reading of Sermons grew into a practise in this Church in which if there was not that heat and fire which the â—ryars had shewed in their Declamations so that the passions of the Hearers were not so much wrought on by it yet it has produced the greatest Treasure of weighty grave and solid Sermons that ever the Church of God had which does in a great measure compensate that seeming â—atness to vulgar ears that is in the delivery of them The Injunctions take notice of another thing which the sincerity of an Historian obliges me to give an account of tho it was indeed the greatest blemish of that time These were the Stage-plays and Enterludes that were then generally acted and often in Churches They were representations of the corruptions of the Monks and some other feats of the Popish Clergy The Poems were ill contrivâ—d and worse expressed if there lies not some hidden wit in these Ballads for verses they were not which at this distance is lost But from the representing the immoralities and disorders of the Clergy they proceeded to act the Pageantry of their Worship This took with the people much who being provoked by the miscarriages and cruelties of some of the Clergy were not ill pleased to see them and their Religion exposed to publick scorn The Clergy complained much of this and said it was an introduction to Atheism and all sort of Irreligion For if once they began to mock sacred things no stop could be put to that petulant humour The grave and learned sort of Reformers disliked and condemned these courses as not sutable to the genius of true Religion but the political men of that party made great use of them encouraging them all they could for they said Contempt being the most operative and lasting affection of the mind nothing would more effectually drive out many of those Abuses which yet remained than to expose them to the contempt and scorn of the people In the end of this year a war broke out between England and Scotland set on by the instigation of the French King who was also beginning to be an uneasie Neighbour to those of the English pale about Callice The King set out a long Declaration in which he very largely laid out the pretensions the Crown of England had to an Homage from the Kings of Scotland In this I am no fit person to interpose the matter being disputed by the learned men of both Nations The Scots said it was only for some Lands their Kings had in England that they did Homage as the Kings of England did for Normandy and Guienne to the Kings of France But the English Writers cited many Records to shew that the Homage was done for the Crown of Scotland To this the Scots replied that in the Invasion of Edward the first he had carried away all their ancient Records so these being lost they could only appeal to the Chronicles that lay up and down the Nation in their Monasteries That all these affirmed the contrary and that they were a free Kingdom till Edward the first taking advantage of their disputes about the Succession to their Crown upon the death of Alexander the third got some of the Competitors to lay down their pretensions at his feet and to promise Homage That this was also performed by Iohn Balliol whom he preferred to the Crown of Scotland but by these means he lost the hearts of the Nation and it was said that his Act of Homage could not give away the Rights of a free Crown and People And they said that whatsoever submissions had been made since that time they werâ— only extorted by force as the effects of Victory and Conquest but gave no good right nor just Title To all this the English Writers answered That these submissions by their Records which were the solemn Instruments of a Nation that ought never to be called in question were sometimes freely made and not by their Kings only but by the consent of their States In this uncertainty I must leave it with the Reader But after the King had opened this Pretension he complained of the disorders committed by the Scots of the unkind returns he had met with from their King for his care of him while he was an Infant taking no advantage of the confusions in which that Kingdom then was but on the contrary protecting the Crown and quieting the Kingdom But that of â—ate many depredations and acts of hostility had been committed by the Scots and though some Treaties had been begun they were managed with so much shufling and inconstancy that the King must now try it by a War Yet he concluded his Declaration ambiguously neither keeping up nor laying down his Pretensions to that Crown but expressing them in such a manner thaâ— which way soever the success of the War turned he might be bound up to nothing by what he now declared But whatsoever justice might be in the Kings Title or Quarrel his Sword was much the sharper He ordered the Duke of Norfolk to march into Scotland about the end of October with an Army of 30000 men Hall tells us they burnt many Towns and names them But these were only single Houses or little Villages and the best Town he names is Kâ—lso which is a little open Market-Town Soon after they returned back into England whether after they had spoiled the Neighbouring Country they felt the incoveniencies of the season of the year or whether hearing the Scots were gathering they had no mind to go too far I cannot determine for the Writers of both Nations disagree as to the reason of their speedy return But any that knows the Country they spoiled and where they stopt must conclude that either they had secret Orders only to make an Inroad and destroy some Places that lay along the River of Tweed and upon the Border which done without driving the Breach too far to retire back or they must have had apprehensions of the