness Visitors did unadvisedly make such Protestation as now upon better consideration of my duty of Obedience and of the ill Example that may ensue to others thereof appeareth to me neither reasonable nor such as might well stand with the Duty of an humble Subject forasmuch as the same Protestation at my request was then by the Register of that Visitation enacted and put in Record I have thought it my bounden Duty not only to declare before your Lordships That I do now upon better consideration of my Duty renounce and revoke my said Protestation but also most humbly beseech your Lordships that this my Revocation of the same may likewise be put in the same Records for a perpetual Memory of the Truth Most humbly beseeching your good Lordships both to take order that it may take effect and also that my former unadvised doings may by your good Mediations be pardoned of the King's Majesty Edmund London Number 13. Gardiner's Letter to Sir John Godsalve concerning the Injunctions Ex MS. Col. C. C. Cantab. Mr. Godsalve after my right hearty Commendations with like thanks for the declaration of your good mind towards me as you mean it although it agreeth not with mine Accompt such as I have had leasure to make in this time of Liberty since the Death of my late Soveraign Lord whose Soul Jesu pardon For this have I reckon'd that I was called to this Bishoprick without the offence of God's Law or the King 's in the attaining of it I have kept my Bishoprick these sixteen Years accomplished this very day that I write these my Letters unto you without offending God's Law or the King 's in the retaining of it howsoever I have of frailty otherwise sinned Now if I may play the third part well to depart from the Bishoprick without the offence of God's Law or the King 's I shall think the Tragedy of my Life well passed over and in this part to be well handled is all my care and study now how to finish this third Act well for so I offend not God's Law nor the King's I will no more care to see my Bishoprick taken from me than my self to be taken from the Bishoprick I am by Nature already condemned to die which Sentence no Man can pardon nor assure me of delay in the execution of it and so see that of necessity I shall leave my Bishoprick to the disposition of the Crown from whence I had it my Houshold also to break up and my bringing up of Youth to cease the remembrance whereof troubleth me nothing I made in my House at London a pleasant Study that delighted me much and yet I was glad to come into the Country and leave it and as I have left the use of somewhat so can I leave the use of all to obtain a more quiet it is not loss to change for the better Honesty and Truth are more leef to me than all the Possessions of the Realm and in these two to say and do frankly as I must I never forbare yet and in these two Honesty and Truth I take such pleasure and comfort as I will never leave them for no respect for they will abide by a Man and so will nothing else No Man can take them away from me but my self and if my self do them away from me then my self do undo my self and make my self worthy to lose my Bishoprick whereat such as gape might take more sport than they are like to have at my hands What other Men have said or done in the Homilies I cannot tell and what Homilies or Injunctions shall be brought hither I know not such as the Printers have sold abroad I have read and considered and am therefore the better instructed how to use my self to the Visitors at their repair hither to whom I will use no manner of Protestation but a plain Allegation as the Matter serveth and as Honesty and Truth shall bind me to speak for I will never yield to do that should not beseem a Christian Bishops ought never to lose the Inheritance of the King's Laws due to every English Man for want of Petition I will shew my self a true Subject humble and obedient which repugneth not with the preservation of my Duty to God and my Right in the Realm not to be enjoined against an Act of Parliament which mine intent I have signified to the Council with request of redress in the Matter and not to compel me to such an Allegation which without I were a Beast I cannot pretermit and I were more than a Beast if after I had signified to the Council Truth and Reason in words I should then seem in my Deeds not to care for it My Lord Protector in one of such Letters as he wrote to me willed me not to fear too much and indeed I know him so well and divers others of my Lords of the Council that I cannot fear any hurt at their hands in the allegation of God's Law and the King 's and I will
never defame them so much to be seen to fear it And of what strength an Act of Parliament is the Realm was taught in the case of her that we called Queen Ann where all such as spake against her in the Parliament-House although they did it by special Commandment of the King and spake that was truth yet they were fain to have a Pardon because that speaking was against an Act of Parliament Did you never know or here tell of any Man that for doing that the King our late Soveraign Lord willed devised and required to be done He that took pains and was commanded to do it was fain to sue for his Pardon and such other also as were doers in it and I could tell who it were Sure there hath been such a Case and I have been present when it hath been reasoned That the doing against an Act of Parliament excuseth not a Man even from the Case of Treason although a Man did it by the King's Commandment You can tell this to your remembrance when you think further of it and when it cometh to your remembrance you will not be best content with your self I believe to have advised me to enter the breach of an Act of Parliament without surety of Pardon although the King command it and were such indeed as it were no matter to do it at all And thus I answer the Letters with worldly civil Reasons and take your Mind and Zeal towards me to be as tender as may be and yet you see that the following of your Advice might make me lose my Bishoprick by mine own Act which I am sure you would I should keep and so would I as might stand with my Truth and Honesty and none otherwise as knoweth God who send you heartily well to fare Number 14. The Conclusion of Gardiner's Letter to the Protector against the lawfulness of the Injunctions Cotton Libr. Vesp D. 18. VVHether the King may command against the Common Law or an Act of Parliament there is never a Judg or other Man in the Realm ought to know more by experience of that the Lawyers have said than I. First My Lord Cardinal had obtained his Legacy by our late Soveraign Lord's Request at Rome yet being it was against the Laws of the Realm the Judges censured the Offence of Premunire which Matter I bore away and take it for a Law of the Realm because the Lawyers said so but my Reason digested it not The Lawyers for the confirmation of their Doings brought in a Case of my Lord Typtest an Earl he was and learned in Civil Laws who being Chancellor because in execution of the King's Commission he offended the Laws of the Realm he suffered on Tower-Hill they brought in the Examples of many Judges that had Fines set on their Heads in like case for transgression of the Laws by the King's Commandment and this I learned in this Case Since that time being of the Council when many Proclamations were devised against the Carriers out of Corn when it came to punishing the Offenders the Judges would answer it might not be by the Laws because the Act of Parliament gave liberty Wheat being under a price Whereupon at the last followed the Act of Proclamations in the passing whereof were many large words When the Bishop of Exeter and his Chancellor were by one Body brought into a Premunire I reasoned with the Lord Audley then Chancellor so far as he bad me hold my peace for fear of entring a Premunire my self But I concluded that although I must take it as of their Authority that it is Common Law yet I could not see how a Man authorised by the King as since the King's Majesty hath taken upon him the Supremacy every Bishop is that Man could fall in a Premunire I reasoned once in the Parliament House where was free Speech without danger and there the Lord Audley Chancellor then to satisfie me because I was in some secret estimation as he knew Thou art a good Fellow Bishop quoth he look the Act of the Supremacy and there the King's doings be restrained to Spiritual Jurisdiction And in an other Act No Spiritual Law shall have place contrary to a Common Law or an Act of Parliament And if this were not quoth he the Bishops would enter in with the King and by means of his Supremacy order the Law as you listed but we will provide quoth he that the Premunire shall never go off your Heads This I bare away there and held my peace Since that time in a Case of Jewels I was fain with the Emperor's Ambassador Chapinius when he was here and in the Emperor's Court also to defend and maintain by Commandment that the King's Majesty was not above his Laws and therefore the Jeweller although he had the King's Bill signed yet it would not serve because it was not obtained after the Order of the Law in which Matter I was very much troubled Even this time twelve-month when I was in Commission with my Lord great Master and the Earl of Southampton for the altering of the Court of Augmentations there was my Lord Montague and other of the King 's Learned Council of whom I learned what the King might do against an Act of Parliament and what danger it was to them that medled It is fresh in my Memory and they can tell whether I say true or no and therefore being learned in so notable Causes I wrote in your absence therein as I had learned by hearing the Common Lawyers speak whose Judgments rule these Matters howsoever my reason can digest them When I wrote thereof the Matter was so reasonable as I have been learned by the Lawyers of the Realm that I trusted my Lords would have staied till your Graces return Number 15. A Letter from the Duke of Somerset to the Lady Mary in the beginning of King Edward's Reign Madam my humble Commendations to your Grace premised THese may be to signify unto the same Cotton Libr. Faustin C. 2. that I have received your Letters of the second of this present by Jane your Servant reknowledging my self thereby much bound unto your Grace nevertheless I am very sorry to perceive that your Grace should have or conceive any sinister or wrong Opinion in me and others which were by the King your late Father and our most gracious Master put in trust as Executors of his Will albeit the truth of our doings being known to your Grace as it seemeth by your said Letter not to be I trust there shall be no such fault found in us as in the same your Grace hath alleadged and for my part I know none of us that will willingly neglect the full execution of every Jot of his said Will as far as shall and may stand with the King our Master's Honour and Surety that now is otherwise I am sure that your Grace nor none other his Faithful Subjects would have it take place not doubting but our Doings and
Parties so injured and spoiled so that thereby Forreign Princes have in a manner been weary of the King's Majesty's Amity and by their Ambassadors divers times complained to the great slander of the King's Majesty and danger of the State of the Realm 28. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That where certain Men have taken certain Pirats you have not only taken from the Takers of the said Pirats all the Goods and Ships so taken without any reward but have cast the said Takers for their good Service done to the King's Majesty into Prison and there detained them a great time some eight Weeks some more some less to the discouraging of such as truly should serve the King's Majesty against his Pirats and Enemies 29. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That divers of the Head Pirats being brought unto you you have let the same Pirats go again free unto the Seas and taking away from the Takers of them not only all their Commodity and Profit but from the true Owners of the Ships and Goods all such as ever came into the Pirats hands as though you were authorised to be the chief Pirat and to have had all the Advantage they could bring unto you 30. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That where Order hath been taken by the Lord Protector and the whole Council that certain Goods piratically taken upon the Seas and otherwise known not to be Wreck nor Forfeited should be restored to the true Owners and Letters thereupon written by the Lord Protector and the Council to the which Letters you your self among the other did set to your Hand Yet you this notwithstanding have given commandment to your Officers That no such Letters should be obeyed and written your private Letters to the contrary commanding the said Goods not to be restored but kept to your own use and profit contrary to your own Hand before in the Council-Chamber written and contrary to your Duty and Allegiance and to the perilous Example of others and great slander and danger of the Realm 31. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That where certain Strangers which were Friends and Allies to the King's Majesty had their Ships with Wind and Weather broken and yet came unwrecked to the Shore when the Lord Protector and the Council had written for the restitution of the said Goods and to the Country to aid and save so much of the Goods as might you your self subscribing and consenting thereto yet this notwithstanding you have not only given contrary commandment to your Officers but as a Pirat have written Letters to some of your Friends to help that as much of these Goods as they could should be conveyed away secretly by Night further off upon hope that if the same Goods were assured the Owners would make no further labour for them and then you might have enjoyed them contrary to Justice and your Honour and to the great slander of this Realm 32. It is Objected and laid unto your Charge That you have not only disclosed the Kings Majesty's Secret Council but also where you your self amongst the rest have consented and agreed to certain things for the advancement of the King's Affairs you have spoken and laboured against the same 33. It is further Objected and laid unto your Charge That your Deputy Steward and other your Ministers of the Holt in the County of Denbigh have now against Christmass last past at the said Holt made such provision of Wheat Malt Beefs and other such things as be necessary for the sustenance of a great number of Men making also by all the means possible a great Mass of Mony insomuch that all the Country doth greatly marvel at it and the more because your Servants have spread Rumours abroad that the King's Majesty was dead whereupon the Country is in a great maze doubt and expectation looking for some Broil and would have been more if at this present by your apprehension it had not been staied The Lord Admiral 's Answer to three of the former Articles TO the first he saith That about Easter-Tyde was twelve-months he said to Fowler as he supposeth it was that if he might have the King in his custody as Mr. Page had he would be glad and that he thought a Man might bring him through the Gallery to his Chamber and so to his House But this he said he spoke merrily meaning no hurt And that in the mean time after he heard and upon that sought out certain Precedents that there was in England at one time one Protector and another Regent of France and the Duke of Exeter and the Bishop of Winchester Governors of the King's Person Upon that he had thought to have made suit to the Parliament-House for that purpose and he had the names of all the Lords and totted them whom he thought he might have to his purpose to labour them But afterwards communing with Mr. Comptroller at Ely-place being put in remembrance by him of his assenting and agreeing with own his Hand that the Lord Protector should be governor of the King's Person he was ashamed of his doings and left off that suit and labour To the second he saith He gave Mony to two or three of them which were about the King To Mr. Cheek he saith he gave at Christmass-tide was twelve-months when the Queen was at Enfield 40 l. whereof to himself 20 l. the other for the King to bestow where it pleased his Grace amongst his Servants Mr. Cheek was very loath to take it howbeit he would needs press that upon him and to him he gave no more at no time as he remembreth sith the King's Majesty was crowned To the Grooms of the Chamber he hath at Newyears-tydes given Mony he doth not well remember what To Fowler he saith he gave Mony for the King sith the beginning of this Parliament now last at London 20 l. And divers times he saith the King hath sent to him for mony and he hath sent it And what time Mr. Latimer preached before the King the King sent to him to know what he should give Mr. Latimer and he sent to him by Fowler 40 l. with this word that 20 l. was a good reward for Mr. Latimer and the other he might bestow amongst his Servants whether he hath given Fowler any mony for himself he doth not remember To the third he saith It is true he drew such a Bill indeed himself and proffered it to the King or else to Mr. Cheek he cannot well tell and before that he saith he caused the King to be moved by Mr. Fowler whether he could be contented that he should have the Governance of him as Mr. Stanhope had He knoweth not what answer he had but upon that he drew the said Bill to that effect that his Majesty was content but what answer he had to the Bill he cannot tell Mr. Cheek can tell Number 32. The Warrant for the Admiral 's Execution March 17.
Duke refuse to agree hereunto we must think him to remain in his naughty and detestable determination The Protectorship and Governance of your most Royal Person was not granted him by your Father's Will but only by agreement first amongst us the Executors and after of others Those Titles and special Trust was committed to him during Your Majesty's Pleasure and upon condition he should do all things by advice of Your Council Which condition because he hath so many times broken and notwithstanding the often speaking to without all hope of amendment we think him most unworthy those Honours or Trust Other particular things too many and too long to be written to Your Majesty at this time may at our next access to Your Royal Presence be more particularly opened consulted upon and moderated for the conservation of Your Majesty's Honour Surety and good Quiet of Your Realms and Dominions as may be thought most expedient Number 44. Letters from the Lords at London to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and Sir William Paget c. MY Lords after our most hearty Commendations Ex Libro Concilii we have received your Letters by Mr. Hobbey and heard such Credence as he declared on the King's Majesty's and your behalfs unto us The Answers whereunto because they may at more length appear to you both by our Letters to the King's Majesty and by report also of the said Mr. Hobbey we forbear to repeat here again most heartily praying and requiring your Lordships and every of you and nevertheless charging and commanding you in the King's Majesty's Name to have a continual earnest watch respect and care to the surety of the King's Majesty our natural and most gracious Soveraign Lord's Person and that he be not removed from his Majesty's Castle of Windsor as you tender your Duties to Almighty God and his Majesty and as you will answer for the contrary at your uttermost perils We are moved to call earnestly upon you herein not without great cause and amongst many others we cannot but remember unto you That it appeareth very strange unto us and a great wonder unto all true Subjects that you will either assist or suffer his Majesty's most Royal Person to remain in the Guard of the Duke of Somerset's Men sequestred from his own old sworn Servants It seemeth strange that in his Majesty's own House Strangers should be armed with his Majesty's own Armour and be nearest about his Highness Person and those to whom the ordinary Charge is committed sequestred away so as they may not attend according to their sworn Duties If any ill come hereof you can consider to whom it must be imputed once the Example is very strange and perilous And now my Lords if you tender the preservation of his Majesty and the State join with us to that end we have written to the King's Majesty by which way things may soon be quietly and moderately compounded In the doing whereof we mind to do none otherwise than we would be done to and that with as much moderation and favour as honourably we may We trust none of you have just cause to note any one of us and much less all of such cruelty as you so many times make mention of One thing in your Letters we marvel much at which is that you write that you know more than we know If the Matters come to your knowledg and hidden from us be of such weight as you seem to pretend or if they touch or may touch his Majesty or the State we think you do not as you ought in that you have not disclosed the same unto us being the whole State of the Council And thus praying God to send you the Grace to do that may tend to the surety of the King's Majesty's Person and tranquility of the Realm we bid you heartily farewel c. Number 45. An Answer to the former Letter An Original Ex Libro Concilii IT may like your good Lordships with our most hearty Commendations to understand That this morning Sir Philip Hobbey hath according to the Charge given him by your Lordships presented your Letters to the King's Majesty in the presence of us and all the rest of his Majesty's good Servants here which was there read openly and also the others to them of the Chamber and of the Houshold much to their Comforts and ours also and according to the Tenours of the same we will not fail to endeavour our selves accordingly Now touching the marvel of your Lordships both of that we would suffer the Duke of Somerset's Men to guard the King's Majesty's Person and also of our often repeating this word Cruelty although we doubt not but that your Lordships have been throughly informed of our Estates here and upon what occasion the one hath been suffered and the other proceeded yet at our convening together which may be when and where pleaseth you we will and are able to make your Lordships such an account as wherewith we doubt not you will be satisfied if you think good to require it of us And for because this Bearer Master Hobbey can particularly inform your Lordships of the whole discourse of all things here we remit the report of all other things to him saving that we desire to be advertised with as much speed as you shall think good whether the King's Majesty shall come forthwith thither or remain still here and that some of your Lordships would take pains to come hither forthwith For the which purpose I the Comptroller will cause three of the best Chambers in the great Court to be hanged and made ready Thus thanking God that all things be so well acquieted we commit your Lordships to his tuition From Windsor the 10th of Octob. 1549. Your Lordships assured loving Friends T. Cant. William Paget T. Smith Number 46. Articles objected to the Duke of Somerset 1. THat he took upon him the Office of Protector upon express condition That he should do nothing in the King's Affairs but by assent of the late King's Executors or the greatest part of them 2. That contrary to this condition he did hinder Justice and subvert Laws of his own Authority as well by Letters as by other Command 3. That he caused divers Persons Arrested and Imprisoned for Treason Murder Man-slaughter and Felony to be discharged against the Laws and Statutes of the Realm 4. That he appointed Lieutenants for Armies and other Officers for the weighty Affairs of the King under his own Writing and Seal 5. That he communed with Ambassadors of other Realms alone of the weighty Matters of the Realm 6. That he would taunt and reprove divers of the King 's most honourable Councellors for declaring their Advice in the King 's weighty Affairs against his Opinion sometimes telling them that they were not worthy to sit in Council and sometimes that he â—eed not to open weighty Matters to them and that if they were not agreeable to his Opinion he would discharge them 7.
in all things with Authority sufficient to execute Justice as well in Causes Criminal as in Matters of Controversy between Party and Party his Majesty hath commanded and appointed two Commissions to be made out under his Grace's Great Seal of England by virtue whereof they shall have full Power and Authority in either Case to proceed as the Matter occurrent shall require And for the more speedy expedition to be used in all causes of Justice his Majesty's Pleasure is That the said Lord President and Council shall cause every Complainant and Defendant that shall have to do before them to put and declare their whole Matter in their Bill of Complaint and Answer without Replication Rejoinder or other Plea or Delay to be had or used therein which Order the said L. President and Council shall manifest unto all such as shall be Councellors in any Matter to be intreated and defined before them charging and commanding the said Councellors and Pleaders to observe this Order upon such Penalties as they shall think convenient as they will eschew the danger of the same and not in any ways to break it without the special License of the said Lord President and that only in some special Causes And further his Highness by these Presents doth give full Power and Authority to the said Lord President and Council as well to punish such Persons as in any thing shall neglect contemn or disobey their Commandments or the Process of the Council as all other that shall speak seditious Words invent Rumors or commit such-like Offences not being Treason whereof any Inconvenience might grow by Pillory cutting their Ears wearing of Papers Imprisonment or otherwise at their Discretions And the said L. President and Council at their discretions shall appoint Counsellors and other Requisites to poor Suitors having no Mony without paying Fees or other things for the same And his Highness giveth full Power and Authority to the said L. President Council being with him or four of them at the least whereof the said L. President Sir John Hind Sir Edmond Molineux Sir Robert Bowes Sir Leonard Becquith Sir Anthony Nevill Sir Thomas Gargrave Knights Robert Mennell and Robert Chaloner to be two with the Lord President to assess Fines of all Persons that shall be convict or indicted of any Riot how many soever they be in number unless the Matter of such Riot shall be thought unto them of such importance as the same shall be meet to be signified unto his Majesty to be punished in such sort by the Order of his Council attending upon his Grace's Person as the same may be noted for an Example to others And his Grace giveth full Power and Authority to the said Lord President and Council or four of them at the least whereof the Lord President and two others bound to continual Attendance to be three to Award and Assess Costs and Dammages as well to the Plaintiffs as to the Defendants by their discretions and to award execution of their Decrees and Orders and to punish the breakers of the same being Parties thereunto by their discretions All which Decrees and Orders the Secretary shall be bound incontinently upon the promulgation of the same to write or cause to be written in one fair Book which shall remain in the hands and custody of the said Lord President And to the intent it may appear to all Persons there what Fees shall be paid and taken for all Processes and Writings to be used by the said Council his Majesty therefore appointeth that there shall be a Table affixed in every place where the said Lord President and Council shall sit at any Sessions and a like Table to hang openly that all Men may see it in the Office where the said Secretary and the Clerks shall commonly sit and expedite the said Writings wherein shall be declared what shall be paid for the same That is to say For every Recognisance wherein one alone or more standeth bounden 12 d. for the cancelling of every like Recognisance 12 d. For the entring of every Decree 6 d. for the Copy of the same if it be asked 6 d. For every Letter Commission Attachment or other Precept or Process sent to any Person 4 d. For every Dismission before the said Council if it be asked 4 d. For the Copies of Bills and Answers and other Pleas for every ten lines reasonably writ 1 d. for the Examination of every Witness 4 d. And his Grace's Pleasure is That the Examination of Witnesses produced in Matters before the said Council shall be examined by such discreet Person and Persons as shall be thought convenient and meet by the said Lord President and two of the said Council bound to continual Attendance and that the said Lord President with such-like two of the said Council shall reform appoint and allow such Persons to write Bills Answers Copies or other Process in that Court as they shall think convenient over and beside the said Secretary and his two Clerks which Clerks also the said Lord President and Council shall reform and correct as they shall have cause and occasion In which Reformation and Appointments the said Lord President shall have a Voice Negative And for the more certain and brief determination of Matters in those parts his Majesty by these Presents ordaineth that the said Lord President and Council shall keep four general Sittings or Sessions in the Year every of them to continue by the space of one whole Month whereof one to be at York another at Kingston upon Hull one at New-Castle and another at Duresme within the limits whereof the Matters rising there shall be ordered and decreed if they conveniently so may be And they shall in every of the same Places keep one Goal Delivery before their departure from thence his Grace nevertheless referring it to their Discretions to take and appoint such other Place and Places for their said four general Sittings as they or the said Lord President with three of the Council bounden to continual Attendance shall think most convenient for the time and purpose so that they keep the full term of one Month in every such place if they may in any wise conveniently so do And forsomuch as a great number of his Majesty's Tenants and Farmers have been heretofore retained with sundry Persons by Wages Livery Badg or Connysance by reason whereof when his Grace should have had service of them they were rather at Commandment of other Men than according to their Duties of Allegiance of his Highness of whom they have their Livings his Majesty's Pleasure and express Commandment is That none of his said Council nor others shall by any means retain or entertain any of his Graces Tenants or Farmers in such sort as they or any of them should account themselves bounden to do him or them any other Service than as to his Highness Officers having Office or being appointed in Service there unless the same Farmers and Tenants be continually