Scotish Armies coming to lie in these Moors and Hills of Saâ—trey or Lammer-Moor which they were to pass if they had gone farther and there were about 10000 men broughâ— thither but he that commanded them was much blamed for doing nothing his excuse was that his number did not equal theirs About the end of November the Lord Mâ—xâ—ell brought an Army of 15000 men together with a Train of Artillery of 24 peeces of Ordnance And since the Duke of Norfolk had retired towards Berwick they resolved to enter England on the Western side by Solway Frith The King went thither himself but fatally left the Army and yet was not many miles from them when they were defeated The truth of it was that King who had hitherto raised the greatest expectation was about that time disturbed in his fancie thinking that he saw apparitions particularly of one whom it was said he had unjustly put to death so â—hat he could not rest nor be at quiet But as his leaving
of whom some perhaps were damn'd Souls and others were never in being These arts being detected and withal their great Viciousness in some places and in all their great abuse of the Christian Religion made it seem unfit they should be continued But it was their dependence on the See of Rome which as the state of things then was made it necessary that they should be supprest New Foundations might have done well and the scantness of those considering the number and wealth of those which were suppressed is one of the great blemishes of that Reign But it was in vain to endeavour to amend the old ones Their numbers were so great their Riches and Interests in the Nation so considerable that a Prince of Ordinary mettal would not have attempted such a design much less have compleated it in Five years time With these fell the Superstition of Images Reliques and the Redemption of Souls out of Purgatory And those Extravagant Addresses to Saints that are in the Roman Offices were thrown out only an Ora pro nobis was kept up and even that was left to the liberty of Priests to leave it out of the Litanies as they saw cause These were great preparations for a Reformation But it went further and two things were done upon which a greater Change was reasonably to be expected The Scriptures were Translated into the English tongue and set up in all Churches and every one was admitted to read them and they alone were declared the Rule of Faith This could not but open the eyes of the Nation who finding a profound silence in these writings about many things and a direct opposition to other things that were still retained must needs conclude even without deep Speculations or nice Disputing that many things that were still in the Church had no ground in Scripture and some of the rest were directly contrary to it This Cranmer knew well would have such an operation and therefore made it his chief business to set it forward which in Conclusion he happily effected Another thing was also established which opened the way to all that followed That every National Church was a Compleat Body within it self so that the Church of England with the Authority and Concurrence of their Head and King might examine and Reform all Errors and Corruptions whether in Doctrine or Worship All the Provincial Councils in the ancient Church were so many Precedents for this who condemned Heresies and Reformed abuses as the occasion required And yet these being all but parts of one Empire there was less reason for their doing it without staying for a General Council which depended upon the pleasure of one man the Roman Emperor than could be pretended when Europe was divided into so many Kingdoms By which a common Concurrence of all these Churches was a thing scarce to be expected and therefore this Church must be in a very ill Condition if there could be no endeavours for a Reformation till all the rest were brought together The Grounds of the new-Covenant between God and man in Christ were also truly stated and the terms on which Salvation was to be hoped for were faithfully opened according to the New-Testament And this being in the strict notion of the word the Gospel and the glad tidings preached through our Blessed Lord and Saviour it must be confessed that there was a great Progress made when the Nation was well instructed about it though there was still an alloy of other Corruptions embasing the Purity of the Faith And indeed in the whole progress of these changes the Kings design seemed to have been to terrifie the Court of Rome and cudgel the Pope into a Compliance with what he desired for in his heart he continued addicted to some of the most extravagant Opinions of that Church such as Transubstantiation and the other Corruptions in the Mass so that he was to his lives end more Papist than Protestant There are two Prejudices which men have generally drunk in against that time The one is from the Kings great Enormities both in his personal Deportment and Government which make many think no good could be done by so ill a man and so cruel a Prince I am not to defend him nor to lessen his faults The vastness and irregularity of his Expence procured many heavy Exactions and twice extorted a publick Discharge of his debts embased the Coin with other Irregularities His proud and impatient Spirit occasioned many cruel proceedings The taking so many lives only for denying his Supremacy particularly Fisher's and More 's the one being extreme old and the other one of the Glories of his Nation for Probity and Learning The taking advantage from some Eruptions in the North to break the Indempnity he had before proclaimed to those in the Rebellion even though they could not be proved Guilty of those second disorders His extreme Severity