in keeping that is the King 's most gracious Highness my most benign Father who shall imprint in the same touching these Matters and all other what his inestimable Vertue high Wisdom and excellent Learning shall think convenient and limit unto me to whose presence I pray God I may once come e're I die for every Day is a Year till I may have the fruition of it Beseeching you good Mr. Secretary to continue mine humble suit for the same and for all other things whatsoever they be to repute my Heart so firmly knit to his pleasure that I can by no means vary from the direction and appointment of the same And thus most heartily fare you well From Hunsdon this Friday at ten of the Clock at Night Your assured loving Friend during my Life MARY Number 7. A Letter of Bonners upon his being restored to his Bishoprick An Original To my most loving and dearly beloved Friends my Cousin Thomas Shirley the Worshipful Richard Leekmore and Roger Leekmore his Brother IN most hearty wise I commend me unto you asserting that Yesterday I was by Sentence restored again to my Bishoprick and reposed in the same even as fully as I was at any time before I was deprived and by the said Sentence my Usurper Dr. Ridley is utterly repulsed so that I would ye did order all things at Kidmerly and Bushley at your pleasures not suffering Sheeps-head or Ships-side to be any medler there or to sell or carry away any thing from thence and I trust at your coming up now at the Parliament I shall so handle both the saids Sheeps-heads and the other Calves-heads that they shall perceive their sweet shall not be without sour Sauce This day is looked that Mr. Canterbury must be placed where is meet for him He is become very humble and ready to submit himself in all things but that will not serve in the same predicament is Dr. Smith my Friend and the Dean of Pauls with others Commend me to your Bed-fellows most heartily and remember the Liquor that I wrote to you for this Bearer shall declare the rest and also put you in remembrance for Beeves and Muttons for my House-fare And thus our blessed Lord long and well keep you all Written in haste this 6th of September Assuredly all your own Edmond London Number 8. A Manifesto set out by Cranmer declaring his readiness to maintain the Reformation in a publick Dispute Purgatio Reverendissimi in Christo Patris ac Domini D. Thomae Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis adversus infames sed vanos rumores a quibusdam sparsos de missa restituta Cantuariae QUanquam Sathan vetus Christi hostis mendax ipse atque From the Copy printed that Year mendacii parens nullis unquam temporibus abstinuit suis armandis mancipiis membris adversus Christum veram ipsius Religionem variis subinde excogitatis mendaciis idem tamen his nostris temporibus agit sane perquam sedulo Nam cum Rex Hen. 8. Princeps illustrissimae memoriae deprehensis erroribus atque infandis abusibus Latinae Missae ipsam aliquousque caepisset corrigere deindeque filius qui proxime secutus est supremus Dominus noster Rex Edwardus 6. non ferens hos tantos tamque manifestos errores atque abusus omnes poenitus sustulisset restituta Sacros Christi caena plane ad ipsius institutum atque Apostolorum Ecclesiae Primitivae exemplum Diabolus contra tentavit nuper si posset rursum ejecta dominica caena Latinam ac Satisfactoriam Missam suum ipsius inventum institutum scilicet rursum hominibus nostris obtrudere Atque id quo facilius posset effici ausi sunt quidam abuti nomine nostro Thomae Cantuarien Archiepiscopi spargentes in vulgum Missam meo jussu Cantuariae restitutam meque adeo cantaturum fuisse Missam in funere nuper Principis nostri summi Edwardi 6. Regis imo idem quoque facturum recepisse coram Majestate Reginea ad Paulum nescio ubi praeterea Porro tametsi jam 20. ab hinc annis multos ejusmodi rumores de me vanos falsos pertulerim utcunque fortiter modeste nunquam data hactenus significatione ulla commoti animi ob res ejusmodi Attamen si quando in fraudem atque injuriam veritatis Dei talia jactarentur haud quaquam diutius perferri posse judico Quae res me impulit ut scripto hoc testatum universo orbi facerem nunquam me autore Missam Cantuariae cantatam sed vanum quendam adulatorem mendacem atque Thortoneus Suffraganeus Dovorensis hypocritam Monachum me nec consultore neque conscio ibidem hoc ausum fuisse Dominus illi reddat in die illo Quod porro meipsum obtulerim ad legendam Missam coram Majestate Reginea aut usquam alibi quam id vanum sit satis novit ipsius Majestas A qua si potestatem impetro palam omnibus faciam contraque omnes diversum putantes probabo omnia quae in Communione quam restituit innocentissimus idemque optimus Princeps Rex Edwardus 6. in Comitiis Regni leguntur respondere institutioni Christi atque Apostolorum Primitivae Ecclesiae exemplo multis annis observato Missam contra in plurimis non tantum hoc fundamento carere Christi Apostolorum Primitivae Ecclesiae sed imo adversari prorsus atque ex diametro pugnare undiquaque erroribus atque abusibus refertissimam Quamvis autem a nonnullis imperitis malevolis Dicatur D. Petrus Martyr indoctus si tamen nobis hanc libertatem det Majestas Reginea ego cum Petro Martyre atque aliis quatuor aut quinque quos mihi delegero favente Deo confido nos idem omnibus approbaturos non solum preces communes Ecclesiasticas Administrationem Sacram cum caeteris Ritibus Ceremoniis Verum Doctrinam quoque universam ac religionis ordinem constitutum a supremo nostro Domino Rege Edwardo sexto puriora haec esse Verbo Dei magis consentanea quam quidquid mille retro annis in Anglia usurpatum novimus Tantummodo judicentur omnis per Verbum Dei ac describantur partis utriusque argumenta quo primum possit orbis Universus ea examinare Judicare deinde nequeat pars ulla dicta factave sic descripta inficiari Quoniam vero gloriantur illi jactant Ecclesiae fidem quae fuit 1500. abhinc annis nos hac quoque in parte cum illis periclitari audebimus quod eadem doctrina atque idem ordo ab omnibus servari debeat qui fuit illo saeculo ante Annos 1500. ac praeterea docebimus argumentis firmis totam rationem cultus divini Ecclesiastici quae nunc in hoc Regno servatur Autoritate Comitiorum eandem esse atque illam ipsam quae fuit ante Annos 1500. id quod alii de suis nunquam probaverint FINIS Lecta publice in vico Mercatorum ab amico qui
alios Auctoritate Apostolica tenore praesentium concedimus facultatem Decernentes te omnibus singulis facultatibus praedictis in quibuscunque partibus praedictis cum illorum seu in illis residentibus personis ac familiaribus tuis libere uti posse Non obstantibus defectibus aliis praedictis ac Lateranen Vienen Pictaven Generalium ac aliorum Consiliorum necnon piae memoriae Bonifacii Papae VIII etiam Praedecessoris nostri per quam concessiones percipiendi fructus in absentia sine praefinitione temporis fieri prohibentur ac de una vel duabus Dietis in Concilio generali edita aliis Apostolicis ac in Provincialibus Sinodalibus Conciliis editis generalibus vel specialibus constitutionibus ordinationibus etiam quibusvis Regulis Cancellariae Apostolicae editis edendis quarum tempora durantia ac etiam pluries prorogata decursa de novo concedere possis quibus aliis praemissis in specie valeas derogare statutis consuetudinibus Ecclesiarum Monasteriorum Universitatum Collegiorum Civitatum hujusmodi necnon ordinum quorumcunque etiam juramento confirmatione Apostolica vel quavis firmitate alia roboratis etiam si de illis servandis non impetrandis Literis contra ea illis etiam ab alio vel aliis impetratis seu alias quovismodo concessis non utendo personae quibus indultum de percipiendis fructibus in absentia hujusmodi concessum fuerit praestitissent eatenus vel imposterum forsan praestare contigerit juramentum ac quibusvis privilegiis indultis generalibus vel specialibus ordinibus quibuscunque etiam Cluniacens Cistercien quomodolibet concessis confirmatis renovatis innovatis quae praemissis quovismodo obstarent per quae praesentibus non expressa vel totaliter non inserta effectus earum impediri valeat quomodolibet vel differri de quibus quorumque totis tenoribus de verbo ad verbum habenda sit in nostris Literis mâ—ntio specialis quae quoad hoc nolumus cuiquam suffragari quibus omnibus fundationibus quibuscunque prout expedierit secundum rei Casus exigentiam ut tibi placuerit valeas derogare quodque aliqui super provisionibus sibi faciendis de hujusmodi vel aliis Beneficiis Ecclesiasticis in illis partibus speciales vel generales dictae sedis vel Legatorum ejus Literas impetratas etiam si per eas ad inhibitionem reservationem decretum vel alias quomodolibet sit processum quibus omnibus personas quibus per te de beneficiis praedictis providebitur in eorum assecutione volumus anteferri sed nullum per hoc eis quoad assecutionem beneficiorum aliorum praejudicium generari Seu si Locorum Ordinariis Collatoribus vel quibusvis aliis communiter vel divisim ab eadem sit sede indultum quod ad receptionem vel provisionem alicujus minime teneantur ad id compelli aut quod interdici suspendi vel excommunicari non possint quodque de hujusmodi vel aliis beneficiis Ecclesiasticis ad eorum collationem provisionem presentationem electionem seu quamvis aliam dispositionem conjunctim vel separatim spectantibus nulli valeat provideri seu commenda fieri per Literas Apostolicas non facientes plenam expressam ac de verbo ad verbum de indulto hujusmodi mentionem qualibet alia dictae sedis indulgentia generali vel speciali cujuscunque tenoris existat per quam praesentibus non expressam vel totaliter non insertam effectus Literarum tuarum impediri valeat quomodolibet vel differi de qua cujusque toto tenore habenda sit in nostris Literis mentio specialis Et quia difficile esset praesentes in singulis Literis tuis super praemissis comedendis inferri aut ad omnia Loca in quibus de eis fides facienda esset deferri volumus decernimus earum transumptis etiam per impressionem factis tuo sigillo munitis ac manu tui Secretarii aut Regentis Cancellariae tuae subscriptis dictisque Literis tuis absque earundem praesentium in toto vel in parte insertione eam ubique fidem in Judicio extra adhiberi quae ipsis praesentibus adhiberetur si originaliter exhiberentur Dat. Romae apud Sanctum Petrum Anno Incarnationis Domini Millesimo quingentessimo quadragessimo tertio Tertio Kalend. Februarii Pontificatus nostri Anno decimo C. L. de Torres N. Richardus In Dorso Data in Secretaria Apostolica De Torres Number 18. A Letter of the Queen's recommending the Promotion of Cardinal Pool to the Popedom written to the Bishop of Winchester the Earl of Arundel and the Lord Paget then at Calice An Original MARY the Queen Cotton Libr. Titus B. 2. RIght Reverend Father in God right trusty and right well-beloved and right trusty and right well-beloved Cousin and Counsellors and right trusty and well-beloved Counsellors We greet you well And where We do consider that Christ's Catholick Church and the whole state of Christendom having been of late so sundry ways vexed it should greatly help to further some quiet stay and redress of that is amiss if at this time of the Pope's Holiness Election some such godly learned and well-disposed Person may be chosen to that Place as shall be given to see good Order maintained and all Abuses in the Church reformed and known besides to the World to be of godly Life and Disposition And remembring on the other side the great Inconveniency that were like to arise to the State of the Church if worldly Respects being only weighed in this choice any such should be preferred to that Room as wanting those godly Qualities before remembred might give any occasion of the decay of the Catholick Faith We cannot for the discharge of our Duty to God and the World but both earnestly wish and carefully travel that such a one may be chosen and that without long delay or contention as for all respects may be most fittest to occupy that Place to the furtherance of God's Glory and quietness of Christendom And knowing no Person in our mind more fit for that purpose than our dearest Cousin the Lord Cardinal Pool whom the greatest part of Christendom hath heretofore for his long Experience integrity of Life and great Learning thought meet for that Place We have thought good to pray you that taking some good occasion for that purpose you do in our Name speak with the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Constable and the rest of the Commissioners of our good Brother the French King praying them to recommend unto our said good Brother in our Name our said dearest Cousin to be named by him to such Cardinals as be at his Devotion so as the rather by his good furtherance and means this our Motion may take place Whereunto if it shall please him to give his Assent like-as upon knowledg thereof We shall for our part
said she was Houseled at the King's Mass at Calice If I had heard it of him as told unto himself by her Mouth for a Revelation I would have both liked him and her the worse But whether ever I heard the same Tale of Rich or of Risby or of neither of them both but of some other Man since she was in hold In good faith I cannot tell but I wot well when or wheresoever I heard it me thought it a Tale too marvellous to be true and very likely that she had told some Man her Dream which told it out for a Revelation And in effect I little doubted but that some of these Tales that were told of her were untrue but yet sith I never heard them reported as spoken by her own Mouth I thought nevertheless that many of them might be true and she a very vertuous Woman too as some Lyes be peradventure written of some that be Saints in Heaven and yet many Miracles indeed done by them for all that After this I being upon a day at Sion and talking with divers of the Fathers together at the Grate they shewed me that she had been with them and shewed me divers things that some of them misliked in her and in this talking they wished that I had spoken with her and said they would fain see how I should like her Whereupon afterward when I heard that she was there again I came thither to see her and to speak with her my self At which Communication had in a little Chappel there were none present but we two in the beginning whereof I shewed that my coming to her was not of any curious mind any thing to know of such things as Folk talked that it pleased God to reveal and shew unto her but for the great Vertue that I had heard so many Years every day more and more spoken and reported of her I therefore had a great mind to see her and be acquainted with her that she might have somewhat the more occasion to remember me to God in her Devotion and Prayers whereunto she gave me a very good vertuous Answer That as God did of his goodness far better by her than she a poor Wretch was worthy so she feared that many Folk yet beside that spoke of their own favourable minds many things for her far above the Truth and that of me she had many such things heard that already she prayed for me and ever would whereof I heartily thanked her I said unto her Madam one Hellen a Maiden dwelling about Totnam of whose Trances and Revelations there hath been much talking she hath been with me of late and shewed me that she was with you and that after the rehearsal of such Visions as she had seen you shewed her that they were no Revelations but plain Illusions of the Devil and advised her to cast them out of her mind And verily she gave therein good credence unto you and thereupon hath left to lean any longer unto such Visions of her own Whereupon she saith she findeth your words true for ever since she hath been the less visited with such things as she was wont to be before To this she answered me Forsooth Sir There is in this point no praise unto me but the goodness of God as it appeareth hath wrought much meekness in her Soul which hath taken my rude warning so well and not grudged to hear her Spirit and her Visions reproved I liked her in good Faith better for this Answer than for many of these things that I heard reported by her Afterward she told me upon that occasion how great need Folk have that are visited with such Visions to take heed and prove well of what Spirit they come of and in that Communication she told me That of late the Devil in likeness of a Bird was flying and fluttering about her in a Chamber and suffered himself to be taken and being in hands suddenly changed in their sight that were present into such a strange ugly fashioned Bird that they were all afraid and threw him out at a Window For conclusion we talked no word of the King's Grace or any great Personage else nor in effect of any Man or Woman but of her self and my self but after no long communication had for or ever we met my time came to go home I gave her a Double Ducate and prayed her to pray for me and mine and so departed from her and never spake with her after Howbeit of a truth I had a great good opinion of her and had her in great estimation as you shall perceive by the Letter that I wrote unto her For afterwards because I had often heard that many right worshipful Folks as well Men as Women used to have much communication with her and many Folk are of nature inquisitive and curious whereby they fall sometimes into such talking and better were to forbear of which thing I nothing thought while I talked with her of Charity therefore I wrote her a Letter thereof which sith it may be peradventure that she brake or lost I shall insert the very Copy thereof in this present Letter These were the very words GOod Madam and my right dearly-beloved Sister in our Lord God after most hearty Commendation I shall beseech you to take my good Mind in good worth and pardon me that I am so homely as of my self unrequired and also without necessity to give counsel to you of whom for the good Inspirations and great Revelations that it liketh Almighty God of his goodness to give and shew as many wise well-learned and very vertuous Folk testify I my self have need for the comfort of my Soul to require and ask Advice For surely good Madam sith it pleaseth God sometime to suffer such as are far under and of little estimation to give yet fruitful advertisement to such other as are in the Light of the Spirit so far above them that there were between them no comparison as he suffered his High Prophet Moses to be in some things advised and counselled by Jethro I cannot for the love that in our Lord I bear you refrain to put you in remembrance of one thing which in my poor mind I think highly necessary to be by your Wisdom considered referring the end and the order thereof to God and his Holy Spirit to direct you Good Madam I doubt not but that you remember that in the beginning of my Communication with you I shewed you that I neither was nor would be curious of any knowledg of other Mens Matters and least of all of any Matter of Princes or of the Realm in case it so were that God had as to many good Folks before-time he hath any time revealed unto you such things I said unto your Ladyship that I was not only not desirous to hear of but also would not hear of Now Madam I consider well that many Folk desire to speak with you which are not all peradventure of my mind in
as you shall be sure of my poor daily prayer for other pleasure can I not do you And thus the Blessed Trinity both bodily and ghostly long preserve and prosper you I pray you pardon me that I write not unto you of mine own hand for verily I am compelled to forbear writing for a while by reason of this Disease of mine whereof the chief occasion is grown as it is thought by the stooping and leaning on my Breast that I have used in writing And thus eft-soons I beseech our Lord long to preserve you Number 22. Directions of Queen Mary to her Council touching the Reformation of the Church out of her own Original Ex M. S. D G. Petyte FIrst That such as had Commission to talk with my Lord Cardinal at his first coming touching the Goods of the Church should have recourse unto him at the least once in a week not only for putting these Matters in execution as much as may be before the Parliament but also to understand of him which way might be best to bring to good effect those Matters that have been begun concerning Religion both touching good Preaching I wish that may supply and overcome the evil Preaching in time past and also to make a sure Provision that no evil Books shall either be printed bought or sold without just punishment Therefore I think it should be well done that the Universities and Churches of this Realm should be visited by such Persons as my Lord Cardinal with the rest of you may be well assured to be worthy and sufficient Persons to make a true and just account thereof remitting the choice of them to him and you Touching punishment of Hereticks me thinketh it ought to be done without rashness not leaving in the mean while to do Justice to such as by Learning would seem to deceive the simple and the rest so to be used that the People might well perceive them not to be condemned without just occasion whereby they shall both understand the Truth and beware to do the like And especially in London I would wish none to be burnt without some of the Councils presence and both there and every-where good Sermons at the same I verily believe that many Benefices should not be in one Man's hand but after such sort as every Priest might look to his own Charge and remain resident there whereby they should have but one Bond to discharge towards God Whereas now they have many which I take to be the cause that in most part of this Realm there is over-much want of good Preachers and such as should with their Doctrine overcome the evil diligence of the abused Preachers in the time of Schism not only by their Preaching but also by their good Example without which in mine Opinion their Sermons shall not so much profit as I wish And like-as their good Example on their behalf shall undoubtedly do much good so I account my self bound on my behalf also to shew such example in encouraging and maintaining those Persons well-doing their Duty not forgetting in the mean while to correct and punish them which do contrary that it may be evident to all this Realm how I discharge my Conscience therein and minister true Justice in so doing Number 23. Injunctions by Hugh Latimer Bishop of Worcester to the Prior and Convent of St. Mary House in Worcester 1537. Hugh by the goodness of God Bishop of Worcester wisheth to his Brethren the Prior and Convent aforesaid Grace Mercy Peace and true knowledg of God's Word from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ Forasmuch as in this my Visitation L. 3 us Reg. Prior. Convent Wigorn. I evidently perceive the Ignorance and Negligence of divers Religious Persons in this Monastery to be intollerable and not to be suffered for that thereby doth reign Idolatry and many kinds of Superstitions and other Enormities And considering withal that our Soveraign Lord the King for some part of Remedy of the same hath granted by his most gracious License that the Scripture of God may be read in English of all his obedient Subjects I therefore willing your Reformation in most favourable manner to your least displeasur do heartily require you all and every one of you and also in God's behalf command the same according as your Duty is to obey me as God's Minister and the Kings in all my lawful and honest Commandments that you observe and keep inviolably all these Injunctions following under pain of the Law FIrst Forasmuch as I perceive that some of you neither have observed the King's Injunctions nor yet have them with you as willing to observe them therefore ye shall from henceforth both have and observe diligently and faithfully as well special commandments of Preaching as other Injunctions given in his Graces Visitation Item That the Prior shall provide of the Monasteries charge a whole Bible in English to be laid fast chained in some open place either in their Church or Cloister Item That every Religious Person have at the least a New Testament in English by the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord next ensuing Item Whensoever there shall be any Preaching in your Monastery that all manner of Singing and other Ceremonies be utterly laid aside in his preaching time and all other Service shortned as need shall be and all Religious Persons quietly to hearken to the Preaching Item That ye have a Lecture of Scripture read every day in English amongst you save Holy-days Item That every Religious Person be at every Lecture from the beginning to the ending except they have a necessary Lett allowed them by the Prior. Item That every Religious House have a Layman to their Steward for all former Businesses Item That you have a continual Schoolmaster sufficiently learned to teach your Grammer Item That no Religious Person discourage any manner of Lay-man or Woman or any other from the reading of any good Book either in Latin or English Item That the Prior have at his Dinner or Supper every day a Chapter read from the beginning of the Scripture to the end and that in English wheresoever he be in any of his own Places and to have edifying communication of the same Item That the Covent sit together four to one Mess and to eat together in common and to have Scripture read in likewise and have communication thereof and after their Dinner or Supper their Reliques and Fragments to be distributed to the poor People Item That the Covent and Prior provide Distributions to be ministred in every Parish whereas ye be Parsons and Proprietaries and according to the King's Injunctions in that behalf Item That all these my Injunctions be read every month once in the Chapter House before all the Brethren Number 24. A Letter of Ann Boleyn's to Gardner Ex Chartophylac Regio Mr. Stephens I thank you for my Letter wherein I perceive the willing and faithful Mind that you have to do me pleasure not doubting
nos justitiam ejus Causae perpendentes c. doth make as much and more for the maintenance of that shall be done in your Highness Cause then if the Commission Decretal being in Cardinal Campegius's Hands should be shewed and this your Highness at your liberty to shew to whom of your Council it shall please your Grace thinking in my poor Opinion that it were not the best therefore to move the Pope in that Matter again in this adverse Time I most humbly desire your Majesty that I may be a Suitor to the same for the said Mr. Gregory so as by your most gracious Commandment payment may be made there to his Factors of such Diets as your Highness alloweth him for omitting to speak of his true faithful and diligent Service which I have heretofore and do now perceive in him here I assure your Highness he liveth here sumptuously and chargeably to your Highness Honour and in this great Scarcity must needs be driven to Extremity unless your Highness be a gracious Lord unto him in that behalf Thus having none other Matter whereof privately to write unto your Majesty besides that is contained in our common Letters to my Lord Legat's Grace desiring your Highness that I may know your Pleasure what to do in case none other thing can be obtained here I shall make an end of these Letters praying Almighty God to preserve your most noble and royal Estate with a short expedition of this Cause according to your Highness Purpose and Desire From Rome the 21 day of April Your Highness most humble Subject Servant and daily Orator Stephen Gardiner Number 27. The Writ for the burning of Cranmer PHILIP and MARY c. Rot. Pat. 2 3 Phil. Mar. 2. par TO Our right trusty Nicholas Arch-Bishop of York Lord Chancellor of England Greeting We Will and Command you that immediately upon the sight hereof and by Warrant of the same ye do cause to be made a Writ for the Execution of Thomas Cranmer late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the same so made to Seal with our Great Seal of England being in your Custody according to the Tenor and Form hereafter following PHilippus Maria Dei Gratia c. Majori Ballivis Civitatis Oxon. Salutem Cum Sanctissimus Pater noster Paulus Papa ejusdem Nominis Quartus per sententiam definitivam juris Ordine in ea parte requisito in omnibus observato juxta canonicas sanctiones judicialiter definitive Thomam Cranmer nuper Cantuariensem Archiepiscopum fore Haeresiarchum Anathematizatum Haereticum manifestum propter suos varios nefandos Errores manifestos damnabiles Haereses detestandas pessimas Opiniones Fidei nostrae Catholicae Vniversalis Ecclesiae determinationi obviantes repugnantes praedict Thomam Cranmer multis modis contract comiss dict affirmat perpetrat publice pertinaciter tent defens judicavit declaravit pronunciavit condemnavit eadem causa idem Sanctissimus Pater noster Papa Paulus quartus Iudicialiter definitive more