to all Cardinal Pool's Family his cruel using first Cromwel and afterwards the Duke of Norfolk and his Son besides his un-exampled Proceedings against some of his Wives and that which was worst of all The laying a Precedent for the subversion of Iustice and oppressing the clearest Innocence by attaining men without hearing them These are such remarkable blemishes that as no man of ingenuity can go about the whitening them so the poor Reformers drunk so deep of that bitter cup that it very ill becomes any of their followers to endeavour to give fair Colours to those red and bloody Characters with which so much of his Reign is stained Yet after all this sad enumeration it was no new nor unusual thing in the methods of Gods Providence to employ Princes who had great mixtures of very gross faults to do signal things for his Service Not to mention David and Solomon whose sins were expiated with a severe Repentance it was the bloody Cyrus that sent back the Iews to their Land and gave them leave to re-build their Temple Constantine the Great is by some of his Enemies charged with many blemishes both in his Life and Government Clovis of France under whom that Nation received the Christian Faith was a monster of Cruelty and Perfidiousness as even Gregory of Tours represents him who lived near his time and nevertheless makes a Saint of him Charles the Great whom some also make a Saint both put away his wife for a very slight cause and is said to have lived in most unnatural lusts with his own Daughter Irene whom the Church of Rome magnifies as the Restorer of their Religion in the East did both contrary to the Impressions of Nature and of her Sex put out her own Sons eyes of which he died soon after with many other execrable things And whatever Reproaches those of the Church of Rome cast on the Reformation upon the account of this Kings faults may be easily turned back on their Popes who have never failed to court and extol Princes that served their ends how gross and scandalous soever their
the whole Matter that I hope the Reader will not be ill pleased to have a short abstract of them laid before him An Abstract of those things which were written for the Divorce The Law of Marriage was originally given by God to Adam in the state of Innocence with this Declaration that man and wife were one Flesh but being afterwards corrupted by the Incestuous commixtures of those which were of Kin in the nearest degrees the Primitive Law was again revived by Moses And he gives many Rules and Prohibitions about the Degrees of Kinred and Affinity which are not to be looked on as new Laws and judiciary Precepts but as a Restoring of the Law of Nature originally given by God but then much corrupted For as the Preface which is so oft repeated before these Laws I am the Lord insinuates that they were conform to the Divine Nature so the consequences of them show they were Moral and Natural For the Breaches of them are called Wickedness and Abomination and are said to defile the Land and the Violation of them is charged on the Canaanites by which the Land was polluted and for which it did vomit out the Inhabitants From whence it must be concluded that these were not positive Precepts which did only bind the Iews but were parts of the Law of Mankind and Nature otherwise those Nations could contract no Guilt by their Violating them Among the forbidden Degrees one is Thou shalt not discover the Nakedness of thy Brothers wife it is thy Brothers Nakedness And it is again repeated If a man shall take his Brothers wife it is an unclean thing he hath uncovered his Brothers Nakedness they shall be childless These are clear and express Laws of God which therefore must needs oblige all persons of what rank soever without exception In the New Testament St. Iohn Baptist said to Herod It is not Lawful for thee to take thy Brothers wife which shows that these Laws of Moses were still obligatory St. Paul also in his epistle to the Corinthians condemns the Incestuous person for having his Fathers wife which is one of the Degrees forbidden by the Law of Moses and calls it a Fornication not so much as named among the Gentiles From whence it is inferred that these forbidden degrees are excluded by the Law of Nature since the Gentiles did not admit them St. Paul also calling it by the common name of Fornication within which according to that place all undue Commixtures of men and women are included Therefore those places in the New Testament that condemn Fornication do also condemn Marriages in forbidden degrees our Saviour did also assert the foundation of affinity by saying that man and wife are one Flesh. But in all Controverted things the sense of the Scriptures must be taken from the Tradition of the Church which no good Catholick can deny and that is to be found in the Decrees of Popes and Councils and in the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church against which if any argue from their private understanding of the Scriptures it is the way of Heresie and savours of Lutheranism The first of the Fathers who had occasion to write of this Matter was Tertullian who lived within an Age after the Apostles He in express words says that the Law of not Marrying the Brothers wife did still oblige Christians The first Pope whose decision was sought in this Matter was Gregory the Great to whom Austin the Apostle of England wrote for his resolution of some things in which he desired direction and one of these is Whether a man may Marry his Brothers wife who in the Language of that time was called his Kinswoman The Pope answered Negatively and proved it by the Law of Moses and therefore Defined that if any of the English Nation who had Marryed within