solito praedictum Thomam Cranmer a praedicto Archiepiscopatu aliis Praelaturis dignitatibus Officiis Beneficiis deprivavit abjudicavit prout cunctam inde habemus noticiam Cumque etiam Reverendus in Christo Pater Edmundus Londini Episcopus Thomas Elien Episcopus Authoritate ejusdem Sanctissimi nostri Patris Papae praedictum Thomam Cranmer ab omni Ordine Gradu Officio Dignitate Ecclesiastica tanquam Haeresiarcham Haereticum manifestum realiter degradaverunt Vigore cujus idem Thomas Cranmer in presenti Haereticus Haeresiarcha juste legitime Canonice Iudicatus condemnatus degradatus existit Et cum etiam Mater Ecclesia non habet quod ulterius in hac parte contra tam putridum detestabile membrum heresiarchum faciat aut facere debeat Iidem Reverendi Patres eundem Thomam Cranmer damnatum Haereticum Haeresiarcham brachiis potestati nostris secularibus tradiderunt commiserunt reliquerunt prout per Literas Patentes eorundem Reverendorum Patrum superinde confect nobis in Cancellaria nostra Certificatum est Nos igitur ut Zelatores Iusticiae Fidei Catholicae Defensores volentesque Ecclesiam Sanctam ac Iuxa Libertates ejusdem Fidem Catholicam manutenere defendere hujusmodi Haereses Errores ubique quantum in nobis est eradicare extirpare praedictum Thomam Heresiarcham ac convictum damnat degradat animadversione condigna punire Attendentesque hujusmodi Heretic Heresiarch in forma praedicta convict damnat degradat juxta Leges consuetudines Regni nostri Angliae in hac parte consuetas ignis incendio comburi debere Vobis Praecipimus quod dictum Thomam Cranmer in custodia vestra existen in Loco publico aperto infra Libertatem dicti Civitatis nostrae Oxon. ex causa praedicta coram Populo igni Committi ac ipsum Thomam Cranmer in eodem igne realiter comburi facietis in hujusmodi Criminis detestationem aliorum Christianorum exemplum manifestum Et hoc sub paena periculo incumbente ac prout nobis subinde respondere volueritis nullatenus Omittatis Test nobis ipsis apud Westmonasterium Vicesimo quarto Februarii Annis Regis Reginae secundo ac tertio And this Bill signed with the hand of Us the said Queen shall be your sufficient Warrant and Discharge for the same Number 28. A Commission to Bonner and others to search and raze Records PHILIP and MARY c. TO the Right Reverend Father in God Rot. Pat. 3 4 Phil. Mar. 12. Pars. Edmond Bishop of London and to Our trusty and well-beloved Henry Cole Doctor of Divinity and Dean of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul London and Thomas Marten Esq Doctor of the Civil Law Greeting Where is come to Our knowledg and understanding that in the time of the late Schism divers and sundry Accompts Books Scroles Instruments and other Writings were practised devised and made concerning Professions against the Pope's Holiness and the See Apostolick And also sundry and divers infamous Scrutinies were taken in Abbeys and other Religious Houses tending rather to subvert and overthrow all good Religion and Religious Houses than for any Truth contained therein which Writings and other the Premises as We be informed were delivered to the Custody and Charge of divers and sundry Registers and other Officers and Ministers of this Our Realm of England to be by them kept and preserved And minding to have the said Writings and other the Premises brought to knowledg whereby they may be considered and ordered according to Our Will and Pleasure And trusting in your Fidelities Wisdoms and Discretions We have appointed and assigned you to be Our Commissioners and by these presents do give full Power and Authority unto you or two of you to call before you or two of you all and singular the said Registers and other Officers and Ministers within this Our
collectis per sequestros hujusmodi tempore sequestri de administratione per eosdem exigenda recipienda ac bene fideliter computantes quietando liberando deque statu dictarum Ecclesiarum Locorum tempore visitationis hujusmodi annotationem necnon de bonis rebus localibus eorundem inventaria facienda exigenda Statuta insuper Ordinationes Injunctiones particulares generales pro bona laudabili conservatione seu reformatione personarum locorum ordinum praedictorum juxta rei exigentiam Auctoritate nostra faciendo imponendo paenasque convenientes in earum violatores infligendas irrogandas Synodosque Capitula Convocationes tam speciales quam generales pro praemissis vel aliis causis rationibus quibuscunque quoties quando ubicunque vobis visum fuerit magis expedire nomine auctoritate nostris concedendos convocandos ac eas ea celebranda continuanda proroganda Clerumque Populum ad Synodos capitula hujusmodi convocando congregando ac Synodis capituli congregationibus hujusmodi interessendo praesidendo eaque inibi statuendo ordinando quae pro reformatione vel emendatione locorum personarum ordinum praedictorum visa fuerint quomodolibet expedire Dictasque Ecclesias loca personas modis omnibus quibus melius efficacius valeatis ad statum honestiorem probatioresque vivendi mores reducendo reponendo Crimina quoque excessus delicta quorumcunque subditorum nostrorum juxta comperta detecta quaecunque debite reformando corrigendo puniendo Quoscunque insuper subditos nostros pro praemissis vel quibuscunque aliis causis ad forum Ecclesiasticum quomodolibet spectantibus pertinentibus undecunque quacunque infra hoc nostrum Angliae Regnum vobis videbitur melius expedire ad vos coram vobis citando evocando contumacesque rebelles tam per censuras paenas Ecclesiasticas quam per mulctarum impositionem ac alia juris hujus Regni nostri remedia coercendo puniendo Causasque negotia Ecclesiastica hujusmodi cognoscendo examinando ac sine debito terminando subditos hujusmodi rei per vos judicatae stare acquiescere cogendo compellendo Resignationes insuper sive cessiones Ecclesiarum seu locorum quascunque quorumcunque praedictorum factas sive faciendas recipiendo admittendo Ecclesiasque loca resignata Vacantia pro vacantibus habenda fore pronunciando declarando Licentiasque ad tractandū communicandū concludendū super pensionibus fructibus emolumentis necnon dictarum Ecclesiarum locorum commissorum assignando necnon de super quacunque permutatione fienda quibuscunque personis idoneis id petentibus concedendo Pensionesque annuas congruas moderatas resignantibus hujusmodi assignando limitando Ecclesiasque loca praedicta de super pensionum hujusmodi solutione praestatione onerando obligando ac decreta summas in ea parte necessarias seu requisitas ferendas promulgandas Electionibus quoque Praelatorum qui per electionem hujusmodi assumi soleant quorumcunque interessendi praesidendi eligendumque in eisdem dirigendo informando Electiones insuper quascunque rite factas celebratas personas electas sive eligendas confirmando ac aliter factas celebratas cassando annullando ac rite electos confirmatos installando seu installari faciendo Institutiones quoque investituras in quibuscunque Ecclesiis locis praedictis pendente visitatione nostra hujusmodi personis idoneis rite presentatis quibuscunque conferendo concedendo ac eos in realem actualem corporalem possessionem Ecclesiarum locorum praedictorum indicendo seu sic induci faciendo atque mandando cum suis juribus pertinentibus universis Quaecunque insuper instrumenta literasque tam testimoniales quam mandatores rescripta alia quaecunque in ea parte necessaria oportuna c. Desunt caetera Number 30. A Letter written by the Monks of Glassenbury for the new Founding of that Abbey An Original To the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlain to the Queen's Majesty Ex M S. Nob. Illustr Com. de Huntington RIght Honourable in our most humble wise your Lordships daily Beadsman sometimes at the House of Glassenbury now here Monks in Westminster with all due submission we desire your Honour to extend your accustomed Vertue as it hath been always heretofore propense to the Honour of Almighty God to the honourable Service of the King and Queens Majesty So it may please your good Lordship again for the honour of them both of God and their Majesties to put the Queen's Highness in remembrance of her gracious Promise concerning the Erection of the late Monastery of Glassenbury which Promise of her Grace hath been so by her Majesty declared That upon the same we your Lordships daily Beadsmen understanding my Lord Cardinals Grace's Pleasure to the same by the procurement hereof our Reverend Father Abbot hath gotten out the Particulars and through a Warrant from my Lord Treasurer our Friends there hath builded and bestowed much upon Reparation Notwithstanding all now standeth at a stay we think the cause to be want of remembrance which cannot so well be brought unto her Majesty's understanding as by your Honourable Lordships favour and help And considering your Lordships most Godly disposition we have a confidence thereof to sollicite the same assuring your Lordship of our daily Prayers while we live and of our Successors during the World if it may so please your good Lordship to take it in hand We ask nothing in Gift to the Foundation but only the House and Scite the residue for the accustomed rent So that with our Labour and Husbandry we may live here a few of us in our Religious Habits till the Charity of good People may suffice a greater number and the Country there being so affected to our Religion we believe we should find more help amongst them towards the Reparations and Furniture of the same whereby we would happily prevent the ruin of much and repair no little part of the whole to God's Honour and for the better prosperity of the King and Queen's Majesties with the whole Realm for doubtless if it shall please your good Lordship if there hath ever been any flagitious Deed since the Creation of the World punished of God in our Opinion the overthrow of Glassenbury may be compared to the same not surrendred as other but extorted the Abbot preposterously put to death with two innocent vertuous Monks with him that if the thing were to be skanned by any University or some learned Councel in Divinity they would find it more dangerous than it is commonly taken which might move the Queen's Majesty to the more speedy Erection namely that being an House of such Antiquity and of Fame through all Christendom first begun by St. Joseph of Arimathea
who took down the dead Body of our Saviour Christ from the Cross and lieth buried in Glassenbury and him most heartily we beseech with us to pray unto Christ for good success unto your Honourable Lordship in all your Lordships Affairs and now especially in this our most humble Request that we may do the same in Glassenbury for the King and Queens Majesties as our Founders and for your good Lordship as a singular Benefactor Your Lordships daily Beadsmen of Westminster John Phagan John Nott. William Ailewold William Kentwyne Number 31. A Letter from Sir Edward Carne from Rome shewing how the Pope dissembled with him concerning a General Peace An Original PLeaseth it your most Excellent Majesty to be advertised Ex Chartophylac Regio That Francis the Post arrived here upon Corpus Christi Day with your Majesty's most gracious Letters as well for the expedition of the Bishopricks of Winchester and Chester as also for his Holiness beside with your most gracious Letters of the 30th of March to me According to the purport whereof I sued for Audience at his Holiness Hands the next day following whereof I had Answer That I should come to his Holiness viz. the sixth of this and being with his Holiness after the delivery of your Majesty's most gracious Letters with your Majesty's humble Commendations After he had read your Majesty's Letter in the presence of the most Reverend Lord Cardinal Morone he said how much he was bound to that Blessed Queen and most Gracious and Loving Daughter that had written to him so gratefully and humbly saying That he would keep that Letter to be read openly in the Consistory before all the most Reverend Lords his Brethren and said that he was much bound to his Legat there to make that good Report of him to your Majesty Whereupon I declared unto him your Majesty's Pleasure according to my Instructions with such Thanks and Congratulations as your Pleasure was I should use to his Holiness with the rest of my Instructions leaving no part thereof undeclared and spoken Whereunto he said That his Affection to that blessed Queen making a Cross upon your Majesty's Name contained in the Letter was not neither could be as much as the goodness of her Majesty required but this your Majesty should be sure of he said that his good Affection and good Will should not only continue but encrease to the utmost to the satisfaction of your Majesty in all that may lie in him And as touching the Peace to be had perfectly betwixt the Emperor's Majesty and the King 's most Excellent Majesty and the French King he was wondrous glad to hear that your Majesty's furtherance should not want in helping to bring the Truce late concluded to a perfect Peace And of his part he said that he sent two Legats for that purpose for his discharge towards God Or else he said if he should overpass and not declare unto them the great Necessities of the Common-Weal of all Christendom to have a perfect Peace God would impute his silence therein unto him being appointed over his Flock here as he is For he said it is more than time to be doing therein considering that the Realm of Polonia doth so waver and that the King there neither can nor dare being compassed with naughty Sects round about him do any thing against them And likewise the King of Romans about him They call upon his Holiness for help and some Provision for Amendment which thing he cannot do without a General Council which he said cannot be well done unless the said Peace be made for though there be an Abstinence from War yet the grudg of the Doings heretofore and the incertainty of Peace will be an occasion to keep Men of War and the one shall be in mistrust of the other in such sort as the Passages cannot be sure for those that should come to the said Council Therefore he will travel as much as is possible for him