that degree were converted to the Faith he must be admonished to abstain from his wife and to look on such a Marriage as a most grievous Sin From which it appears that that good Pope did judge it a thing which by no means could be dispenced with otherwise he had not pressed it so much under such Circumstances since in the first Conversion of a Nation to the Christian Faith the Insisting too much upon it might have kept back many from receiving the Christian Religion who were otherwise well inclined to it Calixtus Zacarias and Innocent the Third have plainly asserted the obligation of these Precepts in the Law of Moses the last particularly who treats about it with great vehemency So that the Apostolick See has already judged the Matter Several Provincial Councils have also declared the obligation of the Precepts about the degrees of Marriage in Leviticus by the Council at Neocesarea If a woman had been Marryed to two Brothers she was to be cast out of the Communion of the Church till her death and thâ— man that Marryed his Brothers wife was to be Anathematized which was also Confirmed in a Council held by Pope Gregory the Second Iâ— the Council of Agde where the Degrees that make a Marriage incestuous are reckoned this of Marrying the Brothers wife is one of them and there it was Decreed that all Marriages within these Degrees were Null and the Parties so Contracting were to be cast out of the Communion of the Church and put among the Catechumens till they separated themselves from one another And in the Second Council of Toledo the Authority of the Mosaical Prohibitions about the Degrees of Marriage is acknowledged It was one of Wickcliffs errors that the Prohibition of Marriage within such degrees was without any foundation in the Law of God for which and other points he was condemned first in a Convocation at London then at Oxford and last of all at the general Council of Constance these Condemnations were confirmed So formally had the Church in many Provincial Councils and in one that was General decided this matter Next to these the Opinions of the Fathers were to be considered In the Greek Church Origen first had occasion to Treat about it writing on Leviticus and Chrysostome after him but most fully St. Basil the Great who do expressly assert the obligations of these Precepts The last particularly refuting at great length the Opinion of some who thought the Marrying two Sisters was not unlawful laies it down as a Foundation That the Laws in Leviticus about Marriage were still in force Hesychius also writing upon Leviticus proves that these Prohibitions were universally obligatory because both the Egyptians and Cananites are taxed for Marrying within these Degrees From whence he inferrs they are of Moral and Eternal obligation From the Greek they went to the Latine Fathers and alledged as was already observed that Tertullian held the same Opinion and with him agreed the three great Doctors of the Latin Church Ambrose Ierom and
several Ages till the state of Monkery rose And then when they engrossed the riches and the Popes assumed the Dominion of the World it was not consistent with these Designs nor with the Arts used to promote them to let the Scriptures be much known Therefore Legends and strange stories of Visions with other devices were thought more proper for keeping up their Credit and carrying on their Ends. It was now generally desired that if there were just exceptions against what Tindal had done these might be amended in a New Translation This was a plausible thing and wrought much on all that heard it who plainly concluded that those who denyed the people the use of the Scriptures in their vulgar tongues must needs know their own Doctrine and practices to be inconsistent with it Upon these grounds Cranmer who was projecting the most effectual means for promoting a Reformation of Doctrine moved in Convocation that they should Petition the King for leave to make a Translation of the Bible But Gardiner and all his party opposed it both in Convocation and in secret with the King It was said that all the Heresies and extravagant Opinions which were then in Germany and from thence coming over to England sprang from the free use of the Scriptures And whereas in May the last year Nineteen Hollanders were accused of some Heretical Opinions denying Christ to be both God and man or that he took Flesh and Blood of the Virgin Mary or that the Sacraments had any effect on those that received them in which opinions Fourteen of them remained Obstinate and were burnt by pairs in several places it was complained that all those drew their Damnable errors from the indiscreet use of the Scriptures And to offer the Bible in the English tongue to the whole Nation during these distractions would prove as they pretended the greatest Snare that could be Therefore they proposed that there should be a short exposition of the most useful and necessary Doctrines of the Christian Faith given to the people in the English tongue for the Instruction of the Nation which would keep them in a certain Subjection to the King and the Church in Matters of Faith The other party though they liked well the publishing such a Treatise in the vulgar tongue yet by no means thought that sufficient but said the people must be allowed to search the Scripture by which they might be convinced that such Treatises were according to it These Arguments prevailed with the Two Houses of Convocation So they petitioned the King that he would give order to some to set about it To this great Opposition was made at Court Some on the one hand told the King that a diversity of opinions would arise out of it and that he could no more Govern his Subjects if he gave way to that But on the other hand it was represented that nothing would make his Supremacy so acceptable to the Nation and make the Pope more hateful than to let them see that whereas the Popes had Governed them by a blind obedience and kept them in darkness the King brought them into the light and gave them the free use of the word of God And nothing would more effectually extirpate the Popes Authority and discover the Impostures of the Monks than the Bible in English in which all people would clearly discern there was no Foundation for those things These Arguments joyned with the Power that the Queen had in his affections were so much considered by the King that he gave order for setting about it immediately To whom that work was committed or how they proceeded in it I know not For the Account of these things has not been preserved nor conveighed to us with that care that the Importance of the thing required Yet it appears that the work was carryed on at a good rate for Three years after this it was Printed at Paris which shows they made all convenient hast in a thing that required so much deliberation But this was the last publick good Act of this unfortunate Queen who the nearer she drew to her end grew more full of good works She had distributed in the last Nine Moneths of her Life between Fourteen and Fifteen Thousand Pounds to the poor and was designing great and publick good things And by all appearance if she had lived the Money that was raised by the Suppression of Religious Houses had been better employed than it was In Ianuary she brought forth a dead Son This was thought to have made ill Impressions on the King and that as he concluded from the death of his Sons by the former Queen that the Marriage was displeasing to God so he might upon this misfortune begin to make the like Judgment of this Marriage Sure enough the Popish party were earnestly set against the Queen looking on her as the great supporter of Heresie And at that time Fox then Bishop of Hereford was in Germany at Smalcald treating a League with the Protestant Princes who insisted much on the Ausburg Confession There were many Conferences between Fox and Doctor Barnes and some others with the Lutheran Divines for accommodating the differences between them and the thing was in a good forwardness All which was imputed to the Queen Gardiner was then Ambassador in France and wrote earnestly to the King to dissuade him from entring into any Religious League with these Princes for that would alienate all the World from him and dispose his own Subjects to Rebel The King thought the German-Princes and Divines should have submitted all things to his Judgment and had such an Opinion of his own Learning and was so puft up with the flattering praises that he daily heard that he grew impatient of any opposition and thought that his Dictates should pass for Oracles And because the Germans would not receive them so his mind was alienated from them But the Duke of Norfolk at Court and Gardiner beyond Sea thought there might easily be found a mean to accommodate the King both with the Emperor and the Pope if the Queen were once out of the way for then he might freely Marry any one whom he pleased and that Marriage with the Male Issue of it could not be disputed Whereas as long as the Queen lived her Marriage as being judged Null from the beginning could never be allowed by the Court of Rome or any of that Party with these reasons of State others of affection concurred The Queen had been his Wife Three years but at this time he entertained a secret Love for Iane Seimour who had all the charmes both of Beauty and Youth in her person and her humor was tempered between the severe gravity of Queen Katharine and the gay pleasantness of Queen Anne The Queen perceiving this Alienation of the Kings heart used all possible Arts to recover that affection of whose decay she was sadly sensible But the Success was quite contrary to what she designed For the King
Cardinal to oppose the Match with England since they looked for ruine if it succeeded The Queen being a sister of Guise and bred in the French Court was wholly for their Interests and all that had been obliged by that Court or depended on it were quickly drawn into the Party It was also said to every body that it was much more the Interest of Scotland to match with France than with England If they were united to France they might expect an easie Government For the French being at such distance from them and knowing how easily they might throw themselves into the Armes of England would certainly rule them gently and avoid giving them great Provocations But if they were united to England they had no remedy but must look for an heavier yoke to be laid on them This meeting with the rooted Antipathy that by a long continuance of War was grown up among them to a savage hatred of the English Nation and being inflamed by the considerations of Religion raised an universal dislike of the Match with England in the greatest part of the whole Nation only a few men of greater Probity who were weary of the depredations and Wars in the Borders and had a liking to the Reformation of the Church were still for it The French Court struck in vigorously with their Party in Scotland and sent over the Earl of Lenox who as he was next in blood to the Crown after the Earl of Arran so was of the same family of the Stewarts which had endeared him to the late King He was to lead the Queens party against the Hamiltons Yet they employed another Tool which was Iohn Hamilton base Brother to the Governor who was afterwards Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews He had great power over his Brother who being then