to have a Peace without the which it will not be possible to do any good in the Council His Holiness is minded to have the General Council here in St. John Latarenense and thinks it the most meetest Place for divers Considerations which he declared For it is the Head Church of Christendom and there hath been divers times many wholsome and Holy Councils in times past And for that this City is Communis Patria and free to all the World to resort to freely trusting that all Necessaries shall come hither both by Sea and Land And also forasmuch as in divers Councils begun in times of his Predecessors little good could be done and Men thought that more good might have been done if the Pope had been present himself in the said Councils therefore his Holiness would be present himself in this Council which he cannot being in a manner decrepit for Age in case it were kept far here-hence he not being able to travel for Age unless it be kept here where he trusteth to be himself in Person And for to conclude this Matter in such sort as the necessity of Christendom requireth he hath dispatched the two Legats de Latere suo at this present wherein he knoweth that your Majesty may do more than any others and doubteth not but your Majesty will so do Concluding that God hath preserved your Majesty to help all the World whereunto I said That there should not want neither good Will neither any other thing that your Majesty might do for the furtherance thereof As touching the Provisions of Winchester and Chester it shall be done with all the speed that may be And his Holiness hath promised all the favour that he can conveniently shew for your Majesty's sake It must have somewhat longer time for that the Process made there by my Lord Legat's Grace for to try the Yearly Value of Winchester must be committed to certain Cardinals for to report in the Consistory before the new Tax can be made but there shall be no time lost for it shall be diligently sollicited Also concerning the Pention to my Lord Cardinal's Grace of a thousand Pounds Sterling Yearly the Pope his Holiness will assign it according to your Majesty's Pleasure so that all shall be done therein with all the speed that may be God willing wherein the most reverend Lord Cardinal Morone who rejoiceth much in your Gracious Letters sent to him to his great comfort doth travel as he is most ready always in all that toucheth your Majesty or any of your most noble Realms As concerning the Occurents here since my last Letters of the fifteenth of the last be none other but that the Cardinal de Caraffa departed here-hence towards France the fourteenth of the last with divers Antiquities to be presented to the French King Some say here that part of his Charge is to move the French King to take the Dukedom of Paleano in his Protection as he hath Parma and Mirandula There be a great number of
Answer can come from England hither and if his Revocation should be once known in England what would come of it I doubted Therefore I besought his Holiness not to suffer it to pass for if it be once known abroad it shall be a great comfort to the Wicked and discomfort to the good whereby many Inconveniences might ensue Then he said that that is done cannot be undone I said That his Holiness had not so far gone in his Decree but that he might moderate it that it need not extend to England And then I told him that he had shewed me that in all his Proceedings he would have your Majesty's Realm of England separated from all other the King's Majesty's Realms and now had set it as far further as any of the other therefore I said his Holiness should consider it and that the Decree in no wise should extend thither Then he said That it could not stand with the Majesty of the Place that he sat in to revoke any part of the Decree solemnly given in the Consistory in the presence of all the Cardinals I said That his Holiness with his Honour might well do it considering that when he gave the Decree he was not informed of such Inconveniences that might ensue thereof and now being informed by me his Holiness had not only a just cause to revoke it but also of congruence ought to do it considering that his Holiness had the Cure of all Mens Souls and if any Inconveniency should follow through his Holiness Doings it could not be chosen but his Holiness must answer for it where his Holiness suffering all things to proceed in his due course as it hath been begun all Dangers that have been before rehearsed might be avoided therefore now his Holiness had a good Cause to stay his Decree in that behalf All which he took in good part and said thus I must needs do for that Realm what I can and therefore to morrow is the Congregation of the Inquisition and then the Matter shall be propounded where he said he would do what he could and willed me to resort to the Cardinal St. Jacobo to inform him that he might procure it there I said I would indeed I had been with the said Cardinal before and had informed him fully nevertheless I went to him again to shew him the Pope's Pleasure therein who said he would do his Duty therein Indeed that Matter occupied the Pope and the Cardinals all that Congregation time The next morrow as the Cardinals said the Conclusion was That the Pope would make answer to me himself Indeed he thought to take Counsel of the said Congregation before I had been with them about the same Decree but not to revoke any part thereof but to have their advice in framing of it So that if I had not gone to him the Decree had gone forth with the intimation thereof and the inhibition but being with his Holiness this Evening to know what was to be had herein his Holiness after a long Oration in commendation of you the Queens Majesty he said That in case your most Excellent Majesty would write to him for the continuance of his Legat for such Causes as should seem good to the same the Legat to be yet expedient therein he would appoint my Lord's Grace there to continue but he could in no wise revoke his Decree made in open Consistory I laid many things that his Holiness might do it and that divers of his Predecessors had done it upon Causes before not known with divers Examples that I shewed him in Law that at the last he said plainly He would not revoke his Decree but for because of my Suit he said he was content to stay and to go no further till your Majesty's Letters do come and charged the Datary and his Secretary Berigno that they send forth no intimation of his Decree of the said Revocation without his special Commandment where-else he said the Intimation had been sent forth with an Inhibition also And so all is staied that nothing here-hence shall go forth till your Pleasure the Queen's Majesty be known therein which the Pope doth look for Until which Intimation the Legacy there doth continue Occurrents here be no other but that the 10th of this the late made Duke of Paleano departed here-hence towards the Duke's Camp which doth lie yet in the Siege of Civitella within your Majesty's Realm of Naples They that seem to bear their good Wills here towards your Majesty do say here that they may lie there long before they take it for they cannot hurt it much with Battery And they say the Counts de Sancto Flore and de Sarme be within the Town with two thousand Souldiers many of the Frenchmen be slain there Nevertheless others do say that it standeth in danger of taking for because the Frenchmen have gotten a Hill from the which they do beat sore into the Town and have withdrawn certain Waters from them of the Town and do undermine it the most part here thinketh they shall lose their labour for it is very strong The Gallies of Marseilles arrived at Civita Vechia six or seven days past and brought twelve Ensigns more of French Souldiers to reinforce the French Army and as far as I can learn they return again to fetch more always to refresh their Camp with fresh Souldiers in the lieu of such as be perished Of the which twelve Ensigns the French Ambassador chose out three which he hath sent to the Duke of Guise well furnished the rest he discharged but all the other that came be gone to the Camp to such Captains as will retain them there for such of the other as be slain or otherwise perished Don Antonio de Carraffa doth as yet return to the Camp neither intendeth to go as I hear I heard say That the Duke of Alva was within sixteen miles of the Frenchmen with a great Army of Horsemen and Footmen what he doth is not spoken of here for there is none that can pass to them or from them hither there is such strait keeping and dangerous passing Here be ill News from Piedmont for they say here the Frenchmen in those Parts have taken Cherasto a very strong Town in Piedmont which I trust be not true The common Report is here That if the Frenchmen be not withstanded in time they will do much hurt in Italy The Pope doth set forth a Bull for Money that one of every hundred shall be paid of the value of all the Lands that be within the Churches Dominions which they say will draw to Two or three Millions if it be paid And having no other at this present I beseech Almighty God to conserve both your most Excellent Majesties in long and most prosperous Life together From Rome the 15th of May 1557. Your Majesties most humble Subject and Poor Servant Edward Carne Number 35. The Appeal of Henry Chichely Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to a General Council from the
not edify the Congregation Therefore the use of an unknown Tongue in Publick Prayer or Administration of the Sacraments is not to be had in the Church The first part of this Reason is grounded upon St. Paul's words commanding all things to be done to Edification The second part is also proved by St. Paul's plain words First By this Similitude If the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall be prepared to Battel Even so likewise when ye speak with Tongues except ye speak words that have signification how shall it be understood what is spoken for ye shall but speak in the Air that is to say in vain and consequently without edifying And afterward in the same Chapter he saith How can he that occupieth the place of the Vnlearned say Amen at thy giving of Thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest For thou verily givest Thanks well but the other is not edified These be St. Paul's words plainly proving That a Tongue not understood doth not edify And therefore both the parts of the Reason thus prov'd by St. Paul the Conclusion followeth necessarily 2. Secondly Nothing is to be spoken in the Congregation in an Unknown Tongue except it be interpreted to the People that it may be understood For saith Paul if there be no Interpreter to him that speaketh in an unknown Tongue taceat in Ecclesiâ let him hold his peace in the Church And therefore the Common Prayers and Administration of Sacraments neither done in a known Tongue nor interpreted are against this Commandment of Paul and not to be used 3. The Minister in Praying or Administration of the Sacraments using Language not understood of the Hearers is to them barbarous an Alien which of St. Paul is accounted a great Absurdity 4. It is not to be counted a Christian Common-Prayer where the People present declare not their Assent unto it by saying Amen wherein is implyed all other words of Assent But St. Paul affirmeth That the People cannot declare their Assent in saying Amen except they understand what is said as afore Therefore it is no Christian Common-Prayer where the People understandeth not what is said 5. Paul would not suffer in his time a strange Tongue to be heard in the Common-Prayer in the Church notwithstanding that such a kind of Speech was then a Miracle and a singular Gift of the Holy Ghost whereby Infidels might be persuaded and brought to the Faith much less is it to be suffered now among Christian and Faithful Men especially being no Miracle nor especial Gift of the Holy Ghost 6. Some will peradventure answer That to use any kind of Tongue in Common-Prayer or Administration of Sacraments is a thing indifferent But St. Paul is to the contrary for he commandeth all things to be done to Edification He commandeth to keep silence if there be no Interpreter And in the end of the Chapter he concludeth thus If any Man be Spiritual or a Prophet let him know that the things which I write are the Commandment of the Lord. And so shortly to conclude the use of a strange Tongue in Prayer and Administration is against the Word and Commandment of God To these Reasons grounded upon St. Paul's words which are the most firm Foundation of this Assertion divers other Reasons may be joined gathered out of the Scriptures and otherwise 1. In the Old Testamenc all things pertaining to the Publick Prayer Benediction Thanksgiving or Sacrifice were always in their Vulgar and Natural Tongue In the second Book of Paraleipomenon Cap. 29. it is written That Ezechias commanded the Levites to praise God with the Psalms of David and Asaph the Prophet which doubtless were written in the Hebrew their Vulgar Tongue If they did so in the shadows of the Law much more ought we to do the like who as Christ saith must pray in Spiritu Veritate 2. The final end of our Prayer is as David saith Vt populi conveniant in unum annuncient nomen Domini in Sion laudes ejus in Hierusalem But the Name and Praises of God cannot be set forth to the People unless it be done in such a Tongue as they may understand Therefore Common-Prayer must be had in the Vulgar Tongue 3. The definition of Publick Prayer out of the words of St. Paul Orabo Spiritu Orabo Mente Publicè orare est vota communia mente ad Deum effundere ea Spiritu hoc est Lingua testari Common Prayer is to lift up our Common Desires to God with our Minds and to testify the same outwardly with our Tongues Which Definition is approved of by St. Augustine de Magist. C. 1. Nihil opus est inquit loqutione nisi forte ut Sacerdotes faciunt significandae mentis Causâ ut populus intelligat 4. The Ministrations of the Lord's last Supper and Baptism are as it were Sermons of the Death and Resurrection of Christ But Sermons to the People must be had in such Language as the People may perceive otherwise they should be had in vain 5. It is not lawful for a Christian Man to abuse the Gifts of God But he that prayeth in the Church in a strange Tongue abuseth the Gift of God for the Tongue serveth only to express the mind of the Speaker to the Hearer And Augustine saith de Doct. Christ. lib. 4. cap. 10. Loquendi omnino nulla est causa si quod loquimur non intelligunt propter quos ut intelligant loquimur There is no cause why we should speak if they for whose cause we speak understand not our speaking 6. The Heathen and Barbarous Nations of all Countries and sorts of Men were they never so wild evermore made their Prayers and Sacrifice to their Gods in their own Mother Tongue which is a manifest Declaration that it is the very Light and Voice of Nature Thus much upon the ground of St. Paul and other Reasons out of the Scriptures joining therewith the common Usage of all Nations as a Testimony of the Law of Nature Now for the second part of the Assertion which is That the use of a strange Tongue in publick Prayer and Administration of Sacraments is against the Custom of the Primitive Church Which is a Matter so clear that the denial of it must needs proceed either of great Ignorance or of wilful Malice Justinus Apol. 2. For first of all Justinus Martyr describing the Order of the Communion in his time saith thus Die Solis urbanorum rusticorum caetus fiunt ubi Apostolorum Prophetarumque literae quoad fieri potest praeleguntur Deinde cessante Lectore Praepositus verba facit adhortatoria ad imitationem tam honestarum rerum invitans Post haec consurgimus omnes preces offerimus quibus finitis profertur ut diximus Panis Vinum Aqua tum praepositus quantum potest preces offert gratiarum Actiones plebs vero Amen accinit Upon the Sunday Assemblies are made both of the Citizens and Country-men where as
seek mine privat Gain or my idle ease put me where ye will else and if as far as my power of Knowledg and of Health of Body will extend I do not apply my self to discharge my Duty let me be thrust out again like a Thief I thank God my Conscience condemneth me not that I have been aforetime any great gatherer and now for the upholding of two or three Years more of Life to heap unproportionably I count it madness and more than this purpose by God's Grace I dare promise nothing And as for such few Folks which I may leave behind me they shall not say by me I trust That happy be these Children whose Fathers go to the Devil for their sake Your Lordship knoweth with what Patrimony I began the World with and yet have hitherto lived with enough yea when all my Livings were taken from me yet God I thank him ministred to me sufficiently above the capacity of my understanding or foreseeing And thus commending your good Lordship to that merciful Governance I pray your Honourable Wisdom to put this scribling out of the way from every Man's sight and intelligence Right Honourable after my duty of Commendations to your Lordship I am bold now to send you a Fancy of my Head expressed in these few Leaves which if I had compact in a Letter it would have seemed over-long and being comprised in Leaves may appear to be but a very little Book of one Sheet of Paper which yet I so devised upon consideration of your Business which will not suffer you to be long detained in Matters impertinent and therefore ye may turn in the Leaf and read it at divers leasures if your Lordship shall vouchsafe the reading And thus wishing you joy of Heart which I feel to be a great Treasure in this World as the want a grievous torment I pray God preserve your Honourable Goodness with my good Lady your Wife If ye see ought in my Quire worth reformation ye know I am disciplinable and have read quod meliora sunt vulnera diligentis quam fraudulenta oscula odentis Wherefore reserving mine unreasonable determination as you shall know I shall yield my self wholly conformable to your Honour ubi quomodo quando aliquid vel tandem nihil Of an Occasion lately ministred I have sent my Letters to Mr. Secretary concerning another Matter primo Martii Your assured Orator M. P. A Letter written to him by the Lord Keeper concerning it An Original THat before this time I have not sent you Answer to your last Letters the cause hath been for that I could by no mean understand to what end the Matter mentioned in those Letters would grow unto but perceiving this day by a Resolution made in the Queen's Highness presence that your Friends shall very hardly deliver you of the Charge written of in the same Letters I thought it good to make you privy thereunto and therewith to advise you to commit to the Judgment of your Friends your Ability and Disability to serve where and when you shall be called If I knew a Man to whom the description made in the beginning of your Letter might more justly be referred than to your self I would prefer him before you but knowing none so meet indeed I take it to be my duty to prefer you before all others and the rather also because otherwise I should not follow the Advice of your own Letter The rest which is much I defer until our next meeting It is like that e're it be long you shall receive Letters subscribed by me and others jointly Thus right-heartily farewel From the Court the 17th of May 1559. Yours assuredly N. Bacon An Order sent to him requiring him to come up to London AFter our hearty Commendations These be to signify unto you that for certain Causes wherein the Queen's Majesty intendeth to use your Service her Pleasure is That you should repair up hither with such speed as you conveniently may and at your coming up you shall understand the rest Thus right-heartily fare ye well From the Court the 19th of May 1559. Your loving Friends N. Bacon W. Cecill A second Order to the same effect An Original AFter our hearty Commendations Where before this time we directed our Letters unto you declaring thereby that for certain Causes wherein the Queen's Majesty intendeth to use your Service you should repair hither with all convenient speed whereof we have as yet received none Answer And therefore doubting Iest by the default of the Messenger the Letter be not come to your hands we have thought good again to write unto you to the intent you should understand her Highness Pleasure is That you should make your repair hither with all speed possible Thus right-heartily farewel From the Court the 28th day of May 1559. Your loving Friends N. Bacon C. S. W. Cecill Dr. Parker's Letter to the Queen excusing himself An Original PLeaseth it your most Honourable Majesty to be gracious Lady to my poor Suit which at this time extream necessity compelleth me to make both in respect of my constrained Conscience to Almighty God as also in the regard of my Duty which I owe to your noble Estate and most high Authority So it is most gracious and soveraign Lady where I have understanding of your most favourable Opinion toward me your Graces most simple Subject concerning the Arch-Bishoprick of Canterbury In consideration whereof I ought and do acknowledg my most bounden Duty to be a faithful Orator for your Grace during my Life Yet calling to examination my great unworthiness for so high a Function which mine disability I might alleadg at length in particularity but for molesting your Graces most weighty Affairs I am bold thus by my writing to approach to your Honour to discharge me of that so high and chargable an Office which doth require a Man of much more Wit Learning Vertue and Experience than I see and perfectly know can be performed of me worthily to occupy it to God's Pleasure to Your Grace's Honour and to the Wealth of your loving Subjects beside Many other imperfections in me as well for temporal Ability for the furnishing thereof as were seemly to the Honour of the Realm as also of infirmity of Body which will not suffer me to attend on so difficult a Cure to the discharge thereof in any reasonable expectation And where most gracious Lady beside my humble Duty of Allegiance to your Princely Dignity I am otherwise for the great Benefits which sometime I received at Your Graces honourable Mother's Benevolence whose Soul I doubt not but is in blisful felicity with God most singularly obliged above many other to be Your most faithful Beadsman both in thanking Almighty God for his Fatherly Protection hitherto over Your noble Person And also furthermore to pray for the continuance of your fortunate Reign in all godly Prosperity So I am right sorry and do lament within my self that I am so basely qualified inwardly in
King Henry at his Death but two Years before Ibid. 5. He says On the 27th of February two days before the King was crowned the Protector persuaded the King to create many new Peers who were all Hereticks except Dudley Earl of Warwick Our Author by this shew of exactness would persuade the Reader that he had considered Dates and the smallest particulars with the care that became an Historian But he little thought that any would come after him and examine what he said By this Account the King must have been crowned the first of March but it was done Feb. 20. and the Peers were created on the 16th of February four days before They were not all Hereticks for he forgot that Wriothesley was at the same time made Earl of Southampton which he afterwards insinuates was done upon another account But all those Creations were in persuance of King Henry's Designs and in obedience to his latter Will Ibid. 6. He says They forced Wriothesley to resign his Office and turned both him and the Earl of Arundel out of the Council because they were Catholicks Wriothesley was turned out upon no account of Religion but for putting the Great Seal to a Commission that was against Law according to the Opinion which the Judges declared under their hands without any Warrant from the Council himself acknowledging the justice of the Sentence The Earl of Arundel was not turned out of the Council on the contrary in the Patent by which the Protector held his Office that passed after the Chancellor was removed he is named to be one of the Privy Council 7. He says Pag. 179. The Protector would needs force all the Clergy to submit in every thing to the King's Orders and sets down the Form in which the King writ to Arch-Bishop Cranmer In this nothing was done but what was begun by King Henry and to which all the Clergy even his beloved Bonner not excepted had formerly submitted So this was no new thing set up by the Protector it being only the renewing the Bishops Patents in the new King's Name And this was no part of the Reformation for it was done only to awe the Popish Bishops but was soon after laid aside What he sets down as a Letter of King Edward's to Cranmer is the Preamble of the Patent he took out So little did this Writer know the things that truly make to the advantage to the Cause which he designed to assert 8. He says The New Protector among the first things he did Pag. 180. restrained all Preaching and silenced all the Bishops and Pastors so that none were licensed to preach but the Lutherans and Zuinglians The first Injunctions set out in the King's Name required all Bishops to preach at least four times a Year in their Diocesses and to keep Learned Chaplains who might be able to preach and should be often much employed in it And thus Matters stood the first Year of this Reign In the beginning of the second Year upon complaints made of the rashness of some Preachers a Proclamation was put out that none should preach without a License from the King or the Arch-Bishops or the Bishop of the Diocess except Incumbents in their own Parishes Afterwards there was for some little time a total prohibition of Preaching but that was to last for a short while till the Book of Common Prayer which was then a preparing should be finished This was equally made on both hands for the Prohibition was universal without exception so falsly has our Author stated this Matter which one would think he ignorantly drew from what Queen Mary did applying it to this Reign for she upon her coming to the Crown did prohibit all Preaching excepting only such as were licensed to it by Gardiner under the Great Seal 9. He says Latimer was turned out of the Bishoprick of Worcester Pag. 181. by King Henry upon suspicion of Heresy Latimer did freely resign his Bishoprick upon the passing of the Act of the six Articles with which he could not comply with a good Conscience 10. He says The Protector put Cox and Cheek about the King Pag. 182. that they might corrupt his Mind with Heretical Doctrines These were put about him three Years before by King Henry's Order as that young King himself informs us in his Journal Pag. 184. 11. He says The Heads of the Colleges were turned out and the Catholick Doctors were forbid to preach I do not find one Head of a College in either University was turned out for though they generally loved the Old Superstition yet they loved their Places much better And indeed the whole Clergy did so readily conform themselves to every Change that was made that it was not easy to find Colours for turning out Bonner and Gardiner All Preachers had the liberty of their own Pulpits except for a very little while Ibid. 12. He says They decried the School Divinity and the Works of Lombard Aquinas and Scotus and so threw all Learning out of the Schools They could not do that more than Sir Thomas More Erasmus and other Popish Writers had done before them who had expressed their scorn of that way of Treating Divine Matters so copiously that it was no wonder it was much despised Those Writers had by a set of dark and barbarous Maxims and Terms so intangled all the Articles of Faith and imposed by the World on an appearance of saying somewhat when really they said nothing and pretending to explain Religion they had so exposed it that their way of Divinity was become equally nauseous and ridiculous Pag. 186. 13. He says Bucer and Peter Martyr being brought out of Germany did corrupt the Universities and entertained the Youth with Discourses of Predestination Reprobation and a fatal necessity of things This was so far from being much taught that on the contrary in one of the Articles of Religion the curious Enquiries into those abstruse Points was by Publick Authority forbid Bucer and Martyr read for most part in the Chairs upon the Mass and the other Corruptions of the Popish Worship They also declared St. Austin's Doctrine about Grace but I do not find they ever medled with Reprobation Pag. 190. 14. After a long Invective which is to pass as a piece of his Wit and Poetry he says Bucer was inclined to become a Jew and was descended from Jewish Parents and that the Lord Paget had heard him say That the Corporal Presence was so clear in the Scripture that no Man could deny it who believed the Gospel but for his part he did not believe all that was said in the New Testament concerning our Saviour This is as sutable to our Author's Honesty as can be Bucer was never accused of this by any of his Enemies as long as he lived No Man in that Age writ with a greater sense of the Kingdom of Christ than he did And for the Story of the Lord Paget we have nothing