not above four and twenty years of age and having been the only lawful Son of his Father in his old age was never bred abroad and so understood not the Policies and arts of Courts and was easily abused by his base Brother He assured him that if he went about to destroy Religion by matching the Queen to an Heretical Prince they would depose him from his Government and declare him Illegitimate There could be indeed nothing clearer than his Fathers Divorce from his first Wife For it had been formerly proved that she had been married to the Lord Yesters Son before he married her who claimed her as his Wife upon which her Marriage with the Earl of Arran was declared Null in the year 1507. And it was ten years after that the Earl of Arran did Marry the Governors Mother Of which things the Original Instruments are yet extant Yet it was now said that that Precontract with the Lord Yesters Son was but a forgery to dissolve that Marriage and if the Earl of Lenox who was next to the Crown in case the Earl of Arran was Illegitimated should by the assistance of France procure a review of that Process from Rome and obtain a Revocation of that Sentence by which his Fathers first Marriage was annulled then it was plain that the second marriage with the issue by it would be of no force All this wrought on the Governor much and at length drew him off from the Match with England and brought him over to the French Interests Which being effected there was no further use of the Eaâ—l of Lâ—nnox so he finding himself neglected by the Queen and the Cardinal and abandoned by the Crown of France fled into England where he was very kindly received by the King who gave him in marriage his Neece Lady Margaret Dowglass whom the Queen of Scotland had born to the Earl of Angus her second Husband From which Marriage issued the Lord Darnly Father to King Iames. When the Lords of the French Faction had carried things to their mind in Scotland it was next considered what they should do to redeem the Hostages whom the Lords who were Prisoners in England had left behind them And for this no other Remedy could be found but to let them take their hazard and leave them to the King of England's mercy To this they all agreed only the Earl of Cassilis had too much Honour and Vertue to do so mean a thing Therefore after he had done all he could for maintaining the Treaty about the Match he went into England and offered himself again to be a Prisoner But as generous actions are a reward to themselves so they often meet with that entertainment which they deserve And upon this occasion the King was not wanting to express a very great value for that Lord. He called him another Regulus but used him better For he both gave him his Liberty and made him noble Presents and sent him and his Hostages back being resolved to have a severer reparation for the injury done him All which I have opened more fully because this will give a great light to the affairs of that Kingdom which will be found in the Reigns of the succeeding Princes to have a great intermixture with the affairs of this Kingdom Nor are they justly represented by any who write of these times and having seen some Original Papers relating to Scotland at that time I have done it upon more certain information The King of England made War next upon France The grounds of this War are recited by the Lord Herbert One of these is proper for me to repeat That the French King had not deserted the Bishop of Rome and consented to a Reformation as he had once Promised The rest related to other things such as the seizing our Ships The detaining the yearly Pension due to the King The Fortifying Ardres to the prejudice of the English pale The revealing the Kings secrets to the Emperor The having given first his Daughter and then the Duke of Guises Sister in Marriage to his Enemy the King of Scotland and his confederating himself with the Turk And Satisfaction not being given in these particulars a War is declared In Iuly the King married Katharine Parre who had been formerly married to Nevil Lord Latimer She was a secret Favourer of the Reformation yet could not divert a storm which at this time fell on some in Windsor For that being a place to which the King did oft retire it was thought fit to make some examples there And now the League with the Emperour gave the Popish Faction a greater interest in the Kings Counsels There was at this time a Society at Windsor that favoured the Reformation Anthony Person a Priest Robert Testwood and Iohn Marbeck Singing Men and Henry Filmer of the Town of Windsor were the chief of them But those were much favoured by Sir Philip Hâ—bby and his Lady and several others of the Kings Family During Crâ—â—â—els power none questioned them but after his fall they were looked on with an ill eye Doctor Londâ—n who had by the most servile Flatteries insinuated himself into Cromâ—el and was much employed