Offices and the Parties so refusing were subjected to no other Danger nor was the Oath to be put to them a second Time It is true if any did assert the Authority of any Forreign Potentate that was more penal Yet that was not as our Author represents it for the first Offence there was a forfeiture of ones Goods or in case of Poverty one Years Imprisonment the second Offence brought the Offender within a Premunire and the third was Treason 5. He says The Change that was made Pag. 258. of the Title of Supream Head into that of Supream Governor deceived many yet others thought that the Queen might have thereby assumed an Authority for Administring the Sacraments but to clear all Scruples she in the first Visitation ordered it to be thus explained that she thereby pretended to no more Power than what her Father and Brother had exercised In the first Visitation ordered by the Queen there was an Injunction given Explanatory to the Oath of Supremacy declaring that she did not pretend to any Authority for the Ministry of Divine Service in the Church and challenged nothing but what had at all times belonged to the Crown of England which was a Soveraignty over all manner of Persons under God so that no Forreign Power had any Rule over them and so was willing to acquit such as took it in that sense of all the Penalties in the Act. So that it is plain she assumed nothing but the Royal Authority and was ready to accept of such Explications as might clear all Ambiguities 6. He reckons among the Laws that were made this for one Pag. 259. that Bishops should hold their Sees only during the Queen's Pleasure and exercise no other Authority but only as they derived it from her The Laws he reckons were those made by King Henry now revived but this Law is falsly recited in both the parts of it for the Bishops were to hold their Sees as all others do their Free-holds without any dependence on the Queen's Pleasure and were to exercise their Jurisdiction in their own Names and according to the Ecclesiastical Laws and were not forced to take Commissions to hold their Bishopricks during the Queen's Pleasure as had been done both in King Henry and King Edward's Time Pag. 263. 7. After a long discourse against the Queen's Supremacy he says The Laws concerning it and other Points of Religion did pass with great difficulty in the House of Lords all the Bishops opposing them and those Noblemen in particular who had gone to Rome upon the Embassy Queen Mary sent thither did very earnestly disswade it It is true all the Bishops did oppose them tho both Tonstal Heath Thirleby and some others had consented to and written for King Henry's Supremacy which was at least as to the manner of expressing it of a higher strain than that to which the Queen did now pretend They had also submitted to all the Changes that had been made in King Edward's Time For the Temporal Lords none dissented from the Act of Supremacy but the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Viscount Montacute so the opposition was small where so few entred their Dissents and of these only the Viscount Montacute had been at Rome sent thither by Queen Mary It is true the Marquess of Winchester and the Lords Morley Stafford Dudley Wharton Rich and North dissented from the Bill for the Book of Common Prayer and some other Acts that related to the Reformation but these being but few in number were far short of those that were for them and it is clear the Queen left the Peers wholly to their freedom since the Marquess of Winchester notwithstanding his Dissent continued to hold that great Office of Lord Treasurer in which he had been put in King Edward's Time and which he had kept all Queen Mary's Reign till his Death fourteen Years after this this may perhaps be justly censured as looking too like a remissness in the Matters of Religion when he that dissented to the Reformation was yet so long employed in the greatest Trust in the Kingdom but certainly this is none of the Claws to know the Lioness by 8. He says The Queen gave the Earl of Arundel some hopes that she would marry him and so perswaded him to consent to the Laws now made but afterwards slighted him and declared she would live and die a Virgin The Journals of Parliament shew how false this is for the Address was made to the Queen persuading her to marry to which she made the Answer set down by our Author on the 6th of February and the Act of Supremacy with the other Acts concerning Religion passed in April thereafter so that the Queen after so publick a Declaration of her unwillingness to marry could not have deluded the Earl of Arundel with the hopes of it Ibid. 9. He says She wrought on the D. of Norfolk by promising him a Dispensation in the Business of his Marriage which he could not obtain of the Pope It is not like the Duke of Norfolk was denied any such Dispensation from Rome nor are there any Dispensations granted in England for marrying in the forbidden Degrees Cousin Germans are the nearest that may marry The obtaining a License for that at Rome is a matter of course so the Fees are but paied and the Law allows that to all in England Nor are there any Dispensations in Matrimonial Matters except concerning the Time the Place or the asking of Banes and it is not likely these were ever denied to any at Rome As for his long Excursion concerning that Duke's Death it not falling within the compass of my History I shall not follow him in it 10. He says The Protestants desired a publick Disputation Pag. 266. so the Queen commanded the Bishops to make ready for it they refused it a great while since that seemed to make the Faith of the Church subject to the judgment of the ignorant Laity but at last they were forced to yield to it and the Points were Communion in both kinds Prayer in a known Tongue and the like The Act of Council has it otherwise By it we see that the Arch-Bishop of York being then a Privy Councellor did heartily agree to it and undertook that the rest of his Brethren should follow the Orders that were made by the Council concerning it tho it is not to be denied but some of the Bishops were secretly dissatisfied with it as they had good reason since a publick Disputation was like to lay open the weakness of their Cause which was never so safe as when it was received in gross without descending to troublesome Enquiries concerning it The Communion in both kinds was not one of the Articles 11. He says Bacon a Lay-man was Judg Ibid. the Arch-Bishop of York sitting next to him only for forms-sake Bacon was not Judg the whole Privy-Council were present to order the Forms of the Debate and he as the first of
Coll. p. 148. Such was Robert King Abbot of Oseney after Bishop of Oxford and Thom. Cornish a Residentiary of Wells who by the name of Thomas Episcopus Tinensis did confer Orders and performed other Episcopal Functions for Fox while he was Bishop of Exeter from 1487 to 1492. and afterwards when he was Bishop of Wells as appears by both those Registers he died in the Year 1513. Of this I could give more Instances if it were necessary P. 203. l. 5 6. It is said some were judged to be Hanged and others to be Beheaded But this being a Case of Treason the Judgments must have been the same tho executed in different ways by order from the King This I copied from Judg Spelman's Common-Place Book P. 203. l. 21. The Original Declaration should have been set down but I thought that not necessary for the L. Herbert has published it only he forgot to add the Subscription to it which I ought to have mentioned in its proper place but it escaped me and therefore I do it here P. 226. l. 24. Andre ' Thevet a French Franciscan who writ some Years after this an Universal Cosmography says Lib. 16. cap. 5. That he was assured by divers English Gentlemen that Mark Smeton at his Death among his other Sins repented in particular of the wrong he had done the Queen in destroying her by a false Accusation And tho Thuanus makes him an Author of no Credit yet there is no reason to suspect him in this Particular for Writers seldom lye against their Interest and the Franciscan Order had suffered so much for their adhering to Queen Katherine's Interests in opposition to Ann Boleyn that it is not likely one of that Order would have strained a Point to tell an honourable Story of her This was made use of in Queen Elizabeth's Time to vindicate her Memory see Saravia Tract cont Bezam cap. 2. versus finem P. 220. l. 4 5 The King's Protestation was not published till about eight or nine months after that was obtained which you there mention which was the 20th of July 1536. And in the Protestation mention is made of the putting off the Council from May to Novemb. 1537. which came out in April or May that Year And in April 1538. the King set out another Protestation against a Bull for the Council at Vincenza which is not mentioned in the History Pool lived at Padua long before this time and not after it as Antiq. P. 221. l. 10. Brit. from whom it is vouched has it but that Society of Learned Men was now removed to Rome whither Pool seems to have gone to them No wonder Chester was not here mentioned P. 263. l. 7. since it was erected before And so it might well be tho the Charter for the present Foundation bears date after for the former might be surrendered and cancelled probably because of some mention made in it of the Pope's Bull of which you speak p. 121. Fox adds another Passage of that Discourse between Cromwel and the Duke of Norfolk which perhaps offended him much P. 265. l. 17. from bottom that he was never so far in love with Wolsey as to have waited on him to Rome as he understood the Duke of Norfolk would have done Coventry and Litchfield were never two different Bishopricks P. 228. l. 23. but two different Seats of the same See which had sometimes a third at Chester This was no designed interview P. 272. l. 1. but Charles hearing of the Tumult at Ghent went from Spain to Flanders through France as his nearest way and was met by Francis at Loches in Berry and not at Paris Cromwel was then Dean of Wells P. 279. l. 20. and that was the reason of the Proviso Hall and L. Herbert say This was on the 25th P. 280. l. 5. which you put on the 24th of June He in that place belongs to the King named before P. 297. so it should have been expressed that it is Bonner that is here meant It was not necessary to restore the Lord Cromwel in Blood P. 312. l. 12. for he was made a Baron when his Father was made an Earl so that his Blood was not corrupted by his Fathers Attaindor Interludes were not then brought in first to Churches P. 318. l. 8. but had been used in the Times of Popery the greatest part of their Religion being placed in outward Shews so that these did well enough agree with it and such Representations are yet in use sometimes in the Roman Church so that by which they had formerly entertained the People was now turned on themselves Fox sets down a Confession of Anne Askews P. 342. l. 1. perhaps Ascough was her right Name for so is the Name of the Family in Lincolnshire written in which she her self relates this Passage of the Lord Chancellors racking her with his own hands so there is no reason to question the truth of it and Parsons who detracts as much from Fox's Credit as he can does not question this particular P. 344. l. 10. The Story concerning Cranmer must belong to the former Year for Butts that bore a share in it died on the 17th of Novemb. 1545 as appears by the Inscription on his Tomb-stone in Fulham Church So this Passage being after the Duke of Suffolk's Death which was in August that Year this must be placed between August and Novemb. 1545. P. 346. l. 6. The Earl of Surrey had not lived long a Widower for his youngest Son afterwards Earl of Northampton is said to have been at nurse at his Father's Death P. 355. l. 17. from bottom The Year of Sir Tho. More 's Birth is not certain by Erasmus his Reckoning it was in the Year 1479 if not higher others say it was 1480 and others 1484. P. 359. l. 30. William Peyto Thuanus calls him William and says he was Loci Ignobilis but his true Name by which he was made Cardinal was Peter whether he was so Christened or assumed it only when he became a Friar is not certain He was descended from an Ancient and Eminent Family in Warwick-shire yet remaining P. 204. l. 14. from bottom And not many of these Here seems to be a word or more wanting It is wanting in the Original but it should have been supplied by a conjecture on the Margent Armed seems to be the word that agrees best to the sense FINIS Errata in the former Volume that are not marked in the Table of them PAge 10. line 17 from bottom for 18 of June read 28. P. 22. l. 11. fr. bott f. Frediswood r. Frideswoide P. 26. l. 24. f. Sartre r. Sautre l. 29. f. it as like r. it is like P. 27. l. 12. fr. bott f. 1611 r. 1511. P. 41. l. 25. for Dorchester r. Dorset P. 47. l. 24. f. Puccy r. Pucci P. 59. l. 18. f. great r. got P. 72. l. 11. f. Simpson r.