could any such Oath be then put to them The only Oath which the Parliament had enacted was the Oath of the Succession and the refusing it was only misprision of Treason and was not punishable by death But it was for denying the King's Supremacy and for writing and speaking both against it and his marriage that they suffered according to Law 80. He says Cromwel threatned the Jury in the King's name with certain death if they did not bring them in guilty Every Body that knows the Law of England will soon conclude this to be a Lye for no such threatnings were ever made in Trials in this Nation Nor was there any need at this time for the Law was so plain and their Facts so clearly proved that the Jury could not refuse to bring them in guilty 81. He says The three Carthusians that suffered were made stand upright and in one place fourteen days together with Irons about their Necks Arms and Legs before they died and then with great pomp he describes their Death in all its parts as if it had been a new-devised cruelty it being the Death which the Law appoints for Traitors He tells that Cromwel lamented that others of them had died in their Cells and so prevented his cruelty He also adds a long story of the severities against the Franciscans All this he drew from his learning in the Legend The English Nation knows none of these Cruelties in which the Spanish Inquisitors are very expert I find by some Original Letters that the Carthusians who were shut up in their Cells lived about a year after this so if Cromwel had designed to take away their lives he wanted not opportunities but it appears from what More writ in his Imprisonment that Cromwel was not a cruel Man but on the contrary merciful and gentle And for the Franciscans tho they had offended the King highly two of them railing spitefully at him to his Face in his Chappel at Greenwich Yet that was passed over with a Reproof from which it appears that he was not easily provoked against them So all that Relation which he gives being without any Authority must pass for a part of the Poem 82. He says The Bishop of Rochester was condemned because he would not acknowledg the King's Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters He was never pressed to acknowledg it but was condemned for denying it and speaking against it for had he kept his Opinion to himself he could not have been questioned But the denying the King's Titles of which his being Supream Head was one was by the Law Treason so he was tried for speaking against it and not for his not acknowledging it 83. He runs out in an high commendation of Fisher and among other things mentions his Episcopal and Apostolical Charity His Charity was burning indeed He was a merciless Prosecutor of Hereticks so that the rigor of the Law under which he fell was the same measure that he had measured out to others 84. Sanders will let the World see how carefully he had read the Legend and how skilfully he could write after that Copy in a prety Fabulous Story concerning More 's death to whom I will deny none of the Praises due to his memory for his great learning and singular probity nor had he any blemish but what flowed from the Leaven of that cruel Religion which carried him to great severities against those that preached for a Reformation His Daughter Roper was a Woman of great Vertue and worthy of such a Father who needed none of Sanders's Art to represent her well to the World His Story is That the morning her Father died she went about distributing all the Mony she had in Alms to the Poor and at last was at her Prayers in a Church when of a sudden she remembred that she had forgot to provide a Winding-sheet for his Body but having no more Mony left and not being well known in that place she apprehended they would not give her credit Yet she went to a Linnen-Drapers Shop and calling for so much Cloth she put her hand in her Pocket knowing she had nothing in it but intending to make an excuse and try if they would trust her But by a Miracle she found the price of the Sheet and neither more nor less was conveighed into her Pocket This is such a lively essay of the Man's Spirit that invented it that I leave it without any further Commentary 58. He says Lee that was not in Orders was sent to visit the Monasteries who sollicited the chastity of the Nunns He does not mention Leighton and London the two chief Visitors for Leighton brought in Lee but they were of the Popish Party and Lee was Cranmer's Friend therefore all must be laid on him He was in Orders and soon after was made Dean of York I have seen complaints of Dr. London's solliciting the Nuns yet I do not find Lee complained of But since London was a Persecutor of Hereticks such a small kindness as the concealing his Name and the turning the blame over on Lee was not to be stood on among Friends especially by a Man of Sander's ingenuity 86. For the correspondence between Q. Katharine and Father Forest and the Letters that past since Sanders tells us not a word how he came by them we are to look on them as a piece of the Romance 87. He says Ann Boleyn bore a monstrous and a mishaped lump of Flesh when the time of her bearing another Child came She bore a dead Child before the time says Hall but there was no great reproach in that unless made up by Sanders's wit 88. He lays out the business of Ann Boleyn with so much spite and malice that we may easily see against whom he chiefly designed this part of his Work He says She was found guilty of Adultery and Incest There was no Evidence against her but only a hear-say from the Lady Wingfield we neither know the credit of that Lady nor of the Person who related it in her name It is true Mark Smeton did confess his Adultery with the Queen but it was generally thought he was drawn into it by some promises that were made to him and so cheated out of his Life but for the Queen and the other four they attested their innocency to the last nor would any of those unfortunate Persons redeem their lives at so ignominious a rate as to charge the Queen whom they declared they knew to be innocent so that all the Evidence against her was an hear-say of a Woman that was dead the Confession of a poor Musician and some idle words her self spake of the Discourses that had passed between her and some of those Gentlemen 89. He says Foreigners did generally rejoice at her fall and to prove this he cites Cochleus's words that only shew that Author's ill opinion of her The Germans had so great a value of her that all their